Chapter 98 - Glitch

Elior felt the hard punch on his mouth and his body flung away a couple of metres away. 

His opponent did not let him go that easily, and went straight at his staggering body to deal punches right at his gut, one after another. The crowd was still screaming—cheering for whoever was winning. They had no favourite so far, after all. At least that was what appeared to Elior as he got all the beatings.

Elior grounded his teeth and tried to put back his armament defence, but it was far more difficult to do it while getting a beating. The match had been going well for him, and was almost on the way to securing victory, but only in one blink of an eye. It turned one-eighty degrees from him giving the thrashing to getting the thrashing.

It was all because of the glitch between his soul and body—this thing was getting super annoyed to him. In the middle of his battle, he was about to end the match, raising some large moves necessary for the ending, but the glitch hit him right at that very moment, rendering all his defence as well as offence useless. He even dropped on the ground at the very instance.

How could his opponent, who was on the verge of losing, let this godsend chance go? He came to Elior with everything that was left in his body. Fortunately, Elior already disarmed him before, or else this could have turned a lot uglier for him. 

Ford, on the other hand, was about to end the match as all he was seeing was the upper-class man beating the freshman while the freshman pulled his arm around his face as a defence. The crowds had turned mostly silent by now.

"That's enough," Elior said finally, and the punches did not hurt him anymore. 

His opponent seemed to have not heard him, kept on punching through after a couple more punches. His arm could not even reach Elior's body as some invisible wall was protecting Elior.

"I said," Elior repeated as a surge of force rushed out of his body, flinging away the one above him. "That's enough."

The upperclassman flung away, and Elior stood up automatically like an invisible man pulling him to stand. The crowd did not understand what happened, but cheered in the uproar again.

Elior spat the blood from his mouth and his empty eyes stared at the upperclassman on the ground. In the end, he had to access the void to get faster hands on his abilities. 

The upperclassman stared at his empty eyes and tried to stand up. Then he saw Elior lift his right arm slowly.

"It's my win here." 

Next, a surge of tension hammered against the upperclassman's body, unearthing the surrounding ground a little. Elior's control was so precise that he limited most of it to his opponent and only left a little amount of tension just to frighten the upperclassman as well as others to let them see what he was doing. 

The upperclassman gritted his teeth. The veins on his temple pulsed and snapped as he tried to stand up, but the tension above his body forced more than the sides of the earth cursed. 

"I . . . I concede," he was able to mutter that and heard the whistle blowing and then found the force free from him. Unconsciously, his eyes drifted towards the horrifying junior again and saw the distant empty eyes turning to normal again. 

The junior wiped the blood off his face with his palm as well as the dirt from his jacket before looking at him. "Good day."

Elior walked out of the stadium among the cheers towards the freshmen dressing room. his opponent had not pulled back a lot when punching his face. Even his bones rattled a little and it still hurt now, with the red-purplish marks.

On the special longue where many guardians of different countries were staying, the old dean peeked his eyebrows looking at the leaving young man. While Aleister was frowning.

"A fine kid you have trained, Aleister," the dean said.

"I would have liked to take the credits, but I have not taught him that yet," Alister answered, though his mind was wondering what happened in the middle of the match. Why did Elior turn into a helpless lamb at that time? It was most likely a mana seizure or falter, but why happened now? 

"You are telling me he learned to manipulate spatial tensions on his own?" The Dean laughed again. "That's even more brilliant. I wondered what height he would reach after your guidance in it."

"The most promising lad indeed," a dark man said from the side. Rews Carter, one of the three heads of the federation, is currently here to attend the gathering as well as the tournament of young promising apprentices. His eyes drifted off towards the head professor. "But I wondered what happened in the middle? Was that a mana seizure? Then again, how could he get hold of himself that quickly?"

"It's likely because Elior is working too hard," Aleister gave an excuse, though it was not random. 

"Working hard is good, but Scribe, take good care of your students," Rews said in a pressed voice. "I know I don't need to lecture you on your ways. Still, don't press more than the students could take."

Aleister raised an eyebrow, but nodded, thinking since when this man started caring about students. 

"They are the future of our planet. Can't let anything happen to them, after all," Rews added, seeing the look on Aleister's face. "By the way, where's Master Issac? I have been here for a couple of hours and yet have not found a wind of him.

'Most likely, hiding from people like you,' Aleister mused inwardly and left it for the dean to answer.

"Issac is doing something important," the dean answered, wishing the master crafter really was doing something worthwhile, though little did that wish bear fruit. "He should be here during the conference."

'I very much doubt that,' Aleister thought. 'And even if he was there, he won't be of much use. Perhaps his daughter will be better suited for the job..' The head professor sighed at that thought.