Chapter 248 End of the First stage  

"He's much better than he was at the tournament two years ago." Professor Thaddeus said, noticing Rio's fighting style.

"His aura mastery is insane for kids his age. His avatar alone can hold off two of the top rankers for this year." Professor Harkin commented.

"Not just aura, even the techniques he uses hardly show any faults or extra movements. Even without mana he's holding back the other two." Professor Mythila said, after watching Rio eliminating Morphius with a mana infused arrow that blasted his body, before he even got a chance to make a comeback.

"He was always a monster. So there's no need to be surprised." Jorvik said, as he listened to professors talking about Rio. "You should focus on her instead, she's not any less than him." He said as he pointed towards Amelia, who was fighting closely with Rio, while channeling the last of her mana to eliminate his team who were surrounding the mana core.

Amelia waved her hands, as she sent all the arrows lying on the ground towards Rio. In their path, she clenched her fists, creating a small rift in their path and sending all of them into the torn space, which appeared over the heads of Rio's teammates. The falling arrows managed to hit two of his teammates in their heads. Eliminating them instantly, before they could even notice anything.

"Her talent for space element is top grade." Professor Mythila noticed.

"No wonder, she became an avatar directly after she awakened." Professor Harkin said. Mentioning the rumors that the little princess of Damascus was chosen by a Goddess as her avatar on the very day of her awakening. Though Blake family never announced it, or boasted about it, everyone had heard of these rumors.

"Golden generation indeed." Professor Osborn commented, as he ignored Rio and turned his attention to other displays, where final matches of other classes were starting now.

Every class of first years had a few monsters in them with top talents and skills which are hard to come by in years. This is why even the professors wanted to know everyone's limits and skills better.

Rio noticed Amy's movements, but he let it be and ignored it. He could see, she had no plan to destroy the core, so he just turned his focus towards Rebecca, who was panting heavily. Her face was full of sweat drops, glowing bright in the sunlight, while her golden hair danced along her every movement. Despite the tiredness and exhaustion marking her face, her blue eyes were fixed upon him with the determination to win. Yet all her attacks were turning out to be futile. The more they fought, the more cuts and injuries were accumulating over her body, and now the barrier around her was almost shining in total amber, signaling she would be eliminated any moment now, if she didn't get healed soon.

"You should give up, princess." Rio said as he dodged her attack, while moving closer and giving a light slap to her head. "You're no match for me. You never were," He finished his words, and seeing the fuming expression on her face, a smile came to his face. So just to tease her further, he added "And you never will be."

Rebecca glared at Rio, as she clenched her sword and slashed at him again. "Just stay still and I'll show you, you damn panda."

"Tsk tsk tsk, aunt Athena was right, your language is getting worse and worse, princess." Rio said as he shook his head in 'disappointment' - "No class at all." "You_ " Rebecca, who was about to curse him again, was slapped at the back of her head, this time by Amelia.

"Language" Amelia said, and then ignored her. magic

Rebecca could just stare at Amelia's back and mull over her luck. This pair of brother and sister were just bullying her now.

"Why don't you end it brother." Amelia said, as her sword clashed with Rio's, pushing him back a little.

"What's the rush, I still got more than 2 minutes left." Rio said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Why don't you show me, the technique you picked from the library?"

"I don't have mana." Amelia said.

"Just demonstrate the moves, no need to perform them. Maybe try to use aura in place of mana." Rio suggested, while dodging sideways, as Rebecca, who was resting back threw a stone at his head.

"Is that even possible?" Amelia asked.

"How would I know? It's your technique, did you try it?" Rio said in a nonchalant way, while catching a stone in his hands. He crushed it into little pebbles in his hands and threw them back at Rebecca, eliciting another angry shout from her pretty face.

His words got Amelia into thinking, as she decided to give it a try.

Though it was a stupid move and could backfire, and even hurt her, but they're currently in virtual reality, so she can try it without actually harming her body.

Many techniques had requirements for a specific type of energy, like some worked only by magic and some only worked without it. Yet there were a few techniques and methods, which could work with all kinds of energies, be it mana, aura, ki, Ether, Arch or Chakra - some techniques could work with everything after minor adjustments in the core idea behind them.

The technique Amelia picked from the Zenith library was an example of one such art. She just had to find the correct method of adjustments that suits her style and abilities.

Planar Imbuement, that was the name of her technique.

Just like his book, hers was written in two parts too, and yes, he did steal the second part for her too. But since she just joined the academy now, and started learning about that technique now, he's still holding onto that part, before giving it to her.

He could teach her everything himself, but that would only hinder her talent and slow her growth. And since there isn't any emergency around, so he just wanted to let her practice with peace of mind.

Future events will already be stressful enough for her anyway.

'It'll be best if Amelia can remove the limitations of the first part before learning about the second one, called Steller Attunement.'

'Well, I already gave her a clue, so she can do the rest herself.' Rio said and stopped Amelia from focusing on performing that technique now by attacking her.

He just said that to give her some clues, as for performing it - there was no need to do so, in front of whole class and academy so early.

He used chains of darkness to bind Amelia and throw her back towards Rebecca, who was trying to sneak up on him.

"Nice try, princess. Better be silent next time." Obviously he didn't forget to laugh at Becca before she fell down and got eliminated.

As Rebecca disappeared from the match, Amelia fell down to the ground too, and Rio knocked her out, by hitting her head with the sword's backhand. Eliminating her too.

This was one of the simplest take down methods of VR knockouts, that only a select few knew and could control.

A glitch in the system you could say.

If someone attacked a steady part of someone's brain in the VR, simulating a specific nerve which gives the signals and maps the data readings in the real world, one could eliminate anyone no matter strength or rank, in the virtual world and trigger the security protocol to have them exit.

Rio had to bash a lot of people's heads in the VR arena's and online tournaments to learn this trick.

Simple painless effective elimination.

Though it only worked in case security protocols are fixed in the settings for that match. This trick is useless in life or death matches and banned in betting games.

Rio looked at the time and saw, one minute and twenty seconds were left now. His avatar had already eliminated Edward some time ago, and now Valtor was the only one still fighting.

Rio didn't care about the victory of the match at all. He just wanted to beat Leon and he already did that. So he was just playing around now.

But even that was enough now, I guess.

Let's just end this, so we can start stage 2 and beat Leon again.