Chapter 42: The Principal’s Wicked Hobby
Huohuo, who had just returned to the Student Union Office, received two messages.
“Arena?” Huohuo muttered softly.
“President, I’m heading out.”
Without waiting for the president’s reaction, Huohuo left the office.
“No… wait, the reports haven’t been read yet.” The president looked at the thick stack of reports just submitted by the officers on his desk and couldn’t help but feel a headache.
“I’ll handle the records today~” Jiang Xia said with a light chuckle.
“The last three classes in the morning are combat training, right? Find a place without cameras to slip out, and I’ll take you there.” Spark sent a voice message to both of them at the same time.
*
9:30 AM, Training Ground No. 11.
The large training ground located between the Pokémon Performance Academy and Dormitory Building 23, one of the designated venues for public duels, has nine floors in total, and the even-numbered training rooms on each floor are all recognized by the Black Terminal as solo fields.
It’s a distance from Zuo Hang’s classroom; purely walking would take about half an hour.
Huohuo scanned the QR code of the terminal on the electronic door.
The three entered the high-speed elevator.
Besides the visible nine floors, there was also a “-1” on the floor buttons.
You could say it’s not really hidden, since the basement level is right there on the buttons, but something like an underground floor—you really can’t see it unless you enter the elevator.
“Why is the arena underground?” Zuo Hang asked.
Huohuo shrugged and said: “I don’t know either. According to Tieba rumors, it’s the bad taste of the first-generation principal, who thought it was fun to build places that ordinary students didn’t know about. But White Dragon’s first-generation principal has long passed away, and no one knows why the school was built like this from the start. Besides here, White Dragon has many underground arenas, and there are quite a few places inside and outside the school that are connected.”
Zuo Hang fell silent.
There are many underground arenas and they’re connected?
If he hadn’t gone home last Saturday, he might not have doubted these words, but now, not doubting would be the abnormal thing.
The high-speed elevator should be very fast, but the elevator doors still hadn’t opened.
Zuo Hang kept feeling weightless, which meant the elevator was still descending.
It felt like the time to the next floor took longer than going up all nine floors.
Zuo Hang glanced at the terminal.
AM9:32
Just as he was thinking that, the elevator suddenly stopped—it should have arrived.
They entered around 9:30; a few seconds he didn’t know, but this elevator had been descending for at least a minute.
The Black Terminal still had signal underground. Zuo Hang quickly checked: domestic elevators can descend about 60 meters in a minute, and this one seemed a bit faster. Zuo Hang estimated they were now about seventy meters underground.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, they heard noisy sounds.
In front of the three was a straight passage; the lights overhead were somewhat dim, but they could clearly see the glaring stage lights at the end of the passage.
*
A referee in a white uniform rode a disc-shaped flying device, hovering in the air above the arena. A highly infectious male voice came through the venue speakers connected to the microphone.
“Fire Blast hit Victreebel!! Fire beats Grass and Poison, super effective!! Victreebel is down! Charizard shows no signs of stopping!~~~oh~~~~~~~Another Flamethrower!! Victreebel is completely done! 10, 9, 8, Victreebel has lost its combat ability! So… let’s congratulate the Blue Side! The winner of this match is this White Dragon guy from Channel 01, who easily took his debut battle’s first win.”
“As expected, White Dragon newcomers have a natural home ground advantage in the White Dragon Arena. Red Side folks, you need to step it up.”
The Victreebel, scorched black all over, was recalled by a trainer in a black uniform. Judging by the extent of the injuries, timely treatment might still save it.
Zuo Hang looked around. This circular huge battle stage had ten entrances, numbered 01~10, and above each entrance number was a circular emblem. The emblem above the 01 entrance where Zuo Hang and the others were was exactly White Dragon’s school emblem.
Besides the Nine Great High Schools, there was also a separately listed Channel 10.
This was the channel designed for trainers outside the Nine Great High Schools; the entry point should be on the outer side of the Nine Great High Schools. Academy Island isn’t just for trainers from the Nine Great High Schools.
Besides that, this circular arena was also much larger than the league-regulated professional duel field.
Huohuo said to the two: “This is White Dragon’s home ground. This circular battle stage is about 2.5 times the size of the league-regulated venue. Below the battle stage are adjustable mechanisms with five different terrains: jungle, sandy ground, marble, rocky ground, and grass. Today is Monday, so it’s the sand and stone venue.”
Zuo Hang and Hoshino Ryuji looked down and saw that the battle stage’s ground was a coarse-grained sand and stone.
Huohuo patted both of them on the back at the same time, chuckling lightly: “There are better things to see up there—look up first.”
Zuo Hang looked up and saw a huge dome sphere floating above the arena, about fifty meters off the ground.
Huohuo explained: “This is the Weather Ball. It can switch between various weather conditions: rainy, sandstorm, hail, etc. Our current position is the audience seats. The AT field between the battle stage and audience seats isolates the weather on both sides, so the battle stage’s weather won’t affect this side. The previous match was probably clear skies. Weather and venue are different; the venue is fixed within a day, but weather changes every match.”
Zuo Hang and Hoshino Ryuji probably didn’t even hear what Huohuo was saying clearly; the battle venue right in front of them was shocking enough.
Zuo Hang had been running through various high-risk zones and still had no clear cognition of the cutting-edge tech batch in 2025. Hoshino Ryuji was from a big family in Yingzhou, and even he was shocked by the Weather Ball black technology, showing that Academy City’s tech was indeed one or two levels higher than the outside world.
“Stop spacing out—aren’t you going to battle?” Huohuo said. “Follow me; I’ll take you to register.”
*
*
The registration area was relatively quieter. The staff in charge of registration saw them wearing White Dragon school uniforms and immediately became much more polite—after all, this was White Dragon’s home ground, and Huohuo seemed to be a regular here, as the staff clearly knew him well.
“Set them up. Student IDs starting with 25, ending in 001 and 002. Does that Charizard trainer from the previous match want to continue?” Huohuo said to the staff.
“He’s done. Blue Side is temporarily empty too.” The staff found their data on the screen in front of him and then said: “Zuo Hang and Hoshino Ryuji, right? Need masks and alternate IDs?”
Masks were probably to keep others from recognizing you. Even at school, finding a place without cameras lets you do whatever. Grudges in the arena don’t have to be settled in the arena.
“I’ll take a mask. For the ID… random one, I guess.” Hoshino Ryuji said.
“I don’t need one—just use my real name.” Zuo Hang said.
At these words, all three looked at Zuo Hang. In the underground arena, it was rare to go without a mask and use your real name.
*
Three minutes later.
Hoshino Ryuji looked at his mask and inwardly fretted.
“Can’t I pick this thing myself? Why is it a Caterpillar?!! And this ID—what the hell?!!”
“Maoji~~~” Snowy Child called out; he thought the Caterpillar mask was pretty cute.
“What’s the ID? Let me see.” Zuo Hang suddenly leaned over. “Hiss~~Yeah, that’s pretty cringy.”
（ps: Another daily plea for two votes~~）
This underground arena setup took me a long time to flesh out back then. How to put it—when I wrote it out, I still felt my writing skill wasn’t quite there; it didn’t achieve the effect I wanted. Not sure if you guys got any immersion.
