An Unbound Soul

The following day I was pitted against the lightning mage, and his magic was completely useless against my mana control. His spells traced out narrow paths of mana before lightning arced along them, and I could easily redirect those paths. However much lightning he spat out, none of it hit me. The trick did require me to keep a bit of distance though, and trying to get within strike range would result in me taking a bolt of lightning to the stomach. Once he realised he couldn't get through my defence, he stopped wasting his mana and stood watching. No doubt he would have [Mana Perception], so a sneak attack with [Far Reach] or [Far Step] would fail. Hmm... Yet again, I was stuck in a stalemate with neither combatant having an obvious way to score a hit on the other.

I buffed myself, slowed him, and threw my staff. Perhaps I should have picked up the thrown proficiency first, but the point was just distraction, not to hit. Then I used [Far Step] to close the distance, jumped back away immediately without doing anything, caught the thrown staff on the other side of the arena, threw it once more, then jumped back in to the mage. By this point, he was completely off balance, having dodged my first throw, spun around to blast me only to find me gone again before he was able, then desperately dodging the second throw. I was easily able to score an unarmed strike before he could react, winning yet another level of [Greater Mana Control] and [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] for my trouble.

Day seven was against the ice mage, who had no method of countering me jumping into melee range, resulting in an easy win. That left two troublesome opponents for the final two days. So far, the group leader was the high level warrior—a human by the name of Zachary—with no losses. Freya and I were runners up, with one loss each. Tournament rules were that in the event of a tie between two people, it was the outcome of their personal match that decided the winner, but there didn't seem to be anything to cover the case of a three-way tie. If I won both my battles, there would be three of us tied, all of which who had won one and lost one against the other two. I wouldn't want to be the adjudicator responsible for sorting that mess out.

Day eight was against the higher level, trap-using scout, leaving the big showdown to the final day. With my extra level of [Mana Perception] I would be able to detect him with slightly better accuracy than before, but unlike my first battle against a stealth user, he knew full well I could perceive him. He didn't bother with [Stealth] at all, instead engaging me in melee range. He was fast and, despite him using only a single dagger, I was reminded of my duels against Cluma. That meant I had plenty of experience in how to block his attacks. Melee was obviously not this guy's forte, with him not being any more skilled than I was, and despite his slightly higher speed, I was able to win. To be fair, it was a poor match up for him; without being able to see through his stealth or detect his traps, I would have had no hope. I did at least win a level of [Dexterity] for my efforts.

That led to the final day of our matches. The guild master was back in the audience, standing next to Grover, who had been here for half the sessions. Kari was likewise there, having been every day. Today she was with my dad. Freya and Zachary had won their previous fights, as expected. Freya fought first today too, confirming her final score as one loss. My fight against Zachary was the last of the day, and hence the very last one of the group, a coincidence so suspicious that I wondered if someone was deliberately trying to build suspense. I took my place in the arena opposite my opponent, who was again wielding a bow, with a greatsword carried on his back.

Zachary, Human, Warrior (3/43)

Apparently he had gained a level at some point in the week.

"Oi, you'd better win this, Peter. Robin isn't going to let me live it down if I don't make it to the finals, and getting a tie here is my last hope!"

And apparently I had a supporter in the combatants' section, albeit for all the wrong reasons. I didn't rate my chances highly; from watching previous battles, I knew his dexterity and strength were both higher than Kai's, so he should have little trouble countering me even with his big-ass sword, and even that was assuming he didn't manage to snipe me first. Of course, that wasn't going to stop me from trying.

The match started, and he drew his bow without an arrow. My [Mana Perception] picked up on what he was doing moments before I saw the black mist forming; this was Robin's trick. I was too late to close the distance, so I used [Far Reach] to try to knock the bow, but he somehow picked up what I was doing and stepped out of the way. Suddenly there was an arrow flying straight at me, with a speed I couldn't react to, and it took a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up on events and inform me that it hadn't actually hit. It had grazed my head so closely that I wouldn't be surprised to see a lock of hair falling off. Then he threw his bow away, drew his sword, and grinned at me.

"Fine, I get it. You could have won in one shot, but wanted to test yourself against my melee skills."

He nodded. "Too right I do. Shifting your weapon through solid objects like that must be a real pain to deal with. I want to see how well I do."

Well, that was an anticlimactic ending, and the fight wasn't even over yet. While I hadn't been sure I could win, I wasn't expecting to lose that easily. My mistake was waiting for him to draw an arrow, which he had bypassed, letting him get a shot off with me unbuffed. I ignored the annoyed tut from the competitors' section, activated my buffs, including wisdom and speed, and charged in. I was going to go all out from the start this time. Giving him time to get used to me wouldn't help either of us.

How he could manoeuvre such a ridiculous sword to block my staff, and even some of my unarmed attacks, I had no idea. While it was lighter than it would have been if made out of metal, it was still massive. What he didn't block, he dodged. The size of the sword actually played against me in another way, too; unless the angle was perfect, it was too wide for me to use [Far Reach] to phase through it. I fought as hard as I could, but it was obvious that as soon as I lost the edge from the speed and slow combo I was going to go down in short order.

He consistently reacted to my use of [Far Reach] to strike him, but occasions where the spell failed or where I just plain missed, he didn't react at all. All of this was happening out of his line of sight, so surely there was no way he could see what was going on. He shouldn't have [Mana Perception] either, and [Mana Sense] wouldn't be good enough to do what he was doing. Nor would it explain why he only reacted to my moves that were actually a threat. Maybe that was it; it had to be a 'threat'. Was there a threat detection skill? And if so, could I abuse it for a feint? His response didn't seem to vary based on the strength of my attack, so if all it needed to be was something that would hit him...

My short-lived buffs coming to an end and mana pool drying up, I went for a last-ditch attempt, aiming a [Far Reach] with my staff at his back. Rather than following through, I abandoned my staff immediately. As expected, Zachary moved to block the attack. Meanwhile, I launched a series of punches from the other side. Despite already being occupied by my feint, he dodged out of the way. Of course, any threat detection would have picked my real attack up too, but effortlessly dodging me while looking in the opposite direction was just rubbing it in. I used [Far Reach] to grab back my staff just before it hit the floor and launched another swing, which he again blocked.

At that point [Minor Speed] and [Minor Slow] wore off, and I lacked the mana to recast, so I jumped back to disengage.

"I surrender. I have no more mana."

Zachary grunted in satisfaction. "Not a bad attempt. I'd like to try again once you catch up to my level."

Hah, let's see him try that bow stunt again once I have [Distortion]. What gains did I get that time?

Skill [Minor Wisdom] advanced to level 11

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] advanced to level 9

Dexterity increased by 1

Not a huge amount in comparison to the earlier hard battles, but I'd take it. The referee called the match, and along with it the overall group result. Zachary was first, Freya second and I was third. I hadn't made it to the finals, but I was perfectly happy with three class levels over one week's work, not to mention taking unarmed from zero to nine, which was frankly ridiculous. I'd say the tournament had done its duty.

Something else I found interesting was that Freya and Zachary were so much tougher than the rest. Zachary completely outclassed Kai, despite only a few levels difference. Did something happen on completing a rank two class? Mum was the same; I'd seen her carrying around multiple bolts of cloth before, not least on our first visit to Dawnhold, but since hitting rank three she'd been casually lifting them in one hand by the ends, as if the principle of leverage was something for mere mortals to worry about. I'd assumed it was a rank three boost, but maybe you got it even if you stayed rank two. That would be a nice bonus to look forward too; I was already halfway there.

Formalities completed, the guild master waved me over.

"Yo, lad. You put in a pretty good showing there. Shame you didn't have the levels to make it further, but still an impressive performance. This here is Grover, the one who requested the mythril experiment last week. Since it was a success, we were hoping you'd accompany us tomorrow to forge more mythril."

It looked like I'd get my opportunity to convert my new batch of rings sooner than expected. Perhaps an opportunity to restock my depleted coffers, too. "I'd be happy to. What does the job pay?"

"Hah. As much as it's worth, that's for sure. A ten percent share of everything you produce. My office, second bell."

That was... slightly awkward, actually. It would be extremely unlikely that I could sell it until prices stabilised. It would also make my ring purchase a complete waste. Depending how much I could make, I also risked making my newly purchased weapon redundant before I'd even taken delivery of it... Nevertheless, I wasn't going to turn down an easy mythril supply. How much silver had they managed to scrounge up? I nodded my assent, then went to talk to dad.

"Hope you aren't too disappointed by your loss."

Despite my cheat traits and the resulting mountain of high-level skills, quantity wasn't everything. I hadn't come here with any sort of conceit. "Of course not. He had thirteen levels on me, and Freya had even more. It would have been stranger if I did win."

Kari nodded. "It would have been interesting to see how things would have gone if your new skill was fully developed, but that wouldn't have stopped him sniping you. The level difference there was a bit much."

Speaking of which, Kari would know what happens when someone completed a rank two class. "What difference do levels make? I assume it's something more than a few extra stat points and soul points, or he wouldn't have completely outclassed me like that."

"It's not just class awarded stat points; he'll have more natural increases than you too. On top of that, completing a rank two class gives you plus five to all stats."

Yup, that would certainly have given Freya and Zachary a nice boost. Ah well. It was one I could overcome with my buff spells. Hopefully, this would become an annual thing; I'd bet I'd have a much better chance of winning by next year.