After a few minutes, Casey and Sybil walked out of a tunnel in the arena from opposite ends.

A referee with a silver badge to indicate his D-rank status, stood in the middle of the arena.

“The first match of this year’s climber academy final exam is about to begin,” said the commentator. “The tension and excitement can be felt across the arena as the audience quiets down with hushed anticipation.”

Max gulped. Toto shivered on his shoulders, nervous on behalf of his owner. Max gently stroked the gerbil’s fur to calm him down.

“Don’t worry, Toto,” said Max. “Casey will be fine.”

The referee explained the terms of the match which the commentators then went over for everyone watching at home.

“A match is over when a contestant gives up, dies, or the referee rules the match to be over.”

A chuckle emanated from the waiting room.

Max turned and saw it was Cyrus, mocking the commentators.

“Give it a rest,” he said to the TV. “We all know who is going to win. Sybil’s going to end this in seconds.”

“Take that back,” said Max.

Cyrus turned to Max with a scowl on his face. “What? You can’t actually expect a fake-vein to beat a pure-vein, do you? That’s absolutely ludicrous.”

Maybe it was the nervousness for the tournament, but Max felt his heart race and his skin go red as he was filled with anger at Cyrus’ words.

Max hated the way Cyrus spoke with such smug arrogant confidence. The assuredness that his crummy worldview was the correct one was maddening.

Max wanted to trigger his trait, use shadow blink to appear right behind and then elbow him in the back of the head.

He was so angry, he even tried.

But when he triggered his trait nothing happened.

Huh!?

The dozy-tired looking E-ranker in the back spoke up, “Settle down, now. You’ll get your chance to fight eventually.”

Cyrus scowled and crossed his arms.

“Of course, they’d leave us in here with a debuffer,” said the boy.

Debuffer?

Max looked to the climber in the back. So it was him who had stopped him from using his abilities. His trait must have included some kind of passive area of effect move that wouldn’t let climbers use their traits, or it significantly dampened their ability to use it.

Fascinating, thought Max.

He felt his heart slow down a little from its frantic adrenaline rushed pace from moments ago.

Probably better that he didn’t fight Cyrus here and now. He needed to save his energy for the actual official tournament matches.

“No bother about the debuffer,” said Cyrus, smirking at Max. “I’ll just have to wait a little longer to put you in your place then.”

Max felt the urge to smack Cyrus once more, but he quickly calmed down because the fight between Casey and Sybil had begun.

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