"Tch, you're still here?" Sneered Tairo, as everyone gathered after the completion of the first stage.

It was a little while after I had finished my fight against the Mutants, and I had received a notification from Instructor Satou which confirmed that I had successfully completed the first stage of the exam and informed me to go to one of the other training halls, where everyone was to gather after finishing their fights.

​​

Tairo had just gotten back, about five minutes after I got here, and he had numerous scrapes and scratches on his arms and torso. And of course, the moment he saw me, he couldn't resist walking over to snark at me.

"Oh, no need to look so salty just because you're all scratched up while I'm practically unscathed," I replied in an innocent tone.

"Why you-...! Hmph, whatever, you won't pass the second stage, that's for sure!" He declared, walking off with a huff.

Man, what a dick.

"You sure are good at pushing people's buttons, huh?" Remarked a groggy voice to my left.

"Am I? Well, I do it purely in self-defense, so-," I began to reply.

"Oh, I'm not criticizing you, no need to get defensive...just pointing out a fact," He clarified with a stifled yawn.

Kiran Sigdel, he wasn't the most energetic person, and that's putting it lightly, but somehow, he was the classmate that I spoke to the most. The fact that he sat in the same row as me in class may be a part of that, but honestly, I'm not sure how it happened. We sometimes exchanged words every now and then, and at some point it just became the norm, and before I knew it, I was regularly conversing with him.

"So, how'd your first stage go?"

"Fine, I guess. I just got out of their reach and smacked them till they died," He replied with a shrug, "How was yours?"

"Not bad, managed to get through it unscathed, so no complaints," I responded, brushing off my shoulders.

As more of my classmates began streaming into the hall, the instructor walked in while carrying a box, looking around to see if all of us were here...we were still missing two people, probably the two that had to share a training hall. It didn't take long for them to show up, after which Instructor Satou began relaying to us the details of the second stage...

"You should all be grateful, do you have any idea how difficult it was to pair you all up so that all sixteen of you would be assigned exactly three duels each? Well, do you? No, I didn't think so. So, yeah, pay attention because I won't repeat myself or take any questions..."

I don't think it was that hard, was it...? Since there were sixteen of us, if he divided us into groups of four and had each person duel the others in their group, that'd do it. Wait, had he manually done it instead? I'm pretty sure there's plenty of apps or software that can take care of that.

Talk about a waste of effort, but I wasn't going to bring it up or anything, because A, that's not my style, and B, it would probably devastate him if he realized he had expended more effort than he needed to, and I wasn't that heartless.

"Okay, I've sent you all a message that includes whom you'll be fighting and in which training hall each fight will be taking place. The rules are simple, the duels will be five-minute bouts, and you can use any weapons at your disposal, including physical attacks this time, though I would recommend using XFE attacks as much as possible, since, you know...this is an XFE combat exam. And like I said earlier, winning or losing won't guarantee a pass or fail, it's how you fight that'll actually be taken into consideration...in other words, you could win a duel, but depending on how the fight went, the person you defeated could end up gaining more points that you did. Ah, crap, I just repeated myself, didn't I...tch, forget I said that!"

...this guy has issues.

"Ahem, getting back to my explanation...there are three ways to win your duels, make your opponent admit defeat, knock them out, or force the high tech barrier to teleport them out...hm, I guess I should explain that last one. All the duels will be taking place inside a barrier that's been recently developed for the purpose of allowing X-Warriors to duel safely, called the Duel Field, and they just got approved for use here at the Academy. Basically, you'll each put on these collars, which are high tech sensors that'll react when the wearer is about to receive a strike that'll leave permanent or lethal damage. When the sensor reacts, the Duel Fueld's key function will kick in, that is, to instantly teleport out the person who's about to get injured. Just so we're clear, you will not be fighting these duels in Phantom Mode," He concluded his explanation, before heading out of the training hall with a sigh of relief, "Oh, I'll be watching the duels through the security cams, just FYI. Put on the collars in the box I brought in and then start."

Well, now, this could be pretty interesting. I walked over to the box he'd left behind and picked up one of the collars inside it. It looked different to the Phantom Mode restriction collars we'd used before. I fastened it around my neck and brought up my holo-screen, opening up the message sent by Instructor Satou. Okay, it looks like I'll be fighting...Jian Lee, Makoto Amano and Seila Khan, in that order. Aw, I'd have liked to be paired up with at least one of Bytra, Tairo or Misaki, the looks on their faces after I beat them would've been fucking cathartic...oh, well, hopefully next time.

"Seriously, I'm fighting the Dud first? Talk about unlucky, I wanted some good, challenging fights!" Remarked Jian, as he walked past me without even seeming to notice me.

He wasn't as bad as Tairo and the others were, as in he didn't come over to fuck with me whenever he was bored like they did, but he made it clear that he didn't consider me a threat whatsoever, despite having seen me fight during Instructor Satou's training exercise...well, he probably hadn't been watching. Well, I didn't despise this guy as much as I did Tairo, but I was very much looking forward to proving him wrong.

He had already headed out to the training hall where I was supposed to duel him, guess I'll make my way there too. I had used just under half my XFE during the first stage, though about forty percent of what I used up had been during those last shots I fired to blast the Mutants' heads into paste. Anyway, it had been a bit over twenty minutes since then, so I had recovered about ten percent, and currently had a little over sixty percent of my full capacity intact.

Hm, looking at the match-ups that Instructor Satou had sent us, it looks like there would be a break of at least half an hour between each duel, in other words, no one would be fighting two duels within the same half hour. Anyway, I made it to the training hall and walked in. Jian was already there, and there was also a drone floating above, hovering near the ceiling of the hall.

"It's about time, I thought maybe you got scared and ran away, not that I could blame you, haha!" He called out as I walked in.

Oh, come on, he couldn't have been waiting for more than two or three minutes. And his tone was throwing me off, it was cocky and confident, but not condescending. I really couldn't figure him out at all. Well, whatever, I don't need to understand him to defeat him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting or whatever, I guess," I replied patronizingly, as I stepped onto the training area.

The drone then began forming a semi-transparent barrier around us, occupying nearly the entire space excluding the sidelines. So, this is the Duel Field, huh? I gave it a tap out of curiosity to see what it felt like...weird, it felt solid, like I was tapping on a wall.

The drone then manifested a holographic countdown, as I readied my weapons, setting my X-Blasters to maximum output and taking out my X-Blades and manifesting the blades by running a steady stream of XFE through them.

"Now, that's more like it! !" He exclaimed enthusiastically, forming his green energy axe.

Five...four...three...two...

...ONE!

I fired a couple of shots from my wrist-blasters, which he deflected with a swing of his axe, right as I swiftly shot across to his left with my blades poised. He chased after me with his axe raised, springing towards me and swinging it down at me with all his might.

I quickly side-stepped to avoid it before closing in on him, slashing one of my blades towards his side. He dodged at the last minute, my blade nicking his t-shirt and leaving a small cut. Just like my outfit, his looked like normal clothes but were actually lightly armored. Actually, his felt more thickly armored than mine, which meant that it was also heavier.

"Oh, close one! Maybe I misjudged you, Dud," He grinned, letting out a laugh as he spun around and swung the axe down at me.

I quickly crossed my arms to form my barrier, his axe shattered it but bounced off slightly, giving me a small opening. I swiftly shot forward and swung my left blade up at his face while firing a couple of shots from my right wrist-blaster at his chest.

He let go of his axe and caught my left hand before my blade could reach, letting out a grimace as my fired shots struck his chest. He began to tighten his grip on my wrist, but I quickly fired a shot at his hand, forcing him to let go. I backed away while firing a couple of shots to keep him at bay.

He swings that axe around with minimal effort, and he was quick on his feet too. And I can't rely on him weakening like the Mutants did, Dark Attribute XFE was toxic to humans as well, but not nearly as much as they were to Mutants. Since this bout was only going to last five minutes, any deterioration in his physical state by my XFE would be minimal at best. He dashed at me again, his eyes alight and a wide grin on his face.

"Hey, now, you're pretty good! !"

A compliment? Man, this guy really throws me off. Whatever, it doesn't matter. He sprang up and swung his axe down at me again. His attacks were straightforward, but they were so fast that I didn't have time to dodge, even though I knew they were coming.

I formed my barrier again, which had the same result as last time, shattering and slightly deflecting his axe. Now's my chance! As I began to step forward towards him with my blades poised, a triumphant grin spread out on his face.

"Did you really think that the same move would work on me again? I win!" He declared, starting to flick his wrist to whip the axe down towards my back.

Perfect, that's just what I wanted him to do...because this wasn't the same move as before. With a swift flick of my fingers, I flung both my blades at him, one aimed at his throat and the other at his left eye, right as his axe began nearing my back. At the last moment, he began to tilt his head to the right with a look of alarm, but I had flung my blades from less than a meter, effectively point-blank, so even with his impressive agility, there was no way he was dodging this.

I felt his axe start to press onto my back right as the tip of my blades made contact with his neck and the corner of his eye...and the next thing I knew, I was on the sidelines, and so was he. The barrier then faded, and the drone projected a hologram that read 'Result: Draw'. So, his axe reached me at the exact same time that my blades reached him. Damn it, I should've been faster, I'd be dead or at least badly injured if it hadn't been for the barrier.

Looks like the axe has left a cut in my jacket, but my undershirt was fine. Well, it's a good thing I had a bunch of spares of this outfit. I glanced over at Jian...he had two pin pricks of blood trickling down, one on his neck and the other on the side of his neck. It was like he had been pricked by needles in those spots...which meant that he had been teleported out right after the tips of my blades nicked his skin.

In other words, the teleport function of the Duel Field wasn't exactly instantaneous. Well, I guess it was fast enough, a little rip in my jacket was way better than the alternative.

"A draw, huh? Well, that's a shock...man, I really underestimated you! You're really fast and your moves are super annoying and hard to deal with!"

Seriously, what's with this guy?

"Uh...thanks, I guess."

"Man, I did not expect a Dud to be so strong, I was under the impressions that Prodigies were just way stronger than everyone else!"

"Okay, seriously, how do you keep saying a derogatory term with seemingly no malice, it's really weird."

"A derogatory term? Huh?"

"Huh?"

"..."

"..."

"Wait, what do you mean?" He inquired with a look of genuine confusion.

"You're kidding, right? 'Dud' is a derogatory term that some Prodigies use to insult regular Paragons who failed to become Prodigies, since they consider themselves to be superior humans. Personally, I've gotten used it, but the way you use it without any condescension is kinda unsettling. I mean, you do know what the word dud literally means, right?" I informed him with a raised eyebrow.

He was silent for a while after I finished, his eyes wide and his expression blank. Okay, fucking seriously, what was with this guy?

"Yo...shit, man. I always thought it just meant 'normal person', with no negative connotations. But now that you mention it, a lot of things are making sense...damn, I gotta lotta people to apologize to. You too, man, my bad...er, sorry, what was your name again? I know there's a K and a Z, but I haven't actually read it properly," He remarked sheepishly.

"It's Kilzachs. And no worries, I guess...if you didn't know, then no harm, no foul. But seriously, how could you not know?"

"Well, back during high school, most of my Prodigy friends used it so normally, plus it was a lot easier to say than 'regular person' or 'normal Paragon', so I just said it too. But now that I think about it, my Dud-...I mean, my non-Prodigy friends did seem kinda miffed whenever I used the word Dud. And the way that Tairo guy says Dud does sound pretty insulting, I should have realized it sooner...damn, I'm stupid. Well, thanks for enlightening me, Kilzachs! "He grinned, slapping my back.

Ow, that hurt...well, I won't complain, I had one less person antagonizing me now that this dumb misunderstanding was cleared up. Anyway, my first duel out of three of this exam had ended in a draw, a decent enough result, I suppose. But I'll win the next one...

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