the Whole colosseum felt a shook as Zhou ming delivered his devastating punch. the number and the metal wall started rising blowing past 100 like it didn't exist and the speed was maintained well into the 280 and only slowed down around the 450 mark. the final number was 493. if the base strength number for silver was between 150-280, Zhou ming clearly demonstrated a rare talent to produce more strength than the supposed limits. Julius was left dazed by the punch and the numbers. he had high exactions of course but even those seemed like a joke compared to what Zhou ming demonstrated.
Zhou ming yet again confidently walked to the third test. In his hand materialized a great sword that was nearly his height. he wield the great sword with one hand like it was a play thing. The instructor in front of him got into a ready stance. The instructor was many ranks above Zhou ming but he was forced to limit his power to give the students a fair showing. Zhou ming immediately jumped into action attack the instructor head on. his first strike came down on the instructor like a mountain forcing him into bracing more. Out of all the the student to currently challenged him none had made him focus but Zhou ming did it in one strike. This student wasn't going to be easy for him keep at bay but it was still manageable for an instructor. as the two fighter clashed Zhou ming kept forcing the instructor into weird positions. The instructor usually finished students of before the 5 minute timer was up but Zhou ming hadn't give the instructor a second to breath.
the wild strikes of Zhou ming had the students cheering for him. They knew it wasn't possible to defeat the instructor but Zhou ming seemed their best chance to see him in a tough spot. their cheer grew louder and louder.
the 5 minutes were finally up and Zhou ming calmly collected himself and bowed to the instructor then headed towards the place where the fourth test would take place. once he left their vision the students calmed down. Zhou ming truly put on a rare performance for them but their chance to relax would be vary short.The next few minutes the crowd was silent seeing if Zhou ming would have different result and come out with a contracted beast but he didn't come back. the next student took the stage and prepared her performance.
Next was Emily Morgan a direct daughter of the clan head of the Morgan clan. she had long purple hair, her clothes were fitted and seemed just as impressive as Zhou Mings. Her outfit consisted of blues and red that were put well together.
When she got he the crystal ball she grabbed it with both her hands and injected her aura wildly releasing red Aura. her Aura quality seemed to be the same level as Zhou ming and the results weren't looking far off. she easily reached 9th level and matched Zhou ming in talent. the crowd was just as excited as the first time, it was hard to not to be considering they thought Zhou ming was gonna be the last one for years just for the next student to pull of the same result. they were extremely excited for the next test. Could she surpass his strength or would he hold supreme.
Julius felt more impressed with her Aura than he did with Zhou ming it seemed more potent than his. Julius focused on the area the young girl was on ignoring the less impressive students on the other arenas. She was currently concentrating her Aura into her fist getting ready to excite the punch.
*BANG*
The colosseum shock almost as much as Zhou Mings punch did but Julius could feel that it was slightly weaker. the numbers on the metal wall started rising at blurring speed till they reach 420 and finally stopped at 467. The students were just as impressed with her as they were with Zhou Ming. she looked dissatisfied at the result but shrugged it off and got ready to face the instructor. Emily pulled out a Katana and held it in both hands. her katana was average shaped but was made of some blue metal that had white cracks on it that looked like lighting strikes across the blade.
the instructor was in a prepared stance but the moment Emily charged forward she turned into a blur. the instructor instantly tensed up knowing he had another difficult student to deal with. Emily struck the instructor with blinding speeds having him backed into a corner within the first 15 seconds of the fight. The instructor was more suited to deal with Zhou Mings strength than Emily's speed. the next 5 minutes were grueling last for the instructor but he managed to keep his dignity and stayed undefeated. Emily's performance was exceptionally impressive against the instructor and the student were loudly cheering her name. Emily calmly bowed to the instructor and calmly went to the 4th test, she too hadn't come back out.
The next student to go up was a young man of gigantic stature, his very step seemed to shake the ground. he was Ron star the fourth son of the head of the Star family. the crystal ball in front of him looked tiny fitting neatly in one hand. golden Aura spewed into the crystal ball as it flew into the 9th rank. Releasing the ball he moved onto the next round of tests. standing on even ground with the wall the Ron prepared to shake the colosseum once more.
Julius knew this punch was gonna be very different from what he's seen so far. Kiri was very scared seeing Ron. Ron was all the way in the arena But Kiri could still feel his presence.Kiri already made up a nickname for Ron in his head, the star giant, it was very simply but defined Ron to every degree.
Ron took in a deep breath and swung his massive fist into the wall sending out a sound that seemed like the wall gave in to the attack.
*BAANGG*
some students held their ears due to the loud sounds while others close to the arena fell out of their seats. the wind coming of the arena was powerful blowing a couple of hats away. the students were silenced and fear stricken, this was someone their age yet vastly more powerful. some even started to wonder if they could ever live up to that. the number rose insanely fast, Zhou ming nor Emily could compete with the speed it was raising. it blew past 400 but that wasn't even near the limit. The number flew past Emily's performance and chased after Zhou Mings, passing him not long after the numbers flew past 500 and stopped at 644.
this number made the past performances minimal. Instead cheers the crowd was left speechless, they didn't know what to do so they observed what Ron would do next. He calmly moved onto the next stage. the instructor felt small even though he was facing new student. Ron had taken out gauntlets to face the instructor. these gauntlets are red with hints of gold accents all over it, it seemed to be made of flexible yet durable metal. Ron hadn't immediately charged the instructor but calmly cornered him. Ron got in the space of the instructor forcing him to strike first but Ron effortlessly blocked and dodged the strikes. Through the flurry of attacks Ron still maintained control of the fight. In the last 2 minutes of the fight Ron began to retaliate devastating the instructor. Ron landed every punch he threw out leaving the instructor dazed but not defeated as the bell rang ending the fight. the instructor looked out of breath and barely standing but he was a master he quickly regained his composure. Ron walked to the 4th test and turned out to be the 3 third student to not return.
the next few test were boring the rest of the nobles gave average scores with a little to few standing out and all returning from the 4th test while those other three remained in the testing area. after the 145th noble went the nobles testing was done and it was time for the common folk to take the stage. their performance was less amazing than even the mundane nobles.
as the hundreds of students going through the tests only a handful had an eye catching performances that even surpassed some of nobles. after 3 hours Zhou ming, Emily, and Ron finally came out of the 4th test each seeming to have gained something compared to the rest of the students. the regular students seemed to out perform the nobles on the 4th test having 9 students not immediately returning .there was only 10 people in front of Kiri, Julius, and the two that sat next to them.
" rest of these tests don't seem that important, I think we should only hope to perform well in the 4th test" Julius said as he stretched his arms. " No, we should perform our best otherwise we'll be easily targeted." Kiri added his thoughts to what Julius said. next to them the girl shook her head and said" No all the performance are important so the school knows who is worth giving resources too." she had the correct assumption. the school couldn't just give students important items unless it really suited them or they earned it. These tests were the first step in the students assessments. " The best resource is your own effort!" some voice boomed from a young orange haired young man in a black track suit said. " nice to meet you I'm number 970, my name is Tsuneo." The young man quickly introduced himself to the cohort standing by him.
Julius looked around to see if anyone else wanted to take up the young man and introduce themselves. the group was quiet for a moment and they stood around awkwardly around the beaming young man. Julius sigh to himself and spoke up" I'm number 968, nice to meet you I'm Julius" Julius stretched his hand out for a shake which the young man gladly shook his hand. Kiri seeing Julius be friendly with Tsuneo he decided to do the same." hi, I'm Kiri number 966. nice to meet you" The young man was already shaking hands with Kiri before he finished introducing himself. As of the moment the other two didn't seem like they wanted to partake in the little group activities til the bear like young man spoke up" hello I'm Edric and this is Vjollca nice to meet you all" he bowed yet toward over everyone else. the girl didn't seem to happy about him giving her name out but she didn't reprimand him.
it was finally Kiri's turn to go up. He made his way up to the crystal ball snd nervously stared at it for a moment." YOU GOT THIS" Tsuneo cheered from the line pulling Kiri back to reality. Julius decided to partake in the cheering this time." Let's see That 9" he roared making the whole crowed turn towards kiri. This late into the test none of the regular students reached a 9 the most impressive was a 8th amongst them. Kiri noticing all the eyes on him shook a little before he placed his hands on the crystal ball. his Aura didn't have a defined color yet leading the whole crowd to start ridiculing Julius for what he said a moment ago.
"He hasn't even reached silver rank and that idiot is boosting he'll reach the 9th level, hahah"
"no way he can even get past the 3rd level."
" 3rd level? at best he will reach the 2nd level"
the crowd was railed up and ready to see their prediction come true. The nobles had the same train of thoughts but were much harsher with the criticism .The only place with conflicting opinions was the seating for those who supposedly passed the 4th test. " is that some form of bullying? why'd he turn all the attention onto him?" Emily asked curiously. Ron shook his head " No, that seemed genuine belief. Maybe we'll be in for an interesting show" he leaned back in his seat and relaxed. Zhou ming didn't have anything to comment so he stayed quietly in his seat. The other students seated around them were all common folk so they didn't dare to voice an opinion being surrounded by nobles who were stronger. One young man with short black hair and a long cut along his cheek that spoke up for the rest of them" who knows maybe he'll be more talented than these snobby nobles" Just the few words he had spoke had the nobles staring at him with daggers but other than Emily, Zhou Ming, and Ron nobody else had a better performance than him. The young man was Number 588, Javi Aliyev, he had reached the 8th level on the first test. He also Got 480 on the second test and violently attacked the instructor like those 5 minutes were a death battle.
The three nobles didn't entertain what he had said and paid attention to the arena Kiri was on. His Aura hadn't reached a high potency so the crystal ball was slowly analyzing his talent. the Number was slow but raising. the crowd joked about how he was struggling to reach past 2 and 3 but they become more quiet once he reached the 4th level. The 5th level wasn't far off, the more the crystal ball absorbed Kiri's Aura the faster it rose by the level. The last 4 levels were shattered through and Kiri became the 4th person today to reach the 9th level of talent. the crowd this time was left more bewildered than any of the last 3 who reached it. Kiri as of this moment became the first Commoner to reach 9th level in 2 centuries. The last commoner to reach such a level was the commoner who the wild hounds changed their name for.
Kiri opened his eyes to see the result but the crystal ball he was looking at didn't look real. the 9th level was shone in eyes looking like a treasure. Kiri was barely able to maintain his composure while a few tears trickled down his cheek. *clap clap clap* Julius,Tsuneo, and Edric clapped for Kiri while he walked onto the next test. As Kiri moved onto the next test Julius took the stage. He wasn't nervous as Kiri was and he didn't care how he did. as he walked up to the crystal ball he's eye weren't even on it but on Kiri's next test. He was planning on achieving the same result as Kiri on the other two tests that he could control so he didn't even pay attention to the crystal ball and casually placed his hand on it.
the crowd was mainly focusing on Kiri as of this moment but a few eyes and the examiners watching Julius. Kiri prepared himself to strike the metal wall and swiftly struck out with his right fist. *bang* the punch was impressive an got him the number 278 which was more impressive than anyone at the bronze rank and several at the silver rank. It was important to note that Kiri wasn't power focused but a had an even more incredible speed. Julius didn't start injecting aura Immediately and kept an eye on Kiri still. " Hey! start your test already" one of the examiners barked. Julius turned to look at the examiner and gave him an annoyed look but then just turned back to Kiri who started his exchange with the instructor.
The instructor at this point was confident against the commoner students other than Javi, the rest hadn't even forced him to move a lot. Kiri took the unsheathed his flamberge and charged the instructor at a decent speed. Kiri was matching Emily in speed at the moment even though she was a higher rank. The instructor wasn't impressed with the strength of Kiri from the previous test so he had underestimated his speed. The slight misjudgment of Kiri's speed had lead to the instructor to being put in an awkward positions of constant defense and nearly being put in a definitive losing position but Kiri never put the finishing move on the instructor. Every strike Kiri delivered had more speed than the last. During the last 2 minutes of the fight the two fighters seemed like a blur and even the examiners stopped hounding Julius to start the test and watch the amazing fight.
The whole colosseum was back on edge, it had been several hours now since they've seen a fight worth paying attention to. Kiri Had put himself shoulder to shoulder with the most impressive students so far so Julius had to perform at his best now. Once Kiri walked onto the next stage the crowd had yet to calm down. Julius focused on the crystal ball his purple aura spewed into the crystal ball at an amazing speed. the crowd hadn't even mange to notice the first 4 levels before it was already at the 5th level.
the crystal ball hadn't slowed down even reach the 8th level and kept glowing brightly at the 9th level. Before Julius could remove his hand from the Crystal ball cracked and split in half. the crowd was bewildered by what they were looking at. The crystal balls never cracked, They only stopped working and the levels stopped shining but the ball never broke. The examiners looked at each other without knowing what to do but the more experienced examiner spoke up" you may move on. we'll handle any farther testing needed at a later time." Julius apologetically bowed and moved on to the next test. The three nobles and all the other students who passed the 4th level felt truly threatened by what had just transpired. They managed to rationalize what just happened by leaving it to defect but some had other wilder thoughts. Among the ones with the wild thoughts was Zhou Ming, He had truly been impressed by Julius and believed Julius had talent that he crystal ball couldn't measure.
Julius walked up to the metal wall and got in a comfortable punching stance. He flowed his Heavy purple Aura around his right fist. Julius had a sufficient amount of time to master his new power but he didn't know what he could truly dish out. taking a deep breathe he struck out his heavy fist into the wall.
*BAANGG*
The punch felt horrifying and defying any ounce of mercy against the wall. The last punch that felt this devastating was Ron's incredible punch. Every student and teacher in the colosseum at this moment paid attention to the raising numbers on the wall. the numbers flew past 400 like a breeze and started going at a comfortable pace around 600. The number finally stopped at 680 nearly beating out Ron by 40. the Instructor in charge of fighting Julius started to worry as he felt this wasn't all Julius was capable of.
The instructor stood waiting for Julius to make it to his stage but in the moment Samuel came on to the stage." Jake, I'll switch you out for this round. go take a break." a few moments ago when Julius delivered his punch the 12 head teacher agreed to send out Samuel to test Julius instead of Jake a normal instructor. this was the first time the instructor would be switched out but most student put as the instructor being tired. That wasn't the case, if this instructor faced Julius he's defeat wouldn't be far off. The instructor was a regular gold rank but to most students he wasn't someone they could compete with. The head teachers all felt a different presence from Julius who wasn't even performing at his best. Their hands were forced into making a move to get scope of what Julius was capable of.
Julius made it to the stage with Samuel and acknowledged that this instructor wasn't gonna be going easy on him. Julius hadn't expected to get a different treatment immediately but he wasn't to upset he was excited to test out his strength. Samuel had taken action to change the test to 10 minutes instead of 5 to give Julius more time show off. Samuel held a clean pure white katana in his hand showing he was ready to go." ready when you are" Samuel gave Julius the go ahead.
Julius searched for two swords he's been meaning to try but couldn't because the minimum requirement was to reach silver rank. the note his brother put on the two swords had the warning and the names of the blades. The blades were called the twin tigers. The blades had red hilts and a tiger face on the flat side of the cross guard. the swords were double edged and extremely sharp. once he held the blades in his hands he could feel a sense of bloodlust from the blades.
"I'm ready" Julius gave his confirmation and the timer began.