Chapter 130: Let the Dueling Begin!

Somewhere in the Orion Galaxy, a group of Necram medical officials were ensuring the powering up process of their Commander was going smoothly. The acting Commander, one of the Generals, was overseeing the process and ensuring the new army was training.

"Everything seems to be going according to the timeline and plan. He will be fine," The head of the medical staff explained.

"Excellent. I cannot wait until we feast again!"

*******

Kass and Tyler ended up having sex until about 2 am and without school, they went a couple more rounds in the morning. He didn’t want to miss Sophie and Nyx’s first matches and his was late in the evening.

They got up and ate breakfast at the castle instead of in their apartment to get away from everything. Most of the castle wasn’t paying attention to the tournament unless Nyxara, Sophie, Amanda, Kass or Tyler were involved. They didn’t really care; their focus was on the development of their new, young vampires and training their armies, just in case.

Around 2:30 PM, Sophie’s alarm on her phone buzzed and the group headed back to the school. They walked to their favorite classroom, Sensei Sanju’s dojo and noticed the room was turned into a stadium. Two students were currently dueling while Tyler held Sophie’s hand and walked in with her and the rest of the ladies. She already came dressed and had her swords on her back.

"Don’t worry, the first rounds are easy. Honestly, the whole thing was easy for me last year so maybe I’m not the best person to listen to about this..." Nyx trailed off as she watched the two students fight with everything they had.

Tyler laughed. "Everything’s been easy for Sophie since she got here. I don’t see much of that changing."

"Asshole," Sophie playfully nudged Tyler.

"It’s true!" Adam said as he approached them with CeCe and the others.

"It’s so good to see you it feels like it’s been fucking forever," Tyler said while giving him a hug.

"Holy shit bro, what’s with that white little glow thing you have going around you?" Adam said in amazement.

"I guess it’s a summoner thing. Usually happens when I’m in a good mood. How are you CeCe?" Tyler turned and gave her a hug.

"I’m good. Sucks we don’t get to duel but we figured we’d show up for you guys. Alex already won his." She reminded them.

"Shit. Sorry dude," Tyler said while finding Alex in the group of friends that approached and congratulated him.

"Don’t be sorry, I didn’t tell anyone when I fought so unless you were scoreboard watching, you wouldn’t have known. I don’t like crowds at these big events," he smiled nervously.

"Still, we could have shown up. When was it?" Tyler asked empathethically.

"First one this morning actually," Alex laughed. "Go figure, right?"

"No kidding... Well, I’m glad you won! Maybe we’ll end up getting a rematch?" Tyler grinned.

"Hope not..." Alex laughed.

"No offense but if you beat me then, I got no chance now."

"Come on man, you can’t think of it like that! Just think of it as a friendly spar where anything can happen. I hope I don’t have to fight Nyx or Sophie," Tyler admitted.

"I heard that!" Nyx complained.

"You better hope you don’t have to fight me because I’d kick you ass!" She laughed.

"She’s right..." Amanda giggled.

"All those spars and Tyler’s never beat her... not once." Kass chuckled.

Sophie was so locked into her pre-fight routine she wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. She saw her opponent was a third year from Armitage and thought it would likely not be easy. She recognized the name from the tournament event in the forest.

’Breathe in, breathe out,’ She thought while sitting in a meditative pose.

"Ms. Grace, you’re up next!" One of the officials told her. She didn’t respond.

Tyler waved to him and let him know he’d let her know. The official smiled and ran back to the registration area.

Tyler slowly walked up to Sophie, observing her movements with Qi. She made it look so easy and natural. A little golden orb was hovering around her effortlessly while she focused on her breathing with her eyes closed. As soon as Tyler got close enough, Sophie sprung from her sitting position and was right in front of him.

"Nice one." Tyler smiled.

"You’re lucky I could sense it was you or your head would be on the floor," she kissed him gently.

Tyler laughed after he finished kissing her. "I think that’s romantic."

Sophie shook her head and walked towards the registration table.

"Sophie." Tyler yelled.

She turned to look at him.

"Kick his ass! I love you," Tyler smiled as she smirked and walked away.

Their group couldn’t believe this was the same dojo most of them trained in every day. It looked nothing like it with all the decorations, Prestige banners and scoreboards. They watched Sophie step into the center of the ring across from a larger student from Armitage Academy. It was one of the students from their third team in the forest event.

Master Sanju read off the rules in the same way he read them for the students of the school, just with more flair. The crowd went wild and the match started.

The larger student shot off several beasts which just made Sophie grin.

’Ooooooh. This should be easy. She deals with legendaries on the regular in the Land of Summoned Monsters and even when I formed the contract with Rex,’ Tyler thought with a large smile.

Sophie didn’t need Amanda’s buffs to make things look easy anymore. She shot ice from her katanas effortlessly at the smaller cats while using her Qi to knock away the approaching tiger. They fizzled away into the void, reminding Tyler how little he knew about beast taming.

"Yo Adam, do they just go rest in the tamer realm or what happens?" Tyler asked Adam curiously.

"Depends on how hard they’re hit. Looks like Sophie did a good job of making sure she didn’t do too much damage. If they’re hit too hard or their head is taken off, they die." Adam said with a frown.

"Permanance." Tyler muttered.

"What’s up bro?" Adam asked. ℴ

"Our first lesson. Permanence is what makes mythologicals different from all other beasts." Tyler frowned.

"Yeah...I’ve lost a few snakes. It sucks." Adam admitted while they both turned to see Sophie going on the offensive.

"How much exactly have you all powered up?" Adam asked with a wide grin.

"She’s SS like Nyx. Kass and Amanda are S." Tyler answered with a beaming smile watching Sophie make quick work of the Armitage student.

"Way to go Sophie!" He screamed, which caught her attention and a wide grin.

"Yeah bro, what about you? When I met you, you were this skinny D ranked summoner who was nervous to even talk to us. You have the same kind heart but you’re SSS aren’t you?" Adam said with a large smirk.

"Shhh. How’d you know?" Tyler said quietly.

"No normal person walks around with an aura bro." Adam said while patting Tyler on the back.