Ning walked back into the waiting room where many people stared at him as he entered.
He walked up to his group, who were all staring at him as if they had seen a monster.
"You actually did it," the teacher couldn't help but say. He had no hope in anyone other than the 3 seeded fighters winning, and somehow Ning had won against an Essence Soul realm cultivator.
"Thanks for the info, teacher," Ning said. "That helped quite a bit."
The teacher gave a wide smile. "Good," he said, happy to himself.
"Good job, friend," the princess spoke with a wide grin. "What is your name again? Ning? I shall remember it from now on."
Ning nodded slightly and thanked the princess. He sat beside Tenn and Kaleb who immediately started asking what he did at the end.
"It's simple really," Ning said. "I created a large volume of air between me and the ground and launched high in the air."
"Oh!" the two of them said, thinking to themselves if that was possible. In the first place, how much volume of air did one need to suddenly launch oneself that high up in the sky?
It had to be a very large amount. Did Ning have a sheath that was made from a large amount of Air? How did he even get that Wind was notoriously hard to convert into a conduit since if it wasn't contained inside a room or something, it was quite impossible to spread your Essence through a lot of Wind and have it stay there long enough for it to get converted?
Not to mention, even if that did happen, how was he not struck by that huge trident that was right in between him and the girl?
While the two young men were focused on the answer, Ning secretly looked at the people from the other schools. He could already see the eyes and ears of everyone outside of his school focused on him, trying to gauge what he did.
He wasn't sure if the lie would be caught or not, but it would certainly help if his words confused them as to what happened.
If he could at least keep the people guessing, he would be happy.
The one named Shana, the princess's guard was up after 3 more matches. When the time came, she went up to the stage and fought against an enemy with an Essence soul.
As it turned out, the girl herself had an Essence soul as well. The Blackhawk Academy was a large academy after all, and almost everyone that was chosen to fight in the combat competition was someone in the Low Essence Soul realm.
Still, Shana was one of the weaker ones so she wasn't chosen to be in the 56-seeded spots and was instead forced to fight her way up. As such, unlike many other folks of her own rank, she had to fight another fighter with Essence's soul in the top 128.
The girl Shana was quite the fighter, as she had to be to become a princess's bodyguard. She wasn't that strong in terms of Essence, but she was trained enough to defeat the person she fought in just under 3 minutes.
Her water Essence Soul, which she had to use to win the fight, was a humanoid soul with snake-like arms that shot out water attacks that themselves flew like snakes.
Her opponent was also slightly unlucky as they had a Fire Essence Soul so the two souls contradicted each other, with neither winning outright. It all came down to a single attack in the end to finish the battle and the girl had a better one.
After she walked back, they all congratulated her, but the girl wasn't very talkative and kept quiet next to the princess.
The sun was about to set, so it was getting close to the time when it would all end for the day.
The teacher kept looking at the board because someone was scheduled for the 23rd match, which was right at the end. Depending on how the next couple of fights went, it would be hard to tell.
Then, as the 22nd match ended, the 23rd match's fighters were called into the stage after announcing that it would be the final match of the day.
A man from the Essence Heart Academy stood up to walk to the stage. On Ning's side, a man stood up as well.
It was the Prince's turn to fight.
He stood up, his face cold with no emotion, wearing a complete set of black uniform, and started walking away.
He didn't speak as he walked away.
Ning looked forward to the Prince's fight. While he had already known that the Princess's essence was Moonlight Essence, he had yet to see what the prince could do.
All he had done since coming here was flirt with girls at almost every chance he got but hadn't yet taken part in a single competition.
So, it was quite the chance for him to show off, and for Ning to see what he could do.
The prince walked to the edge of the stage as instructed and looked toward his opponent. There was no fear in his eyes and no disgust.
He didn't fear his opponent, nor did he look down on him. He would treat him with the respect every man in the competition deserved.
"Start!"
As soon as the words flew out of the referee's mouth, the Prince moved. He moved with such swiftness that most people couldn't even see how fast he was.
His opponent could barely move in time as he tried to create an Earth wall in front of him. However, before he could do so, his body grew cold as ice formed around him, trapping him inside.
The prince arrived right next to him and punched him in the guts with a force that shattered the ice and flung his opponent to the wall on the other side of the stage.
He won the match in less than 2 seconds.
