Reincarnated With a SSS-Rank Hypnosis Skill in Another World-Chapter 42 - Progressing Through the Tournament With Ease
The next day came, and there was yet another match waiting for me. However, this time around, I got lucky and was matched with a very ordinary person. I defeated him quite easily, which made me reach the Top 256, meaning that I was qualified to enter the Royal Academy.
However, that was only the first step. There was still a lot of work to do.
I needed to make sure that I would not finish anywhere other than first.
I could still hear the King’s voice in the back of my mind. I couldn’t fail. I couldn’t fail before, but now it was even more important.
"Are you okay?" Elena asked me.
I only gave her a slight nod.
I couldn’t get distracted by her. I knew that she wasn’t trying to, but her beauty... if she tried to touch me or get closer to me, it could distract me, and that wasn’t an option for me.
I needed to focus on the match ahead of me because now, in the final circles, it wouldn’t be as easy.
Another day went by, and I won once more. It was a bit harder, but I didn’t get hurt, and I managed to get through.
I was now in the Top 128 of students.
I wasn’t anything impressive, to say the least, but it was still decent; let’s put it at that.
However, the real challenge would truly begin in the final 16, where only the most powerful students would be left—the talents of many noble families.
Out of those, Alena and Thomas were definitely the ones who could challenge me the most. However, they weren’t as threatening as when I first met them. I could clearly feel that I had gotten stronger. If I were to fight them, it would be a close fight, but I was confident that I could win.
The real problem was still the black-haired girl.
She was a total anomaly, just like me, but on a whole other level.
Even now, I could barely feel just how powerful she really was. In all of her matches, she hadn’t tried very hard, not revealing anything that could help me or the others beat her. She knew she was being watched, and she was being conservative the whole way.
"Jake!" Elena suddenly screamed next to me inside the carriage.
I came out of my stupor as I felt her staring directly into my eyes.
"Why are you like this? What happened that night? Did father tell you something?"
I shook my head. "Nothing... I just want to win. That’s all. I have to win; I have to show that I’m the best."
I could see it in her eyes—worry.
She was clearly worried that I would get hurt or, even worse, that the image of me dying in that bed kept going through her mind. But it wasn’t anything that I could help her with. I needed to stay focused for my next match, which would be tomorrow.
Every night, I would be training with Lady Seraphina. Instead of focusing on magic spells that required mana, we were training close-range fighting.
How I needed to approach the fights with my dagger.
What I needed to do to win each fight.
By now, everyone knew my strategy of using [Blink] to close the distance and then using the dagger to defeat the person before me.
That’s why we had been working on a lot of things to change the game, to take my opponents by surprise. But I would only use those tactics on those who deserved it.
And my next opponent hadn’t deserved it; I defeated him very easily. I could feel myself growing each day, and surprisingly, I began to have a lot of people cheering for me.
"You can do it!"
"He’s so good! Not even using his Mana Core to defeat them!"
"That’s just how confident he is to win!"
A lot of narratives were being created over time. Everyone thought that I wasn’t using magic because I was that powerful. But that wasn’t the truth at all. I just knew two spells. Using magic with such a restrictive pool of spells was simply a bad idea.
But... it wasn’t like I would be telling everyone about it. It was better to keep them guessing. To keep my opponents guessing about what I could and couldn’t do.
Soon enough, I reached the final 16, and that was where I knew the real tournament would begin.
Each opponent would be hard to defeat without a shadow of a doubt. I would have to use everything in my power to win every single fight.
I had a lot of eyes on me.
My father, the King, Elena, Aria.
I couldn’t disappoint them. I needed to show them that I had changed and that I would win no matter what.
My next opponent was definitely powerful.
He was a dwarf, known to be extremely powerful in close-range because of his armor.
No one had ever managed to pierce his armor or do the slightest amount of damage to the dwarf.
A lot of people thought that he might be my worst match, and I had to admit that... it was true. The only person who could be a worse match was probably that anomaly. I didn’t count her as a normal person. She was different—a freaking monster if you ask me.
The night before the fight came, and I was talking with Lady Seraphina about how to win, and she seemed to have a clear idea about it.
"Your normal strikes won’t work on him. His body and armor are too sturdy for you to damage them. You’ll need something new, a more powerful strike that can pierce through anything. What do you say?"
I looked at her with my eyes wide open and sighed.
"Why the hell didn’t you teach me that before? Wasn’t that the perfect opportunity? Now I have to learn it in a few hours..."
I shook my head.
Sometimes... she really wasn’t the smartest.
