Limitless Path

"I feel like we're constantly getting cheated," Bai said a bit crossly when all the cheering had died down and they had all gathered together.

"Well, that one was a lot more on you guys," Beth said with a slight shrug, though she had a big grin on her face.

"It was on us?! How?" Ming cried out.

"I mean, I did introduce my future wife to you as a dragon. And you can see that if you Identify her with any of those types of skills. She's an actual dragon; you know, the fire-breathing kind?" Beth said, laughing.

"But then, that was the skill she kept?" Mei Mei asked in confusion.

"Dragons don't have a skill to breathe fire," Sera answered with a laugh of her own. "It's an inherent ability of our various species. Dragons don't need some kind of skill controlled by the Path to breathe fire."

"Then what was the skill you kept?" asked Bai, rather confused.

"Body of Heavenly Thunder," Sera replied. "It's a high-tier body reinforcement and defensive skill that I've worked on a lot recently. It's Gold[0] right now and provides a huge amount of extra defense and stamina, as well as a slight negating effect to spells or direct mana attacks that have to travel through the air in some way to hit me."

"That sounds crazy," Bai said, shaking her head. "Where do you even get something like that?"

"You pick these things up, here and there," Beth said with a shrug. "Can really pay to leave the planet every once in a while. The six of you are already strong enough for it, though there's plenty still on Earth to do. Part of it is you just have to keep going and clear stuff over and over. Do a hundred runs of a dungeon, then a hundred runs of a second dungeon, then a third. You'll get valuable shit, even if it's stuff you don't want; you just sell it and buy the stuff you do want."

"I feel like we're so far behind," Li said morosely.

"All you can do is walk your Path at your own pace," Sera said gently. "Comparing yourself to others will only cause you to do something rash."

"It's easy to talk about going slow from so far in the lead," Fang shot back.

"Hey, even we have people we're way behind," Beth shot back.

"No way," said Fang.

"Yes way," Beth laughed. "We know a guy who's a little younger than us and is already a Swords Grandmaster. He got to Grandmaster by fighting me more than a year ago; he's probably already gotten one level in it since then."

"Some of the Senior Enforcers aren't even Grandmasters," Li said quietly, glancing around at all the people milling about the arena floor. "To think you know someone younger than you, maybe even younger than we are, that's already at that stage. That puts things in perspective a bit more."

"So, more fights?" Ming asked, resetting the mood and discussion.

"We have time, but I'm not sure what conditions to put in," Beth said.

"What if we do the first ruleset but we have some additional help," Bai proposed, seeming deep in thought.

"What are you thinking?" Beth asked.

"What if we had one of your companions on our side?" Bai asked.

"With what restrictions on them?" Beth asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No skills?" Bai proposed hopefully.

"Gotta be way more than that," Beth said. "Either Sera or Blood have massive stats and are close to my level with weapon skills. They're also humanized beasts, meaning they have a constant, if smaller, boost to their strength since they don't have Presences. If they had stats matching yours then it might be fair."

"Okay, so, we get Sera on our team with my stat levels and her skills are restricted?" Bai asked.

Beth glanced up at Sera, who just shrugged with a small smile. "Fine," Beth said. "Go set it up and we'll do a round or two that way."

It turned out to be two rounds that way, both of which got just as much if not more attention than the previous two fights. The fights were long and complex enough that an awful lot of people, including some of the new Gold Emblems, were getting a good bit out of spectating them. On top of that, it was a good opportunity for the older hands to get an assessment of where everyone was at, and Beth noted Baelvyr had entered at some point, though he was hanging back and not approaching them right away.

The first round was Beth's loss, though it came down to her and Sera at the end. Beth was just under too many restrictions and, even though Sera was heavily restricted, she couldn't match the girl based on what her stats were set to and her skills. Sera also had access to her fire which, though it couldn't hurt Beth, could blind her briefly and even push her back. The dragon was able to make use of her breath and her nearly equal weapon skills to outmaneuver a wounded Beth and win the match. Beth took it with very good grace, kind of surprised that she had won the first match before Sera was added and surprised she had managed, though barely, to get all of Bai's team out this match before Sera could eliminate her.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The second round went better for Bai's team, at least initially, but Beth still managed to eliminate all of them. This time, however, she was eliminated herself just after taking out the last of Bai's team, not able to last any longer than Bai herself, with Sera eliminating Beth at practically the same time Beth had eliminated Bai. The round was still good for Beth, as she had felt like she had polished her sword work against a group of sapient beings a bit, but Bai's team had clearly been learning even faster. The weight of them having someone like Sera on their side, even if they weren't used to working with her, also was clearly helping a huge amount with them being able to outmaneuver Beth and deal her serious damage. Beth wasn't put out with it at all, either, just treating it like a very valuable learning experience.

"More?" Beth asked them after the two fights.

"Yeah!" was Ming's response.

"We can do a few more, but we don't have the kind of stamina you do," Bai said.

"We're not doing that great, either," Beth said. "Having our stats twisted way down and then reset a bunch of times can really get exhausting."

"I hadn't really thought of that, considering we're being given fake extra stats and then having them disappear," Bai said. "It's a lot less impactful to have an extra three hundred Endurance and then have it disappear than whatever your numbers are."

"I have well over four thousand Endurance right now," Beth said. "So, having that cut down to four hundred and then returned to over ten times that much is a bit much. I'm happy to do more, but it's no picnic over here, either."

"Let's do two more," Bai said decisively, silencing the only objection on her team. "Then we'll rest. We have a lot we need to go over, discuss, practice, and improve on. If you're at this Hall for a while, we'll seek you out later on to figure some of this out."

"We've still got another ten months or so before we can do anything else," Beth answered. "We're here during the week and sometimes on weekends. Let's do those two more matches and then we can talk about that. Were you just thinking the same ruleset?"

"I don't know how much more we could restrict you, but I'd like a chance to fight against your whole team," Bai said calmly.

Beth and Sera shared a long look, communication passing between them without any words needing to be said, Beth then turning back to Bai and saying, "Let's do that last. Even if we put some crazy restrictions in place, not that the current ones aren't already crazy, that might still be a difficult prospect. Let's get this last match under the rules that we know work finished first."

"Understood," Bai said, signaling to her team, who had all been resting at this point. Bai then went over to set up more matches, their fights having priority right now, a privilege that was unabashedly biased in favor of people who were putting on a good or valuable display on the arena floor.

They lined up one last time in their current configuration, Sera still teaming up with Bai's team while it was just Beth alone against them. The fight went about as well as the others, at least for Bai's team, though they certainly held on longer this time. Beth was really in the zone at this point, however, and she was giving the aforementioned spectators a masterclass in dueling against a group while alone. Not only that, she really had dropped into the zone, experiencing a level of understanding with her weapons that she had very rarely felt. She knew she'd be getting some improvements, but that was a distant, passing thought, as she was wholly absorbed in swinging her sword.

So focused was she that she didn't even realize that she had won the match, and to continue on with the discussion of privilege, it was because Baelvyr had commandeered the arena. The extremely experienced ogre had realized that Beth was in a heightened state of focus and had taken over the arena controls, taking over for the ref before the fight finished. When Beth eliminated Sera from the ring, she barely noticed that she hadn't won, as she was immediately confronted with a new opponent, someone she had never had the privilege of fighting. Baelvyr had kept the arena active and added to the roster of registered fighters for the same match, allowing Tazeen to step into the arena without the match stopping and interrupting Beth's concentration.

If what was displayed before this was a masterclass, this was a real grand-masterclass, something that few there might have ever had the honor of observing live and in person. Tazeen was the best being with a sword on the planet at present time; even Baelvyr, a warrior among warriors and someone who had long ago earned his Champion Sobriquet, wasn't as skilled with a single weapon as Tazeen. The level to which the elf had raised his skill with a sword made him one of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy; apart from Zane and Fallon, there were very few sapients that could challenge Tazeen in any meaningful way in the Milky Way. His skill was tantamount to perfection, and he was able to extremely finely control that skill, using exactly as much as he needed. For the next thirty minutes, he fought Beth exactly as she needed, pushing her every time she seemed to grasp a new concept or achieve even a tiny inspiration. Every time Beth improved even an iota, Tazeen improved the exact same amount, a level of indelible control and mastery that was genuinely terrifying to ponder.

Thirty minutes of this was enough to push Beth well past her limits; the mental strain was the hardest part, and she couldn't keep continuously improving like that at her current level without any consequence. It came down to Tazeen and Baelvyr's good judgement on when to pull her out, and thirty minutes was all they thought she could take, Tazeen eliminating her with a single swing, so brilliant and beautiful it was burned into the minds of the spectators for years after. The brushstroke of a master that had painted their entire life; the note of a singer that had honed their craft from the time they were a small child; the final genius of the most brilliant inventor in all of history; such things paled in comparison to that strike. Tazeen had spent the equivalent of a hundred lifetimes, nay, a thousand lifetimes honing his craft. For such a calm and mild-mannered man, he was truly one of the most dangerous people to have ever lived, his dedication to the sword having pushed him to ascend to a level few could ever even understand.

Beth woke on the outside of the arena, puzzled at first as to what had happened, such had been her concentration on the sword and the moment. She quickly realized what was going on, particularly when Tazeen walked over amid the roaring cheers and gave her a shallow bow, striding away afterwards. No words were needed between them; they had crossed blades as few living beings would ever experience. Speaking would only ruin the moment.

Well, speaking between them; Beth still had to talk with the others, all of whom were looking rather stunned, even after so much time had passed. Even Sera was rather stunned with the development, giving Beth a searching look before embracing her and given her a soft kiss. Beth wasn't sure what that was all about, but she returned it, holding it until Bai clearing her throat caused them to come up for air. The much shorter girl was glaring at them, though the deep red in her cheeks offset her feigned anger.

"What, exactly, was that?" Bai asked.

"Kissing my wife?" Beth asked with a faux-puzzled look.

"Not that! What just happened in the arena? What was that?" Bai snapped huffily.

"Uh, not really sure, but I was really in the zone," Beth replied with a shrug.

Before she could go any further, she was interrupted by Baelvyr, who had walked over to them. "I wanna see ya tomorrow mornin', real early like. Ya just went through a big epiphany; we gotta get ya sorted out before it fades too much."

"What happened?" Bai asked the big ogre, her tone much more respectful than when she was confronting Beth.

"She had a moment o' enlightenment there," Baelvyr said. "I seen it happen 'fore to people, and seen the best way to not waste it. Lucky for us, we got the best Sword skill user in the galaxy at this Hall, so we were able to get it done the right way. It ain't really somethin' ya can force, either, so be careful about what ya do. Anyway, come down before yer shift tomorrow and we'll go over some stuff. Yer clear, otherwise, though I'd be careful about fightin' these guys. For their sake."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bai asked a bit petulantly.

"She'll tell ya," Baelvyr rumbled before turning and marching off.

"Well," Bai demanded, turning to Beth. "What did he mean by that."

"Uh, I guess I'm a Swords Master now?" Beth replied, clearly staring at her status screen with a bit of a shocked look on her face.

"You're a what?!" Bai and Ming exclaimed basically in unison. The others around them had much the same, if not even more exaggerated, reactions to the news.

"Uh, guess that moment of enlightenment was pretty good," Beth replied a bit sheepishly. "I hit Master[0] off that duel just now."

"Good grief," Bai said, deflating before their very eyes.