I Know The Secret To Surpass Level 100

Janine kicked him on the chest that he blocked with his arms. The kick was so hard that the pain reverted inside his armor. Ethan could only yell in pain as he felt his body crash on the ground, his eyes barely open.

"The ninth Champion has fallen! The first victory goes to the Cosmic Arch Guild!" Irv announced that made the crowd go wild.

Ethan laid on the ground with his eyes on the sky. He raised his broken arm, trying to reach out for the far clouds above him.

"I was so close," he whispered. "But I guess, it's still not enough."

Janine stepped beside Ethan. She took his hand and pulled him up, smiling at him widely, "If Rocky didn't injure you earlier, you could've won."

This made the boy look at his arms. He covered them with a cast made of bort as a support while he fight, but it seems like it wasn't enough too.

"Come here," Janine offered and guided Ethan. "Can you walk?"

"I can," Ethan replied. "My arms are the ones that are broken, not my legs."

"Touché," the girl chuckled. "But what you made us see back there was incredible. You were able to harness a new technique by creating an armor just like Rocky."

"I just discovered it too," Ethan confessed. "I need to utilize it more and train myself to maximize its power."

"You should," Janine said. "Congratulations, Ethan."

"And that concludes our first round and our first day," Zia announced. "The elapsed time for the round was three hours and twenty one minutes, therefore the day is over. Here is the official tally of scores."

[ Battle of the Champions First Round

Cosmic Arch Guild (10 points)

Azure Scorch Guild (8 points)

Circus Carnival Guild (6 points)

League of Nobles and Royals (5 points)

… ]

"They really are serious about having three hours per round as maximum," Elliot said. "Where is Ethan?"

They are now united with their guild members in the non-participating members balcony. They came over while the battleground is being cleaned up and the crowd was dispersing.

"George is with him in the infirmary," Lance answered. "They'll be back within an hour or two. And that fight was awfully close though."

"Even if Ethan didn't injure his arm, he still couldn't block the attack from Janine," Frederick said. "She didn't aim for his injury, in fact, she only know of his injury after their fight. What she aimed for was for him to crash on the ground. If he could crash on the ground, she could easily take advantage of that situation and knock him out."

"But then our Ethan was eliminated after his arm was hit and he fell unconscious when he fell," Luck sighed. "Honestly, why didn't you just let me join this year? If I was the participant for this event, I would've crushed all their skulls."

"And Ethan used Rocky's technique, didn't he?" Elliot asked.

"More like forced himself to learn it," Lance corrected. "He felt cornered, felt hopeless. And in those situations, when you're at rock bottom, the only way is up. He forced himself to grow."

–

"That was amazing, Ethan!" George cheered for his friend. "You were crazy good out there. You were able to keep up with two very strong Adventurers. Your name will be on headlines tomorrow, I tell you."

"Your voice got through me," Ethan said. "All of your support made me reshape my spear into both spear and armor. Conjuring another weapon was already taxing, maintaining an armor is just hard work. I felt my mana deplete like 1 per second."

"Let's train with that armor when we get back," George said. "Your form was off, that was why you couldn't maintain your balance when you were fighting…"

–

"It's already afternoon," Elliot stretched his arms as they got out of the coliseum. There was a large and long stairs in front of the coliseum that everyone uses to go down. After all the poeple inside the coliseum is gone, the stairs will retract but the coliseum will stay hovering over the city.

Every year, the coliseum would have be located over the city. The followers of the Holy Crow would put up the coliseum and would make it stay afloat throughout the duration of the event. Only when the Battle of the Champions is over that the coliseum is removed.

When they got down, Ethan took notice of the girl from the Vulture Torch Guild. She said she didn't want to be there and she was panicking when he saw her in the battlefield.

Ethan dragged the others and hid behind a building as they watched the group.

"Elliot," Ethan called out. "You're close to the Vulture Torch members, right?"

"Some of them, yes," Elliot said. "Why?"

"The girl," Ethan pointed at the girl from earlier. She still had the look of fear in her eyes. Like she really didn't want to participate in the games but she was being forced to do so, "That girl. She's one of their members, how come she doesn't seem to want to be in the competition."

Elliot turn to him and knit his brows in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"Earlier, she clung to me like she was holding on for her life," Ethan said. "I feel like there's something going on with that guild."

"Several guilds suddenly quitting and the number is just enough so they could enter the third elimination round," Connor stated. "Sounds like it's staged or the other guilds were threatened and were forced to back down."

"Look at their members," Elliot pointed at them. The group was going to a cotton candy stall, eating the pink sweet while laughing at each other. "They don't seem very harmful to me."

"We can't just judge the book by its cover, Elliot," Ed said. "I feel something odd about their group too. Like they're hiding something from us, even you."

"They look so innocent that they could barely hit a fly," Elliot argued. "How do you think they would threaten larger and more established guilds?"

The others were ready to agree when a large man passed beside Daniel, hitting him on the arm that caused him to make his cotton candy fall.

"Shouldn't you say sorry about this?" Daniel asked, tapping his foot on the ground. "You blew my cotton candy away, you should at least apologize."

"Why do I need to apologize to you, punk?" the large man said. He pushed Daniel back that made the Azure Scorch guild members stood from their seats.

They could only return sitting when Daniel leaped from the ground and slamming his knee right on the man's jaw. When was still not satisfied, Daniel spun and kicked the man in the face. The kick was so powerful that the man was blown a couple of meters away.

Elliot chuckled, "Now we know who the one who could threaten the guilds with is."