<strong>"Team Zee is incapable of continuing the battle. The winner is Team Camelot."</strong>
As the winner was announced, Azzy and Leah walked out of the field amid the cheers of three hundred thousand spectators.
"It looks like your strategy worked perfectly," commented Leah as they were leaving the stadium before going toward the audience section where the families of Azzy and Leah are sitting together.
Azzy shook his head while staring at his stomach. The wound was healed by the Healing card but three holes remained on the t-shirt. "He got me back then."
"Well, it's common in a fight. I couldn't even fight against Velez Garcia. Compared to that, what you faced isn't even a problem." Leah snorted in response before she added as an afterthought, "either way, you did great in picking the memory item cards as your reward. Your Gravity Suppression greatly helped us to finish them rather quickly."
Two days before the finals, Azzy and his group mates gathered in one room to share the rewards they received for becoming the champions.
As they have seven types of rewards, instead of splitting everything between them, each of them took one type of reward as their share.
For Azzy, only skills are precious and everything else is useless but he was reluctant to choose it. After all, he only fought two battles in the junior league. It wouldn't be fair for him to take them. So, he told them he would want just one or two memory item cards.
However, Claire suggested that he should take five of the memory item cards because he deserved them. Surprisingly, everyone agreed with it. They strongly believed that Velez's defeat is the reason they won the finals.
As a result, Azzy ended up taking all the five memory item cards that have different types of unique skills.
Claire chose five lab-made energy crystals as she wanted to catch up to Azzy in terms of soul power.
Mia chose the rank-8 armor set (Armor, bracers, boots, and helmet) as she was lacking in defense.
Estella chose the Mithril slab (1kg, enough to forge 100 rank-7 to rank-9 skill cards)
Louis was given the invitation card to Squad-Zero training (7 days). He was genuinely happy with the reward.
Calder was then given the choice to pick up one of the remaining two. Feeling that he didn't make any contributions to the team, he picked up the least precious reward (five platinum grades – storage, message, flying, satellite, and night vision).
Gideon ended up once again with the money, although this time, he earned 500 million credits, which is like 50 million krocs in Northern Qudour's currency. The money was enough for him to buy a large villa in the affluent neighborhood of Egrein city (capital of Northern Qudour). Heck, he could even buy an apartment at a prime location in Silver City.
Everyone is happy with what they got but Azzy still felt a little bit guilty for hoarding five of them. So, he promised his teammates to make those skill cards for them after he gained certain mastery.
And for the past couple of days, Azzy didn't sit still in the hotel. Because of the upcoming match, he absorbed the knowledge from the memory item cards and started practicing one of the skills, Gravity Suppression.
The other four are called Aura of Elementalist, Heavenly Push, Meteor Shower, and Metal Armor respectively.
<strong>Aura of Elementalist:</strong> After activating the skill card, the user will temporarily gain the access to all the seven basic attributes (Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Light, and Dark). They could use soul energy and one of the attributes, creating a skill on their own but it is the hardest to master.
<strong>Heavenly Push:</strong> Upon activating the card, everything around the user will be pushed away from him. Unless the opponent is someone far more powerful, they will be pushed away. It doesn't have any power and it will also affect enemies and allies alike.
<strong>Meteor Shower:</strong> Upon activating the skill card, a bunch of meteorites will appear in the sky and the user can control them to launch a grand scale attack.
<strong>Metal Armor:</strong> Upon activating the skill card, the user's body will turn into that of nearly indestructible metal. It can help the user in blocking the attacks that are far higher than what one's body could take on. However, the downside is that one cannot move in such a state.
Of all these five, Azzy thought that Gravity Suppression is the best one as it will not only aid him in the tournament but also help him in an understanding of gravitons. The Reaper sealed them at the back of his neck, which formed a star-shaped mole (seven-pointed).
And the result didn't disappoint him either. As Leah said, it greatly helped him. Of course, Leah also gained a memory item card but she didn't have the time to master it as she focused on training Sage techniques (natural energy).
Back to the present, as the next battle started, Azzy and Leah joined the others in the stands. Some recognized both of them and congratulated them while the others were focused on the battle.
By 4 o'clock in the afternoon, all the battles were finished and Azzy returned to the hotel.
The next day was a rest day for all the quarterfinalists. So, Azzy thought of going on a date with Claire as it's been a while. Both of them discussed what to do during the previous evening so that there won't be any confusion later on.
At around 8:45 in the morning, Azzy and Claire left the hotel, together. As they reached the portal point, Azzy hesitated a little bit before speaking of the location and paying it.
Both of them disappeared and reappeared at their destination. After exiting the portal point, Azzy and Claire hired a horse carriage like other tourists. After 30 minutes of travel, they finally reached a water theme park, which was too familiar for him.
Staring at the board from outside, Azzy let out a sigh and looked at his blonde-haired girlfriend, "Do we really have to start with this?"
Claire raised her eyebrows in response, "Why? Do you have precious memories or something?"
"Stop talking bullsh*t." Azzy argued back, "Why would I have one?"
"Alright then, let's go." Claire gave a peck on his cheek and dragged him while locking her arms with his.
Azzy shook his head as he thought, "I shouldn't have agreed with this location."
That's right, they were exactly at the same place he came with Leah, a while ago, on a date. In order to wipe off Azzy's memories of his date with Leah, Claire purposely chose Play City as their destination.
Both of them revisited every place Azzy visited with Leah. He doesn't know what Claire is thinking but Azzy wasn't happy with this date. For a while, he forced himself to smile but very soon, he decided to unseal his soul orb and kept a poker face.
Claire was naturally observant. At first, she didn't complain and tried to enjoy what the theme parks had to offer but if her partner isn't enjoying the rides, how could she be happy?
Feeling that she might have taken it too far, she even dragged him to locations that he didn't visit previously but she felt like Azzy isn't enjoying it at all. When pointed out his poker face, Azzy just lied to her that he was being wary of the ambush by unknown enemies.
She kept asking him to relax and he kept giving her the same excuse. They were dating for several months. So, she knew whether he was displeased or happy even if he had his poker face switched on. Just from the touches, she could see the truth.
In the evening, just as they get to the horror-themed park, Claire asked the question for the 12th time, "Rael, are you really happy? We could just go for a movie instead."
Maybe, it's because she asked too many times. Azzy finally decided to be truthful to her. At the entrance of the horror-themed park, he looked into her eyes and admitted, "I'm sorry but I guess I'm not happy from the start."
"So, you can't forget your date with Leah, after all." Claire brought up the topic again. Usually, she uses the sentence as a part of teasing him but this time, it was serious.
Suddenly, the atmosphere turned tense between them. Azzy thought that Claire will be mad but still, he felt like being truthful is more important.
After a brief amount of silence, Azzy apologized once again, "I'm sorry."
With a disappointed look on her face, she then said, "I thought that I would get rid of that damn date from your head but it looks like I only evoked it. Okay, it's my fault. Let's go back."
She started walking away without bothering to wait for Azzy. He didn't know what to say to her and just followed her in silence. Azzy truly regretted responding to her provocation. Wasn't it almost the same with Leah too? Why did he make the same mistake twice?
After walking at a slow pace for almost an hour, they reached the outskirts of the city. The portal point was just a couple of kilometers away. Because it is outskirts, there was nothing but lampposts on either side of the road. As the sun set, there was little light around. As most of the theme parks will be closed during the evening, there were fewer visitors.
All of a sudden, fog spread in the surroundings. Azzy vision was blocked and he couldn't see Claire's back for a moment. He called out her name immediately, "Claire."
But there is no response from her. And the Reaper was also silent.
Thinking that she was still mad at him, Azzy activated aura sensing instead to locate her. To his surprise, there was no trace of her.
As panic enveloped Azzy, the fog was cleared as if someone commanded it. And before him, there is a dark portal opened. And above the portal, two words were written by energy.
"Come in"
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