35 teams were eliminated during the first round. 35 teams defeated their opponents and managed to move on to the second round. An additional team was lucky enough to get a bye and reached the second round without needing to do anything. Now, 18 teams were about to square off against 18 other teams. The tournament employed a random mixer in order to determine the matchups in the fairest and most unbiased possible way. The mech designer duos started to learn whose mechs their own machines had to fight against next. It was pretty much a given that no one wanted to meet Team Larkinson so early. Even the more confident teams did not want to leave anything to chance and would rather beat up a weaker team in order to squeeze through the next round as effortlessly as possible. "No offense, but your Furia is too scary." Dulo Voiken said as he did not hide his lack of confidence in his mech's ability to win. "I mean, aside from a first-class mech designer, who is crazy enough to design a hybrid mech, and one that is oriented towards speed no less. The only pleasant surprise is that you did not employ the Ferocious Piranha's glow on any of your competition mechs. Did you leave out the glows because you thought the only way to obtain a proper challenge is to handicap yourself?" Ves chuckled. "My reasoning is not so exaggerated. The mech already has a glow. You just don't feel it because it isn't obvious and I haven't utilized it that much. I suspect that once my Twin Souls have proven the power of its innovative new concept, I will expand the glow and the special method to many more mech designs. First, I need my machines to get past the second round." All of the really terrible and useless teams had already been defeated. The average strength of the 36 teams that made it through the second round was considerably higher, though there was a small chance that relatively weaker teams lucked out and got through as well. [Team Larkinson vs Team Hendrix] Numerous gasps sounded throughout the waiting room. It was clear that these people did not just react to the appearance of the Larkinson name, but also the Hendrix name! 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚 "Team Hendrix?" "Team Hendrix is strong." Dulo Voiken said as he appeared to have studied the competition a lot more than Ves. "Its star is Miss Beatrice Hendrix. She is the second-place winner of the Strange Lands Tournament. She has teamed up with Kelly Mordaunt who managed to end up at eight place during the same tournament. They don't appear to know each other for a long time, but they decided to join forces in order to participate in the current contest." "Ah, I see." Ves turned and stared at the two well-dressed women who were standing on the other side of the room. A beautiful woman who could only be Beatrice Hendrix possessed a confident air that could only come from a mech designer who truly knew her craft. It was impossible for a mech designer in a serious mech design tournament to rank second on a fluke. She truly earned her place as one of the best Journeymen currently in Davute! Ves slightly clenched his fist. This was an absolutely strong opponent who probably relied on her own trump cards to get ahead of the competition. He did not prefer to meet such a powerful adversary so early in the combat phase. However, he did not reject an early meetup either. So long as Ves believed in the superiority of his competition mechs, he was confident that they would return from the arena in the end! At most, Ves and Juliet would need to do a lot of work to restore the heavily damaged mechs back to working condition. "So what are the specialties of Beatrice Hendrix and Kelly Mordaunt?" "The former is a defensive specialist." Sara Voiken answered this time as this topic overlapped with her own expertise. "Her signature design applications are her modular armor systems. Not only are her mechs harder to take down than normal, but as they continue to incur damage, they shed more and more modular armor plating that has been spent. This is a strategy that is best suited for mechs that are expected to incur a great amount of damage and needs to shed excess weight over the course of a fight. Here. This is her Double Up in action." She activated a projection that showed the performance of the knight mech during the previous round. Unlike the slow and largely useless knight mech of Team One, the one depicted in the projection was already faster and more nimble in its base form. This was despite all of the square plates of armor attached to it as if the mech was wearing a fancier version of scale mail! As the footage of the match rapidly accelerated, Ves could see Beatrice's defensive mech undergoing a gradual evolution the more damage it resisted. Once the modular armor lost cohesion, the knight mech transformed into a lighter and faster mech! This changed the damage of the fight. The knight mech already soaked up a lot of damage and negated a lot of firepower. This allowed it to go on the offense in its more slimmed down form. The key principle to making it all work was to equip the knight mech with a modular armor system that preserved the deepest layers of internals as best as possible. It could absolutely not incur a blow that was so overwhelmingly powerful that it punched through all of the modular armor plating at once. Ves frowned. Just like Sara Voiken, he realized that neither his Sensia nor his Furia possessed a powerful penetrating weapon system! The former mainly relied on a pair of knives while the latter was armed with an eclectic mix of weaker weapons. He wanted to smack his palm against his face. "I sure outplayed myself this time." The Double Up would definitely become a difficult mech for the Twin Souls to take down. It was fairly tough at first but would steadily become faster and more difficult to shake off as it incurred more damage. The only hope of taking it down quickly was by targeting its weak point at the center of its chest. Neither the Sensia nor the Furia could waste so much of their attack power on whittling down the Double Up's modular armor system. This was the trap that Beatrice Hendrix set for her opposition! "What of the mech designed by Kelly Mordaunt?" Ves asked. "That should be a light mech to start with. I don't believe the eight-place winner of a mech design tournament has designed a machine that is much weaker." "That is up to you to judge, but here is her light harasser mech in action. It's called the Triple Spray." Dulo Voiken activated a projection that showed a light ranged mech that stood out for several reasons. The light harasser mech was fairly light and fast, which was not that unusual, but carried a fairly oversized rifle. The weapon was a ballistic gun that was surprisingly low-tech but also seemed to compensate for that by boasting triple gun barrels! When the Triple Spray fired its main weapon at a target, its triple muzzles let loose a constant stream of rapid-fire projectiles. It went without saying that the Triple Spray's damage output was not that concerning. It might not even be worthwhile to chase after it considering that it was hard to chase. The true threat of this light harasser mech was that it could steadily keep up its fire onto a fairly vulnerable target and steadily whittle down the latter's defenses. Since every team was forced to include at least one light mech in their lineup, there was always a guarantee that the Triple Spray would be able to inflict effective damage during every match! Both Ves and Juliet frowned as they played out the upcoming match in their minds. "The Triple Spray will bring its gun to bear against the Sensia right away." Ves guessed. "The latter will come under fire and cannot completely block or evade the attacks because the opponent's triple-barreled gun makes it really easy to track a moving target. The Sensia must chase after the Triple Spray and end its threat, but the light harasser mech will take full advantage of its mobility to kite our light skirmisher." "What about your Furia? It has the weapons of a striker mech. Its shotgun should make quick work of the Triple Spray." "That is what the Double Up is for. As long as its modular armor is still intact, it should do everything possible to get in the Furia's way and soak up the attacks directed at the Triple Spray." No one could predict the outcome of all of this sparring. Ves recognized that Team Hendrix's mechs were all fairly well-designed and well-equipped to fight against his Twin Souls. However, there was still a decent chance that his Sensia and Furia could overcome these new challenges and come out on top in the end! Combat was always fluid and affected by a lot of variables. Ves hoped that the Twin Souls System that he devised for his two competition mechs would finally be able to play a useful role this time. Now that the second round had begun, the arena was no longer split up in two smaller fighting areas. Only 18 matches needed to be held to complete the second round, and that was easily doable. The rules and restrictions imposed onto the teams meant that it was rare for mechs to last for more than 10 minutes in the arena. | The added space was not good news for Team Larkinson. The Sensia and the Furia clearly preferred to fight in tighter quarters. Team Hendrix gained a lot from this change as the Triple Spray needed a lot of space and distance in order to perform its job while staying alive throughout the match. Four mechs entered the arena. The crowds all fell silent as they anticipated a much closer match than before! The two pairs of mechs possessed different vibes. The Twin Souls clearly carried an aggressive presence as they would always go on the attack no matter what opposition they faced. This time was no different as the Sensia and the Furia could not afford to get stalled by their opponents. Team Beatrix's mechs exuded an air of patience and tenacity. It was clear that they were in this fight for the long haul. Their only viable strategy to win this match was to turn it into a battle of attrition where they could outlast the initial outburst of the two enemy offensive mechs. [Start!] The two sides exploded into action right away! The Furia immediately fired its shotgun and its integrated luminar crystal guns at the Triple Spray, but the enemy light harasser mech had already evaded to the side, allowing it to avoid all incoming attacks aside from a few loose pellets that dug into its relatively thin armor plating. Nonetheless, by the time the Furia was ready to fire again, the Double Up already broke its line of sight! "Get out of the way!" Bobby aggressively spoke. The Furia ran forward while it loaded a solid slug in the chamber. It pulled the trigger as soon as it loaded, causing it to deliver a fairly powerful kinetic punch at the Double Up. However, the knight mech already prepared to meet this incoming blow. Its strange modular arm bracers had morphed into a thick double shield that was thicker and more reinforced at the point of impact. When the slug finally struck this transformed shield, the top modular armor plating broke or deformed upon impact, but the strange way in which the modular shield absorbed the shock and spread out the incoming kinetic energy meant that the Double Up successfully mitigated a considerable amount of damage! "That's impossible!"