He may have sounded like a rude as*hole but that was nothing he could bother about, as he left the arena once the AI announced his victory.
Instead of being prideful, he could have noticed that something was wrong from the beginning of their fight because Jason was unable to release traceless poison like he got to was forced to overcome in the elemental crystal cave.
However, instead of acting carefully or even slightly observant, Lore just charged ahead in anger which caused his defeat.
Sighing, Jason hoped that his other opponents would be more level-headed because otherwise, the whole tournament for the first years could only be considered as a bad joke.
Once his last fight was over, he was finally allowed to leave the arena, where he met up with Greg, who seemed to have gained a few new bruises, while his mana fluctuations were still stable.
Giving him a thumbs-up, the two youths laughed with each other before they met up with the other Fler's who smiled proudly.
Driving home and eating together, Jason pondered how exactly he should bid farewell to the Fler's because he had the bad premonition that his departure wouldn't be smooth.
As such, he just took the opportunity at the dinner table.
Clearing his throat, he said
"My master contacted me and told me that our departure might be sudden… In case we can't bid farewell, I just wanted to thank all of you for taking me in for the last few months...Without this, I wouldn't have been able to enter Cyro-City and the Vanguard academy which brought me many benefits. But even more so, I gained new friends and something as close as a real family... In the end, I would have never imagined that I will leave Astrix so soon and miss someone here..."
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})Saying this, Jason was unsure what else he could add as he looked up, only to see that everyone's mood soured to the degree, that they stared at him with wet eyes.
Malia had tears in her eyes and Greg suddenly asked
"So you don't know when you have to depart? It could be tomorrow or maybe even after the tournament?"
Shaking his head, Jason added "It's probably next week but definitely before the tournament ends… At least It feels like it will be like this"
The previous joyous mood plummeted completely and everyone felt suddenly heavy, without being able to say anything to Jason, as Mark jumped up from his chair to say
"Being depressed won't help! Just enjoy the next few days and leave good memories behind!" With these words, he eased up the tension to a certain extent before Malia began to sob, as she forced herself to say "Let's h-have some fun!"
Even if it didn't sound genuine with her sobbing, everyone knew what Malia meant.
With this thought in their mind, Jason told himself to practice less during the next few days, in order to use his free time to spend it with the Fler's.
Other than that, he already entered the basic Big-Three tournaments Top 400, which was a simple K.O round.
This meant once he was defeated the whole tournament was over.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})As simple as it was, everyone would give their best in order to win the next few rounds, while Jason was already asking himself, when exactly the Drake family patriarch would appear, even if he hoped that it would be never.
It was not that he was completely sure that this might happen but he just felt it in his gut and until now, his gut feeling was relatively good.
***
Waking up early in the morning, he went out of the bed as he saw Artemis laying next to him on the bed, while Scorpio laid on the bottom next to his bed.
Smiling lightly, he woke them up gently as he took Scorpio into his soul world to leave the room without destroying everything.
Releasing him once again, Scorpio just laid down behind Jason's chair at the dining table, with Artemis on top of it.
The Fler's eyed this weirdly but didn't say anything about it because everyone had their own weird connection to their soulbonds with their unique demands.
Once they finished breakfast, Jason and the Fler's drove towards the arena like the last three days, however, today would be different because the tournament would be separated into three sections.
Because the K.O rounds were rather short, without the need for every single student to fight against everyone, one after another, only 200 fights were required to decide the Top 200.
With the first-year Big-Three tournament held in the morning, the whole arena would be free to use, which meant that one could immediately finish the whole tournament in a single day if one were to use multiple combat arenas at once.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})However, this was not what the government wanted and they decided to stretch the K.O rounds over the whole week, in order to distract the citizens from the recent happenings in Cyro-city.
Thus, the first K.O round would use five arenas take the morning with every single battle live broadcasted in Astrix.
With this, not only would the citizens from Cyro-city be distracted, but students all over the island would figure out the youngest generation's strength, which was also exciting.
Other students would be able to compare their strength to Astrix's strongest youths which might motivate them to strive for more and become stronger.
Jason however, found this simply annoying, because he didn't want that the tournament would be spread over the whole week, but on the other side, it was probably not dumb to allow students to recuperate from possible injuries and analyze their opponents' weaknesses in the meantime.
Looking at the schedule, Greg was one of the first to fight, while he was somewhere in the middle. As for Malia, her turn was in the evening because she was a student in her third year which had their tournament in the evening.
Broadcasting all fights from the three tournaments would also help to show Astrix's citizens how superior the Big-Three schools' teachings were compared to other schools because one would see apparent improvements.
This was also used in order to promote their own school, which Jason noticed, and he could only acknowledge this type of promotion inwardly.
There was still no news from his masters, but he didn't worry about this right now because he watched Greg's fight against a 1st Expert rank with an earth affinity.
Both students' physical strength were roughly the same, but Greg was at an apparent disadvantage because he was incapable to wield an affinity without a suitable soulbond.
As such, he was forced to use his Berserk ability, even if he wanted to hide it for longer, which allowed him to surprise attack his opponent, who could only manifest a thick earth wall in front of him, that was however shattered into smithereens through Greg's brute force.
However, what Jason saw caused him to smile, because even if it looked like Greg couldn't control himself, his eyes were still clear without his wild instincts disturbing him.
With this in mind, it was clear that Greg was much more proficient in controlling himself and after overwhelming his opponent thanks to his berserk ability which allowed him to increase his physical strength for several minutes by multiple levels.
Afterward, they watched the other matches that were in-between Greg's and his simply because it would be a waste of time to just leave right now, as it was already his turn after a few more rounds.
Entering the combat arena, he heard Malia, Mark, and Gabriella cheering for him, while Greg could only shake his head because of his family's behavior as he was the only one who was aware of Jason's strength.
Greg wasn't even sure if Jason showed him his full combat strength but instead of asking himself too many times, he would try to force Jason to use everything he had up to his sleeves when it was their turn to fight against each other.
From the tournament' schedule, they knew that their turn to fight against each other would be in the Top-25, which would be four days later.
Not knowing if Jason would be there at this time, Greg felt restless, because he wanted to have one last final fight against his best friend, not knowing when they would ever meet again.
Looking at Jason's opponent, Greg's eyes suddenly widened, as he blurted out
"Ugh...this will be ugly…"
Opposite Jason, there stood a busty girl in revealing clothes, smiling seductively at Jason, who only frowned deeply, as he asked
"Aren't you a little bit too young to be clothed like a h*e?"
