=====Vol 2, Chap 1=====
Tap tap tap..
“What do I do.. I have four more days...”
Tapping her feet on the floor repeatedly, she kept asking herself.
“Sigh… A whole week, only three days have passed, and I’ve done everything I needed to do.”
Having said her goodbyes, made sure that she didn’t miss anyone, she sat on her bed with nothing to do.
“Should I.. go for it?”
Gazing out of the window, she looked at nothing in particular under the clear, starry night.
In this world, wastes nearly cease to exist, allowing for a great view of the outer space to be shown.
A smile formed up on her face, before standing up and moving towards the closet.
…
“””KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! YEAAAAH!!!”””
“COME ON SPARKS! I BET ON YOU! DON’T LOSE!”
Yes, her destination was… the underground tournaments.
However, she wasn’t wearing her ‘White Night’ attire, but instead, a long, black staff with dark green vines wrapped around it, and two leaf straps near the ends.
On the other hand, she wore an assassin-like outfit, with a black mask hiding her face except her eyes, and a black robe hiding the rest of her body.
Walking towards the stage, this kind of tournament was ‘20 consecutive wins’, meaning that whomever survives for 20 rounds against 20 different people will win, currently the man called Sparks, an agile-electric mage that knows how to fight well in close quarters was on his 18th win, just about to finish the 19th.
Quickly, she entered her name and entered the stage after Sparks’ opponent was moved away.
“A girl, huh. Don’t think I’m going easy on yo-”
Not even letting him finish, she dashed at him with her staff, then started quickly hitting his feet.
Suddenly, his ‘Sparks’ stopped showing, making him confused, but that didn’t stop Illiana from using that chance to swing the staff as hard as she could at his head, knocking him unconscious in less than 5 seconds.
“NOOOO! SPARKS! YOU BETRAYED MY EXPECTATIONS!” Screamed one of the spectators.
With no wasted movements, medics with stretchers quickly came and took away the now unconscious Sparky.
The man who was easily fighting his way through got beaten in just a few seconds, how would a person react?
..For this occasion, they started swarming and challenging her without holding back, to get beaten up in just a matter of seconds like moths to a flame.
From 10 wins to 20 to 60, the fighting didn’t stop until Illiana had beaten all of the contestants, eventually earning a lot of money before leaving.
At first, she entered at about 11 PM. but now she left at 2 AM, 3 whole hours of fighting, but most of it was waiting for contestants or travel time to other underground tournaments.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Obviously, due to her strange abilities, many people started stalking her but to no avail, soon losing sight of her just at an alley, then getting knocked unconscious.
Finally returning at 4 AM, she quickly showered and went to bed with a relaxed mind, after all, all of that fighting was just releasing stress.
….
The morning of the fourth day has come, and after getting dressed up and ready, Illiana…
Did nothing.
That was a wrong way of interpreting it, she was meditating, increasing her mana pool and her general proficiency in magic.
In this state, one would usually not be able to sense their surroundings, worse, their minds would be completely cut off from the other world, however, if one wishes to counter that, they have to train both their sensitivity and their meditation till they are in sync, allowing for better detection of surroundings whilst meditation, eliminating the problem.
And.. this is what Illiana was doing, sensing her surroundings for no reason other than wasting time, obviously you would know that a person would get bored quicker the longer they wait, so Illiana tried to delay such an emotion by meditating, which erases all of the emotions.
By the way, meditation can be done in any way possible, standing, sitting, sleeping, whatever pose works, allowing many people to use it in any place at any time.
But then, she felt something wrong.
A large amount of mana was being released from under her house, as if it were a dam that was broken.
Unable to keep meditating, she woke up from her trance and quickly ran towards the basement, to be greeted by..
A black, oval-like hole in the wall that seems to suck everything in, yet releasing large amounts of mana.
On the other side of the room was her father, staring at the hole while laughing in ecstasy.
“It worked.. Hahahaha!”
He was laughing like a mad man, but was woken up after noticing Illiana.
“Hmm? What are you doing here?”
“I felt a large fluctuation of mana, so I came to check.”
“Oh.. Don’t worry about that, I was just making my own World Portal.”
“..What?”
“What? Did you really think that I have the power to convince the higher ups to allow you to go early? Of course not..”
“...”
“But what I have the power for is to make my own, and it worked, but there is still something missing that I have to do, so you can wait till the end of the we-”
BOOM!
The portal suddenly started generating more mana, yet growing larger and sucking stronger.
“Damn, this was too risky, Illiana, go up quickly, otherwise I can’t deal with this.”
Knowing that she cannot help her father, she quickly climbed outside the basement, however, the portal suddenly… ceased to exist.
“What?”
Her father was confused, as this never happened before, but out of nowhere, the portal appeared in front of the climbing Illiana.
“Tsk.”
Due to her quick reactions, she was able to turn on her heels quickly, however, the portal’s suction power was too much for her, causing her to forcefully enter the portal.
“Illiana!”
This was the last word she ever heard before disappearing..
….
“....”
In the middle of nowhere, a lone girl floated in a void-like space.
With silver-like hair that flows down to her legs, and big blue eyes plastered on a comely face, this petite body was motionless, until the eyes came back to life.
“Where.. Am I?”
Asking to no one in particular, she voiced her thoughts.
Slowly turning her body, she searched her non-existent surroundings for anything but to no avail.
Then, she thought.
“Who am I?”
This was the thought that lingered in her head for who knows how long, until a light appeared.
At that time, she didn’t notice, as she had given up hope, but the light approached her, making her move her head towards that ‘thing’.
“Who are you?”
She asked, with a solemn tone in her voice.
“I’m Archillies, where is this?” He asked
Since she was asleep for who knows how long, she replied.
“I don’t know… I just came to right now.”
With those words, the being came closer to her, repelling away all the darkness that accumulated around her.
Once the darkness was moved away, he looked at her for a moment before averting his gaze away and taking off his jacket before putting it on her.
Confused, she was, so she asked.
“Do you know me?”
He stared at her but didn’t answer, then he asked a couple of questions before saying in a confident voice.
“You will be called, Rain, how’s that sound?”
“Rain?”
She tried to search in her memory if that name could remind her of herself, but to no avail, so giving up and looking at it from another way, she looked back at Archillies and said..
“Thank you, it sounds great!”
And those were the words that started her new life..
…
=====Vol 2 Chap 1 end=====