"Brother, you ready?" I heard Lucas asking, while he was sitting next to me on the airplane.
I looked at him and said with determination."We got this."
After hearing what I said Lucas had a visible smile on his face and put his fist towards me and said. "Let's win."
I nodded to his words and did a fist pump with him.
We were currently on the airplane going towards Ramu, where the tournament will be held and I was sitting at the economy class with Lucas sitting next to me.
Our club advisor was sitting behind me with other students who came.
Which consisted of Liam, our third fighter, and our backup fighters.
There weren't any cheerleaders or anything like that, because even though everyone knows that Lucas is strong, he is still only one man and no one has faith in me or Liam.
So they already think that our team is doomed from start.
But oh boy they are wrong.
In my opinion, we have great chances.
Especially after I have gained some major power boost in the past 3 weeks, I improved my body to perfection and I can utilize my techniques better than ever in my current life.
I also improved my stamina, which surprisingly made my stamina rise in stat points by 5 points, which was very surprising.
Also, I increased my strength, but only with 3 stat points.
I didn't get any Quest since we had to escape from the harbor.
But it didn't matter.
Since we aren't supposed to fight any Martial Captains in the tournament, I will be fine with my new technique Iron Lance, which I have been using for it past 3 weeks and I can use it now slightly better than in my previous life!
Weakness Detection Eye is very useful while using Iron Lance and I have improved much more than I initially expected.
But I am not the only one who has improved…
It seems Lucas is very close to the peak of Martial Leader, having already his one-foot on it, but he needs just a little more push, which might happen in the tournament.
Liam on the other hand is still Low Martial Soldier as far as I can see.
Quite disappointing, but I didn't have much faith in him either.
Lucas and I are good enough to reach the top 8, but from there it will be tough fights.
and past 3 weeks only went by while training and sparring against other students and we had our questioning in the police station, but it was quite lackluster, I only said what happened in the alley and they were somewhat feeling guilty that Irkum escaped, but they didn't know that he was already dead.
I closed my eyes to get sleep before arriving at the Ramu because the first round of the tournament will start tomorrow…
…
"Wake up Ichiro." I heard Lucas waking me up and I opened my eyes and saw that everyone was departing from the plane.
"We arrived?" I asked.
"Yes, let's go," Lucas answered and we stood up to get our backpacks.
After another half an hour wasted in the terminal, we finally managed to reach rented cars and from there we took off towards the hotel where we stayed.
I sat next to Lucas, while other fighters were kind of silent while sitting, most of them had the same thought that this trip here is waste of time.
We arrived at the hotel who was located 10 minutes from the stadium where the tournament will be held.
It was a famous hotel in the Ramu and almost all participants who are registered for the tournament are living here until the tournament ends.
We got our door numbers, I got Nr.534 room and I was a roommate with Lucas during this trip, which was fine for me.
We arrived at our room and it was an ordinary room with 2 beds, TV, bathroom with a small bathtub, but the greatest thing was the view from the window.
It was incredibly beautiful looking when looking at the calm sea on the horizon.
"Ichiro, I hate you." Lucas said suddenly.
"What why?!" I asked loudly while looking at Lucas with shock and I started wondering, did I offend him in any way?
"Leia just doesn't stop talking about you!" Lucas said loudly and I only looked at him dumbfounded. "It has been 3 weeks, but she still talks about you like a maiden in love!"
I started having sweat coming from my forehead looking at Lucas.
I know just how much Lucas loves her sister and his father also is very scary and protective about her daughter.
"Should I seduce your sister for revenge," Lucas said scarily and looked at me with a smug smile.
"Don't you dare!" I said loudly and took a pillow from the bed and threw it towards Lucas' face.
"Hahaha!" Lucas loudly laughed after getting hit by my pillow and he took his pillow and we started our pillow fight.
"Tsk." I clicked my tongue, but afterward, I put my game face on, and started rekting Lucas in a pillow fight.
After fighting for few minutes, we settled down and started watching TV trying to take our minds off the tournament.
But it didn't help when almost all the channels were talking about it!
Since Ramu has their own TV station located in Ramu, they have their own tv channels which show on every TV in the City of Ramu.
But it's pretty much the same everywhere in Arya where the tournament is currently held.
And most of the channels were talking about the team who is supposed to be favorites to win it all.
Middle School of Armya
They have currently the strongest middle schooler in their school.
Slych Raften
Only second-year in the middle school, but already at the Peak of Martial Leader and might become Martial Captain next year!
It would be one of the fastest rises towards Martial Captain rank in the entire country of Gensa, but also in the Continent of Arya, it is almost unheard of.
Slych Raften was a young man with long black hair which reached towards his shoulder and he looked usually cold with his grey eyes and he had a pretty slim build with almost no muscles.
But he was also kind of tall with a height of 189cm, not as tall as Lucas, but still very tall for a middle schooler.
Even though he doesn't possess great power overall, he covers it with his great speed which is supposed to be already at the realm of Martial Captain.
I have seen his fighting videos when he was the first year and he already was by far the fastest already in the last tournament and even the video barely could catch his speed.
Only barely.
Because he still looked like a blur in videos when he attacked.
He must have improved by a great amount.
"He is strong," Lucas said to me after seeing me focused on the figure of Slych on the TV.
"Heh, worthy opponent," I said with a laugh.
"I wonder how strong you are now~ You are so secretive," Lucas said while teasing me.
"Heh, you will see.." I said with mystery.
"Great.. you seem confident," Lucas said and continued while looking at me in the eye. "Let's show our school that underestimating us was their biggest mistake."
"Yeah.." I said quietly and looked towards TV and at the picture of Slych.
'Just wait… We will be the ones to win.'
But at the same time…
The same kind of scenario was happening all around the hotel.
Everyone who looked at the picture of Slych on the TV also had excited expressions with confident looks on their faces.
Everyone is confident about winning and no one wants to be underestimated.
…
Next Day.
I arrived at the stadium with Lucas, while other students were walking behind us quietly.
The stadium was huge which resembled me of Olympic Stadium from my past life.
It was completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.
This stadium allows at least 100,000 spectators to get into the audience and in the center of the stadium were multiple platforms where fights will be held, and in the middle of all that was a huge platform with the size of 150×150 meter radius.
"There is opening ceremony first, so let's go to the stands reserved for the fighters" Our club advisor said and we nodded and started walking towards one of the stands located at bottom of the stadium and I saw many students already there, with many different school outfits.
We got our own fighting outfit which fit our school colors.
Every school was also wearing its own fighting uniform with its school's colors.
Also looking at the stands, we saw many students wearing their school uniforms, coming here to cheer for their own schools, but there were none for us or for any weaker schools.
Only for top teams, expected to get top 8 has some kind of support from their schools.
Which was pretty much expected.
The opening ceremony started and it was quite spectacular, even though this is only a middle school tournament, it was still held in high regard.
But high school tournament was even more famous and all professional tournaments were pretty much festival celebrated in everywhere in the world.
The ceremony ended and the Chairman of the Martial Arts Association located in Ramu appeared in the center arena.
"Hello everyone and welcome to the annual Martial Arts Middle School Division Tournament!" He said loudly which resulted in thunderous claps.
"We have currently 176 cities participating in this tournament and we have always had the first event where we have to reduce that number to 128 so we can have the round type of format!"
"That's why we have again this year made our first event which will reduce that 176 until we have 128 remaining schools left."
"The first event will be Time Attack!"
"You guys will send one fighter from your team to defeat Middle-Level Martial Soldier puppet and 48 slowest teams will be eliminated!"
Chairman ended his speech and it gave me goosebumps.
"Interesting.." I mumbled and Lucas heard it.
He looked at me with a smile and said."Do you want to participate in this?"
"Can I?" I asked him with an excited expression
"Go for it," Lucas said with a smile and I looked towards the arena with an excited expression.
