The rest of the melee duels proceeded onward. Despite Braton’s showing of strength that wowed the crowd, the remaining duels were still dominated by the Five Families College.
More than a third of the remaining participants in the melee category were from that school, which showcased their strength and prowess over the other no-name schools even if they were inners.
Many forums were simply talking about how the Five Families College were about to dominate the competition, while others who bet on the dark horses of each category lamented their impending doom.
Some were unwilling to concede, flooding the forums with their continuous praise for the group of orphans from Zone 17.
Even some of the inner viewers who would never consider supporting an outer felt inclined to after watching a specially edited video on how the orphans grew up.
With both Braton and Ceres coming from the same orphanage, it was natural that viewers would want to know what kind of special training was happening there.
“The children come here at all sorts of ages, they might come here when they were 3 or 5 or even twelve years old. The local militia may not have the best of resources to donate to this military orphanage, but we do our part in making sure these children become self-sufficient and able to survive in New Saint or beyond.,” Ann Lesion said as she stood near the open-air school field of Zone 17 Military Orphanage, giving an interview on a recorded video.
“Despite the budget deficits, our children have tried their absolute best, with some going above and beyond to grab onto resources with their own merit. There’s no special training scheme or unique proprietary drugs that we’re giving them; we follow the standard military curriculum for children.”
“We don’t stop them from going to private clubs or events outside if they don’t break the rules. Take for example Braton, who has been an integral part of the Gladius’ bodybuilding club and receiving resources from them.”
“This showcases that outstanding orphans can break the mould, and society should support them no matter what. They are our future and the foundation of our Empire. We are all living on the same planet and in the same nation, so my greatest hope is a harmonious living place for the children of both now and the future.” Ann Lesion gave a photogenic smile to the camera.
“What can you say about Cardenia Hawthorn, the owner of the planet snatching away Ceres? It seems that she’s planning to overwrite the curriculum that has produced outstanding participants like Braton and Ceres!” The interviewer leaned forward and aggressively asked, waving his hands wildly.
Ann’s eyebrows slightly twitched, but she still held the same photogenic smile. She knew that his whole job was to elicit a strong reaction to get more views for his video.
She wasn’t about to throw in the towel, especially seeing as the interviewer was the one paying her directly. Ann would do anything to get more funds for the orphanage.
“It was a tacit agreement with Cardenia, and this enhanced training program that Ceres underwent has been in the works for a good three years ever since Cardenia arrived. It was not a sudden thing; the orphanage was prepared for it in the past and we left it for Ceres’ consent.”
“Considering that he is about to come of age in less than two weeks, I find it more than reasonable to ask him for his opinion rather than sign a contract without his knowledge,” Ann replied gently, not being swayed by the interviewer who looked a bit dumbfounded at the answer given, his aggressive antics paused slightly.
As much as this was a paid interview and pre-planned, her answer clearly contradicted information that was given to him by his sources.
Of course, Ann Lesion never actually had an agreement with Cardenia Hawthorn officially; in fact, the two of them never even met virtually or conversed through email! It was only to Senia, Cardenia’s secretary, that Ann was able to ask questions.
At first, she was extremely reluctant to hand over Ceres to Cardenia, even threatening to release the information that he was being trained and where.
It was only when the details of the training camp and who was involved that she finally managed to calm down. She paid special attention to the assigned medical expert and facilities available for Ceres’s use, relieving her worries.
Naturally, she had received a hefty payout from Senia in order to keep her mouth shut, boosting her orphanage budget by at least a year’s worth of operational costs.
Ann would gladly say anything to fulfil her end of the bargain, and if that involves lying on camera, she would do it for her orphanage.
The interview was a bit annoyed at how the interview was slightly going off-script. “I have sources claiming that you had not received notification of Ceres’ training camp selection, and were in fact angry at them! What do you have to say to this?”
“Contrary to your ‘sources’, I did receive notification beforehand and was never angry at any point during the months that Ceres was in training. You must be mistaken. I have the utmost confidence that the training camp was good for Ceres with no downsides, as evident in his great performance in the group stage.” Ann controlled her facial expression.
The interview went into more detail, asking for specifics on what Ann has done for the orphanage and so on.
“Great! Now as a final topic as the ranged duels are happening tomorrow, I note that participant Trissa is also from the orphanage, and in the same team as Ceres and Braton in the qualifiers! Have they always been practising as a team, and what can we expect from her solo duel tomorrow?”
Ann finally let out a grin. “I don’t play favourites amongst the children; they are all precious to me. Some may not be good at fighting or shooting, but I love them all the same. Trissa however, is a prodigy at aerial combat, both close-quarters and ranged. Whoever is faced against her in this next duel will have a tough fight ahead!”
***
Trissa could sense a difficult fight coming. It was the day of the ranged duels and she hadn’t been called up yet in advance.
Four duels had already gone by, with the fifth one happening now. Trissa continuously checked her multi while she sat in the waiting room alone, trying to mentally prepare herself for any of the remaining opponents.
There were five more potential opponents, seeing as there were eight duels in total for the ranged category, and she had a sixty percent chance of fighting someone from the Five Families College.
She only had fifteen minutes to come up with an appropriate strategy and select her loadout, as that was the estimated duration of the duels so far.
What would she choose? She wasn’t particularly good at sniping which seems to be favoured in this competition but sticking to her aerial combat style in an enclosed arena would make it easier for the opponent to counter.
All the opponents had to do was either deploy an appropriate amount of flak in the skies to blind her vision and take her down, or spray more than enough bullets to fend her off.
Trissa’s speciality of a submachine gun and knife wasn’t good in the early long-range stages of the duel, so she had to consider her loadout much more carefully.
Trissa’s aim wasn’t that great as well, which is why she adopted an aerial raider battle style. The key was to get up so close to her target that aim doesn’t matter anymore.
She couldn’t swap to a standard full automatic rifle as she was not confident in it and she wasn’t as good at throwing explosives like Ceres was. She double-checked the videos of her potential opponents, noting that all of them were generic rifle users with no aerial expertise.
The military orphanage also had a surplus of such users. It was much easier to implement a standardized training curriculum pivoting around one of the basics of ranged combat which was using a rifle on the ground.
Furthermore, most citizens in the Loeric Empire had some sort of basic training ingrained into them so that they can serve as a local militia.
The frequent slovesa raids and criminal activity made it a necessity to carry rifles around even when going about their daily activities, though not in New Saint which was well defended.
Many schools across the Empire hence set it as a core curriculum subject for all students regardless of specialization, and it was the same for the Five Families College.
However, her potential opponents would naturally be the best of the best.
They would’ve aced every shooting test and combat scenario provided to them and they would not even need the competition to be accepted into any of the military legions due to their accuracy and versatility.
Pondering on how to choose her loadout, she stood in front of three large physical display monitors on the wall of her waiting room. They showed the available weapons, exosuits, add-on modules and total budget allocated to her.
The participants of the ranged category had a limitation on what they could ‘buy’ from the arena store. Every participant was given the same store list, so Trissa could infer what her opponent could potentially have.
She took note of any air-locking rockets and rapid-fire machine guns that had aim assist, which seemed counterintuitive to the purpose of the duel, but the assistance was highly dependent on the user’s NEIR level too.
It would be connected to the exosuit and if the participant's senses were not quick enough to catch onto the AI assistance, it would do more harm than good.
“My enemy should be a ground-based rifle exosuit, most likely medium or heavy. There will be a lot of armour involved, and it’s going to be hard to bypass that…” Trissa thought to herself.
Trissa decided to buy an aerial infiltrator suit, relying on its cloaking panels to try and avoid being shot down from afar in the air. She also purchased multiple smoke bombs that had highly reflective particles that could block hostile scans and vision.
She also made sure they were able to be triggered on command on her body if needed, releasing a defensive smoke area that could help her evade enemy fire.
For her weapons, she chose three thermal knives, a simple one-handed submachine gun and a nail gun that was attached to her arm.
The knife served as close combat, the submachine gun a close to medium-range attack option, while the nail gun provided the kick she needed in case she was facing off against a heavy tank.
Based on the list of available exosuits, she was confident that the nail gun could penetrate most armour. Even the toughest and thickest armour plate on the list could be broken through or chipped off with repetitive shots.
She wasn’t too sure of what weight category of the exosuit the opponent would choose, but the heavier and tougher the exosuit, the less budget they had for other weapons and systems!
As she bought a light exosuit and fairly cheap weapons, she still had a significant budget left. “I should get more add-ons and one-time use devices…”
Trissa finally chose to buy a portable defence barrier that could be deployed on the ground, just in case she had to drop out in the open.
Lastly, she bought a small deployable spear which she inserted next to her thermal knives, for extra penetration in the event the thermal knives weren’t sufficient at breaking through the opponent’s armour.
She could not solely rely on the nail gun for armour penetration – the nail gun was vulnerable to damage and would fail if her exosuit failed too. The spear was a standalone weapon, so it was more durable and efficient.
Confirming the loadout, she only had a couple of minutes left till she stepped onto the stage while the arena staff brought the requested equipment over to the room.
Staff members rolled crates of ammo and weapons into the room, laying them out on an electrostatic mat on the floor. Trissa inspected each of the components as much as she could afford, ensuring that the components would not fail her.
Donning her gear and exosuit, Trissa wore a smooth helmet that had rounded edges, along with the rest of the exosuit being equally sleek and glossy in fashion.
It was not skin-tight, due to the defensive plates, but the edges were mostly rounded and the frame was unnaturally curved with a few sudden sharp tips.
Such a design made it slightly harder for long-distance radar to get a hit, while its downside was that it was extremely irrelevant at short range where visual detection and radar cross-sectional size were much easier to achieve.
It wasn’t Trissa’s ideal exosuit, but it was the closest she had in terms of what was available in the store.
Holstering her three thermal knives with magnetic locks to her thighs, while stowing away the deployable defence barrier to her top right shoulder. She strapped her spear to the back of her waist.
The barrier was the size of a small pauldron, while the spear could be reduced to the size of just the spearhead, not limiting her head motions at all as she tested her range of movements to ensure her combat style wasn’t hampered by the additional gear.
Trissa triggered a system checkout procedure, sequentially testing each of the subsystems.
The flaps on the surface of the exosuit opened to reveal mini-thrusters that would help her perform rapid adjustments in her flight path, a key necessity for aerial combat!
They opened and close in a wave pattern like the gills on a fish as the processor ran a full system check on the exosuit. Even the front of her shoulders had mini thrusters too, to allow her to dodge backwards.
Trissa recalled the conversation with Erik as she stepped out of the waiting room, an arm-wide nail gun strapped to her left arm.
As she reached the arena, the fanfare wasn’t as much as what Braton had, with many people not placing bets on her. To many of the betters, she was a no-name tag-along who was dragged to victory by Ceres and Braton, and nothing special.
After all, how can a single Zone 17 Military Orphanage produce this many talents?
Trissa however didn’t care about the fanfare nor the announcer introducing her while playing a video clip of her aerial combat movements during the ranged group stage qualifier.
Much emphasis was placed on her being the only aerial combatant left in the ranged category, but Trissa focused her eyes on the opposing side of the arena, trying to get a first peek at whom her opponent was, seizing every second she could ahead of the fight to come up with a plan.
However, her body soon shivered at the result. Out of the other corner came a humongous armoured exosuit, where you could barely see the shape of the human who was wearing it. It looked more like a mech-golem than anything else
It was a full-on defensive knight carrying a non-mounted kinetic machine gun in its right hand. It was decked in pure blue and white, with an emblem emblazoned across the expandable tower shield that it lugged around on its left arm, showing the crest of the Five Families College.
The crest was the first thing that caught Trissa’s eyes, and she couldn’t stop her body from shivering in joy as the image of Maddy remained firmly in her mind.
“It’s time to send a message.”
The rest of the melee duels proceeded onward. Despite Braton’s showing of strength that wowed the crowd, the remaining duels were still dominated by the Five Families College.
More than a third of the remaining participants in the melee category were from that school, which showcased their strength and prowess over the other no-name schools even if they were inners.
Many forums were simply talking about how the Five Families College were about to dominate the competition, while others who bet on the dark horses of each category lamented their impending doom.
Some were unwilling to concede, flooding the forums with their continuous praise for the group of orphans from Zone 17.
Even some of the inner viewers who would never consider supporting an outer felt inclined to after watching a specially edited video on how the orphans grew up.
With both Braton and Ceres coming from the same orphanage, it was natural that viewers would want to know what kind of special training was happening there.
“The children come here at all sorts of ages, they might come here when they were 3 or 5 or even twelve years old. The local militia may not have the best of resources to donate to this military orphanage, but we do our part in making sure these children become self-sufficient and able to survive in New Saint or beyond.,” Ann Lesion said as she stood near the open-air school field of Zone 17 Military Orphanage, giving an interview on a recorded video.
“Despite the budget deficits, our children have tried their absolute best, with some going above and beyond to grab onto resources with their own merit. There’s no special training scheme or unique proprietary drugs that we’re giving them; we follow the standard military curriculum for children.”
“We don’t stop them from going to private clubs or events outside if they don’t break the rules. Take for example Braton, who has been an integral part of the Gladius’ bodybuilding club and receiving resources from them.”
“This showcases that outstanding orphans can break the mould, and society should support them no matter what. They are our future and the foundation of our Empire. We are all living on the same planet and in the same nation, so my greatest hope is a harmonious living place for the children of both now and the future.” Ann Lesion gave a photogenic smile to the camera.
“What can you say about Cardenia Hawthorn, the owner of the planet snatching away Ceres? It seems that she’s planning to overwrite the curriculum that has produced outstanding participants like Braton and Ceres!” The interviewer leaned forward and aggressively asked, waving his hands wildly.
Ann’s eyebrows slightly twitched, but she still held the same photogenic smile. She knew that his whole job was to elicit a strong reaction to get more views for his video.
She wasn’t about to throw in the towel, especially seeing as the interviewer was the one paying her directly. Ann would do anything to get more funds for the orphanage.
“It was a tacit agreement with Cardenia, and this enhanced training program that Ceres underwent has been in the works for a good three years ever since Cardenia arrived. It was not a sudden thing; the orphanage was prepared for it in the past and we left it for Ceres’ consent.”
“Considering that he is about to come of age in less than two weeks, I find it more than reasonable to ask him for his opinion rather than sign a contract without his knowledge,” Ann replied gently, not being swayed by the interviewer who looked a bit dumbfounded at the answer given, his aggressive antics paused slightly.
As much as this was a paid interview and pre-planned, her answer clearly contradicted information that was given to him by his sources.
Of course, Ann Lesion never actually had an agreement with Cardenia Hawthorn officially; in fact, the two of them never even met virtually or conversed through email! It was only to Senia, Cardenia’s secretary, that Ann was able to ask questions.
At first, she was extremely reluctant to hand over Ceres to Cardenia, even threatening to release the information that he was being trained and where.
It was only when the details of the training camp and who was involved that she finally managed to calm down. She paid special attention to the assigned medical expert and facilities available for Ceres’s use, relieving her worries.
Naturally, she had received a hefty payout from Senia in order to keep her mouth shut, boosting her orphanage budget by at least a year’s worth of operational costs.
Ann would gladly say anything to fulfil her end of the bargain, and if that involves lying on camera, she would do it for her orphanage.
The interview was a bit annoyed at how the interview was slightly going off-script. “I have sources claiming that you had not received notification of Ceres’ training camp selection, and were in fact angry at them! What do you have to say to this?”
“Contrary to your ‘sources’, I did receive notification beforehand and was never angry at any point during the months that Ceres was in training. You must be mistaken. I have the utmost confidence that the training camp was good for Ceres with no downsides, as evident in his great performance in the group stage.” Ann controlled her facial expression.
The interview went into more detail, asking for specifics on what Ann has done for the orphanage and so on.
“Great! Now as a final topic as the ranged duels are happening tomorrow, I note that participant Trissa is also from the orphanage, and in the same team as Ceres and Braton in the qualifiers! Have they always been practising as a team, and what can we expect from her solo duel tomorrow?”
Ann finally let out a grin. “I don’t play favourites amongst the children; they are all precious to me. Some may not be good at fighting or shooting, but I love them all the same. Trissa however, is a prodigy at aerial combat, both close-quarters and ranged. Whoever is faced against her in this next duel will have a tough fight ahead!”
***
Trissa could sense a difficult fight coming. It was the day of the ranged duels and she hadn’t been called up yet in advance.
Four duels had already gone by, with the fifth one happening now. Trissa continuously checked her multi while she sat in the waiting room alone, trying to mentally prepare herself for any of the remaining opponents.
There were five more potential opponents, seeing as there were eight duels in total for the ranged category, and she had a sixty percent chance of fighting someone from the Five Families College.
She only had fifteen minutes to come up with an appropriate strategy and select her loadout, as that was the estimated duration of the duels so far.
What would she choose? She wasn’t particularly good at sniping which seems to be favoured in this competition but sticking to her aerial combat style in an enclosed arena would make it easier for the opponent to counter.
All the opponents had to do was either deploy an appropriate amount of flak in the skies to blind her vision and take her down, or spray more than enough bullets to fend her off.
Trissa’s speciality of a submachine gun and knife wasn’t good in the early long-range stages of the duel, so she had to consider her loadout much more carefully.
Trissa’s aim wasn’t that great as well, which is why she adopted an aerial raider battle style. The key was to get up so close to her target that aim doesn’t matter anymore.
She couldn’t swap to a standard full automatic rifle as she was not confident in it and she wasn’t as good at throwing explosives like Ceres was. She double-checked the videos of her potential opponents, noting that all of them were generic rifle users with no aerial expertise.
The military orphanage also had a surplus of such users. It was much easier to implement a standardized training curriculum pivoting around one of the basics of ranged combat which was using a rifle on the ground.
Furthermore, most citizens in the Loeric Empire had some sort of basic training ingrained into them so that they can serve as a local militia.
The frequent slovesa raids and criminal activity made it a necessity to carry rifles around even when going about their daily activities, though not in New Saint which was well defended.
Many schools across the Empire hence set it as a core curriculum subject for all students regardless of specialization, and it was the same for the Five Families College.
However, her potential opponents would naturally be the best of the best.
They would’ve aced every shooting test and combat scenario provided to them and they would not even need the competition to be accepted into any of the military legions due to their accuracy and versatility.
Pondering on how to choose her loadout, she stood in front of three large physical display monitors on the wall of her waiting room. They showed the available weapons, exosuits, add-on modules and total budget allocated to her.
The participants of the ranged category had a limitation on what they could ‘buy’ from the arena store. Every participant was given the same store list, so Trissa could infer what her opponent could potentially have.
She took note of any air-locking rockets and rapid-fire machine guns that had aim assist, which seemed counterintuitive to the purpose of the duel, but the assistance was highly dependent on the user’s NEIR level too.
It would be connected to the exosuit and if the participant's senses were not quick enough to catch onto the AI assistance, it would do more harm than good.
“My enemy should be a ground-based rifle exosuit, most likely medium or heavy. There will be a lot of armour involved, and it’s going to be hard to bypass that…” Trissa thought to herself.
Trissa decided to buy an aerial infiltrator suit, relying on its cloaking panels to try and avoid being shot down from afar in the air. She also purchased multiple smoke bombs that had highly reflective particles that could block hostile scans and vision.
She also made sure they were able to be triggered on command on her body if needed, releasing a defensive smoke area that could help her evade enemy fire.
For her weapons, she chose three thermal knives, a simple one-handed submachine gun and a nail gun that was attached to her arm.
The knife served as close combat, the submachine gun a close to medium-range attack option, while the nail gun provided the kick she needed in case she was facing off against a heavy tank.
Based on the list of available exosuits, she was confident that the nail gun could penetrate most armour. Even the toughest and thickest armour plate on the list could be broken through or chipped off with repetitive shots.
She wasn’t too sure of what weight category of the exosuit the opponent would choose, but the heavier and tougher the exosuit, the less budget they had for other weapons and systems!
As she bought a light exosuit and fairly cheap weapons, she still had a significant budget left. “I should get more add-ons and one-time use devices…”
Trissa finally chose to buy a portable defence barrier that could be deployed on the ground, just in case she had to drop out in the open.
Lastly, she bought a small deployable spear which she inserted next to her thermal knives, for extra penetration in the event the thermal knives weren’t sufficient at breaking through the opponent’s armour.
She could not solely rely on the nail gun for armour penetration – the nail gun was vulnerable to damage and would fail if her exosuit failed too. The spear was a standalone weapon, so it was more durable and efficient.
Confirming the loadout, she only had a couple of minutes left till she stepped onto the stage while the arena staff brought the requested equipment over to the room.
Staff members rolled crates of ammo and weapons into the room, laying them out on an electrostatic mat on the floor. Trissa inspected each of the components as much as she could afford, ensuring that the components would not fail her.
Donning her gear and exosuit, Trissa wore a smooth helmet that had rounded edges, along with the rest of the exosuit being equally sleek and glossy in fashion.
It was not skin-tight, due to the defensive plates, but the edges were mostly rounded and the frame was unnaturally curved with a few sudden sharp tips.
Such a design made it slightly harder for long-distance radar to get a hit, while its downside was that it was extremely irrelevant at short range where visual detection and radar cross-sectional size were much easier to achieve.
It wasn’t Trissa’s ideal exosuit, but it was the closest she had in terms of what was available in the store.
Holstering her three thermal knives with magnetic locks to her thighs, while stowing away the deployable defence barrier to her top right shoulder. She strapped her spear to the back of her waist.
The barrier was the size of a small pauldron, while the spear could be reduced to the size of just the spearhead, not limiting her head motions at all as she tested her range of movements to ensure her combat style wasn’t hampered by the additional gear.
Trissa triggered a system checkout procedure, sequentially testing each of the subsystems.
The flaps on the surface of the exosuit opened to reveal mini-thrusters that would help her perform rapid adjustments in her flight path, a key necessity for aerial combat!
They opened and close in a wave pattern like the gills on a fish as the processor ran a full system check on the exosuit. Even the front of her shoulders had mini thrusters too, to allow her to dodge backwards.
Trissa recalled the conversation with Erik as she stepped out of the waiting room, an arm-wide nail gun strapped to her left arm.
As she reached the arena, the fanfare wasn’t as much as what Braton had, with many people not placing bets on her. To many of the betters, she was a no-name tag-along who was dragged to victory by Ceres and Braton, and nothing special.
After all, how can a single Zone 17 Military Orphanage produce this many talents?
Trissa however didn’t care about the fanfare nor the announcer introducing her while playing a video clip of her aerial combat movements during the ranged group stage qualifier.
Much emphasis was placed on her being the only aerial combatant left in the ranged category, but Trissa focused her eyes on the opposing side of the arena, trying to get a first peek at whom her opponent was, seizing every second she could ahead of the fight to come up with a plan.
However, her body soon shivered at the result. Out of the other corner came a humongous armoured exosuit, where you could barely see the shape of the human who was wearing it. It looked more like a mech-golem than anything else
It was a full-on defensive knight carrying a non-mounted kinetic machine gun in its right hand. It was decked in pure blue and white, with an emblem emblazoned across the expandable tower shield that it lugged around on its left arm, showing the crest of the Five Families College.
The crest was the first thing that caught Trissa’s eyes, and she couldn’t stop her body from shivering in joy as the image of Maddy remained firmly in her mind.
“It’s time to send a message.”
