Quintis Spurius Marcellinus was a gladiator.

It was a glamorous job, but that was only part of why he liked it. The reason he liked it was, of course, because with the Arena came Victory.

Sateus was a simple deity to worship. He demanded dedication to Victory and nothing more. There were no sermons, no teachings, and no churches.

No, existence was the church of Sateus, and the Arena was its altar. To a certain extent, the recently-created racing tracks were also altars, but they were lesser, as they did not demand the full extent of one's capabilities to achieve Victory.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus, like all gladiators, worshiped Sateus, and to him, Victory was the only goal that one should strive for. He trained with a fervor that few could match, and his stats and skills gained from The System reflected his efforts.

The System. On that day, fifteen years prior, life in Onyxfell had changed forever. Before, gladiators had trained exclusively their bodies, forging themselves just as their weapons had been forged. After that day, however, the body was not all that could be trained.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus had been eight years old on that day when he'd received his first stat point, he recalled as he stood out under the suns before the gate.

A point in Arboriformity.

What change did such an attribute yield? Even now, fifteen years later, he still didn't have so much as a clue. His family hadn't known, his friends had never heard of such a word, and he'd given up entirely on ever learning what effect it had.

The Sateus-bestowed System was confusing in that way, but on rare occasions it yielded benefits beyond compare. Those who gleaned some small amount of knowledge regarding The System guarded it fiercely, just as Scutum Impervium had boasted endlessly of his Victory in somehow harvesting over ninety points in the Counter attribute—a nearly unheard of number, and one that was unheard of in such a simple-to-understand, combat-related stat.

Since Scutum had somehow managed to begin harvesting those incomparably valuable stat points from The System, he had become nigh untouchable. Where previously he had been a middling, nondescript gladiator, suddenly he couldn't lose. Victory after Victory came to him, and his fame grew.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus recalled distinctly a match he'd watched as a boy when Scutum Impervium had stood with his back to his opponent, taunting the other man until he went mad with fury and struck at him. The fight had ended in an instant, with the challenger being unceremoniously tossed outside the fighting platform in the Arena.

Other times, Marcus Tertinius Belenus engaged in a bigger performance for the crowd, drawing the battles out until his opponents collapsed from exhaustion. He'd never spoken of his other stats, nor had any been able to persuade him to reveal his method of acquiring his stat points. Common theories of simply practicing counterattacks ad infinitum showed no merit, and none seemed to have ever received even a single stat point from it.

His fall to Scorpio Fulminis was Quintis Spurius Marcellinus's most treasured memory, having been fortunate enough to be present for the fight. The twenty three year-old gladiator couldn't stop himself from regaling visitors to the city with the story or even just anyone who would listen. He told the tale yet again on that afternoon, this time to an unusually strong—for someone who was not a gladiator—father and his impressively knowledgeable daughter who had come to the city from afar, judging by their complexion, for racing.

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The newer pastime of the Empire's capital city had come about a little under a decade prior, when one of the Char heroes had come to visit the Imperatrix, offering services in exchange for favors.

The dwarf city of Khag Daruhm, nearer the southern part of the border to Charus and hotly contested between the two countries—Charus, with their desire to completely control the city, and Stadal, which didn't give a shit who controlled it so long as they were able to get the valuable metals that were mined by the dwarves—was given over to the Char hero. In exchange, among other things, roads had been paved, Onyxfell's walls had become a sparkling, shiny metal that was beautiful and better represented the Victory it contained, and the Empire had continued to receive its steady supply of metals which they no longer were required to pay for.

All of these things were accomplished by the hero—who refused to show their face to anyone—through the use of drones, which were strange, mechanical creatures that moved according to the will of the Char hero. Once the changes to the city had been completed, however, the drones had not departed. No, they continued construction, fashioning a pair of giant, black-topped ovals on each side of the sprawling city.

Racing tracks, the same ones that the father and daughter with the same surname as the city's most well-known mages had come in search of. The Char hero had then offered, with the permission of the Imperatrix, prizes for those who found Victory on the racing tracks.

The change had been immediate. A new field of battle had been unveiled, and countless within the city and the Empire at large had risen to the challenge. Dwarven steamcar technology was copied and studied, with improvements being attempted constantly to eke out even the tiniest increase in speed.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus had been there when the next change had occurred on the racing tracks as well. The race had begun just as any other did, with each driver preparing themselves at the line of starting. When the mage-casted fireball that began the race was shot into the sky, however, that race had been different.

Racing had originally been thought of as a weaker form of contest, but Secundus Appuleius Photius had forced people to reconsider that notion in a single lap around the track. A former gladiator turned driver, he brought with himself a halberd and a sword on that day, stabbing and slashing at the tires of the other drivers and winning the race with ease, as none could complete even the first lap against his combined battle prowess and driving skill.

The crowd, including Quintis Spurius Marcellinus, had thundered their approval, cheering for nearly an hour after the race as the driver who had achieved a new form of Victory on the racing tracks took the time to greet and thank each and every one of his admirers for coming to witness his tribute to Sateus.

It had been a change for the better on the racing tracks, Quintis Spurius Marcellinus mused, but perhaps it would not be better for the young Mina Tempestates, who had been the one to behave as though she wanted to enter into such competitions. He had not been a gladiator for many years, certainly not as long as some of the veterans such as Discutrix Gladiorum, but he was experienced enough to judge that this girl was no fighter.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus would hope for her to achieve Victory in her races, just has he prayed for the Victories of all who surpassed his challenges at the gates.

All Victories within Onyxfell added to the glory of The Empire, and each Victory that resulted from his actions was also a Victory for him.

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus brought his mind around to his next task. No, this task was not greeting the next in the line to enter the city's weakest district, where stat points were known to be gained with a lower frequency.

Impignoration was an attribute that he had never heard of previously, and he had heard of many, many different stats over the past fifteen years. Perhaps it was a bug in The System as Carl Tempestates had said.

Or perhaps Carl Tempestates knew more about The System than he had shown.

Regardless, Quintis Spurius Marcellinus began considering Impignoration, as many gladiators considered their stats and skills while on gatekeeping duty.

Why couldn't The System just have simple, sensible information available and work in a way that had any form of reason to it?

Quintis Spurius Marcellinus sighed. His life would have been so much simpler without The System.