In the next few moments, the examinees gathered together on the other side of the arena. They stood before the large elevated platform--on which Bao Huxin was currently giving the rules.
"All of you should still have your cards. Look down at them and say the word: 'Complete.' Once you do this, your card, along with your opponent's card, will merge and return back to me. I will then randomly call out who will be fighting. Does anyone have any questions?"
His eyes scanned the crowd like a hawk. A hand raised, and it was from Sin's group.
Magnus' fangirl had her hand raised, the only one out of everyone.
"What is your question?"
"Is it okay if the card is crumpled?" The girl asked in a soft voice, not able to look up. Her question was clearly coming from a place of actual curiosity, but she was still scared that others, i.e., Dreli, would assume otherwise.
And she was correct to assume that, as Dreli immediately glanced toward her with a hostile expression when he heard her say this.
'Tsk... is this bitch trying to get me in trouble or something?' Dreli mused for a second.
Bao narrowed his vision, "No. Crumpled, ripped, whatever. It doesn't matter." He turned, walking to the back center of the stage: "Now hurry up!"
On this command, everyone looked down at their cards in unison and said: "Complete."
As the words escaped their lips, all of the cards gleamed slightly with a white light and floated into the air. Each card traveled to another to make a match before floating over to Bao Huxin and falling into his palm.
After all of the cards collected, he raised his voice again: "The duel will be simple. The first to give up or fall flat on their face, or their back, or fall unconscious in general, will be disqualified. We won't waste any time. While I choose who gets to fight first, I want all of you to prepare yourselves." Bao exclaimed, giving everyone a few seconds as he glanced at the cards.
At once, the tension in the arena skyrocketed. This was it, what everyone had been waiting for. This was argued by almost everyone to be the most difficult part of the exam, and the one to make or break most people's passing chances.
Most were nervous, some almost nearly crippled by it. Hearts were pumping so loud and frequently that you could feel that slight vibration in the air around you.
Sin exhaled, looking down at his fists, 'How many times have I beaten idiots like him into a pulp? I am superior to Dreli in all ways. With due time, even my Spirit will be stronger than his. I cannot lose this fight.'
"First to the stage!" Bao paused, capturing everyone's attention. It felt like you couldn't breathe right now, only able to exhale when Bao spoke again.
"Wonin Flores and Nevin Masnarth, make your way up here!"
Apart from these two, everyone else let out heavy breaths of relief. The two who were chosen, however, felt their bodies go slightly numb for a second.
Warm blood flushed back and forth down their faces and bodies as they walked to the stage, their limbs shaking and their lips quivering.
Sin observed the two with narrow eyes, 'Hmm... one of them got a decent score on the Spirit testing section if I remember correctly. Nevin, from team 'Victory' who had an overall Spirit testing score of 6.9. The highest second to my team's. Nevin got the highest out of that bunch too. A 7.4/10.'
He didn't remember anything about Wonin, so he automatically assumed that the young girl clearly hadn't gotten a good score in either test.
Hence, it made sense why she appeared even more nervous than her male counterpart as they faced each other on the stage.
Nevin seemed to have gained a bit of confidence by this point, looking forward with furrowed eyebrows of focus. However, Wonin was still looking down at the ground--her fingers fidgeting nonstop.
"If you haven't prepared yourselves by now... then you deserve to lose." Bao Huxin exclaimed, looking toward the young woman on the stage with a slightly despondent expression.
"Fight!" He raised his right hand into the air.
This was the first fight of the night, so Sin's attention was high. He was going to make sure he understood how each rule of the fight went, and what he could possibly take advantage of.
There wasn't anything Sin wasn't willing to do in order to win. Cheat, lie. Who gave a damn? Something like morality or virtue was worth nil compared to his will to succeed.
Other than that, the concept of seeing mainly Spirit users fighting was something that highly intrigued him. Since this was the first actual big city Sin had ever been to, it was the only place that people used their Spirit Energy for something different than daily chores or work.
Of course, there were a few rare individuals in even the weakest villages that would wield Spirit in powerful ways, but none that Sin had ever faced--or even seen for that matter.
They were few and far between back then, but here and now, Sin was surrounded by them. It was a perfect opportunity to get used to powers when it came to Spirit.
If he understood how to fight a Spirit user, not only would that allow him to beat Dreli with much greater ease, but it would also allow him to act more freely in the city and onwards without having to worry about being slaughtered in a second.
The freedom from that fear was worth the same weight as freedom in general. With all of this in his mind, he watched as the battle unfolded in front of him.
Nevin, much more confident, moved first. With a raise of his hand, all the hairs on his hand suddenly grew in length.
They braided into a small, fairly thick rope that was about one centimeter in width.
This was one of the 'elemental' Spirit types, it seemed. To Sin, who didn't have much knowledge of Spirit, he was slowly learning and noting as he went.
He understood that there were different types of Spirits out there. From what he understood, there were three types to his knowledge--Elemental, Physical, and External.
External Spirits were the most common. They were the actual physical body of the Spirit summoned in the real world. Like Sin's Healing Bug, most Spirits would exist in their physical form, it seemed.
These Spirits could use their Spirit Energy spells, but also their own body to accomplish tasks and attacks.
The Elemental type was the second most common. This Spirit Energy allowed the user to control a certain, or several materials. Whether it be hair in this case, or spikes in Agneil's case, users held dominion over this element.
Sometimes it stemmed from one's own body, but other times--like in Agneil's case, the element could come from outside of their body too. Like spikes summoning from the walls or the floor without any connection to Agneil's body.
Finally, there were the rarest Physical-type Spirit Energies. These allowed people to seemingly transform into their Spirit, either fully mutating or simply copying some characteristics.
This was the type that the obese woman in Sin's group had.
Sin didn't know the correlation between all of these Spirit types, or if they even had one, but he knew that they all needed to be dealt with in different ways.