I Refuse To Be Fate’s Puppet - Chapter 58

20 minutes later, Arata was disconnected and took off the Visualization Tech. After destroying the first base, Arata easily swept through the next base while Akari stormed the remaining base and the three classes were defeated. The students and teachers watching were completely stunned by how quickly and decisively they moved. Strategic battles can take hours, sometimes a whole day or 2. It is usually one that takes the longest to finish, yet Class 7 had finished the battle in an hour. Their speed, precision and strength was too overwhelming for the other classes. At this point, the other classes that had yet to compete were feeling dejected, all of them fearful about facing Tallis, Akari and Arata.

But they weren’t the only one’s from Class 7 that were scaring their opponents.

On the Beast Taming stage, the other classes and their beasts were in fear. For the competition, they were to choose a Beast from the list and then they were to tame it within a certain time frame. The analysis of the time it takes, the techniques used and the strength of the beast would determine your score. Everyone believed that Class 7 were being too arrogant when they chose a Silver Grade Aqua Drake. They were solitary creatures that would fuse with lakes or rivers and cultivate within them. They were extremely domineering and powerful creatures.

And yet, to the complete shock to all that were watching, a simple glare from Matoki and Caldre caused the Aqua Drake to be instilled with fear and be suppressed. The Aqua Drake lowered it’s head and allowed them to approach and apply a Taming Collar to it. Their whole process took less than a minute. Complete suppression. Cephas didn’t even bother coming on stage as he stayed to cultivate with the others.

The Aqua Drake had terrified the beasts that the other classes had tamed, while Matoki and Caldre terrified the students. None of them could compare their Taming against Class 7’s. This was too strong. Beast Taming was usually a long process. Even if you had strength, it would still be difficult as you weren’t trying to hurt or kill the Beast, but make it submit to you. Even those with great strength couldn’t Tame Beasts because they would just kill them while trying.

It was a subtle skill that took time to win the Beast over while not being killed or killing the beast. Yet Matoki and Caldre just looked at the beast. Just how freakish were these Class 7 students?

Over on the Weapon Smithing stage, Class 7 was also making waves. The teachers were unable to comprehend what they were witnessing. Class 7 had actually opted to do the entire process of creating a blade without a hearth or a furnace. They also chose a powerful Spirit Metal called Reaper’s Obsidian. At first, they believed that they were just too arrogant for their own good. And then they watched them forge.

Ryouma was using his flames as the furnace. He was able to reach incredible levels of heat, but his control of temperature and even distribution was so precise and detailed that the teachers felt smacked in the face by their initial judgements towards them. With Ryouma’s insane control of heat, he was 100 times better than a furnace. In fact, the furnace wouldn’t be able to reach the temperature needed to smelt the Reaper’s Obsidian unless the furnace was an extremely high quality one.

Aisha was pounding on the piece of metal that Ryouma was heating with her golden gauntlets. Aramis had a glow in his eyes as he instructed where and how hard to hit. Aisha was following his directions perfectly. Ryouma adjusted the heat whenever Aramis instructed him to. Bardric had his axe absorb water and slammed his axe on the metal, cooling it down. He and Aramis began chanting as they sent Energy into the piece of metal before handing it back to Ryouma to heat it again and Aisha resumed hitting it. They repeated this process fluidly without any wasted movements.

They were a well oiled machine as they worked on the Reaper’s Obsidian, beating out the impurities and strengthening the metal through the continuous heating and cooling. Aramis then took the metal that they had turned into a curved blade. He began chanting as he sat down. He sent his Energy into the blade as he sharpened it. As he did that, Bardric built a long staff using another piece of metal with the help of Ryouma and Aisha.

When they had finished, Aramis had finished as well as he brought over the blade and the attached the blade to the staff before completing the chants and applying the last pieces of Energy from everyone. The weapon began to glow as it’s aura began to fill the stadium before receding back into the blade. Aramis was now holding their finished product. A black scythe.

The teacher in charge approached in wonder and began observing it an was shocked at what he found. It was a Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact! They had actually made a Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact! A passing grade to become a registered Weapon Smith was to create a Copper Grade Reservoir Artifact, and that in itself would be astonishing for someone of their age to make. If someone made a Bronze Grade, they would be considered geniuses.

But they were actually able to make a Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact. The teacher did his best to regain his composure as he announced the results.

“S-Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact. No deformities.”

The stadium went silent. Completely stunned at the result. They were in shock and amazed, the seniors were wondering whether they would be able to make a Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact. Many of them knew that the answer would be no. The teacher were stunned when he looked back at the students from Class 7. They looked annoyed. Dejected. And even…..disappointed. Ryouma sighed.

“It still wasn’t enough.”

Aisha nodded with a frustrated look.

“There are still impurities I couldn’t get rid of.”

Bardic shook his head.

“No, that’s on me and Aramis. You had to limit your strength or else it would have broken. We need to cultivate more so we can feed it more Energy.”

Aramis had a look of cold anger. He was clearly the unhappiest in the group. The students and teachers were all stunned at their reactions. They had created a Silver Grade Reservoir Artifact and were still unhappy? Aramis looked up at the teacher with a fierce gaze.

“Is it possible to make something else? We aren’t satisfied with this weapon.”

The teacher was speechless. He didn’t know what to say. They had clearly already won, no one else competing would be able to come close to this level, and they still weren’t satisfied. While the teacher was still struggling to say anything, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Aramis. This is your current limit. There is no need to forge again.”

Aramis turned and saw Arata staring at him.

“This is your limit at the moment. Let it be. We can work on how you all can improve and grow after this.”

Aramis nodded. Arata was right and he knew it. The four of them bowed at the teacher before going to join Arata and the rest of Class 7. The entire stadium were all fixated on Class 7. They had completely dominated three of the competitions. And immediately after finishing, they rejoined the class and began cultivating. The only one that wasn’t cultivating was Arata. He looked more like a teacher than the actual teachers.

He had his classmates in perfect rows, cultivating obediently. He would occasionally crouch in front of one of the students and have a small conversation with them, as if he was imparting wisdom and advice. Is he a student or a teacher? Arata was constantly observing his classmates with Shadow Awareness and was able to notice when slight changes happened in their bodies. In the past two weeks, his class weren’t the only ones that were training. His Shadow Awareness was much stronger now, as was many of his other abilities.

He nodded in satisfaction as he observed his class before turning to the last stage. He did his best not to laugh. Visha was currently asleep on stage. He hasn’t even touched his ingredients or made anything in the past 2 hours. The other students were all finishing off their Poisons and were getting ready to hand them in for evaluation. Arata chuckled.

“Seems that he’s awake now.”

Visha finally moved as he stretched and yawned loudly. The teachers were irritated by Visha’s behaviour and actions. Visha sat up, his eyes still half closed. He sluggishly stood up while trying to scratch his back. He looked around lazily before seeing what the other students were making. Unlike him, the other classes had teams of 3-5. They all had a leader but there was a lot of things to cut up and extract for their poisons, so more hands made the process faster.

Visha looked at what each class were making.

“A Harpy’s Draught. Causes a person to enter a confused daze for a period of 5-6 days. Copper Grade. Shadow Stricken. Causes temporary blindness. Copper Grade. Ooh. A Lava Pill. Causes the heat within one’s body to rise to deadly temperatures. A shame, still just a Copper Grade. Confusion, blindness and heat.”

Visha thought for a second before nodding.

“OK let’s go with that.”

Visha began to haphazardly throw things in a bowl. To most of the students, and even to the teachers, he looked like a complete newbie throwing in whatever he wanted. Their view on Class 7 had lowered seeing that they had someone so rash and useless. But the main teacher that was judging the Poison Enhancement competition was stunned.

He had obviously known about Visha and his skill in Poison Enhancement’s, but he had never had the opportunity to meet him. Now he could see that he was a true prodigy. To the untrained eye, he seemed to be throwing random things into a bowl. But the teacher could see the pieces of Energy that Visha was applying to every ingredient he threw in. The amount of Energy was different for each ingredient, which cause the teacher to gasp. His Energy Control was at such a high level.

Visha then pulled a bottle from his bag and took a drink.

“Mmmm. Yum.”

He then put it back and pulled out a knife. He then hit the table, causing the ingredients in the bowl to fly up into the air. Visha began to move swiftly as he blade became a blur, slicing the ingredients in mid air. The ingredients all landed back inside the bowl. The stadium had once again gone silent. Visha now grabbed different ingredients and went about extracting different liquids and ingredients. His familiarity and ease revealed how experienced he was. Those that were mocking him were now stunned at the efficient moves Visha was using.

His hands danced gracefully over the table, cutting up and adding different things into the bowl. He then poured everything in a cauldron. Visha shouted as he looked inside.

“Ryouma! Ryouma!”

Visha looked over to his class and Ryouma wasn’t there. Visha turned around and Ryouma was walking on stage. Visha clapped his hands.

“Oh goodie, you’re here. Perfect.”

Visha turned back to the table before turning back to Ryouma with the cauldron in hand.

“Nice and hot, please and thank you.”

Ryouma placed his hands on it and his flames began to heat up the cauldron and its contents. Visha placed his hand inside of the cauldron and began stirring his hand inside it. Visha’s Energy began to emanate around him as he sent his Energy into the cauldron. The cauldron and its contents began to glow and a powerful scent spread throughout the stadium.

Vish removed his hand as he smiled at Ryouma.

“Okie dokie. You can go back to slee…cultivate. Bye bye.”

Ryouma nodded as he put the cauldron on the table and went back to join the rest of Class 7. Visha began to move his hands over the cauldron. The contents within began to stir and glow as they reacted to Visha’s movement. Visha chanted as his Energy surged. The cauldron began to shake violently as it glowed before finally coming to a stop.

Slowly, a black pill began to rise from within the cauldron. Visha grabbed it and looked at it.

“Silver Grade. Meh. Not bad.”

Visha walked over to the teachers and casually threw the pill to them, which the main teacher caught. Visha then yawned as he walked over to Arata. The main teacher observed the pill and went wide eyed.

“It is a Grave Senses Pill. It causes your sense of sight, smell, taste and hearing to be cut off while heightening their sense to feel pain, before sending the person into a state of internal pain brought about by the mixture of extreme heat and cold. It also attacks ones mental fortitude as the poison seeps into the bloodstream and targets the brain. A well made Silver Grade Poison. Amazing!”

The teacher looked over to Visha and realized what he had just done. He had seen what the others had done and created a Poison that did what everyone else’s Poisons did but at higher levels and dosages. He was truly a Poison Enhancement Prodigy.

While everyone was in wonder at what Visha had just done, Visha approached Arata.

“So that’s me done, right?”

Arata nodded.

“I’ll see you after your hibernation.”

Visha chuckled.

“Yup. I’ll see you in a month or two.”

Visha yawned as he left the stadium. Arata remained calm as finally sat down in front of his class and closed his eyes. Every eye in the stadium was currently locked on Arata. It was clear that he was the reason for the immense strength of Class 7. Many of the students in Class 7 were well known, so their strength wasn’t a secret. But this was on another level. They were clearly much stronger than before. And Arata was the reason.

The other classes that were up against Class 7 wanted to quit now. The competitions for the first four categories came to an end with the other classes giving up, refusing to face Class 7. So they moved on to the next categories with 4 complete victories to Class 7.