THE BETTING IN THE COMPETITION
Hugo witnessed firsthand how we dealt with many Venus Tiered creatures that even their Knight Templars were hopeless against.
"That is a good sign", I replied to him.
"Why is it good to be unfavored?" Hugo asked me.
"Then my pay-out will increase correspondingly", I replied to him.
"Are you serious boy, you are thinking about the bets running in the competition?" Hugo asked me.
"I'm not stupid and I know very well what is going on here. This is not just a competition to select talented students for a prestigious school. This is an opportunity for the rich people and also the commoners to speculate", I replied to him.
"You do know much for a boy this young", Hugo said to me.
"I have 10,000 silvers, bet it all on me winning every match and pile up the earnings after each win", I asked Hugo to bet on my behalf.
"What, you are going to bet on yourself and double down on each match? How many matches are you expecting to win?" he asked me.
"I plan to win this Competition", I replied to him.
"Well, it's your money but I must charge a commission for betting for you", Hugo told me in a serious tone.
"Of course, this is business after all", I replied to him.
-----
The Competition was in the form of a one-on-one duel between competitors based on elimination.
My friends were all at Awakening Level 7 after partaking with the magic gathering from my Heart lantern during our journey to this town, they increased their magic tremendously and they were now comparable to the best young templars in the area.
Furthermore, Bommurs and Raven were equipped with magic gauntlets and Tanith armor while Minna wore a magic kneecap and Tanith armor that I gave to her as well.
The opponents were children too, like my friends, but we were faced with the weaker participants from the major families. Luckily for us, we were not matched with the elite students from the families.
"Bommurs wins"
"Raven wins"
"Minna wins"
All my friends won the first round of the competition with ease and now it was my turn to compete.
"Oh, that cheating scion of the family came to be killed"
"Yes, beat the crap out of the cheater"
"No way he could win. I'll break the stage if he cheats and wins"
"Yes, I bet my family's savings on him to lose, I'll be rich, haha"
The comments from the spectators were all negative against me but I had nothing against them. In fact, I gave a wink at the man who bet his fortune on me to lose.
We stood on a raised platform stage for the competition and the party who surrenders, drops dead, or gets kicked out of stage would lose and be eliminated from the competition.
"Battle commence"
"See how he runs"
"Yes, he's running away from the stage"
"Serves him right for cheating"
As soon as the referee sounded the battle call, I ran as far away from my competitor as possible until I was on the verge of falling out of the raised platform. However right before I fell, I regained my footing as I balanced myself around the ledge.
"Huh let me beat the crap out of you", my competitor whom I didn't bother to get the name taunted me as he ran towards me with a heavy magically charged punch.
He planned to throw me out of the arena with a single punch and he believed the match was already his to lose.
"Boom"
Indeed, the match was my competitor's to lose because he just lost. He fell over the ledge of the arena and out of the competition stage. That was a loss for my competitor for being clumsy.
The boy tried to climb back to the arena to fight again.
"Leaving the battle arena for whatever reason is a forfeit of the match according to the rules of the competition", the referee told my challenger and stopped him.
"This is not fair, I merely slipped", he protested to the referee.
"The rules is the rules", he replied to him before he announced, "Ermm..Orion wins".
"What happened?"
"How did he fall out of the stage?"
"That clumsy fool lost to the cheater"
"Hell, I lost all my money"
-------
"What happened there on stage? We didn't even see you fight", Raven asked me.
"The other guy was clumsy", I replied to him.
"You are really lucky", he replied to me.
"He doesn't need luck, he even defeated real bandits", Bommurs told him about me confident about my abilities.
"If we ever need to worry is about us, not Orion", Minna told them.
"You guys did well too", I praised my friends for their wins.
My Angel Affinity gave me 4 magical stars in each of my Momentum and Power templar skies compared to my competitor who had at most 1 or 2 stars because he was only at an Awakening Level 7.
Coupled with my magical kneecaps, I was extremely quick and dexterous, so as my competitor's punch came near me it only took a split of a second for me to move to the sides and gave him a slight nudge from behind and he fell to the ground below and off the stage arena.
My move was so quick that most spectators couldn't even see what really happened.
"You won again while doing nothing, is that also due to luck?" Raven asked me again.
Before I could reply to my friend, Hugo came to us.
"Hugo, how much did I win?" I asked Hugo who just came back from the gambling house.
"Well, less the commission that is promised to me, here's a silver ingot, 100,000 silver, that's your winning, your pay-out was high, hahaha", Hugo said to me as he handed me my winnings, laughingly.
"Bet it all on me winning the next match", I asked Hugo as I handed the silver ingot back to him, when he almost choked on his laughter.
"Are you serious?" he asked me.
"Never more serious, double down", I replied to him.
----