Fred had gotten out of the hospital Monday morning. Rudy would have to stay in another day or so.

“Make sure you don’t get knocked out before I get a chance to watch.”

“You wanna watch me get Knocked out?” Fred enquired with a raised eyebrow,

“Absolutely, you tend to dominate the younger years, if someone can Knock you out then they must be skilled.”

“Some friend you are.” They both laughed.

“Right, I’ll see you tonight before I return home,”

“Cool, cool.”

His body still ached, but it was nice to stretch it. He walked down the corridor and headed to class.

He got to sit out of training during morning classes, so he would be fully recovered for tomorrow’s event. So, he just used the time for self-study, he had finished 3 volumes on blacksmithing theory so there was only practice left, but he would have to be a bit older for that, and he couldn’t do it in school.

However, he had recently acquired an encyclopaedia on north Franconian flora and spent the day reading it. He had noted a few plants of interest for later study by the end of the day.

___

After seeing Rudy, Fred went home, his mother was staying in the house with them, it was the middle of June, the tournament would take 3 weeks and then the kids would break up for summer, so Isabella would go home with Fred.

“You are finally out” Isabella picked up Fred and hugged him when he entered.

“Yes, mother… I can’t breathe.” He struggled to say.

After a few more minutes she put him down. ‘Honestly, I’m 6 years old, how can she just pick me up like I weigh nothing.’

“Hey, Fred, I missed you.” This time Jessica hugged him, which he happily accepted. Only for his face to go dark when he saw his mother ‘try to hide’ her massive grin with her small fingers. Unfortunately, Maids weren’t allowed on school grounds, so this was the first time she got to see him since the fight.

Next to his mother was Rudy’s maid, she was looking anxious while fiddling with the hem of her apron, the corner of her eyes was a bit watery. Fred was released by Jess, and he walked over to her, “Don’t worry Julie, Rudy is doing ok, he should make a full recovery by tomorrow or Wednesday. And he was in happy spirits when I left him today.”

Fred gave him a copy of the High-level maths books before he left, Rudy was on the track to become a blacksmith enchanter, but Fred thought of upgrading him from a blacksmith to a mechanical engineer, and for that, he would need maths.

___

The next day Fred had gone to school early so he could meet Rudy before he left. Only Rudy had passed out and the doctor said he came down with a fever. Fred was confused. But then noticed that there were a few pieces of paper on the side cabinet, when he looked, he saw high-level maths equations. “Ah, shit, here we go again.”

“What happened, do you know what is wrong with him,” the doctor hadn’t seen a case like this, or at least couldn’t put his finger on one.

“He completed a maths equation far too advanced for his skill,” Fred passed the doctor the paper, “He’s suffering from a sudden growth in exp as he forced open an advanced skill, causing all predeceasing skills to meet requirements.”

The doctor was sceptical to go off by an answer from a kid, but still enquired, “Is he going to be ok.”

“Well, I’ve experienced this phenomenon about 5-6 times by now and I haven’t had any lingering side effects, the time I had a fever for a similar maths equation, I was out for 3 days, but at the time my skill was a lot lower beforehand. Plus, another kid at my castle went through with such a thing as well and he’s alright.”

“Are you sure,” the doctor couldn’t be too believing in the kid, they might not know how to properly examine their own body as a doctor could.

“The boy was our family doctor’s apprentice, he checked us over 2 weeks after all symptoms of the fever went away and couldn’t find any underlining problems.”

The doctor inwardly sighed from this answer, at least, on a professional basis, he could accept the findings from another doctor, if he had to explain to the kid’s parents, and that his only conjecture came from a little kid, he would be laughed out of the profession.

“Can I get the name of your doctor to confer with him, this kid still suffered the fever under my care.”

“Sure,” he knew what the reason the doctor was asking him, and to be honest, even from a professional stance, the doctor wouldn’t be allowed to just trust a kid on such a topic. He handed the doctor the name and contact details and the address for the letter.

___

Fred went on to his morning classes, only for him and the participants it was just a warm-up and prep class for the tournament in the afternoon.

The other school’s team was in a different field, it was arranged like this to prevent spying and allow the kids a proper chance to get into the mood without the worry of snooping from the other side.

During lunch, Fred ate a light meal of salad, steak, and eggs, he would need fast-burning energy for the match while not overburdening himself with carbs. Although his diet normally was heavily skewered towards meat, usually taking 2/3rds of his plate. It was what his race required to help maintain muscle mass.

He had two matches today, both against the opposite school, and as he conjected, he got easy wins from his fighting style, whether from its efficiency or the opponent’s inexperience facing it.

This year was a change to 64 participants, and so Fred got into the top 16.

“That kid is up to even more surprises again,”

“Yes Principle, I have not seen that style either.”

“Really, I thought you had experienced many battles?”

“Although, it seems to match the fighting style described in the early days of the Heavenly Empire when it was on the rise.”

“O, that is surprising, we don’t have many texts from them, they are quite protective of their history. I wonder where he got such a manual from?”

“Could be a fluke, the empire wasn’t waterproof, no matter how much they tried.”

“Interesting…”

___

“Who is that kid, none of the two contestants had much-staying power against him?”

“He is a bastard from the Aquitaine family’s, he is currently living in this colony to the west, he is the one being claimed responsibility for the Red cherry wine, and it is likely him who worked on the wild Silverberry wine.” Each side had vetted to competition in advance.

“Interesting… so he’s the reason my cousin has started his plans.”

“Presumably, Principle”

“Yes, yes, officially there is no link.” She mused, “is there anything about his family.”

“There are rumours that his county has started producing better quality steel armour, and at a much faster rate than the norm. as well, there is word that the main houses had mobilised troops towards his county,”

“A take-over, internal squabbling, how rare,”

“No, it seems they are pushing into the elven territory, they have already made a base across the river in April and are bee-lining towards the mountains.”

“O, probably the closest metal mountain to them, this would help them quite a lot.”

“Yes, it seems like other duchies have gotten wind of this and are mobilising to keep up, the Aquitaine houses are in a good position right now to not be disturbed in this endeavour.”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t try anything,”

“Any news on my cousin going into hiding,”

“There is talk of it being at the end of July.”

“Hmm,”

“You don’t sound convinced?”

“A rumour like this wouldn’t get out unless the king wanted it spread.”

“But why would he spread such a rumour?”

“Who knows?”

___

Fred had a small celebration at home for the wins, it wasn’t too grand as they didn’t want to jinx it for the next matches.

“You used that technique again, I remembered seeing it for the first time in a spar with George when you used it to nip him twice in a row.” Isabella was remembering the past.

“Yeah, and then he upped his game and gave me a beating.” Fred aggrieved to the amusement of the others.

His next match was on Friday, the juniors had their first match today and the second would be tomorrow, then the seniors would have both matches tomorrow. Then it would be back to Infants

“Hopefully Rudy would be out by Friday.” When Fred had first told Delphine and Julie about the fever, they both panicked, but calmed down after the explanation, however, they still gave Fred pouting looks for his recklessness.

Fred decided to watch the Juniors and Seniors in his class, he was hoping to gain some insights into their fighting style.

___

Rudy came out of Hospital Friday morning, Fred tried to apologise for not warning him, but he was thankful, he had gained so much exp so fast, and had reached level 9. Now he was on the same level as Fred, well, for a short time anyway. Fred was close to maxing his exp and levelling up.

Hearing this Delphine said she was going to try it when they got home at the end of the school term.

All three of them were at the 2nd ascension.

Fred had his third match, but to his surprise, his opponent was copying his style, well at least hiding the sword behind the shield, you can’t copy fighting styles and expect to be good over 2 days.

And it showed, his opponent’s shield kept interfering with his sword strikes. Fred had allowed him 3 strikes to gauge his understanding of the style but had seen enough by then and was easily able to disarm him by the third, mainly, due to him losing a firm grip when knocking his own shield on the swing, and tapping the neck for the match win.

His fourth match was a lot trickier; the opponent didn’t copy his style after hearing about what happened with the last guy, but was skilful in his own right, most of the fight he had Fred on the back foot but couldn’t land a definitive blow.

He tried to use a feint to catch Fred, and Fred took it, but to his surprise, it wasn’t as much of a feint as he believed, and Fred managed to strike him, causing a reversal.

This time Fred went with a relentless battering onto the opponent’s shield, almost as if he was trying to chop the wood. His arm was getting saw from the battering through the shield and then suddenly faltered giving Fred a free strike to the side of the chest, clipping around the chest armour and into the gambeson, knocking the wind out of him.

He could hold on to the match a bit longer, but couldn’t reverse the situation at this point, and eventually crumbled.

“Winner Frederick de Ansul.” The Referee called out to the cheering of the crowd.

Fred helped his opponent up and they shook hands before going their different ways. He was now in the top 4. To his surprise, he was the last of his school. The other three contestants were from the other school.

His next match and the final will be on Tuesday, so he had a long weekend to rest. However, it felt like Tuesday came too fast, probably from all the buzz and excitement.

___

Fred had just got onto the stage, to face his opponent and was rearing to go. Although you couldn’t tell from the outside, he just looked like a calm predator standing off against another.

There were no shit-talking at this stage of the tournament, both sides knew the other had gotten here through strength and skill.

“Fight” The referee started the match, and Fred’s opponent ran at him, stopping his legs a few inches in front while the rest of his body went forward to support a quick stab. Fred crouched while raising his shield to parry and giving out a whack to the opponent’s legs, under his shield.

The shield had hidden most of this attack, but his opponent had just caught it in his sights at the last minute, managing to react in time and hop away, Fred followed up with another attack before the opponent reaffirmed his footing, but to no avail.

The two created a meter between them and paused for a breath of a second. Then Fred went in, being in the first year, Fred was shorter than his opponent. And although this gave his opponent the reach advantage, Fred had a lower centre of gravity and used it to his full advantage, getting in low, close to his opponent.

For the opponent to parry with his shield at such a low angle, he had to sacrifice good opportunities to attack, so he kicked at Fred to create space and then went in for a follow-up charge, giving Fred a shield bash.

This knocked the shield out of the way and allowed for an easy strike to Fred, Fred had parried this attack but due to the poor angle of his sword and the opponent’s superior strength, caused pain to ricochet through his hand and arm, loosening his grip.

He still hadn’t palled back his shield for the next attack that disarmed him, now he was left with a shield, which he moved to intercept the next attack in the nick of time.

His opponent went for a second shield bash, but this time knocking Fred’s downwards and managed to get his sword at Fred’s neck before Fred could recover.

“Match, Preston de Foix.” The Referee called.

The two shook hands and departed. Fred went for third place and won later that day but was gutted to lose in the semi-finals. Still, for a first-year, he did quite spectacular, and the family eventually celebrated at the house for his achievements, after He managed to calm his mother and prevent her from seeking the guy he lost to.

Fred didn’t feel like he could participate in the following year’s as he would just be able to overpower them eventually and it wouldn’t be a show of skill. So this and probably the first year juniors would probably be the only times he could participate in a close to as a fair fight.

He could probably participate in the unit combat games, as they were more team-based than a one-man show.

They stayed in the city to watch the combat games at the end of the tournament, this had the biggest crowds, and the atmosphere was amazing. The 20-man fight was a straight-up slugfest, but the 60-man match used more tactics as it was a 3v3 unit size, it was quite nerve-wracking.

Ludnus had put all their best players in the left flank hoping to crush that side first and wrap around, while Valence had put their elites in the middle unit, it was a very different way of fighting in a battle line, you had your comrades to protect you from mistakes allowing you to go for more risky attempts.

All of a sudden Ludnus’ left flank pushed in fast, causing the Valence, right flank to fall back a bit until stabilizing, however, this allowed the back right square of Ludnus to charge into the enemy’s flank of the middle unit.

This reduced the left flanks mass and was now being pushed back, but it had caused severe losses to Valence’s middle flank starting a crumble of the valence’s troops, in the match as soon as you fall over you were out. And Ludnus had knocked out 7 people with this manoeuvre, 2 with the first push and 5 from the flank charge. While only suffering 2 themselves on the counter push.

This had caused a snowball effect, and now Ludnus’ middle unit was wrapping Valence’s counterpart. At this Valence had to curve the front line in on themselves to stop any more pushes.

But Valence’s right flank had pushed Ludnus’ left flank too far, and they fell for another trap, the spare men from the back of the middle unit of Ludnus disengaged and hit Valence’s right flank in the rear. Causing the unit to collapse.

With the free unit, they were now able to march around the battle line and box Valence on 3 sides, reducing their numbers at a large rate, eventually winning the match.

___

The match was mesmerising to watch, and Fred was reminiscing the action on the carriage home.

He had a fun year at school, all things considered. And was able to achieve a lot as well. News of the second fort being built had also reached him, which was a good sign. And it won’t be long until they can start mining.

However, what surprised him was what the scouts had found out about the mountain area. they were setting up mining facilities at the south-west base of the mountain, next to the mountain on the south-east side was a nature mountain and then the source of the river and finally the metal mountain occupied by their neighbour.

But between the metal mountain and the nature mountain was a safe passage towards a fire mountain that was to the northeast of the metal mountain, allowing them to collect even more fire spice.