Chapter 514
Chapter 514
«Does this lizard belong to Dick?!» … «I take my words back. This flying beast is definitely not "D" rank, but at least "A" rank!» … «And if you look closely, it looks quite good…» … «I would probably fly on this one!» … «I bet it will overtake everyone!» – after finding out who the owner of the animal was, the students immediately changed their minds.Kyon got the flying lizard that resembled a pterodactyl from the commander of an elite demon reconnaissance squad, and its development was reduced by a concealment bracelet. He wanted to make a deal with the students on who would arrive first, but it seems that it will not work: they don't underestimate him anymore. They've learned that the hard way.
The senior teacher looked at his watch and waved his hand: «Let's fly out!»
Roman, driving the Murian sparrow, and Rose, riding the gray falcon, glanced defiantly at Dick and pulled the reins. In their opinion, even if this lizard is actually "S" rank, with its development of the superior phase, it will be significantly inferior to them in speed. That's why the guys were confident in their superiority in terms of takeoff speed.
However, as soon as Kyon lightly waved the reins, the flying lizard soared into the sky with such speed that powerful air currents overturned the nearest birds. The arrogance and disdain in the looks of the high-born duo were replaced by amazement and fear.
Rose and Roman opened their mouths in shock. However, the other students did the same: «Gosh! What a speed!» … «And I told you that it is at least an "A" rank beast!» … «Wow… It's crazy… This is to be expected from Dick Baker's flying beast!»
Elsa was less surprised than the others. She had expected something like this from the messenger of the goddess.
…
Kyon reached the destination late at night. From a bird's-eye view, the masterwork of the earth magicians caught his eye – a kind of Colosseum, but cut exactly in half. It can easily accommodate 25 thousand spectators.
Lovr was greeted upon landing. After examining the formation, he was offered to spend the night in a nearby town. That's exactly what he did.
By 8 am, the rest of the participants arrived. It was 3 hours before the tournament start ceremony, so the young people had time to be with their families.
Kyon witnessed the long-awaited meeting of Juno with her family. Bai hugged his granddaughter so tightly, as if he never wanted to let her go again… Diana also did not stand aside. They had a conversation about life in the order. The girl's mother tried to start a conversation about her daughter's future fiance, Roman Clinton, but the young lady tactfully evaded the conversation.
Catching the disapproving attitude of his granddaughter to the upcoming celebration, Bai became noticeably gloomy. He always wished her only happiness, including in family life. He even once organized a party to find her a husband for love, not for convenience. But the Clintons decided everything for them - they bought the wedding for Tokens. Is it possible not to be upset about this?
{So did Kyon choose Elsa?} – Diana suggested hopefully. Otherwise, Kyon would have somehow broken off her youngest daughter's upcoming engagement. At the very least, he would have run away with Juno from the empire.
The meeting lasted more than an hour, but Elsa never showed up, although she could have if she wanted to. She seemed to avoid meeting on purpose and even ignored Diana's calls. The truth is that the girl, seeing the faces of her relatives, felt guilty for running away from the family several years ago, leaving only one note – "Do not look for me. I left to become stronger and find my father".
Diana, for example, while Kyon was studying at Cernos, had to try hard to find out the frequency of her eldest daughter's sound transmitter: she turned to Bai to ask him to turn to Juno (she would listen only to him) to ask her to turn to some reputable master in the order who knows the right frequency. And all this was necessary in order to organize a meeting between the messenger of the goddess and the eldest daughter, during which Kyon must decide whether he wants to marry her.
As soon as Juno saw Roman Clinton approaching her with two elders on the sides, she immediately left. The last thing in the world she wanted to be present during a family conversation between the Stones and the Clintons.
By eleven o'clock all the seats in the stands were occupied. With feathered spies, Kyon found many familiar faces, including princess Haya, Marina, Julia, Franz, and princes on whom he has compromising evidence. The heads of the kingdoms were absent. They will arrive only at the final tournament, where the top 64 will fight each other. But the patriarchs, on the contrary, honored the event with their presence. However, no one could find Horace and Monty.
The annual tournament of the order is only a qualifying tournament, the logical continuation and completion of which is the tournament for the right to become a disciple of the empress, which will take place in a week. But even so, its significance is difficult to underestimate, after all, 500 of the most promising geniuses of the young generation of the empire take part in it.
At 11:00 am, the bugle sounded, and the participants took the stage.
Thunderous applause rang out. Certain individuals received especially much attention: the incredible beauty Elsa; Rose and his hat, which did not suit him at all; the cutie Juno, whom everyone mistakenly considered an angel descended from heaven; Roman and, oddly enough, Dick.
The faces of the three princes of Liberia, who had previously suffered from Baker at the forest tournament, were hideously distorted: «It's… It's him!» … «Gosh, what the hell is this bastard doing here?! Did he enter the order?!» … «Is he really going to take the first position in this tournament at the expense of his family's wealth?!»
Princess Haya's eyes flashed with lightning as she stared at Dick with icy hatred. This scumbag still has a recording of her half-naked posing for a visual formation. Because of him, she raped Franz and married him!
Franz looked at Dick with profound gratitude and respect. Everything that the former formacist of the Stones now has: youth, three girls, the status of a prince and even talent is the merit of the young man.
Marina covered her lips with her palms. She really wanted to see Kyon.
Diana and Bai did not know that Kyon and Dick were the same person, so they quickly lost interest in him. Elsa, whom they saw for the first time in several years, attracted their attention.
The deputy headmaster stepped forward and raised his hands. When the ovation subsided, he gave a long speech. After a while, the man got to the point: «As you know, five hundred and forty years ago, General Regan Russell drove all the supreme beasts out of these places. Since then, this forest has not posed a serious threat. For our today's participants - lord phasers and royal phasers - it is safe here just like on a walk in a well-groomed city park. The forest does not need to reduce the population of lower animals. The essence of the tournament is to identify the sixty-four best students of the order for further selection!»
The spectators in the stands burst into a standing ovation.
The deputy headmaster turned to the participants and waved his wrist, which had a strong bracelet of pale green color:
«The rules of the tournament are as follows: each of you will be given a bracelet with a tournament formation inside. Its removal or destruction is punishable by disqualification. There are three functions in the formation.»
«The first one – you can activate the alarm and you will get help, but you will be disqualified. Also, if you leave the tournament area - a circle with a diameter of a thousand kilometers - the bracelet will ring, and after five minutes it will send an alarm. You will be taken away. You will be disqualified.»
«The second one – once an hour you can find out the direction, distance and approximate level of development of the five participants closest to you. You should understand that if the practitioners have the sixth stage of the royal phase, then you will only know that he is a royal phaser at the middle stage. What to do with the information received is up to you. Think with your head. Consider the risks.»
«The third one - the tournament formation imposes an invisible barrier that fits tightly to the body, which recognizes the missed blows. No more than once a second, you can lose or take five percent of the points on the balance if you miss or strike a quick blow to the body. It is impossible to lose points by missing a blow to the head, otherwise the risk of injuring someone is too high. As for the arms and legs, you attack and defend with them, so they are not taken into account in the calculation of points. Keep in mind: you should not attack or defend with your chest and shoulder, because even in the case of a successful attack, you will lose points. By the way, at the beginning of the tournament, each participant has exactly one thousand points on the balance, which means that one missed attack will take away fifty points from you. But if you have two thousand points on your balance, then a missed attack will take one hundred points.»
«You should also know that for remote attacks inflicted or missed from five meters or more, half as many points are given and taken away, and if the distance exceeds one hundred meters, then no points are given or taken away at all. The barrier is designed in such a way that it transfers points to the nearest participant in the direction of the missed shot.»
«It is also important that you cannot take more than half of the points available to a particular participant on the balance more often than once every twelve hours. During this period of time, you will also not be able to track the victim through the second function of the formation - search. In other words, once you have dealt ten more blows than your opponent, you will be able to continue the duel only after twelve hours. Also keep in mind that you are not invulnerable for the next twelve hours. Nobody forbids another participant to attack you and also take away half of the available points with ten successful chest attacks.»
While the deputy headmaster described all the details with examples, the two participants whispered to each other: «Incredibly difficult formation! It tracks, and imposes a barrier on the body, and reads blows, and distributes points… Who created it?!»
«I heard that master Julius has been working on it for the last two months… He is still missing somewhere. Probably, he was given a vacation after hard work.»
Elsa, who had overheard the conversation, closed her eyelids gloomily. For the last 10 days she could not contact the masters Feng and Julius. She was restless. What if something happened to them? But two such influential people can't suddenly disappear at the same time… What a pity that there is no one to get information from. Nobody knows anything.
«And now let's move on to the restrictions!» – the deputy headmaster continued. – «Stalking or taking hostages is punishable by disqualification. Murder or intentional injury is punishable to the fullest extent of the law. It is forbidden to unite or give in. If we notice that members of the same family have met and dispersed without a fight, or are trying to agree on something over a sound transmitter, or have organized a group to hunt the rest of the members, then they will be disqualified for collusion. It is also forbidden to deliberately destroy other people's tournament bracelets. However, they are quite strong, so it is unlikely that you will succeed, unless you specifically set this goal.»
«The tournament will last exactly three days. Soon you will be taken to different points of the forest on flying birds. As soon as you land, the tournament has already started for you. Now put on your bracelets and get ready for takeoff. And our viewers will be able to see the entire battle in real time on an interactive screen!»
With the last word of the deputy headmaster, the huge round screen appeared in front of the stands, on which a single green dot was blinking with the inscription above it – "Deputy headmaster - a royal phaser at the finishing stage - 1000 points".
The spectators burst into applause from the stands. This year's qualifying tournament is interesting not only from the point of view of the rules, but it is also visual: you can find out in real time who is fighting with whom and who has more points!
While the participants were wearing bracelets, the three princes of Liberia grumbled to themselves: «What a pity… There is no ban on the use of formations!» … «It will be easier for the rich to take higher positions…» … «Will the damned Dick take first place again?!»
When Juno put on the bracelet, and the inscription – "Juno Stone - a lord phaser at the finishing stage - 1000 points" appeared on the screen, the young Stones gasped in amazement. Only a few of them barely broke into the noble phase, but she is already a lord phaser at the finishing stage! And two and a half years ago, at the Stones' party, she was a base phaser! The pace of her development defies common sense. To call her monstrously gifted is to greatly underestimate the real state of affairs.
Bai almost cried with happiness at all: «My granddaughter has become so strong! Oh, how proud I am of her! I hope that everyone in the Clinton family will love and respect her!»
But a much bigger shock was caused by the development of Elsa, who put on the bracelet right after her sister - an imperial phaser at the beginning stage! The elite among the elites in Rosarrio! The phase of development that the Stones could not even really comprehend.
Seeing her older sister's development, Juno nearly choked with envy.
Soon the participants were put on birds and sent to the forest in groups of 50 people.
Before climbing on the bird, Rose furtively nodded to the participants from his family.
Roman - wow! - did exactly the same.
Valentine and Clinton clearly intended to get rid of Dick at the first opportunity.
Kyon just smiled coldly. He has demonic medicine, the protective barrier of the zeroth general, and with his own strength he will beat any royal phaser at the middle stage. What can they do to counter him? Moreover, it is forbidden to unite in groups!