1.54 – Is this a tutorial zone or something?

A ray of light came the moment the starting pistol went off, and Nathan quickly hurried to move, to try to close the distance. He used entropy siphon to draw out the heat from his opponent, staggering him, but the student shouted something that Nathan couldn’t understand, and then a ball of light appeared a moment after. It started sizzling and cracking with energy before changing into a ray of light aimed right at Nathan’s body.

He dodged underneath, rushing closer again, but another ray came in that very moment and impacted right on his chest. A sting followed, travelling outwards. It hurt a little, but it was nothing too bad. He shook the damage away, blinked a few times, and then continued forward. Glancing up, he saw the student watching in pure horror.

Did he seriously expect that attack to do something?

Continuing to draw on the heat, Nathan felt energy built up. Perhaps it was the adiabatic shielding that protected him against the attack? No way to know for sure though.

One thing was very clear, even before Nathan closed the distance completely and punched the man in his liver. His opponent, a D-class student, was wholly outmatched. Nathan’s fist went forward, driving into the muscle underneath his opponent’s ribcage, and it sent him flying.

Despite the fact that he had no momentum, power, or any physical powers at all, he was still enhanced by almost $100,000, and the punch was faster and stronger than anything that should be humanly possible.

The man spattered several dozen feet away on the ground before he pushed himself on all fours and puked his guts out.

The referee declared the match over, and the crowd began cheering.

Well, that was easy. Too easy.

All the matches continued mostly in the same vein. Nathan prepared for the worst, repeating how his abilities worked in his mind, and then the duel would be over in a punch or two. The longest fight that he had so far had been with an E-class student who could inflate his muscles for a short moment. Nathan’s punches didn’t work that well against such an opponent, but the man was all muscle and no brain, and after a short while, when Nathan continued pummeling punches and the man kept blocking them with his face, the result came sooner rather than later.

For his other fights, he didn’t even require many ability uses. Honestly, he felt as if he could have won most of them just by how advanced his moneymaker system made him. Each fight against an F or E class student was resolved so quickly that it boggled his mind a little. On one occasion, an F-class student went closer towards Nathan and tried punching him. He tried it several times, actually. And Nathan felt as if his opponent’s punches were so slow that he might as well have been underwater. He just grabbed his opponent by his suit and threw him out of bounds, ending his misery.

Did Nathan seriously advance this far? Maybe it was the combination of the things he’d been put through and the moneymaker system allowing faster growth than normal. Fighting against the Onis and then here in this tournament… he couldn’t shake the feeling of something being wrong.

After all this fear, stress, and talks about the tournament, it felt like such a… letdown. He expected to have to seriously try his best here. For God’s sake, this was something that he was building towards for the whole semester, and now it was halfway over and he barely had to break a sweat. He thought that the D-class heroes would be so powerful that he would have to think how to outwit them.

But with each fight, he grew more and more confident in the fact that there was almost nobody stronger than him and his friends, and it felt so strange.

Yes, these were not the top heroes of the whole world. They were D-class, which were still barely recognized as heroes. Most of them served in the military, although some tried to actually work for the agencies. As a whole, Nathan couldn’t help but set his sights higher.

Alicia sat on a bench right next to him, looking ahead with an excited expression. Her own duels were resolved even faster than Nathan’s, her explosive weaponry giving her an edge that the lower class students simply had no answer to.

“I don’t think Minato is passing this one.” She pointed towards the duel that was ongoing at this very moment. Already several hours passed, and it wasn’t that far from before night rolled over. The duel in front of them seemed tough, but Minato seemed to be losing his edge with each dodge and exchange.

This novel’s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“Yeah, I think so. That E class is really strong.” Nathan nodded, feeling a bit of empathy.

“Well, even if he loses, Minato will just win in the losers bracket. No biggie.” Aiko sat from behind them. “He just had a stroke of bad luck picking such an opponent.”

“All of us made top 8, would you believe it?” Alicia laughed, leaning backwards.

“It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? The D-class students must be fuming.”