Vale was quite tempted after hearing Zeno's explanation.
What he was most interested in was the Corrupted Chains' Talisman. Since it is a Tier 2 Dark Spell, it should help him restrain the Slender Zombie for a brief moment. This is important in case Lotus experienced some unexpected situation in the battle.
After all, he doesn't know what kind of preparation Larkin made over the past two months.
He simply can't say that his Slender Zombie would be similar to the Slender Zombies he had seen in the Archive Room's recording crystals. It should be safe to assume that his Slender Zombie would be stronger than the others.
"Well, if I win the battle, I'll be getting 23 Contribution Points… I don't mind giving a single point for the Corrupted Chain Talisman." Vale answered after some time.
"Are you sure it's only worth 1 Contribution Point?" Vale asked.
"Of course… I had this talisman for a year now and I'm not using it... Anyway, you can have Professor Stella appraise it for you so you can be sure that it's genuine."
"It's fine… I learned from Professor Shirley how to use this item." Vale replied.
Since he only prepared two Mystical Items, he still has 1 more slot and the talisman that Zeno offered might be useful for him.
Even if he didn't have the chance of using it in his duel, he knows that he would have other uses for it someday…
"Great… Tier 2 Corrupted Chains works well with Zombies since they were only sensitive to life… They would have a hard time sensing these chains once triggered" Zeno said as he handed over the Talisman to Vale.
It is made from thick paper with words written in Oardic… Vale can't read it since it wasn't taught in class yet. However, the words have similarities to a couple of Oardic words he knows, Negative and Steel.
As for the contribution point, they can simply do the Transaction in the Exchange Hall later. There's no problem doing transactions with Contribution Points anyway… It is not prohibited by the Academy and they even encourage these transactions for some reason.
Soon, the three of them had a meal at the cafeteria and met a few first-year students. Almost all of them know about Vale's battle against a sixth-year student so some of them greeted him, a few of them gave him an odd look, and many of them seem to be gloating at his misfortune…
Well, since he was known for his Spirit Strand which was even higher than Maya Featherstar, many of them wanted to see him fail.
It was quite a common thing among these 'elite nobles' to disdain those who didn't come from a well-off family so Vale wasn't too surprised.
This habit was observed in their families so it was normal that they would have the same behavior…
Vale can only pity them as he knows that they'll fail to see him defeated in this duel.
After some time, he went to the Battle Arena Committee to confirm the details of the duel once more before he went to the waiting room of the First Arena to do his final preparations before the battle.
***
Finally, it was one in the afternoon and the First Arena is now filled with people… Most of them are those in the lower years with a few sixth-year students…
There were even some Professors waiting on the sidelines as they seem curious about this battle that attracted so much attention…
Apparently, the Headmaster was also watching the battle! He was together with the Vice Headmaster whom they'd only seen in the Entrance Ceremony…
Soon, Nadine went on the stage to announce the start of the duel.
"This is a match between Vale Chambers and Larkin Neville's Slender Zombie. If Vale loses this duel, he will participate in Larkin's research without any complaints… On the other hand, if Vale wins, he will obtain Larkin's Contribution Points and three Undead Summoning Scrolls with their Spell Models untouched."
Nadine then paused for a moment as she looked at the hundreds of students waiting for the battle to start.
"The referee of this duel will be Noah Featherstar a 10th-year student and also the Arena Master… The Corner Judges will be two 8th-year students of Dark Magic Branch, Grover Brownhill, and Charmaigne Hunter."
At this time, Nadine gestured for the participants to enter the stage…
Larkin remained outside the stage and only used his Undead Summoning Spell to call his Slender Zombie…
Whoosh~
A huge zombie with long limbs and scale armor suddenly came out of the ground in front of him… It wasn't just that, this Slender Zombie was also equipped with a pair of Claw Gauntlets!
The Slender Zombie was about 3 and a half meters and as it moved closer to the center of the stage, everyone can see the great difference in their size…
Many of them respected Vale for not pissing himself in front of such a scary creature…
The Slender Zombie doesn't have a nose but it has large black and red eyes and a mouth that could probably fit a door.
This Zombie was even salivating with green liquid that made the others shiver in disgust.
On the other hand, Vale was simply wearing his Academy uniform and doesn't seem to have any weapons with him…
It is so suspicious since he shouldn't possess a spell that is capable of killing this large zombie.
'As expected, this zombie is really prepared…' Vale mused after seeing the Slender Zombie that is equipped with a couple of Mystical Artifacts.
He then shifted his gaze to Larkin as he couldn't help but smile… He discovered something.
'I finally know why he arranged this battle, he's actually injured and couldn't fight at all. No wonder he only wanted his Zombie to fight. If he joins in the battle, I will be targeting him instead of the Zombie.' Vale thought as he noticed how weak Larkin was at the moment.
"Vale! Destroy that Zombie!"
"Win those Contribution Points! You can do it!"
As Vale was calculating his moves, he heard his two female classmates cheering for him.
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