Steve opened his eyes to a new place, one filled with people. They were his classmates. There was a screen in front of them. On the screen there was a timer, which read 17:28. It was counting down each second. Mr. Blackwood informed the students that they have the rest of the time to explore whatever they want about what they can use in the battle simulator and to get familiar with how things work. After the timer stopped, the students, regardless of what they were doing, would be sent to a battlefield with a random opponent.
They would have 30 seconds of preparation time, to summon out their monsters and prepare whatever they need to prepare. They would be on a simple battlefield, which had the shape of a rectangle, 25 meters by 50 meters. The rectangle was made of two 25 meters by 25 meters squares. Each person would be on one of the two 25 meters by 25 meters squares at the beginning of the battle. They could start anywhere they wanted, as long as they didn't pass over and cross the line of their square. After the battle started, however, They could move anywhere on the battlefield they want. After that, the students all went away to get familiar with the functions of the VRBS. The time went by in a flash.
After the time was up, the students were enveloped in white light and were transported to a battlefield. The battlefield were white in color and was exactly like Mr. Blackwood described. There was also a invisible wall that prevented a person from crossing over their side of the battlefield. On one of the long sides of the battlefield, there was a screen that showed a timer. It currently read 0:30 and was counting down each second, but once it reached 0:00, which is when the battle started, the time on the timer would become 30:00. On the other long side of the battlefield was a screen that showed the names of the people on the battlefield.
Steve faced off against a person named Stewart Oakes. To make it so that his status of a stage 2 monster tamer more believable, Steve had Icy fight with the strength of a level 20 bronze quality 5 stars monster. Even then, Stewart, who only had 2 level 16 copper quality 2 stars monsters, got defeated pretty quickly by Icy in less than 30 seconds.
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Finally, after about 3 rounds of battles, there were only 5 participants left. The participants that were left were Steve Cargill, Stanley Linden, Starla Laws, Harland Clifton, and Woody Elton. As expected, Charlene and Charlotte, who were only able to use 1 copper quality monster, had long been eliminated from a round. Except for Steve, all the participants that were left were either able to use 1 bronze quality monster or 3 copper quality monsters. Since there was five participants, there would be 2 solo battles, and one person would advance to the next round without needing to fight. The person who gets to advance without doing anything would be determined randomly, as the battles have been.
The lottery was drawn, and the participants was determined. As luck would have it, Steve was able to advance without having to fight. Harland was to go against Stanley, and Starla was to go against Woody. Although the students had about 30 minutes for each battle, none of the battle really took up more than 5 minutes. Of course, the students were allowed the extra 25 minutes or so as a time to relax or do whatever they want. After the two battles were finished, there were three participants remaining- Steve Cargill, Starla Laws, and Harland Clifton. The rules for this round was similar to the last round. However, there would only be 1 solo battle between two of the three students and one of the students would advance to the next round without having to fight, securing at least a second place position.
Some students complained that a random draw didn't really determined who was the second strongest person. Yet, the school still decided to use a lottery draw to choose one student to advance to the next round without fighting. In the school's words, "Luck is part of a person's strength". The school also pointed out that the person who advanced to the next round without fighting wouldn't be guaranteed to lose. If they won, then, well, that would be accurate, that would be kind of accurate since they have defeated the student who defeated the other student, meaning that they would be able to defeat the students that had been defeated.
In the end, the students decided to accept with the lottery system since, well, it was the school who was handing out awards, it didn't really matter to them. Besides, the students who got second and third place could just have a private battle with the credit prize at stake if the student who got third place believes that he/she should have gotten second place. Sure, they would get less credits, but they wouldn't really lose much credits.
The lottery was drawn, and there would be a battle between Steve and Harland. Starla was in luck and would advance to the next round without needing to fight. None of the boys were actually displeased that a girl was able to reach such a high rank since it didn't really matter in this world if a monster tamer was a male or female, as long as they were strong enough, so be it.
Steve and Harland were transported onto a battlefield. As usual, they had 30 seconds of preparation time before the battle started. Steve, like always, summoned out Icy. He told her to use the strength of a level 20 bronze quality 5 star monster, just like all the battles he had so far. Harland summoned out a level 17 bronze quality 2 stars monster. The monster was a Frost Wolf, and Harland called him Frosty. It looked exactly like an arctic wolf, and as about 2 meters long, including the tail.
When the 30 seconds of preparation time was up, Icy and Frosty did not immediately start battling. Instead, they just looked at each other. Icy looked at Frosty with her jade green eyes that showed the superiority of an emperor., and Frosty looked at Icy with his gold yellow eyes. 1 second past by... 2 seconds- after about 1 second, Frosty could not continue to look at Icy and ran back to Harland, trembling.
"Frosty, what's wrong?" asked Harland. Frosty replied by pointing at Icy and then shaking his head.
Harland looked at Icy, who had her hands crossed, and looked back at Frosty, who was still trembling. He didn't understand what Frosty was trying to tell him. "What are you saying?"
Frosty then created some ice, pointed at Icy, then stomped and destroy the ice he had just created.
Harland didn't really understand what Frosty was saying, but he was trying. "She can destroy the ice you create?"
Frosty shook his head once again. He now pointed at Harland's pocket. It was clear that he wanted to go back in his monster card. Harland considered for a moment, then decided to return Frosty back since there was no use keeping him out if he didn't want to fight Icy. Harland called out and yelled, "I forfeit!"
Hearing that, Steve returned Icy to her monster card. Then, a bright light enveloped him and Harland, and they were both transported out of the battlefield. Outside of the battlefield, the students were discussing what had happened. It was quite strange to see a monster refusing to fight before the battle even started, after all.
Harland looked at the students and then spoke in a loud, clear voice. "Can anyone explain what was going on? Why did my Frosty refuse to fight?"
Hearing the question, the students went silent. They didn't really have much idea what had happened, either. After about a minute, when Harland was about to give up, someone spoke up. "I'm not sure if it is accurate, but I have a guess. I think it might have to do with elemental dominance."
"Elemental dominance? Can you explain that?" asked Harland.
"Yes," said the student who had spoken. "But first, I need to explain elemental pressure. Elemental pressure is when two monsters of who have the same element but one of the two monsters is so much stronger than the other monster in terms of proficiency of the element, resulting in them able to exert an invisible pressure that is only able to be felt by the other monster. When the difference in power of the element between the two monsters is vast enough, one of the monster will exert such a strong pressure on the other monster that the monster will not be able to go against the monster exerting the pressure.
"That is what is called elemental dominance, since one of the monster has dominance over another monster in terms of an element. However, I don't think that is what happened between Icy and Frosty since elemental pressure usually happens with a difference of qualities and one of the monsters is epic quality. But I can't think of any explanation other than this one. But maybe it was just elemental pressure which made Frosty refuse to fight, but that means Icy should be a lot more proficient than Frosty in terms of the ice element."
"Well, Icy does seem really strong when it comes to her elemental power," said another student. "When I was battling her, I was using a monster with fire element. Icy hit my monster with ice around her hands, and when my monster tried to burn her, it couldn't even melt the ice on her hands. I didn't even see a single drop of water form. So maybe it really was elemental pressure."
"Well, that's not really a problem, is it?" said another student. "I mean, it's not like we're going to fight each other a lot for no particular reason."
The students all thought what the person said made sense, so they all decided to wipe the conversation from their minds.