Ascension of the elder

"Ohh ahh ahh ahh."

"Yeah Bruno promise me you'll never do that again. Only one man can do that properly and I'm sorry that man isn't you."

"Okay then."

Bruno responded while looking down with a shameful face before he began laughing which brought a wide smile to Kyle's face. They were really enjoying themselves at the moment.

Kyle stepped up and saluted his opponent before shaking his hand; this was another member of a lower aristocratic family who was around 17 years old so he had already been involved in one of these tournaments.

Once they were in their spots his opponent took a stance ready for the bout, Kyle was standing casually with one hand in his pocket and the other in front of him. Even though it appeared Kyle was leaving himself open to attack his opponent didn't want to underestimate him as he had been watching the previous rounds and had seen that Kyle wasn't even remotely close to coming under pressure during them

"Begin!"

Kyle didn't move and waited for his opponent to come to him, thinking that the first one to move will take the initiative the opponent moved fast and coated his legs in mana with the intention of using a skill which increases the impact force during contact.

Kyle noticed that all of the skills these people used were all based around either blasting mana with force outwards like in the case of Clyde's opponent or they would coat their limbs to increase the power of their strike like Willem and this opponent.

As his opponent closed in on Kyle he suddenly jumped and tried to kick Kyle in the chest with his reinforced legs winning the match in a single move. How could Kyle be defeated like this? As his opponent was in the air Kyle merely ducked under him and as he flew majestically through the air Kyle caught his ankle and yanked hard.

From the perspective of his opponent Kyle suddenly disappeared from his view then suddenly his face was rushing to meet the floor. Hitting the ring face first everyone could only give an 'ohhh' as the opponent lay their coughing as he had the wind knocked out of him.

This was quick and hard and the opponent would need a minute to recover. Kyle merely waited while whistling to himself. Other's may find this as disrespectful but Kyle was playing a mind game and put a lot of pressure on anyone who would come up against him.

His opponent gradually recovered and stood back up but just as Kyle was going to press his advantage he dropped out leaving Kyle standing there holding his proverbial cucumber.

"Winner Kyle of the Powell family."

With that Kyle advanced again, he knew this wasn't going to be very interesting but damn this was ridiculous. Bruno wasn't up for another few rounds so they sat back with Neil and Clyde and chatted amongst themselves.

Everyone was looking at these young men and could only hope that they wouldn't be made complete fools of during their matches.

Willem was sat on the opposite side of the arena and his older brother was busy telling him what he should do and what he needed to do. Willem was splendidly ignoring him while staring at Kyle who wasn't paying the slightest attention to him.

Eventually Bruno's turn came up and in the name of brevity let's just say Bruno didn't have any problems. The matches continued and the other competitor from the Powell family also made it through the first round with the others.

Finally it was the time for the match Kyle wanted to see. Clyde versus Willem, this would be interesting to watch as Kyle had warned Clyde about the speed and power behind Willem's strike. This was the best skill he had seen during the tournament as it showed timing and a little martial skill so he wanted to see how Clyde would respond.

They entered the ring and at the signal they rushed towards each other. This was as opposed to Clyde's earlier style where he hung back and observed his opponent. Willem began throwing quick jabs without coating his strikes in mana just to try and impede Clyde.

Clyde deflected these before he kicked towards Willem's thigh to try and break his rhythm. While Willem was caught by the strike he managed to move with it so it only caused a glancing strike but it did force him to take some steps back.

Clyde followed him while throwing punches which now were charged with mana. This was again a simple use of mana but it was different than the skills used before as under Kyle's direction Clyde had begun to compress and harden his externalised mana.

By compressing his mana there was less loss and rather than surrounding his fist in a field of mana it now looked as though he had a glowing gauntlet over his hand.

The older generation were impressed with Clyde's use of mana as it showed a great degree of control and an aptitude in mana based augmentation. If they knew that Kyle was planning on directing Clyde to be a mage their eyes would probably pop out or they'd soil themselves either way was good in Kyle's opinion.

Willem was avoiding these blows and looked as though he was struggling more and more as he was pushed to the edge of the ring.

What followed was an intense confrontation as Willem began to focus mana onto his forearms and shins to help defend against Clyde's attacks while aiming for an opportunity to counter. This mana coating was not as condensed as Clyde's was but it did show a reasonable level of control.

Everyone gave grudging respect to Willem at this point as he was hanging in there against an apparently stronger and more skilful fighter. He began to take some hits but none of them were damaging and at best put him off balance slightly.

Clyde was beginning to get frustrated by now as regardless of how he attacked Willem was like a cockroach which refused to go down, so when one of his strikes managed to knock him slightly off balance he took the chance and tried to follow up with a heavy strike with his right fist.

All of this time Willem had been waiting for a slower strike like this and as the Clyde's fist approached he pulled his right leg back while turning his waist and used the skill he had used in his last match and struck Clyde to his right rib cage.

This strike made Clyde stumble past Willem who moved round him before kicking him from behind forcing him out of the ring. A lot of the members in the crowd stood up and cheered at this point as out of all the fights so far this had been the most exciting.

Willem held his arms up in celebration while turning towards Kyle to bask in his glory and Kyle's consternation. He was disappointed however as Kyle was simply watching with no appearance of annoyance and instead seemed to be thinking of something.

Willem was displeased by this apparent lack of attention to him and quickly dropped his arms before walking off. The referee didn't even get a chance to announce the match before Willem left so with a slightly embarrassed face he just did his job.

"Winner Willem of the Miles family."

Kyle was thinking instead of what would be happening once this tournament was over and feared if he had missed anything, but he couldn't do anything else now as he had only acted based on the information he had on hand.

Kyle was called up and was placed against another member of the Miles family. This was a no name junior who hadn't received any of the family techniques or resources so Kyle didn't even need to use a skill before he knocked him out.

Everyone politely cheered for him but this fight lacked any of the passion and excitement of the previous bout.

Gradually the fights continued with the Powell's winning their bouts until it was finally time for Kyle and Willem's battle.

All eyes were fixed on the stage as Willem and Kyle entered, they had all seen the conflict between these two young men and they were looking forward to how this would play out.

Willem had shown that he was a skilled fighter but no one had been able to force Kyle to show his true strength so he was an unknown quantity which lead to speculation amongst the crowd. Willem was looking at Kyle with venom before he spoke to him.

"I'm going beat that pretty face of yours until your family won't be able to recognise you."

"You think I'm pretty, sorry I don't swing that way."