"Clang!"

Alfred continued his unrelenting assault on his opponent. Each swing of the sword or shield bash was thrown with the same vigor as the first, but each and every strike was skillfully blocked or redirected.

Alfred's opponent in this semi-final was a well built and stocky kid with a large shield and spear from the bear continent, but he hadn't had much time at all to do anything with the latter, relying entirely on his shield.

Regardless, Alfred wasn't faring much better. The kid seemed to be fully focused on defense in both his actions and martial arts style. Alfred's speed was only just enough to eliminate the possibility of retaliation without risking anything.

'This was what he was talking about. I've never really fought against a polar opposite before.'

"Clang!"

Alfred slammed his body into the kid's shield, forcing him to correct with a step back.

Cysandoth had been giving Alfred advice over the last few days, one of those instances related to defense specialists.

Alfred's biggest advantage was over people who either avoided conflict or actively engaged in it. If someone was swinging wildly at him, while others may be overwhelmed by the number of attacks, Alfred can just react as he is supposed to. However, if someone decides to turtle behind a shield, he can only rely on his skills and decision making.

"You've got to take more risks against the defensive ones, even if that's what they want," Alfred recalled Cysandoth saying to him.

Alfred mentally shrugged and let up on his attacks for a moment. The kid on the other side of it obviously noticed, and tensed up for something new. Looking left and right, the kid saw no difference in Alfred's shadow.

This was the main dilemma with fighting this kid. He had skillfully positioned Alfred between the sun and himself in order to stay hidden behind the shield while still knowing his movements. Alfred needed a way, if even for a moment, to turn the tides of battle in his favor.

'This better fucking work!'

Quickly, Alfred tossed his shield to the left and ducked right. He was now left without half of his weapon, but that was fine now that he had gotten where he needed to be.

The movement out of the corner of the kid's eye made him react to the shield's shadow, leaving Alfred a tiny opening to get around with a long step.

Alfred sent a lightning fast stab into the closest thing he could, the kid's hip flexer. Blood started flowing, but even before it hit the ground, the kid retreated.

This time, he wasn't fast enough to do it properly. With one leg nearly out of commission already, Alfred's speed far outclassed his. With only two almost silent and bug-like steps, Alfred wrapped around the other side and plunged his blade through the kid's lungs from the back, ending the fight with the disappearance of his body.

"Pffew!~"

Alfred dropped his sword by his side and sat down in the lotus position. To his dismay, he wasn't given any time at all to refine as the stadium already began changing back to normal.

'Not surprising. That kid did a decent job dragging out our fight,' he thought to himself.

There were only two kids left in the stadium, Alfred and the smiling kid. While completely avoiding his gaze Alfred made haste to the gates to get out as quickly as possible.

"Lady Öthe! I must say your move there was magnificent! That's the right phrase you use here, right? Magnificent! Ah! By the way…"

The smiling kid sped up ahead of Alfred, who continued walking. "Have you thought of my proposal? I truly am sincere…"

Alfred sighed. 'This kid has been… hitting on me ever since I kicked Lionel's ass. He must have some sort of kink I don't know about.'

Without missing a beat, Alfred picked up the pace. Throughout the past week, the smiling kid, or Jürgen von Zürn as he had come to know, had been trying every trick in the book it seemed to get Alfred to spar with him. The past few days, he had resorted to flowers and pleasantries to win him over, but Alfred refused every time.

In fact, Jürgen's new strategy had only further put him off.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When Alfred heard who Jürgen was, he was slightly intrigued. The brother of Heinlich von Zürn, a legitimate representative of another massive colosseum must have some great techniques, but Alfred really didn't have much time for others.

With memorization, training, refinement, and now even collecting techniques from the colosseum's library using his boons in his schedule alongside the tournament, every second was taken up.

Alfred wished Jürgen would get knocked out of the tournament, but every day like a cockroach, he would hop and skip back to the infirmary covered in cuts and bruises from his crazy fighting style.

To his credit, the kid was a battle genius. Sadly, his character flaws were too much for Alfred to deal with in his current anti-social state.

After the battle with shield kid, Alfred had a small cut on his cheek that could be fixed within minutes, so one nurse took him aside. She grabbed an ointment and began applying it. She looked behind her, and upon seeing Jürgen enter a separate room, she focused back on Alfred.

"You should really give him a chance, girl," the nurse said with a cheeky smile. "He's so polite, and from a noble family too. And you're so cute!~"

Alfred was staring serrated daggers into the nurse's face, but she completely ignored them like a trained professional. "Can I go now?" Alfred asked.

She nodded in response, but the cheeky smile didn't leave her face.

Alfred made sure to begin running immediately, as Jürgen had already caught up to him once before when he failed to do so. Thankfully, the one place Jürgen didn't know about was the clearing Alfred practices and sleeps in, or else Alfred may have already strangled him to death.

Down the first hallway, Alfred saw Cysandoth against one wall with his arms crossed, seemingly waiting for Alfred to come by.

Alfred stopped in front of him and gave a quick bow. "Master?"

"Öthe, let's head straight to the enclosure. The rest of today will be taken up by refinement for tomorrow. That kid is a lot farther along in the Apprentice stage compared to you."

Cysandoth began walking away, but Alfred thought a bit in place.

"Shouldn't I finish mastering Kororo instead? It would throw him for a loop if I switched weapons like that," Alfred said finally.

Cysandoth promptly shook his head. "That's not enough. Right now, you have far more experience with Nidas, and simply throwing him for a loop isn't enough for him."

"How so?"

"He has the advantage of time," Cysandoth explained. "You are a once in a millennia talent, nobody could deny it, but he's not far off that caliber, and his family is known for their natural obsession with fighting. There is no doubt in my mind that his library of techniques far outweighs your own, enough to where without this last training session, I'm not sure you would be able to beat him."

Alfred's eyebrows scrunched up. 'Then he's been hiding his skills all this time. Shit.'

.

.

.

The fateful day was there at last. It was a little awkward, as the two finalists for the child tournament were in the same room, but so long as the two followed instructions, nothing would come of it.

Soon the gate opened and Alfred and Jürgen walked out. Following the pattern that the entire tournament had, the participant's numbers were located at different parts of the stadium, this time they were on opposite ends of the entire thing, Alfred's being the farthest away.

"Lady Öthe!"

Alfred turned to Jürgen, who called out to him.

Surprisingly, he kept his mouth shut, and instead did a respectful bow. Alfred returned it, and continued on to his number.

As expected, the weapon rack appeared. Without hesitation, Alfred picked up his sword and shield. He spun the sword around his hand a couple times followed by a few jumps to warm up, and indicated that he was ready.

The crowd was buzzing with excitement. Alfred saw an impressive number of onlookers, many of whom seemed quite skilled in their own right. In addition, the walkway and glass dome above, which had stayed relatively calm, collected, and reserved, had a noticeable buzz to it. It was also noticeably more diverse.

'I'm sure now those are nobles or government authority figures up there, so why are they gathered so intently today? Is this final so important?'

"...~The rules are unchanged…" the announcer said suddenly, quieting down the entire stadium. "...~In addition, the winner shall meet with the Empress Elanora Elisabeth Naji herself alongside the original weapon and manifesto item reward…"

'The Empress!'

Similar to Alfred, gasps and surprised expressions circulated throughout the stadium and in the SE's at this earth shattering news. Everyone there, including Alfred, knew about the immense rewards these tournaments brought despite being yearly, but meeting the Empress herself was a whole 'nother deal. 'Is that what they're here for? Those nobles.'

He looked up to the glass dome, coincidentally locking eyes with an older woman who was looking down from the center of the dome. She soon broke eye contact and turned to chat with another person. 'Hmm…'

Alfred's original body knew about the Empress already. In fact, she was one of the only things in the world he was confident about having average knowledge about.

Other than being the Empress of the entire Elephant continent, she was a fully fledged manifesto wielder, and had created one of the most sought after and powerful techniques in the world called "Naji". Recently, Alfred had also learned that not only was this technique 1st division, not only was it in the Junanbi Grimoire, but she also made a 2nd division technique that it was based off of, also in the Grimoire.

'Knowledge is more useful to me than weapons. The only thing I was motivated by was the "manifesto item", mainly to have more references to see how they work, and if there are any similarities between the Grimoire and whatever I earn. If I can ask her how she made both the 2nd and 1st division techniques, and how she earned her manifesto, I'll be one step closer to being able to recreate those feats.'

Alfred quickly regained his composure and got into stance. The knowledge he would gain from winning was too important to give up, so he was taking no chances. HSM would be exploited to its fullest in order to achieve this goal.

Once before, he truly used it in its entirety, and that was when he first stepped into the courtyard and Cysandoth attacked him, and even then, his control over his own body wasn't nearly up to snuff. Despite this, he could contort and control every inch of his being to avoid a punch he should not have, and now, he had the tools and motivation to utilize it in a full fight.

He exhaled and inhaled slowly.

For him, time slowly crept to a relative halt. Around him, the voices of the crowd blended in and eventually disappeared from his consciousness, leaving him with one individual… Jürgen.

The peach fuzz on his neck tingled as his braid shifted ever so slightly. His senses were on high alert for any movement in his new perception range. He could pick up on the direction of the wind, the sandy stone beneath his feet, and even the creases in his leather sandals.

And suddenly, a voice crept through his void.

"...~Begin…"

And he shot off.