Chapter 68: Who Said I Can't Use Magic?
William was right though. A measly 100 Gold wasn\'t enough to trade for a possible spot on the Ranking Board.
"Then name your price." Carl spread his hands and smiled.
William thought seriously on this. What do I need? What do I want?
After a moment, William had come up with an idea. He smiled back at Carl. "I require living Magical Beasts, is there anything you can do for me?"
Carl and the others were confused. "Your request is...odd. What do you need them for?"
"Nothing specific, don\'t worry about that. Can you do it?" William wasn\'t interested in sharing his secrets with someone he barely knew, much less in public.
Trevor was becoming annoyed. He didn\'t come here to arbitrate a conversation among kids. "Are you going to fight or not?"
Carl glanced at Trevor then returned his gaze to William with a sigh. "I don\'t think there\'s anything I can do about that."
William frowned. It seemed his request was too difficult. "That\'s too bad then, I guess you\'ll have to wait a month."
"I wouldn\'t be so sure about that!" Carl reached to his side where the canister was located and pulled it out. The hedgehog seal was broken and the lid was removed. Inside was a scroll of a deep red color that glowed the moment the scroll was completely unfurled.
A massive summoning circle formed on the ground, taking up almost half of the Arena\'s space. A shadowy figure climbed out of the summoning circle and condensed until it became a red and black hedgehog with long arms and sharp claws.
A summoner too? It seems I got all the unique disciples this year. Trevor forgave Carl and William for wasting his time. After all, the show was about to begin!
"Roar!!" the hedgehog bellowed as its form completely condensed. It looked around and found its master, Carl standing directly behind it.
The sudden appearance of a monster alarmed many disciples battling in the other arenas. Even Elder Wen was concerned for a moment until he noticed it was a summoned beast.
Carl pointed in William\'s direction. "Go Shadog, defeat him!"
The Shadog pounced with high speed at William. The beast was moving at the speed of an early-stage Foundation Establishment Realm Beast, which was the peak of what William had shown so far.
Seeing the summoned creature reminded William of Atticus, whom had remained in hiding using his Illusion Magic for the past few weeks. William wasn\'t able to use him lately since there were too many powerful people around.
Given that even the Sect Master didn\'t notice Atticus on his shoulder, William assumed the Illusion Magic was quite powerful, which further cemented his decision to keep him a secret.
Since it had come to this, William decided to start using Intermediate Arrays. He created a Confinement Array that restricted the Shadog\'s movement briefly, then layered three Intermediate Barriers in front.
The Shadog seemed to be more intelligent than other beasts. When it broke free from the Confinement Array and saw the Barriers in front of William, it didn\'t attempt a head on attack and instead tried to go around the Barriers.
Carl sneered at William\'s action. He probably didn\'t know that a summoner could communicate and give orders to a summoned beast telepathically. He paid attention during William\'s fight with Natsu and knew that the Arrays were his most troublesome attribute and planned ahead just for this moment.
The Shadog was about to land on William when it was suddenly blasted backwards. The scene unfolded so fast that only Trevor saw what happened. Carl received a mental transmission from the Shadog that indicated it was in severe pain before it collapsed to the ground with burn marks across its chest.
Carl looked at William, who was standing on the other end of the arena with a fist made of flames and a wide grin.
"Who said I can\'t use Magic?"
Trevor couldn\'t believe his eyes. There were two Manamatus in one group of six new disciples? What was going on? He wondered if he should visit the gambling den later that night.
Tia felt embarrassed. She previously compared herself to William, and even thought she could do better than him, yet he had been hiding too much since the first battle with Filipe.
Tia looked at Filipe, who had come from the same city as her. He was very popular for his strength and skill, especially his ability to defeat his opponents with a single glance. Yet, William had defeated him in less than a minute.
She replayed the scenes of William fighting in her mind, realizing that he had actually been adjusting his strength to his opponents. He has been taking it easy this whole time!
With Shadog defeated, Carl didn\'t have a fighting chance against William. The summoned beast was his trump card, and although he could summon others, they were not nearly as strong as Shadog so it would be a waste.
"I admit defeat." Carl said with his head hung low. If he had known William was this strong, Carl would have forfeited before the fight even started. At least he would still have Shadog. Now his chances of earning 80 points were extremely slim.
Trevor nodded. It was clear that Carl couldn\'t turn the fight around. "William wins!"
He looked at Gunther, who appeared rested. "Are you ready?"
Gunther nodded. "Yes Senior."
He stepped into the arena once again, this time in a more serious manner. His opponent was also a Manamatus, and could create Arrays. Gunther decided it was best to save his energy for the other fights.
"I admit defeat."
Trevor wasn\'t surprised. He nodded, then looked at Tia.
"I also admit defeat." she didn\'t even bother to enter the arena like Gunther did.
"Well in that case, I award William 100 points. His total score is now 389, congratulations!" This was the first time Trevor had seen someone with more than 200 points. William\'s skills and talent were obviously off the charts, so Trevor would have to be more respectful to him in the future.
After all, William could soon be an Inner Core Disciple with talent like this. Trevor wouldn\'t be surprised if William made it into the top 100 on the Ranking Board at the end of the month.
With William\'s matches settled, the remainder of the fights went quite smoothly. Filipe surprisingly won four out of five matches, securing the 80 points required for the Ranking Board entry. It seemed that no one besides William could deal with his Mind Vision ability, which caused all four of his opponents to instantly fall unconscious.
Natsu Mori defeated Gunther after a long battle, which made both parties unable to fight the next two. This allowed Carl to secure two wins, but he ended up losing to Tia.
Trevor\'s mood greatly improved during and after the matches, so he allowed the disciples to ask him a few questions while they waited for the other arenas to finish their battles.