An Unbound Soul

Kai, Human, Warrior (19/39)

He had a bunch of levels on me, and I'd seen him use ranged shock-wave style combat artes. Since there wasn't a single projectile that could be dodged, getting out of the way would require [Far Step]. Fortunately, he had a big wind up period that made the incoming attack obvious. Unfortunately, by this point he knew full well the range and capabilities of [Far Step]. I hadn't been the only one paying attention to the previous days' battles.

I hung back, wanting to bait him into his big shock-wave attack, then jump behind him, but he didn't move. He knew I had no long-range attacks beyond [Far Reach], and he also knew that if he waited out my buffs, he would have an overwhelming stat advantage. Well, more fool him. I hadn't cast my buffs yet and still had a full mana pool.

Not wanting to stand there all day waiting for each other, I buffed up and moved in closer. I still had my second trick with [Far Reach] that I hadn't yet employed in this competition, and that would hopefully catch him by surprise.

As soon as I was within range, he started to swing. He was ridiculously strong, and had the weapon had any serious weight behind it, I doubt I could have parried, but I could just about deflect the light wooden mace. I swung at him in turn, and he reached out to grab my staff with his free hand. The same light-weight weapon argument applied to me too, and I didn't doubt he would be able to catch it and disarm me. So I activated [Far Reach] and slipped straight through his arm.

He reacted with heroic speed, twisting and flexing backwards, causing my weapon to sweep past him by a hair's breadth. Drat, I was hoping that would have won me the match. Now I'd lost the element of surprise. He turned his twist into a full rotation, swinging his mace around again and forcing me to parry.

With our insubstantial weapons, neither of us managed to land any blows, all our efforts being parried or dodged. Each time I parried his mace he was knocked off balance momentarily, but I couldn't move my staff quickly enough to take advantage. With my unarmed proficiency came knowledge of kicks I could mix in with my attacks, but they were also too slow, and disturbed my own balance enough that I showed openings of my own. If this kept up, I was certain that my stamina or mana would run dry before Kai's did. There had to be a way of taking advantage that I couldn't see... Wisdom was supposed to help with that, wasn't it? I fired off [Minor Wisdom] for the first time in ages and felt the trickling of a plan beginning to form.

The next time I parried, I applied [Far Reach] to let my deflected staff move through my own right hand, freeing it up for a punch. I still had hold of it in my left hand, although it had been knocked far out of position. That manoeuvre certainly caught Kai by surprise, but he managed to dodge despite the look of shock clearly evident in his eyes. But this wasn't just a one-off attempt to catch him unawares; it was something I could turn into a whole new way of fighting. When two weapons clashed, it should be fairly intuitive to any trained warrior as to where each of them would go, but by letting my weapon pass through my own grip, I could make it more unpredictable, as well as creating space for unarmed counterattacks. Taking an unarmed proficiency hadn't been a mistake.

As the fight went on, my attempts at this new style grew more proficient, and at times I was even able to completely release my grip on my weapon, make unarmed attacks, then catch it again in a single, fluid motion. I was pushing Kai onto the back foot. Unfortunately, my use of [Minor Wisdom] and repeated [Far Reach] were draining my mana rapidly, and I was already at the point where I wouldn't be able to renew my three main buffs once they ran out. Despite forcing him onto the defensive, I hadn't yet landed any blows on Kai, and I doubted I would before my time ran out. I needed drastic measures.

On my next swing, I threw in [Minor Speed] and [Minor Slow], taking up another chunk of my dwindling mana pool. It was worth it though, as the sudden shift in my velocity threw off Kai's timing. He still managed to parry me, but the opening it left was bigger than normal, and I was faster. As my staff escaped my grip and flew into the air, I punched out at his unguarded torso, forcing him to jump backward. He missed his footing and fell awkwardly. I caught my staff and tapped him on the stomach, causing the referee to call the match for me.

As the adrenaline rush faded, I staggered, barely managing to stay on my feet. A quick glance at my status showed that my worries about mana had been misplaced, or at least weren't my primary problem; I still had five whole points left, whereas my stamina was down to two. Given that I had less than a minute of [Endurance] left to run, that left me with an unfortunate enforced nap time in my immediate future. I managed to make it back out of the arena, squeezed out a couple of words about stamina to whatever blurry figures were closest, then keeled over.

I opened my eyes in a state of some confusion. My head was resting on something soft, while the rest of me was decidedly uncomfortable. Standing in front of me was Kari, which immediately brought back memories of my attempts to unlock [Enlarged Stamina Pool] all those years ago. Above me was a couple of mounds... Eep, someone was giving me a lap pillow! I jerked upright, looking behind me and realising it was my mum. There were worse options, I guess.

"Looks like he's fully recovered, if he can move that energetically."

"Yes, thanks Kari. Did I miss much?"

"Only one fight, and nothing interesting happened. The last one of the day is just getting started."

I glanced over at the arena, where the other warrior was taking up position against the healer. That one wouldn't be interesting either. My opponent saw me wake up, and walked over with a massive, beaming smile on his face. That seemed rather out of place, given that he'd just lost...

Kai, Human, Warrior (20/40)

Well, that explained it. That made three people I've helped break through to the third rank, albeit all of them accidental. He wouldn't actually be able to take a new class without being disqualified from the rest of the tournament, but at least it was there waiting for him. Unless he wanted another rank two, like the other warrior...

"That was a great fight, but for the sake of my curiosity, I have to ask. Am I right in assuming that last move of yours was an all or nothing last-ditch gamble?"

"Yes. I was down to two stamina. A couple more parries and I'd have been out."

"Dammit, so close. Ah well, at least I got to see something interesting. And defending against whatever the hell that was did wonders for my skill levels."

Mum chimed in with her own praise. "I can't pretend to know anything about combat or duelling, but that was mesmerising to watch."

Kari nodded too. "An almost seamless integration of unarmed and staff proficiencies along with [Far Reach]. I've never even heard of such a thing before. It's a pity anyone attuned to space affinity wouldn't normally bother to learn to fight. I wonder what else we're missing out on?"

I'd been too focused in that fight to pay attention to any dings, but I knew there had been some, and if Kai had got a bumper crop of gains from that fight then no doubt I had too.

Skill [Strength] advanced to level 8

Skill [Dexterity] advanced to level 7

Skill [Endurance] advanced to level 7

Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 9

Wisdom increased by 1

Skill [Minor Wisdom] advanced to level 10

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] advanced to level 4

Strength increased by 1

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] advanced to level 5

Skill [Enlarged Stamina Pool] advanced to level 10

You have begun to form a new skill

Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 10

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] advanced to level 6

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] advanced to level 7

Endurance increased by 1

Holy... I don't even... Two class levels? Four unarmed proficiency levels? And what the heck was that bit about forming a new skill?

"You okay there, Peter?" asked Kari.

"He's fine, that's just his I-did-something-outrageous face. He'll recover in a minute."

I blinked and peered at Mum. "Please tell me you're making that up. I don't really have a specific expression for that, do I?"

"You do," she confirmed, without a hint of hesitation. "So, what did you do this time?"

"Aside from gaining two class levels in less than ten minutes, I had a System message that I've begun to form a new skill."

A strange prickling sensation on the back of my neck caused me to glance around, where it turned out that the spectators, rather than watching the inevitable healer beat-down, were all staring at me. Right... I was in a fairly crowded room. The sort of thing I'd get two class levels at once for was probably the sort of thing that would attract attention. Maybe I should have been a little quieter?

Mum seemed a little intimidated by the sudden crowd of spectators, but Kari either didn't care or didn't notice. "Oh! A new skill! I haven't heard of that happening in, well, long since before I was born. This is exactly what I meant by missing out!"

"That's nice, but could you explain what actually happened?"

"What it says. You came up with a new fighting style that's sufficiently different from anything else out there that the System decided to make a new skill out of it. Keep fighting like that, complete your new style, work out any kinks, and eventually the System will give you the skill and make it available for anyone else to buy, if they meet the requirements."

That was a strange concept. Other people could pay soul points and get all the moves I'd just come up with on the spur of the moment downloaded into their heads? What about me? Would I get the skill at level one, ten or twelve? If it didn't arrive at max level, how would I level it up? By inventing new moves, or just by using it like any other skill? If it was just by using it, where would the extra knowledge come from when it levelled? Would there be any at all? What about other people? What would happen if one of them managed a higher level than me? So many unanswered questions that I didn't know where to begin. But nevertheless, it didn't seem to be a bad thing, and given that the requirements would at least require unarmed and staff proficiency skills along with [Far Reach], the pool of other people who qualified would be very small. If it required time affinity too, that pool would be zero. Did this all only apply to combat skills, or could I come up with anything? Use mana control to create new spells? Would making lenses trigger the creation of a glasswork series of crafting skills?

Most of the spectators lost interest after Kari's explanation. It wasn't a skill they could use, or that interested them. Grover continued to look on, stroking his beard with a dangerous glint in his eye. I had no idea what he was thinking. Hopefully nothing bad... Meanwhile, I was considering what 'completing' this style would entail, and the answer was immediately obvious. I needed my staff weight enchantment back. If I could manipulate its weight in combination with the moves that let it pass straight through my body parts, I could throw anyone off their game. I looked forward to my next trip to the dungeon to try it out.