"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
I spread my arms, embracing the noise like a victorious emperor addressing his loyal subjects.
Honestly, I don't get it why do rich people paid to watch this, apparently, once you had enough money, normal entertainment stopped being sufficient.
Which means.
You wanted to put two students in an arena and have them beat the absolute shit out of each other until one of them couldn't stand anymore.
Really brought back some unpleasant memories.
Anyway.
I smiled toward the arena.
The person standing across from me was practically covered with weapon
"Tell me why don't you use a weapon?"
I raised an eyebrow.
"Cause I can?."
"Wrong answer" He throwed a dagger at me.
Dodging to the side, he was already next to me flashing his axe dangerously next to my face
Wait, wait, wait, hold on, how did we get here?,
Well... For that, we need to turn back time.
.....
Magitech was expensive, I'm talking about the kind of expensive where you look at the price of a component and briefly consider whether organs are a renewable resource.
Unfortunately barry was, which just make this all the more painfull.
Still, Magitech was also my lifeline, so naturally, I had to continue working on it, there was just one itty bitty tiny problem, i hadn't realized I'd have to learn math.
Actual math.
Math math.
I was screwed.
I had spent years fighting, working myself to death with 7 different job, surviving drive by shooting and some nonsense, and somehow fractions were going to be what killed me.
I opened a video.
"Engineering Mathematics for Beginners."
Good.
Someone on YouTube was explaining it.
I listened.
One hour later, I understood absolutely nothing.
I watched another.
Still nothing.
A third.
Somehow I understood less.
Then I found an Indian teacher explaining the exact same concept.
Five minutes in.
"Oh." I paused. "Wait." I rewound, he explained it again. "Ohhhhh." I stared at the page. "So that's what that means." Before looking back at the previous videos.
...
Why were they making it sound like I needed a PhD to multiply two numbers?, no offense to the other teachers, actually, a little offense.
The Indian guy was cooking, still putting that aside l I finally understood that the math wasn't arbitrary.
Magitech wasn't just: Put magic rock in machine. Machine go brrrr.
There were actual measurements, I know their were, just didn't know what.
It's basically divided by four things.
Mana output.
Conversion efficiency.
Energy loss.
Material tolerances.
This was all I know but it'll do, so for example,
If a component needed 120 units of magical energy and the converter was only 80% efficient, I couldn't just pretend the machine would magically produce the other 20%.
I needed to account for the loss.
So if I needed 120 units after conversion, and only 80% of the input became usable energy...
I needed:
120 ÷ 0.8.
I wrote it down.
120 ÷ 0.8 = 150.
...
I stared at it.
Then slowly nodded.
"So I need to put in 150 to get 120."
Exactly, that actually made sense.
I had finally reached the point where math stopped looking like a collection of symbols designed by Satan and started looking like instructions.
And once I understood why I was calculating something, the rest became considerably easier.
Still hated it... it is fun though.
Progress.
Unfortunately, understanding math had created a much bigger problem, I now knew exactly how expensive my project was going to be, i was currently working on the fifth of the seven Magitech components I needed.
I checked the component list.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Done.
I leaned back in my chair hard enough to almost make it fall. "Op- Finally."
Five out of seven, I only two more.
I smiled, this is fun.
Then I checked my wallet.
...
The smile disappeared, I was broke.
Damn
Still my progress was faster than it should be so it's a win.
Barry's parents' financial support had also run its course, i looked at the completed components sitting on the table.
"Well..." I placed a hand over my chest.
"You did well." I bowed my head. "You served your purpose." I looked at the five components.
"You managed to help me complete five out of seven components, which gave me a spare time after i finish the rest."
I clasped my hands together. "For that, I thank you." I remained silent for a moment.
Then I started to kneel.
...
I stopped.
"Wait."
Why I'm i kneeling?, Oh..... right, that's not my culture.
I stood up, time to make money, and whose better at making money finn, so let's go call finn.
I found Finn about twenty minutes later.
He was in the middle of arguing with some student over the price of a Magitech component.
Naturally.
"Finn."
He turned around.
"Barry."
He immediately narrowed his eyes. "Where's my staff?"
... Straight to business
"About that."
Finn's expression immediately changed.
"What did you do?"
"I lost it."
"You lost it?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I was panicking when that monster appeared, so I dropped it somewhere."
Finn stared at me.
I stared back.
He slowly rubbed his forehead.
"Where did you drop it."
"I don't know."
"Barry."
"Probably somewhere around the trial grounds."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Of course."
I paused.
"You can probably find it in the lost and found."
"That's bs."
It was bs, i had dismantled the staff, mostly because I wanted to see how it worked, then I took apart several of its components, then I took apart the components of those components, at some point, I realize I did not know how to reconstruct this.
Finn sighed.
"If what your saying is true, then, it's probably already stolen."
"That's unfortunate, Anyway."
I changed the subject.
Finn looked at me suspiciously.
"Interested about a business idea?."
His expression immediately changed. "Oh." His eyes widen in suprise. "I was actually gonna ask you the same thing."
Raising an eyebrow, I asked "You were?."
"Yeah basically..." He paused. "You go first."
"Its a pretty simple plan, I just need you to bet on me."
Finn blinked.
"Bet?"
"Yeah."
"On what?"
"The arena."
There was a brief silence.
Finn slowly pointed at me.
"You're talking about the academy arena?"
"Yes."
"The one where students fight?"
"Yes."
"Huh!." Finn stared at me, before looking up in amusement. "Damn." He slapped his hands together. "That's what I was gonna ask."
I stared at him.
"You too?"
"Obviously, do you know how much money people can make from betting?"
"No."
"Neither do I." He paused. "But that's why we need to find out."
Finn immediately started talking.
"So, first, we need information."
I was about to say I already know what we need or atleast I was before i got abruptly cut off.
"We need to know who runs the arena, how students enter, what the rules are, how fights are arranged, what determines the odds, how much people usually bet, who the good fighters are, who the popular fighters are, and most importantly, how we actually get you in there."
Damn
"We also need to know who your potential opponents are, so that we can figure out who you should fight."
"I'll fight whoever they give me."
Or I could cause havoc.
"That's not how business works."
He pointed at me.
"Professional businessmen don't just walk into a market and start doing random shit."
I stared at him. "Is that suppose to be directed at me?."
He ignored me. "You gather information first." Pointing at his parietal part of the skull. "Then you exploit the market."
Well. Im invested, I decided not to interrupt him.
Finn kept going.
"We'll find out who's popular. Who's undefeated. Who's overhyped. Who people underestimate. Then we figure out the odds."
He began counting on his fingers.
Apparently, according to Finn, a professional businessman didn't simply make money.
A professional businessman gathered information, calculated risk, identified opportunities, and then made money.
At least, that's what I gathered from the twenty-minute lecture he gave me.
Honestly... Pretty admirable.
He actually knew what he was talking about, or atleast I think he does, I'm not a business man, but if he failed, I could always do it myself.
So I just listened.
Eventually, he finished. "And that's how we're gonna make money." He said standing proud
I nodded. "Sounds good."
Finn smiled. "Great."
He turned around.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"To get that cash?, where else."
"Alr~, let's get that dub." I followed him.
...
Is this wig really necessary?"
I stared at myself in the mirror.
The wig was slicked-back black hair. I guess it sorta made me look intimidating, I can see that.
"Duh." Finn said from behind me. "It's very necessary, you look like a doll."
I slowly turned toward him.
"A doll?"
"Your cute, even though your build like a tank." He answered
"But we don't need cuteness, we need relatability." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Also, close your eyes a little."
I narrowed my eyes "Like this?."
"Yeah keep it like that." He nodded approvingly. "Now you look pretty good."
I stared at my reflection again, Ignoring the massive military face paint, I look unrecognizable among many other things he somehow he removed my face fat, how the hell?, who teached this man how to do makeup?, his way to good at it.
.....
A few minutes later, I was standing backstage in the academy arena.
It was my first fight.
The crowd was already screaming.
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
It's a pretty nice title.
The announcer's voice echoed throughout the arena.
"AND NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"
The crowd erupted.
"OUR NEXT FIGHTER!"
"MAKING HIS ARENA DEBUT!"
I stepped into the arena.
"THE SECOND-RANKED STUDENT FROM THE ACADEMY TRIAL!"
The noise grew louder.
"BARRY WUNDERLICH!"
I raised both hand encouraging the Cheering.
The crowd roared.
Across from me stood my opponent, Black Tiger, he looked pretty confident.
I looked at his and my hands, we weren't wearing anything, which reminded me of something.
A friend once told me that there was a major difference between boxing and MMA, while boxing was mostly about the hands, MMA was different, you had kicks, grappling, takedowns, submissions...
And gloves, there was a reason fighters wore them.
Boxing gloves were larger and designed to protect the hands while allowing fighters to punch repeatedly, MMA gloves were much smaller, allowing fighters to grapple and use their hands more freely, there was a very good reason fighters wore gloves in the first place.
Because a bare-handed punch could still be extremely dangerous, to put it simply, It was protection for both sides, People often forgot just how dangerous a human punch could be.
In the middle of me spacing out, my opponent charged.
He threw a punch.
I sliped to the side, before stepping forward, throwing one punch straight to the jaw.
THUD.
He layed there unconscious, you could clearly see he's not getting up, that was it?
I slowly looked toward the crowd.
Nobody was moved, neither was anybody speaking, right Finn told me to encourage the cheering.
Then I raised both arms.
"WHAT'S WRONG, ISNT THIS WHAT YOU CAME HERE FOR?!"
...
The arena exploded, cheers thundered through the stadium.
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
"BLACK TIGER!"
Guess that's my title now.
It was a pretty simple system the winner take the title of the loser.
Black Tiger, I like it.
.....
The arena was deafening.
"...What the hell am I looking at?"
The student beside me glanced over.
"Uh... a fight?"
"I can see that."
I clenched my fists.
"I'm asking why they're fighting like fucking cavemen, A fist?, A FIST?!."
"Out of all things?!" I leaned forward. "Where is the weapon?"
The student beside me blinked.
"They're not using weapons."
"I noticed!"
I pointed toward the arena.
"Do you understand how many perfectly good weapons exist in this world?"
He stared at me.
I continued, increasingly offended.
"Spears. Axes. Bows. Hammers. Daggers. Magitech firearms. Polearms. Chain weapons, you could hand these idiots a stick and they would immediately become more interesting"
"Disgusting." I clicked my tongue.
"Still." I folded my arms. "What a waste."
A fighter capable of moving like that... Why did he fight barehanded?.
and what kind of weapon would suit someone with those movements?, I smiled, Ah, now I was interested.
i leaned forward, resting my chin against my hand. "Barry the Black Tiger..." I watched him closely leave the arena.
After all... Perhaps I could teach him how a real weapon was meant to be used.
"KEKAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The students looks at me like I'm crazy, their wrong of course, how could they enjoy this barbaric way of fighting.