“Good fight.” Rui nodded. They were both strong, however, Kaerts was a cut better. That along with compatibility advantage gave him very low chances of losing against someone like Byron.
Although they were all chosen as representatives of their respective branches of the Academies, that did not mean they were all on the same level.
The next match may even serve as proof of that.
“What an incredible first round we’ve had folks. Now we have only one more fight left! On one hand we have Representative Derk Sermont!”
Derk walked in, expressionless. Yet Rui could almost feel the fear from him.
“And on the other hand, we have Representative Fiona Roschem representing the Vargard branch! Renowned as the Chosen Incarnate in the Martial Community. She is the representative with the highest gambling odds!”
The crowd erupted in cheers louder than any other Representative had received. This was to be expected, since they were in the town of Vargard, the branch that she was representing.
However, Rui noticed something odd.
(‘He didn’t mention the name of her Martial Art…’) Rui’s eyes widened. Could it be that she hadn’t even named her Martial Art yet? As strong as she was, her Martial Art did not possess enough individuality and originality?
This came as a shock to Rui. He had completely suspected her to be a Squire candidate. But it turned out he was wrong.
(How stra-!’) He froze as Fiona entered.
She didn’t make any gestures out of the ordinary. She didn’t put on any airs. She was expressionless.
Yet the sense of danger that her focus invoked in all those within her Realm was profound.
In that moment, Rui instinctively felt certain of one thing.
She was the strongest Martial Apprentice he had ever met.
She was stronger than his old Apprentice instructors. Stronger than his friends. Stronger than the golden-haired bandit. Even stronger than the masked bandit who saved the former from eight Martial Apprentices.
“Take your stances.” The referee instructed.
A strange tension took over the arena.
Things were tense before, but Rui felt a faint whiff of fear had tainted the atmosphere.
Derk Sermont adopted a grappling stance as a bead of sweat trickled down his face. Yet he held a resolute expresion nonetheless.
Fiona didn’t move.
The referee raised an eyebrow, before commencing the match.
“Begin!”
Rui watched with hawk eyes.
Yet, he couldn’t believe what had unfolded.
BANG!
RUMBLE
She pushed the ground under her backwards with such ferocity that faint tremors travelled across the entire arena.
In an instant, she had arrived in front of Derk.
BOOM!
A powerful impact crumpled into his gut, as he spat out blood. The impact launched flying across the entire arena.
BANG!
He finally stopped as he collided against the wall.
THUD
He collapsed to the ground.
…
“W-Winner; Representative Fiona Roschem!” The referee declared.
For a moment, no one moved.
“Aaaaand we have a winner folks! Representative Fiona Roschem soundly moves onto the second round with a dominant victory against Representative Derk Sermont!”
Rui jerked as he finally unfroze.
“Haha…” he laughed, before sighing.
“Well…” Squire Dylon scratched his head. “You might as well resign.”
Both Rui and Squire Kyrie turned to him, glaring at him.
“You’re supposed to be on my side.” Rui shook his head.
“Hey, I am on your side.” Squire Dylon smirked. “I’m saving you a lot of time, energy and dignity. Only a true friend would do that.”
Rui ignored him. “This is going to be rough.” he glanced at the other Representatives, they were mostly expressionless, but he realized that they were all thinking the same thing.
“She’s reached the very pinnacle that Martial Apprentices can possibly reach, generally.” Squire Kyrie said. “She would even be able to survive a brief period of time against weak Martial Squires, frankly.”
Rui’s eyes widened at those words.
“The gap between Martial Realms isn’t exponential.” Squire Kyrie explained, noticing his reaction. “The strongest of Martial Apprentices born with monstrous talent after enough time and resources, like her, are not too inferior to the weakest of Martial Squires who just barely managed to survive the breakthrough and haven’t fully adapted to the power yet.”
Her words were casual, but the information she revealed was not.
First, she had inadvertently revealed that the breakthrough process to Martial Squire was life-threatening. This added one more piece of the puzzle to the mystery that was the breakthrough process to the Martial Squire Realm.
Secondly, he learnt that Realms were closer to each other than he suspected.
“Is she really the peak of the Martial Apprentice Realm?” Rui asked.
Squire Kyrie thought about the question for a moment. “Strictly speaking, no.”
Rui tilted his head, confused.
“Headmaster Aronian informed me you have been informed of the two conditions needed to become a Squire candidate, so I suppose I can reveal some information to you.” She paused, before continuing. “The Realms of Martial Artists are common checkpoints along all Martial Paths, in a way. They do not directly correlate with combat prowess, not directly anyway. They correlate to how much progress you’ve made in the direction of your ideal perfect Martial Art at the end of the journey of the Martial Path.”
That was incredibly vague, especially that last part. But he didn’t complain, he had already received a lot of information.
“So that means theoretically there isn’t a defined known limit on the power of Martial Artists of a certain Realm?” Ru asked.
Squire Kyrie nodded. “Each generation of Martial Artists is stronger than the previous Martial Artists in general, that should tell you there isn’t defined power scales and limits purely theoretically.”
Rui’s thoughts turned back to Fiona. This meant that she wasn’t the very limit a Martial Apprentice could achieve. Perhaps someone even more talented would be stronger. She would probably surpass herself as she got older.
But even if she wasn’t at the peak, it didn’t matter. She was absurdly strong, and Rui would have to defeat her to win.