BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Murmurs started spreading through the crowd, and a few people moved uneasily away. Today they had seen a side of Erik Romano's character they had never seen.

He wasn't only ruthless but also mercilessly cruel to his opponents. The murmurings spread swiftly now among those who hadn't heard yet about how he had trashed Rocco Johnston in their match.

Knowing well how capable Rocco really was, the people that previously abused Erik started fearing him.

In the meantime, Erik was walking through the school campus, oblivious to the rumors about him. He had a smile plaster on his face due to his first victory.

With this, he could go to the second round of the tournament, he only needed to win four times to get a spot inside the Red Palace, and now only three remained.

Erik was returning to the gym, where he and the others decided to meet after their match ended. Once he arrived, he saw Amber and Gwen already there, but Floyd was missing.

"Where is Floyd?" Erik asked his two friends.

"He isn't done; apparently, he got paired with Adam," Amber replied.

"Adam? Do you mean the guy who can control ice? One of the top students?" Erik asked.

"Indeed, he was having a hard time fighting him..."

"Should we go watch his match?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah, we should," Erik said.

With this, the trio quickly went out of the gym and headed to where Floyd had his fight. When they arrived, they saw Adam unleashing many attacks at Floyd.

Adam had an amazing power, which allowed him to manipulate ice. Since he awakened this power, he was immediately made part of the Silverbend clan, a group whose power was related to ice.

Whenever someone unlocked an ice-related power, these were immediately taken by the clan, nurtured, and raised as if they were their own.

Adam was a talented child but still had problems controlling his power. He could create ice projectiles at most, but his power was very powerful even then.

Though the current match wasn't good as Floyd was strong and talented. Not only he was good in hand-to-hand combat, but he also had a unique power. It was an Energy negation power, an ability that allowed him to dissipate whatever kind of energy the enemy used, even kinetic ones.

The match was hard for Adam, who fought by using projectiles since Floyd could negate the projectiles' kinetic energy.

This didn't mean that Floyd was in a better situation, in fact, the power that the ice user could muster from his brain crystal was incredible, and Floyd was struggling to dissipate the energy that his opponent's attacks had.

If Floyd had more neural links, he might have been able to win easily against this opponent, but since he didn't have them, he was struggling. All in all, the fight was balanced, with Floyd only being better than Adam in terms of martial arts.

Professor McAllister was watching the fight. He knew this wasn't a win for the school because whoever lost the match couldn't go to the Red Palace; preventing one of the top students from going there was a waste in the teacher's eyes.

If only Erik hadn't awakened, all of this wouldn't have happened; the principal was overstepping his boundaries by establishing this fake tournament. It was clear that he knew that Erik could join the Red Palace, but the number of available spots was limited, and the only way for him to join was that one of the top students dropped. Hence he came out with the tournament idea.

Adam's and Floyd's match was mesmerizing.

Floyd stopped two small ice darts from impaling his shoulder by using his power, and as the darts fell to the ground, he charged at Adam, who didn't have the time to create more darts and went into a defensive position.

As Floyd reached the young man, a flurry of punches was unleashed, swing after swing and dodge after dodge; the two fought, exhausting their stamina and mana simultaneously.

The match lasted ten more minutes since Erik, Amber, and Gwen arrived until it came down to the last minute when Floyd decided he had to take a drastic measure.

Both combatants were exhausted, and their bodies were trembling under the pressure of exertion. Their breathing became heavy and ragged while their muscles were burning with pain.

Floyd was going to charge one last time at Adam, who looked at the opponent with worried eyes. The match was going to be decided by Floyd's ability to tank Adams's attacks.

Without considering his well-being, Erik's friend launched himself against Adam, who smirked at that and punched Floyd's head with all his strength.

<It's done,> Adam thought.

Though things weren't going to turn as he wished since Floyd resisted the young man's attack, he unleashed a punch of his own, then another, and then multiple ones. Adam couldn't distance himself from Floyd, who stuck to him like a fly. He tried giving him punches, but Floyd tanked them all as if they were nothing.

As a final blow was struck and reached Adam's temples, the young man felt himself losing consciousness. He couldn't withstand any further attack and succumbed to the darkness.

"THE WINNER IS FLOYD VALDEZ!!!"

Cheers erupted from the crowd that gathered to look at the match. Floyd showed one more time that he was indeed strong, and Adam, despite having lost, showed everyone that he was unmistakably one of the school's top students.

The only problem for Adam was that he lost his right to join the Red Palace through the school by losing this match. Something that would greatly anger him once he woke up.

Floyd looked at his surroundings and noticed Gwen, Amber, and Erik among the crowd. He smiled at them and gave a thumbs-up while walking in their direction.

"Congratiulations Floyd!" Erik said to his sweaty friend when he approached the trio.

"Thank you! It was hard!" he replied.

Today, all four students had their fights and weren't required to stay at school; the teachers had already uploaded the results to the system, so they were free to do what they wanted.

"Do you think the others are faring well?" Erik asked his friends.

"I don't think Nathaniel and Anderson are having problems, but I'm not quite sure about the others. We should probably go see the results of today's round," Gwen suggested.

Erik nodded in agreement. They walked towards the school's main entrance, where a huge electronic board, usually reserved for different information, was now showing the tournament results.

"Let's see who did win..."

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Garfield Valenzuela

Anderson Worthington

Sonny Swanson

Gwen Lindsay

Earl Obrien

Floyd Valdez

Arabella Rowe

Faizan Mcknight

Erik Romano

Enzo Morse

Rayhan Torres

Amber Joyce

Pauline Fitzpatrick

Nathaniel McConnell

Darragh Montgomery

Jacob Humphrey

Stefan Strickland

Serena Gregory

...

...

...

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88 people did go to the following round, which had to be held tomorrow.

"What do we do now?" Amber asked.

"I don't know you, but I will probably take a shower," Floyd said.

"Yeah, me too..." Erik replied.

"Meh, let's meet back here later tonight to get some food or something," Gwen said.

"Sounds good to me," Floyd replied.

***

They met up again around 8pm at a restaurant near the campus called 'Ribs & Burgers'. After ordering a few meals, the group sat at their table, waiting for the food to arrive.

"So, how'd your fight go?" Erik asked Amber.

She took her first bite out of the burger she ordered before answering. "Well, it wasn't particularly hard." She bit another piece off. "The guy didn't even have proper training, I bet he joined just because someone told him to, so I guess it was to be expected."

"Good for you," Erik commented.

"And yours?" Erik said to Gwen.

"Well, my opponent was a half-assed swordsman; it could do nothing against my defenses, so it didn't take me much to dispose of him. What about yours?" Gwen asked the young man.

Erik then told his friends what Rocco Johnston did, how he ridiculed himself, and how his mother and father interfered with the fight making their son lose. Not that he had any possibility to win, but losing because of your inability was always better than losing because mama interfered.

Like that, the first day of the tournament ended with the four friends eating together and talking about the next round.

The following day, they had to fight against unknown opponents. They were pretty nervous, especially since they knew how strong their fellow top students were at fighting and how powerful their brain crystals were. But if there was anything they knew, it was that whatever happened, they wouldn't give up.