Chapter 44 One VS One battles I  

Meanwhile, Kyle's first opponent was Jake, ranked 5th in the class ranking.

After getting the go signal from Professor Liam who was the referee of stage 6 and 5, Kyle gazed at Jake from the corner of his eyes.

'A lance user?'

He didn't feel intimated by Jake who seemed to be the same rank as him.

-'You can defeat him because I can see he is weaker than you.'

Bia's voice resounded inside Kyle's head, she was sitting in the audience seats.

Kyle looked surprised, with a serious expression he attacked Jake first while conversing with Bia.

'Do you have a skill that tells if the opponent is strong or weak?'

He was expecting to hear a positive response because if Bia had such a skill, it could help Kyle to avoid a lot of trouble.

But Kyle's expectations were met with cold water.

-'No, I just guessed.'

Kyle had the urge to curse but because he couldn't lose focus during the fight he controlled himself.

The fight with Jake wasn't as difficult as Kyle expected because even though their rank was same, Kyle's stats were probably superior than Jake's.

But amidst all this Kyle noticed a lot of shortcomings. Among them, the most frustrating one was when Jake used agility based skills.

After defeating Jake, Kyle fought against another two opponents and won before standing in front of Alec.

Alec was looking forward to his fight with Kyle because he had seen Kyle working very hard for the past week.

Also, the system still hasn't shown him full information regarding Kyle, so he wanted to see just how much Kyle had improved from their last fight.

With a serious expression, Alec gave Kyle a chance to attack first, but Kyle looked at him with a humble expression while raising his hand toward the referee.

"I admit defeat." Alec barely stopped himself from tripping after hearing Kyle's words.

"What?"

Not wanting to answer Alec's question Kyle turned around and left the stage, leaving behind the dumbfounded Alec.

Bia snickered at Kyle from afar only to get a glare in return.

Actually Kyle was going to try fighting Alec and see if he could defeat him, but Alec's proficiency in sword and rank was higher than him.

He knew he would only exhaust himself if he fought against Alec that's why he decided that admitting defeat was a better choice.

Afterward, Kyle climbed the next stage only to see the pitiful face of his friend.

"Are you sure you are Nine?"

This question made Nine look at Kyle with hatred. Without even glancing at Kyle Nine jumped off the stage.

"I admit defeat. You devil, I know you will tear my remaining clothes if I fought with you."

Nine left while complaining, leaving behind the referee and Kyle who were laughing at him.

Kyle's next opponent was Mia.

After getting the go signal from the referee Kyle attacked first because he knew if he wanted to defeat a mage he had to close the distance between them.

Mia was also not standing idle she hurriedly constructed a shield to block Kyle's attack before increasing the distance between them.

Afterward, she used the skill "Freezing barrier" to decrease Kyle's speed, but contrary to her expectations after she blocked his attack Kyle retreated.

Not giving him a chance to attack again, Mia assembled 10 fireballs and threw them toward Kyle.

Kyle blocked some of it and evaded the remaining easily. Even if he doesn't have any agility type skills, his agility stat was high enough for him to easily evade the upcoming attack.

Giving Mia a shock, Kyle copied Mia's skill and assembled 10 fireballs, throwing them directly toward Mia.

Mia's agility stat was high, but it wasn't high enough to evade all the fireballs coming directly toward her. That's why she constructed a few small shields to protect herself.

Kyle used almost all of his mana in this attack, so after gaining the advantage he hurriedly closed the distance before pointing the tip of his sword at Mia's neck.

"?."

The referee overseeing the match declared Kyle as the winner. Mia looked at Kyle, after Alex and Carcel he was the third person who defeated her.

She still had a lot of mana left but the unexpected attack caught her off guard, making her lose focus for a while.

She sighed and nodded at Kyle with a smile before leaving the stage.

The moment Kyle defeated Mia, a lot of eyes were on him.

First Professor Liam who had been observing Kyle.

He saw Kyle improve but he never thought he would be capable enough to defeat Mia.

Some of the students sitting in the audience seats also expressed their surprise when they saw Kyle winning.

Among everyone the most shocked person was Lara. She had been looking down at Kyle from the start because of his low talent.

Now he defeated Mia, someone she wasn't able to defeat. Her eyes passed at Kyle for a brief moment.

'Was I wrong?'

Lara didn't like it when someone with a low talent approached her, rather than calling it dislike she would call it habit.

At first, she didn't look down on anyone no matter who it was but when she was nine years old, one of her friends who belonged to a poor family got jealous and tried to harm Lara.

One day she told Lara that a very beautiful flower had bloomed inside the forest near her house.

They were all together when they entered the forest but suddenly Lara found herself alone.

While She was finding her friends thinking they were playing tricks on her, an unranked monster appeared out of nowhere.

The monster was hideous and scary but no matter how much Lara shouted for help, no one was there to hear her plea. If not for a wandering warrior maybe she would have died that day.

After returning home Lara found the petty reason behind all this. It was because she was born into a well-off family and had everything they didn't and that's why her friends tried to harm her.

The more she thought about that incident the more angry she felt.

'Was it worth it to harm others just because you are jealous of them?'

After that day she started to make fewer friends or rather she only interacted with those who were equal to her, because she never wanted to experience something like that again.

A lot of time passed, and Lara didn't even notice when she started looking down at others.

The moment Lara found out that Kyle's talent was only (B)-Rank, she knew they were world apart. Even though she wanted to act normal with him because Carcel and Alec both started interacting with Kyle she wasn't able to.

But to her surprise instead of getting angry, Kyle completely ignored her existence like he didn't care or was he just used to it?

After a while Lara wanted to apologize to Kyle but due to her ego, the words never left her mouth.

Now seeing Kyle defeating Mia there was only one thought in her mind,

'He is stronger than me.'