Chapter 53: Chapter 50: The Main Competition!

“I’ve caught another vendor who was transporting the nutri-paste to the Thorn Chamber. He was paid to continuously sell information on who he met and current consumption rates of the nutri-paste. You may have a mole in your system, Cardenia. Most likely from Oliver Athen.” Imperial Prince Zachary talked as he walked next to Cardenia, entering a dropship intended for the surface of the planet Athen.

Cardenia was heading there to officially open a brand-new building designed for cosmetic surgery, which was immensely popular as a coming-of-age gift amongst the inners.

It's been close to six months since the training camp at the Thorn Chamber began. She hardly had the time to keep track of their progress or security with all the terribly ‘important’ parties that she was holding.

The organization and planning of Loeric Day a few months back also had drained Cardenia of all her soul and energy.

Senia was currently away to evaluate the trainees today as it was the final day and report back to her. Cardenia still had to make public appearances, which was when Zachary conveniently attached himself to her.

Cardenia missed Senia not being here to form a barrier between her and Zachary, but she didn’t resent Zachary’s company. He was one of the rare few people on this planet that treated her as she is, rather than the owner of the planet, and she slightly liked that about him.

What she didn’t like was how deep he was investing into this wager, almost hounding her almost every day about it. But she still accepted the information and help that he was providing, who no doubt was doing so in the hopes that Cardenia will reciprocate when she won against Oliver Athen.

“It is expected to have moles, but if they don’t know who I’m training or how I’m training them, that is alright. I already tasked Senia to leak false information about the trainees’ names.” Cardenia replied as she strapped herself into one of the ten luxurious chairs in the dropship. It had a type of surface that could serve as a fluffy pillow or an impact-absorbing material depending on the electrical current running through it.

The dropship was her personal one, with the format being a simple rectangular shape with five chairs each lined up against the wall facing each other. The Hawthorn emblem of a thorny axe with its head imprinted with a red rose was plastered on the floor.

Zachary took a seat opposite her, while her four honor guards sat in pairs next to the both of them, flanking them on either side. The over-the-shoulder restraints mounted at each seat automatically descended, securing the passengers.

“The wager is extremely critical for Oliver, who desperately wants that university, so I assume the information is already leaked, you’ll have to be prepared for that. Perhaps some reporters might ask you about it during the opening ceremony of the competition five days later.” Zachary said as the dropship undocked from the orbital habitat, beginning its descent.

The rest of the trip continued in silence as it burned through the atmosphere, directly accelerating downwards in a straight line. The dropship was one of the more advanced ones, allowing the passengers to feel only a fraction of the g-forces that it was pulling.

But due to the trajectory of the dropship going straight down, the g-force felt from the acceleration of the thruster and the subsequent friction from the atmosphere felt like a few g’s to the passenger.

Naturally, the passengers were all of nobility with significant augmentation, having trained in high gravity. It was like a minor itch to them as the ride didn’t last more than 20 minutes. Zachary was even replying messages on his multi-terminal, while Cardenia took the much appreciated respite to rest her tired eyes.

The dropship eventually landed on the planet’s surface right in the middle of the ‘donut’-shaped city. There was only one landing zone that was situated right above Zone 1, and hence it was extremely packed with passenger and cargo ships, being serviced by ground crews.

The heat waves of the surface washed over the landing zone. The dropship’s magnetic clamps locked with the landing pad, the engines of the dropship winding down.

The landing pad stood out from the other commercial ones used daily by the cargo ships ferrying food and resources. It was privately owned by the Dynasty of Hawthorn, its emblem right in the middle of the landing pad.

As the dropship finally turned off its thrusters, a crowd of reporters braving the heat of the surface gathered around the dropship to try to earn their pay raise for the next month, hoping to get a juicy quip from either Zachary who was the 561th Imperial Prince, or Cardenia Hawthorn, the owner of Athen.

Cardenia was no stranger to this. Her arrival on the planet’s surface was rare – most of her orders or needs were taken care of via her orbital habitat.

To the citizens and journalists of Athen who couldn’t afford to go to space to directly meet her, this irregular event was one of the best places to get a meeting.

A blinding cacophony of camera flashes, lights and drones that strove to take a picture from every possible angle almost blinded them as the two of them walked down a path that was forcefully created by the guards stationed on the ground near the exit of the dropship.

Cardenia decided to do as is customary on every planetary landing to answer a few questions. It was good for marketing and helped keep images up. However, the first question threw her mind into disarray.

“There are rumors that you are trying to raise your own personal retinue of loyal soldiers, but you instead recruited an outer, an orphan by the name of Ceres, instead of the inners such as Chad Athen who currently dominate the graduation competition. Please explain why!”

Cardenia was at a loss for words. She had heard Zachary’s warning on the dropship, but she didn’t expect the information to be leaked like this into the open this fast!

She couldn’t risk Ceres being assassinated or taken out before the competition, which is why she hid all information regarding the training as much as possible.

Yes, it was only a few days till the main competition stage, but the questions made her wonder how long the rumours or information had been running around through the city!

As she stood in shock for a good three seconds, Zachary stepped in to answer for the obviously stunned Cardenia. “Her Honour only has the best wishes for the people of the planet Athen, and Ceres is not the only one being trained. The reason that the training was not publicised was because it was still a trial project that is intended to be expanded to more people in future years.”

“We don’t discriminate between inners and outers, all of you are citizens of the planet and we will treat such citizens equally. Ceres has proven his stamina and ability to withstand a potentially dangerous training regime, which is why he was chosen as the first participant in order to pave the way for future children like him, brightening the next generation of this planet.”

Cardenia finally awoke from her shock and continued right after Zachary ended. “We pledge that the training regime details will be revealed in due time, but it is still undergoing a lot of modifications and still remains potentially dangerous.” She stated clearly, regaining her posture.

“We hope to elevate the educational system on Athen to give our children the best hope, so please do be patient with us as we strive to find the best compromise over the next few years. Thank you, that will be all.”

The two of them walked away quickly as questions were left unanswered, such as who the other inner trainees were and what did the training regime involve. She could not say out loud that she was only doing this because she wanted to win a bet!

“Thank you, Imperial Prince, for stepping in.” Cardenia gave a light polite bow as they entered a holo-car flanked by other guard vehicles, floating off towards the building’s opening ceremony.

“It’s fine by me, Cardenia, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. The image of you should now be very positive, so congratulations.” Zachary leaned back in the chair, checking his multi for the latest news. 

Cardenia was slightly annoyed at Zachary for pushing her into this stance of improving the education system, but it was also much better than any other lie that she could come up with.

That lie had been previously told to Ceres, but she never had it placed as a main point to be used to cover up the wager to the public.

Obviously the Five Families will see through the façade that she came up with, but if they tried to expose her, their side of the wager will be exposed too, so she felt that the current situation was alright despite the abrupt question.

A tiny pain pricked her heart as she also came to the sudden realization that she would probably have to conduct less extravagant parties to pull off her promise.

She started to run calculations in her head as to how much she could skim off the new training regime and still say that it is an improvement. “Should be fairly easy to change the outdated syllabus of the outer zones at least,” Cardenia muttered to herself.

While she contemplated the finer arts of minimally achieving her promises, a direct call from Senia put Senia up on a holo-monitor right in front of Cardenia.

“Status?”

“I have checked on the trainees’ overall progress, and I must say it is quite amazing. Your training camp has paid off, but as to the extent, I’ll keep it as a surprise.”

“I hate surprises, especially bad ones. This wager is really important. Are they up for the task?”

“Oh definitely - they’ll blow the competition right out of New Saint.”

***

[The annual graduation competition is finally here! For some, it’s the prelude to their coming-of-age ceremony. For many it is the way to enter the best jobs available around the planet, and for the rest of us, the most heart-stirring, emotional matches are here! Today we see the upcoming glory and brilliance of the next generation of young people!]

[This year we have 1024 participants for each category: ranged combat, melee combat and exosuit repair! A quick rundown of the competition format before the opening ceremony begins!]

[The 1024 participants will be placed into groups of 64, with only ONE participant coming out of it alive! The group stage will be conducted in parallel with all the other group! The format will be a single match, with no retries and no delays!]

[It all boils down to luck, adaptability, and sheer strength to overcome such a format! There will be no retries, no comebacks. A loss means a loss forever!]

[Once we have narrowed down to the final 16 participants, the real competition begins! In a head-on duel format, only winners will rise to the top in four rounds of duels! Who will be the final champion this year?]

[Will it be Chad Athen, the domineering ‘king’ who has an absurd amount of strength, or will it be Ceres, who seems to have undergone a massive overhaul in skill, courtesy of the owner of the planet? What secret training has he undergone?]

The sound of the announcer echoed dully in a dropship that chugged along slowly as it flew through the open sky, heading towards one of the inner zones, entering one of the many tunnels that led underground from the outer zones.

Within the dropship, Ceres, Erik, and Braton were finally reunited after Loeric Day! The dropship that they were in looked nothing like the sleek luxurious interior of the Hawthorn’s private dropship, which Ceres had the pleasure of riding it while completely knocked out and unconscious.

Instead, the interior looked like a dirty shipping container, with nothing but handles dangling on wires across the ceiling for support. More than 200 people were standing in close proximity like a tuna can, all of them outers.

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The inners instead were transported in much nicer conditions, their personal transports and chartered hoverbuses coming by the droves.

Too bad his contract didn’t include a method of transport to the arena area, as it would have drawn too much attention to the favouritism of Cardenia to Ceres. Even Gwen and Leonard were travelling separately in their own arranged transports.

“Man, the training camp sounds insane, I can’t believe you duelled the rank one player there! It’s even more surprising that he’s our age! And to think you even won a few exosuit repair duels against him, that’s amazing!“ Erik couldn’t stop gushing at the stories of the training camp that Ceres was sharing, even though he had already heard it once during Loeric Day.

Braton was a bit disgusted at the fact that Ceres didn’t go all in for his training, completely neglecting the best weapon in the arsenal of every human – their ‘guns’!

“Brother Ceres, why don’t you ever listen to me? I gave you such good advice during Loeric Day. Why did you even bother trying to be an all-rounder in weapons that you’ll most likely never use? And who gives a shit about Glucose Rush for real? You guys have been going on and on about that game but isn’t it just a kid's game trying to match combinations?” Braton complained as the heavy vibrations of the poorly insulated cargo hold shook the passengers who were standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

He finally had enough of this consistent fervent adulation towards such an inane game, but the sharp piercing glares from Ceres, Erik, and some of the other exosuit repairers nearby stopped him dead in his tracks.

The orphans were not the only competition participants in the outer zones, other outers had also made it in, though the proportion of outers to inners was definitely skewed. Many of the outers in the same dropship overheard about Ceres’ training camp, their hearts growing jealous or envious.

Trissa hardly seemed to care about the conversation or what Ceres had been through, standing normally and yawning. Her previously shy demeanour from the qualifiers had completely disappeared, to the shock of Ceres during Loeric Day.

She stood in close contact with Erik, who was trying extremely hard to act as though it was normal and not in any way aroused by her, still trying to keep the conversation going.

Ceres snickered to himself, seeing the two of them get even closer. He never really did find out why they were avoiding each other in the first place. He made a note to himself that he should really figure out what happened on that first date.

Sadly, Ceres did not know he was the only one left out of the loop.

A much larger rumbling swept through the cargo hold, indicating massive deceleration as the dropship started to near the competition area.

The severe deceleration forced Ceres and Erik to grit their teeth as they tried to withstand the force that was attempting to fling them to the ceiling, while Braton just laughed it off, his body trained to fight in heavy gravity over the last six months!

How could a self-proclaimed body training maniac not train in more than 5 times the normal gravity?

The dropship hit the ground hard, almost throwing most of the passengers flying if it weren’t for the hybrid magnetic boots that they had that scraped against their skin and the top of their feet with high friction.

Just as the passengers were about to break out in complaints about the treatment, the cargo hold’s door alarm blared out like a klaxon three times, while the pneumatic doors slowly opened, revealing their destination. It was the competition arena!

The competition was held in a realspace arena underground at Zone 7, which was essentially was a levitating platform in a huge underground cavern that had artificial lighting that allowed for maximum viewership.

The viewers could either attend in person on the grandstands or use their premium viewer pods to orient themselves for the best view possible. They could also attend virtually and watch through a drone.

The best viewpoints were naturally monetized by the owners of the arenas, who put a price tag to specific angles and positioning, charging viewers on the spot. It was on a first come first serve basis, leading to a mad rush for seats and slots the moment ticketing opened.

Despite the huge success of the Loeric Day, the graduation competition held a less significant place in the people’s heart, hence there were not a lot of viewers who watched physically in the first place.

Who really wanted to watch young kids battle it out when they could live it themselves in Shattered Empire or watch real pros in the main star systems of the Loeric Empire? The answer is – almost everyone who wanted money!

A lot of bets were riding on the various results of this competition, with both minor and major bets being held by the casino sponsor, 999 Casino Athen!

There weren’t that many exciting events on a border resource planet such as Athen save for Loeric Day, so the majority of the viewers were mostly there to cheer their bets on rather than the participants.

Sure, there was the riot groups professional circuit which many fans loved to watch as well, but it couldn’t hurt to try their luck once a year!

Among the viewers, there was a significant minority of viewers who were truly invested in the outcome of the competition.

One of them was Cardenia Hawthorn, owner of Athen, who was most definitely more concerned about the outcome of the wager than the wellbeing of the three trainees that she had dedicated a considerable sum to.

Losing the wager will mean a severe weakening of both her political power and hold over the five families on Athen, as well as a possible punishment from the Dynasty of Hawthorn!

Oliver Athen and the other leaders too weren’t there too out of true love for their children or to support their descendants.

They treated each year’s batch of kids as just another extension of their power, to see which family could showcase or demonstrate their prowess or future talents to elevate themselves above each other.

Lastly, the inners who wanted to see Chad win, coupled with the outers who supported the dark horse that was Ceres. They placed their faith into their chosen ‘idols’, living vicariously through them.

All in all, it could be said that a good amount of the viewers who were watching the competition were more interested in their own benefits than actually cheering on for the contestants wholeheartedly.

That wasn’t the case for Mrs Qiu’s Dumpling Store, which seems to have expanded way beyond its doors and onto to the streets as large holographic monitors set up outside and inside the restaurant had gathered a good amount of the residents of Zone 17 who couldn’t afford to pay for the realspace ticket.

Lisa couldn’t even handle the tension, despite the fact that she wasn’t even a participant yet. She was one year younger than the rest of them! “That’s me next year, and I’m going to smash everyone!” The Zone 17 residents all rallied behind the orphans, cheering for them nonstop.

The Gladius Training Center was rife with festivities as well, as a viewing party hosted by the management was held in the lobby. Ardan managed to pull his Aunt Fye to watch, who had more than accepted Ardan’s friends as true friendship.

Obviously, Ceres still wasn’t included in the list of true mentors yet! If Ceres could stand up in a 1v1 proper duel with any strong representative from the five families, then she might consider letting Ardan form a formal master-disciple relationship despite the small age gap. Of course, she would be the one to define ‘strong’!

The orphanage’s main hall also had a large viewing party, with Ann Lesion wondering what happened to Ceres during the training camp by Hawthorn.

She had already filed a complaint upon finding out that one of her beloved students was snatched away at the behest of the military to undergo god knows what terrible program or scheme, but it was far too late, and her eyes were strained, trying to spot Ceres on the main camera.

Even the ability to swap cameras could only be accessed virtually using money! She didn’t get the chance to ask Ceres in detail during Loeric Day, the schedule being rushed along as well.

Back in the dropship, as the doors opened, the wonderful sight of close to three hundred thousand viewers lined up on the main floating grandstands enclosed by the humongous underground cavern that was Zone 7. Hundreds of floating platforms that continuously circled above them and the swarm of camera drones trying to get their every facial expression stunned the group of outers into shock.

The first row took their first steps out of the ship down the ramp, savouring the moment when they had their very own spotlight in their whole life, only to be rudely pushed aside by outers at the back who were just as desperate as them to get out of the terrible dropship.

A few scuffles between participants broke out as the 200 outers exited the dropship, causing laughter and sneers to echo about the arena.

The viewers who could afford a seat in the arena were mostly the inners, though there were a significant minority of outers who had enough cash to watch too.

Ceres was quite aware that this crowd wasn’t there for them, despite the seemingly festive atmosphere. Only the rich and fortunate had enough credits to afford a seat at the realspace arena!

His true supporters were back at home, at Mrs Qiu’s place where he had his regular outings, at the orphanage where his home was, and the Gladius Training Center where he attributed most of his early training results to.

Ceres smiled and waved at one of the camera drones, sending a wave of laughs through the inner crowds. “Haha who is that outer kid waving at? He thinks he’s some hotshot after throwing a few bombs around. Now that he can’t rely on his sneaky methods to trick people, his true inaptitude will finally show!”

Naturally they all knew who he was, with some of the inners angry that he taunted Chad in such a way!

A series of boos and jeers echoed through the underground cavern where the arena was, amplified by the rock ceiling and walls.

Ceres smiled even wider and waved harder. Back above ground, at Zone 17, the restaurant, orphanage, and the Gladius instead were all going wild, everyone aware that Ceres was waving at them!

It was the main competition!

 

 

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