Benjamin coliseum was the name of the African domain’s 4th level academy arena. It was named for the academy’s 2nd and current president. Prior to that point it was just known by students as “the arena”, and to this day that was what majority of students called it. Kurt Krausse was among that number, and currently he was proceeding through the halls of that very arena at a snail’s pace.

  The reason was obvious, it was absolutely loaded to capacity with people. However, it should be noted that this fact was highly unusual, especially during exam season. After all exams were open to spectate but very few of them would be interesting to watch. The majority of those taking the exam weren’t even combatants, so how could they possibly provide a particularly entertaining match when they barely even knew how to fight? So, then who were these people making the hallways so congested? Why were they even there? Well, that was also obvious, they were the combatants themselves, and they were there to see Kit do her practical.

  You see combatants weren’t the primary target of the exams to begin with. In military terms they would already be army recruits, that means the ones who were being examined were the draftees or in other words, the non-combatants. In practice the practicals were combat exams meant to determine whether or not you were worthy to be forced onto the frontlines post-graduation and while the combatants were allowed to participate it was mostly optional.

  In the mind of The Org there was probably no point in testing the people they already had locked into their private army. Although this wasn’t to say that combatants wouldn’t participate in the exam at all, it just meant that they themselves had the option on whether they did. But if someone wanted to challenge them, perhaps in order to take their place in the top 10,000, then they were free to do so. The question though was why would they do that?

  It should be noted that even the majority of current combatants didn’t want to be combatants and the process of challenging a current combatant wouldn’t be an easy way of raising your grade either. Combatants especially were students with heavy wrap sheets on their total abilities, if a professor even so much as slightly suspected a combatant of throwing their match they would be immediately thrown out of the school which would make them an unregistered until they sought enrollment at a different academy.

  Which is exactly why it was such a big deal that the rank one combatant, Kit Wingate, posed a challenge to someone below rank 15,000, and moreover, that the lower rank accepted the challenge. Did he have no one higher ranked to fight? Did no one lower ranked pose a challenge he could have accepted? Generally speaking, practical exams for non-combatants operated a bit like balancing for their test grades. You needed 150 points to pass all exams.

  Written exams would count for 100 points while practical exams would count for 50 points with your score raising 50 points for every 500 ranks your opponent was above you. So how bad did this person’s grades have to be to accept a challenge with Kit Wingate of all people? No one knew, but every combatant there was attending for the inevitable spectacle this would become.

  As Kurt was squeezing his way through the hallway a certain match being broadcasted on a tv above a corridor leading into a room of the arena. On the screen was a kind of skinny looking Asian boy going against a kind of brawny dude with brown hair. The reason why it caught his eye though was because he seemed to recognize the Asian boy on the screen.

  “That’s the boy who was with Nial in the dining hall a couple days ago,” he murmured to himself in German.

  On a teleprompter above the screen darting from one side to another Kurt made out the words “Hao Liu vs Bert Witherspoon”. Kurt was curious at this point. In his mind Nial Rockford was a rather odd character. He seemed adamant on going through with his fight with Kit, yet he said that the two of them were once friends. When Kurt offered him a way to back out of his fight with Kit he seemed almost insulted, but if he were really Kit’s friend then he should know that a fight like this would only hurt her overall reputation if he were to perform well at all.

  The only explanations could be that Nial thought he would definitely lose and definitely lose badly, or that he was determined to find some way to preform even if it damaged Kit’s reputation in the process. Or option three was that it was neither and Nial was pursuing this battle for an entirely different reason although Kurt found that unlikely.

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  As Kurt’s focus returned to the screen his curiosity once again overtook him as he chose to see if Nial’s friend would be as peculiar as him. Kurt squeezed, pushed, and contorted his body to make it through the crowd and into the corridors.

  What awaited him was a small arena with a few stands situated to either side of the ring. The seats were the tough metal kind often found at third level academies. Surprisingly to Kurt at least the seats weren’t empty either. On the opposite side of the arena from him was a group of three guys and an officiator in the corner who seemed to be perpetually bobbing their head up and down. One with a short and pudgy figure, another with a tall and lanky figure, and one with greasy brown hair with features in between both previous extremes though to far in either direction to really be considered average looking.

  They seemed to be there mostly to sit down and avoid the crowd outside though occasionally they would heckle the fight taking place below. That is, if you can call it a fight at all. It was more like a game of tag played while standing in place.

  Hao was using his ability which, based off his bloodshot eyes and bulging forehead veins, seemed to be some type of foresight to dodge Bert’s attacks while not returning any of his own, possibly due to ability strain. While Bert who’s ability seemed to be a more straight forward speed enhancing ability to throw blow after blow at Hao even though he would consistently miss.

  The two were clearly in a stalemate and it appeared to Kurt to be like one of those scenes from old martial arts movies where one master throws out a series of hits towards another only for the other to dodge everyone. The difference here though, was that both of the boys below were moving at speeds even Kurt could surpass, and he wasn’t even a speedster.

  Kurt assumed that if Nial really was the combat minded fanatic he assumed he was that he would associate with likeminded people but neither boy below seemed to even be above rank 30,000.

  As Kurt was in his contemplative process though, the stalemate seemed to finally break. Bert finally landed a single blow squarely on the jaw of Hao which sent Hao reeling for a few steps before the boy finally went tumbling to the ground, prompting the officiator who seemed to be a few seconds away from dozing off to finally stand up.

  “Bert victory, Hao loss. Bert Witherspoon will be awarded 300 points; Hao Liu will be awarded 50 points. Bert Witherspoon is hereby due for rank reexamination.”

  With that the two boys returned to their respective locker rooms and the other people in the room, including Kurt, slowly began to trickle out. Kurt ruminated on what he just saw. He couldn’t really call either boy’s combat aptitude particularly impressive, but one thing did stand out to him.

  Hao seemed to be able to maintain his ability for an exceptionally long period of time. While the act of fighting and using his ability clearly placed a great deal of strain on him you can tell that were they not in combat situation Hao’s control over his ability might even be maintained even longer.

  If Hao was a seer maybe he wanted to be a news anchor? It was a common gig for those who could tell the future after all, but the problem is that still didn’t give him any insight into Nial as a person.

  Kurt was so deeply entrenched in thought that he didn’t even notice as he smacked face first against the sea of people once again clogging the main walkway as he exited the corridor. As Kurt drew a deep breath and once again began searching for a place to insert himself among the crowd he noticed that all the faces were pointed in one direction.

  A girl, about 18 years of age, with blue eyes and blonde hair like his own though subtly different. It was, of course, Kit Wingate. The question though was why was Kit Wingate here?

  She should have about 40 minutes till her match, shouldn’t she be at least heading to her locker room? But instead, she seemed to be casually wading through the crowd as though parting the Red Sea. Whatever the case Kurt didn’t hesitate to make his way over after catching a glimpse. He just had to many questions going through his head, and he wasn’t going to hesitate to talk to someone who has the answers he needed.

  “Kit you wait!”

  She seemed to jump a little at his call.

  “Kurt?”

  “Why you here?”

  “Oh, I was just going to get some food and a drink to calm my nerves.”

  “Calm nerves?”

  And why the hell would she need to do that? It wasn’t like she was the one fighting someone 15,000 ranks above her.

  “We must talk.”

  “Oh, can we do it after I get my food though.”

  “No.”

  He just grabbed her hand and began pulling her along to where the locker rooms were in the basement. Having Kit with him was like having people repellent as the combatants were now moving from side to side themselves to make way for the two cadets. Kurt had Kit in his hands and he fully intended on getting every answer to every question that had been eating him up for a full week now.