Before chapter starts spacing might be a bit off, and a lot of spelling mistake will fix a bit later a bit if an explanation is at the end, this will not count towards word count.
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A blinding light fills my sight.
A violent sense of vertigo takes over as I try not to fall over.
The blinding light slowly fades, but before I can see my surroundings, I hear it. A bunch of people are betting or shouting something.
With slightly blurry vision and wobbling in place, I can make out some sandy ground and a smooth, plain stone wall around me.
Oh, I thought it would be a dungeon. I guess this could be interesting.
"What, what is this place?"
"Oh, a new student, hello, and to answer your question, you're in the student underground fight pit."
"Oh, before you freak out, this is perfectly legal here, and it's tolerated for the most part. Just need to make sure not one is late for classes, and the injuries aren't too extreme, and it's normally fine."
"What."
"Well, you're here, so don't worry about it. You can look at your map on your phone to see how to get out."
The vertigo finally stops.
"I don't want to fight, can I just leave?"
"You don't have to, but you will need to bet instead… Ah, I see you don't want to be involved at all. Right, well, you don't need to. Still, I wouldn't recommend that, as if you aren't a part of the pit, there is a higher chance students will do more aggressive bets for the school credits.
A lot of students value it highly, and as fighting hero students is allowed if you don't read fight contracts properly it can be very messy, the pit after your first fight allows quite alot of versitiily and veriaty for all that stuff while being quite safe."
"If you're a part of the pit, you can at least control how much you will lose or gain, along with it being a one-vs-one fight, unless everyone in the fight agrees otherwise."
"Uhhh."
Scott, this is a great opportunity to gain battle experience without risking your life. It seems good, if I could, I would love to fight here.
…
This is probably the best thing, as I would have had you go into dungeons or go into the forest and fight monsters and such. I'd pick before I set the missions.
what? wait so you planned on throwing me into a life-or-death battle for battle experience?!
Well, I would do some basics first but yeah.
What the fuck Sapphire even after basic that not e ough to be fighting to the death come on.
Sapphire sighs
Well, the reason I would do that is that you will get into bad situations there is no helping it because of a certain reason… you're pretty much an MC from a story because of stuff I'll explain a bit later.
So you will need to or you will die, and I can't do much to help except push you in the right direction.
"… fine I'll fight mainly because I know my luck is horrendous and my spirit beast is begging."
"Lovely, please put your name down on this pad, and I'll get your fight sorted shortly." A smile that should have been friendly is on his face.
I put my name down on the pad.
"Oh, before you leave, I'm not strong enough right now, but eventually I'll be able to summon my spirit beast into combat. Should I put her name down as well?"
"Oh, a spirit beast user. Interesting. As you can't summon them right now, I'd leave them out, but when you can, you can update your profile through your phone when it's set up."
"That's… convenient."
"It isn't, is it? Technology is great. The maker of this app was annoyed at how we did stuff before, so they chose to fix it themselves. You can either wait here or watch others fight, up to you. Bye now and good luck."
Sapphire, was he just waiting for me to show up?
No, I think he was just getting things from the locker. You just got lucky it was some sort of judge or something.
Oh, wait, there are lockers?
After getting my bearings, I realise this room isn't as bland as I first thought. It seems to be some sort of locker room.
We have time Sappbire are you going to explain?
Not right now you need to focus on the fight you're about to have, but I will explain what I mean earlier, I promise.
Ok then
I don't want to watch the fights anyway. I'm just going to rest up and try to hype myself up for my first-ever fight.
After about 10 minutes of waiting
A female student walked into the locker room.
"Hey, you Scott Grimes?"
"Uh, oh ye."
"Follow me, you're up."
"…Ok."
I follow the female student around some bends and hallways. She isn't very chatty.
"This place seems made differently? Was this made by the school?"
"No, some architecture students made it as a project for some monster-related thing they wanted to test out a long time ago. "
"Other students found it and asked the principal to use it as a training ground. Then eventually they started doing bets, and so on. Apparently, they asked the head master, and he agreed to it, so now it's just a thing here at the school.
"Oh, not what I expected."
"Mmm."
"We're here, stand over there." She points toward a black circle on the sand. Opposite it, the person who handed me the flyer thing is there, within the other black circle.
This place seems to be made of some sort of smooth stone. Some of the stones have fancy carvings of some monster I don't recognise. It has artificial lighting from above and basic seats with cushions.
It's shaped similarly to a colosseum, just underground. It also seems to have some sort of tech on the ceilings, maybe recording devices for fights?
I stand in the circle, the instances I do, a ripple flows through the walls and around the stadium, and it appears to be some sort of safety barrier for the spectators.
Along with this, there seem to be a few people standing from where this other person and I got here, though I wonder why.
A student walks to the middle of the colosseum with a microphone "Hello everyone, before this fight starts, a small announcement.
"This fight will involve a first-day student as the new opponent, Scott Grimes. He is not from a hero/hunter family and apparently had his aura unlocked by a spirit beast. Let's see how much fight this new student has!"
"This will be a realistic battle simulation, so there is minimal safety for these two fighters. There is a teacher and healing professionals on standby like normal, but they may take a second or two to actually arrive for your safety, so be careful."
The announcer student walks to one of the sides "The fight will now begin in 3, 2, 1, go, go fight club!" The announcer said with extreme enthusiasm
{Any new notifications will be hidden to stop distractions}
My opponent, as this was happening, mouthed to me, "I'm so sorry." Before dashing at high speed at me.
"Kick his ass, Conrad."
"This is the easiest bet so far."
Multiple other spectators speak but I can't really hear them too well from all of the voices overlapping.
Guard! Guard! Put your fucking hand up, dumb ass!
"Oh right-"
His fist, covered in a dark green aura, digs into my arms, which I just barely got up in time thanks to Sapphire's warning.
fuck, this hurts. I was really hoping this was going to be like light sparring, but that was stupid.
they are literally making bets on this. I was just being delusional. This is going to suck, isn't it?
"Oh man, I was hoping for a one-hit KO." A spectator shouts
Focus Scott!
Seeing a straight punch coming my way, I do my best copy of a boxer's block.
Not that blo-
His hand slips right through the gap in my arms, and I get hit in the face.
My vision goes blurry for a second, there are two of him.
Scott your guard!
He does another straight punch towards my face. Thanks to Sapphire I ease my arms once more, I cover my face fully this time, no gap for him to get through.
No, I need to duck.
To get to the ground as fast as possible, I decide to force my whole body eight onto my right leg, and collapse on it purposely to get down faster.
His fist goes right over my head, but now I've lost my balance as I just start falling to the ground, so to stop myself, I instinctively put my hands towards the ground to catch myself and twist my hips in his direction.
Unknown to me, I also send my leg towards his side.
As my leg heads towards his side, my aura flares drastically, with its light blue core and moonlight silver outer shell. It would be lovly ot look at if I wasn't in a battle fight now.
My crude kick actually hits him, his face scrunches up in pain briefly before he sends his own kick to my ribs.
I push off the ground with my hands, just barely moving out of the way, good thing I caught myself before.
"Booo!"
"Come on, Conrad. You're better than this!"
More spectators commented, or just booed.
"Your manji kick was crude, but congratulations, you made me think you didn't know what you were doing."
"What's a manji kick?" I asked, confused.
"Oh... you are an instinct aura type... You better be careful, that's dangerous."
"What are you talking about?"
"You'll learn sooner or later."
My opponent then crosses his arms in an X shape, his dark green aura formed into bull horns, and he charges straight at me.
He's fast!
I dive out of the way, but I'm not quick enough. He slams into my left leg.
His green bull horns seem to change position just before contact, slamming into my leg.
It ruptured into my leg, and a burning sensation from the horn caused my mind to go into a sort of static from the pain, before a scream escaped my lips.
My opponent stands next to me "Please, just surrender. You need to learn more before doing this again."
An unknown anger surges from deep within me. Why should I surrender?
I go to kick his knees in with my anger at the highest it has ever been.
I stare at my leg, I don't see it, but I can feel it, the muscles in my legs, they wriggle underneath the skin, changed, transforming slightly.
Unseen by everyone, his toenails start to grow sharp and slightly longer, but stop before ripping into his shoes.
Once more, my aura explodes drastically from my leg, the moonlight silver stronger than before, almost overpowering the light blue core.
My opponent, seeing the drastic change in my aura, jumps back out of my range. The explosion of aura alerted him to what I was doing.
I quickly stand up, as I gasp for air, my body feels sluggish for some reason, why?
I jump back so I can have more distance to think of what I need to do. But go way further back than intended.
My chest is rapidly expanding, I can't catch my breath, why am I so exhausted all of a sudden?
My opponent stares at me, before smiling smugly at me, and opens his arms wide.
"Come on! Hit me! I'm wide open!"
This mother fu... wait, why am I so angry? What's happening?
"What's wrong? You got one lucky shot in, now you run away, is this really how you fight, like a coward?"
Conras think to himself Come on, please take the bait, I can see your aura control is bad, I might be able to knock him out without doing any more damage.
Never mind, I'm going to kick him so fucking hard right into the knees, I'll make sure he doesn't walk.
My moonlight silver overtakes my legs, dashing faster towards my opponent, and then everything goes black. I slammed into the ground, face first across the sand.
"The winner is Conrad! I guess this is what happens when you cheat your way to getting an aura.
"Yeeeeee"
"Let's go Conrad, let's go."
"There was no doubt Conrad would win."
Unseen notifications
{hit the opponent at least once ot get a reward}
{You activated meros form, legs, you gain slight properties of werewolf legs, increasing speed and leg power.}
Due to low metal resistance, the meros form will affect your aggression drastically, and anger will spike.}
{Luna aura used, the use of luna aura is draining moon essence and aura resurves drastically, caution, will lead to passing out.}
{User passed out}
1 hour later
I wake up in some sort of white tent with a horrible bed.
"Mmm"
"Ah Scott your awake, you lost, the reason you exhausted your aura reserves and passed out."
"You should really train your aura amount, as you don't seem to have a lot and you use excessive amounts when attacking." a nurse says.
"R-right, what's the time?"
"11 am."
"Ah ok, I'm not late then, that's good."
"If you can move, please leave."
"Oh, ok."
I leave the tent.
So Scott in the time you were passed out I have been thinking of exercises for you to do. But before that, where did you go wrong?
Umm, everything.
Sort of, but think of a specific.
Mmm, can you tell me one please?
…
Fine, right now I'd say keeping your guard up and footwork, what the nurse said is also true, there is 100% more but right now we will be focusing on your guard, stance and footwork, also I will need you to do a couple of system quests, I have an idea that could help you, but I can't implement it just yet.
Thank you I guess?
So your guard, you keep dropping it, don't do that, to stop you doing that I want you to train it by doing shadow boxing with weight in your hands.
while doing this make sure you do not lock your elbow when doing basic punches, also make sure your hands touch your cheek before throwing another punch.
There will be more but this will do for now.
Um ok?
Cool, now the reason why and stuff will happen to you is-
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Word count 2432
Hello everyone, sorry for missing the Sunday upload I said I would do, honestly, Procrastination hit me really hard, along with me trying to change my sleep so I can get up really eaely for a trail day at a potential yak work, just to fail getting up/staying and sleep most of the day away,(the trial day isn't u til the 8th) anyway I know there is a definly a lot of spelling mistake I missed as I am trying to release this semi quickly so I will go though it after a sleep as I'm releasing this after midnight for me and I have stuff I need to do today.
I know some things at Ealing rushed or done poorly, I'll expand on them slightly when I get time to after sleep and work experience stuff, one. It I'll hopefully improve is Scott's reason for fighting as he doesn't have much agency he just goes with it, I'll attempt to improve that and some other bits.
Also the cliffhanger, I just felt like doing one for once anyway I hope this chapter was enjoyable and that the fight scene wasn't too hard to read.
Hope you have a great day/night and I'll see you next chapter o(^_^)o