Come next morning the only participants on Kyrion’s team that managed to make it downstairs were Hel, Max, Tiffany, Eden, and Bastion. The meat cook was still snoring, why the snoring came from Cecil’s room wasn’t something he needed an answer to.
“So, we are six out of eight. Where’s Brion?”
“He had a bit too much wine and decided to go on a training quest.”
Lin sighed as she looked over the remaining team. “So…We could use a few substitutes. So long as they meet the requirements.”
“As a student of Drisil?”
“And in the practitioner tier of power.”
Bella’s snoring cut off momentarily as the young woman walked down the stairs alone.
“Where’s Cecil?”
“He’s probably in my room.”
“Ah, so you traded?” Lin asked.
“I don’t remember how I got there.”
Kyrion probed the area with his senses, discovering that Cecil wasn’t in the building. “He’s in his workshop. Can someone ask the headmaster to check on his wayward disciple?”
“What does that mean?”
“Either find Ander or find Cecil.”
“Let's try to find Ander. He’s been missing a bit longer. Cecil is probably working on something for the next round. As that's what was planned.” Hel stated.
“You don’t want me to heal Minah?”
“She’s still sore from her loss.”
“I’ll see.”
Kyrion teleported into his dungeon's core room only to notice that a silent Maldain looked towards them with golden eyes that shone in madness.
“What's going on?” Kyrion asked.
“All that growth and it ends in a draw. They fought for around two weeks straight. I’d say Damian’s evolution is complete but…”
“Is Ander holding himself back?”
“Yes, it’s like he’s probing and testing while Damian gets used to that power boost.”
“Makes sense. Damian hasn’t caught up yet and that tiger prefers prey that can put up a fight before he takes them down. Can I have him back?”
“No. This tournament has nothing left to offer him as he is now my apprentice.”
“Damian as well?”
“Damian is a student, that I have to share with a certain musician. I also have a third disciple as well. Her fighting style is quite beautiful. If I was maybe three millennia younger, I’d have attempted something stupid.”
“How. Old. Are you? Also, are you the same man who traded candy for gold?”
“Ah, that explains it. So that was you? You seem different. Much more scrawny and sickly. Those were mana balancers, made to spread your mana evenly throughout your body. Shit! This is my fault!” Maldain seemed to come to a realization.
“Ey?”
“You haven’t realized… You started with two cores, one in your brain and one near your stomach. h. The one near your stomach produced too much mana resulting in a low appetite. While the one in your head was atrophied, to a dangerous degree. When I saw you in the forest, your mana pool was reinforced and changed and I didn’t recognize you. The mana balancers make the mana in your stomach spread evenly, past that, they do increase your ability to reinforce your core, which in turn is your entire body.”
“Wait… so the reason it took forever to reach rank two was because of the candy?”
“I mean, you’re clearly much stronger than most of your rank. As they are now though. Could you beat Ander or Damian?”
“If they were putting forth enough effort to kill me, I'd either die or be forced to use trickery and deceit. Both are fast and knowledgeable enough to know, that giving me enough time to set up either a spell or trap would result in their loss.”
“Well, at least you know not to fight monsters like that head-on. That Rion fool had me worrying that you were getting reckless.”
“So you can’t spare Ander.”
“He would gain nothing from the tournament as he is currently. But my third disciple would learn a lot from these final rounds.”
‘’This is all kinds of dumb…Does the alternate adjustment mean we can use people outside of our schools?”
“Yes. It was a last-minute change and many experts are scrambling to pull in new talents before the matches begin. Do you remember the selection event at your school back in that old fossil of a country you’re from? This tournament works like that in a way. Only instead of schools choosing people, it's the ranking experts deciding on recruits. I’m sure the main reason people haven’t approached you yet is due to not understanding the limit of your abilities.”
“That’s troublesome. Why do this anyways?”
“The incursion. That word we can’t say while on Imala. It’s set to begin in five days. In four days the tournament should end. Those selected by experts will receive special training in preparation for our disappearance. Everyone on the expert tier will be dropped on one of the other seven worlds. Where they will enact a grand culling, gather resources, or find their shards before returning afterward. While that's going on, one of those other seven worlds will invade this one. You will have two weeks to prepare as will every other world involved. In that time it’s expected that you reach the expert tier and get all your affairs in order.”
“So, even if you hate killing, an event like this would push anyone to murder whether out of self-defense or desire. I hate this.”
“Then resolve to change it. Chiyo should be fully rested by now. Dungeon! Bring me the girl!”
A woman appeared much to her confusion clad in a blue kimono that matched her dark blue hair. A black katana sheath was placed on her left hip as a green tassel floated to the side. Her expression was slightly dazed as she looked about. Her eyes landed on Kyion and a clear look of irritation could be seen.
“What’s this?”
“Well, due to your husband sitting out of the tournament to fight Damian, we have an open slot. Name’s Rion by the way, nice to meet you.”
“Ah, remove one syllable and you become a different person. Any good reason I should do this?”
“You need to learn how to fight people on our tier and higher. Have you adjusted to the gravity?”
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“Yes. And fine, I’ll do it. But, you owe me one. I don’t work for free.”
“What do you want?”
“A house, with a lake in the middle of a forest, where I can meditate in peace. Preferably protected by wards to keep away monsters and traps for the rest.”
“Haven’t I given you enough?”
“I don’t need to fight in a tournament for experience.”
“Fine… You drive a hard bargain. One story and the lake will be man-made. Find the fish yourself. As for the forest. You can pick out three fruits. Everything else will be random. I’ll also put a small paddy of rice nearby. You’ll need to maintain it yourself.”
“Two stories with enough room for a family of six, and two servants.” Chiyo tried to milk Kyrion for all he was worth.
“Deal.” Kyrion held out his hand for a shake.
“Damn. Maybe I should have asked for more.” Chiyo shook it and sighed.
“Homes are easy for me to build. Same with a pond you can import fish into. The rice will be annoying to grow. As I can’t read your language, and my translator is currently broken.”
“So, lead the way then. This is supposed to be my honeymoon but all he’s done is fight since we’ve been here.”
“I’ll talk some sense into him later. I recommend a moonlit stroll to the top of the waterfall, we should have twin full moons tonight.”
“I see. Lead the way.” Kyrion teleported the two of them back to the meeting place Kyrion had just left. It appeared as though not even a full minute had passed.
“Who is she?” Lin asked with cold venom.
“Ander’s wife Ms.Chiyo Aikawa, or Aikawa Chiyo.”
“S-since when?” Hel seemed flustered.
“It’s been about two and a half months?”
“When? We were all on that island, training.”
“She’s Maldain’s third disciple. That should be enough of an explanation.” Kyrion didn’t lie, but he did state two truths while separating them as two different facts. However, his tone came across as more irritated because of it.
“I can’t.” Hel fell to her knees as shock passed through her.
“Oh…Oh! Yall are dumb.” Kyrion decided to stop reading Hel’s expression and guessing her thoughts based on the chemical reactions in her brain.
“Oh, what?” Chiyo asked.
“Just teenage girl drama. I’d rather not speak here. You could probably figure it out quickly.”
“Is that his ex?”
“No that’s Hel, she’s a bit like you in a way.” Kyrion would have said, introverted but he didn't know her enough.
“Ah, so she let Ander go out with her friend, despite being jealous.”
“Something like that.” Kyrion squinted at Hel who blushed and turned away.
“Let's just get to the venue.” Kyrion sighed as the headmaster walked into the inn, flushed and hungover.
“Rion…How much do you have left of that beverage of yours? The elves have taken a shine to it.” The headmaster said all that. He then fainted as the last of his energy faded.
“What did you put in there to do that to an expert?” Lin asked with concern on her face.
“I couldn’t tell you. Now let's start the Meat Fire!” Kyrion withdrew a cart from his domain and rolled a giant container onto it. The amount of meat Kyrion and Bella had prepared was ridiculous.
“Why are you bringing food? Didn’t you say this was a fighting thing?” Chiyo asked.
“I mean, you know how strong I am. This is mostly for the others. If the worst comes to worst, I'll assist.” Rion said as they arrived at the venue.
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“Standing Captain Uriel, Captain Volian, Captain Rion. Gather your teams to the north and prepare to be dropped onto the battlefield. Captains Marshal, Eriya, Song, do the same on the south.”
Kyrion eyed Marshal first, the man was dressed in a naval uniform, with five golden birds over his heart while each of his companions carried similar birds of the silver variety with one standout being wood. The uniforms of the others seemed much less decorated but were still well-maintained as they moved like a wave.
“Water, wind, and wood. So, their strategy must be to take our captain out.” Hel stated as she recognized the insignia and meanings.
Rion crossed his eyes, “Why would I be scared of water? I could just burn all of it to ash.” Kyrion said dumbly. He knew you couldn’t burn water, but the dumber they thought he was the better.
“You boil water, captain, and when you're done it just turns into steam. You can’t turn it into ash.” Max has the most experience with Kyrion playing off of dumb muscle mode.
“Steam? Oh, you mean that air stuff? I can burn that too!”
Chiyo scoffed before scowling. She knew the strange beast in human skin was acting based on the information they gathered. Yet he made it seem too believable. As though he’d practiced it for years.
Volain squinted as his teeth seemed to grow sharper and his mouth extended slightly as though it was tearing. “If attack meat. I kill.”
“See?”
“With all present. The rules for this round are as follows. The last team standing wins, or the team with the most members this time tomorrow! Let the match begin!”
All of a sudden the only group among the other four looked a lot less foolish. The opposing group seemed to have already formed a strategy to snatch up those resources and weaken the two monsters.
“Rion…Did you know? Be honest.” A four-armed orc asked inquisitively, a pair of spectacles covered with deep red eyes. As gray skin covered a somewhat muscular form.
“No, I did not. I just don’t see anyone over there as a genuine threat.” Rion said loudly, he knew his role, aside from setting up the campground and finding Bella. He was to be a red herring running about and causing trouble.
Eriya was a brown-skinned woman with sharp features and a rather venomous countenance. Where the mental magic user he fought previously forced attention away hers attracted it. Which was a lot easier to counter. Her clothes were rather sparse, consisting of skin-tight cloth wrapped around her form. Looking at the other members of her team showed that aside from the one man wielding a crossbow and leather armor. The others wore variants of that same cloth.
Sensing a gaze boring into him, Kyion then looked to Song. As Kyrion hadn’t met the pink-haired man with blue eyes before, something seemed off. Given the fact that Kyrion had met all the captains. The pink shade was different from the Gios spawn and their aura was different. Yet something still seems off. Song lounged in clothes and held an ocarina in his hands. It was clear that he was a support type, built for mobility. His teammates on the other hand were uniform-wielding weapons and wearing armor.
“Ah…Volain, we take out Song first.”
“Yeah, I’ll disrupt while you destroy?”
“Huh? Why him?”
“He’s a ruler-based support that specializes in mobility. He can likely heal as well. We don’t take kindly to our prey getting brought back after we put it down.”
“Correct.”
Uriel scowled. “Won’t they target me the same way then?”
“Well duh, that's why you should probably hide. Healers are easy targets, right? Wouldn’t want you to get injured.” Rion replied in a tone that sounded sincere to anyone outside his circle, but even Chiyo could tell that it was dripping with sarcasm. The character Rion however was too straightforward to use sarcasm which was somewhat amusing to the four-armed orc that also picked up on things.
“The battle begins when you make landfall. Good luck.”
The arena shifted as various screens shifted to different areas, giving a good view of the battlefield. Which appeared to take place in a forest that was connected to a large lake. Various animals and monsters roamed freely and the distance between team members was high.
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Bastion was alone, in a dark forest in an area with quite a few wolves. Bastion did not like wolves, as they looked too much like the Lupine that ate his adoptive mother. It was one of the things Bastion didn’t like to talk about. He didn’t remember where he was from or how he ended up a slave. But one day he appeared in a strange forest alone, left to wander, managing to catch the eye of a local farming village who had saved his life. He would do it again if he must.
Opening up his senses, Bastion found his connection to Mr.Kyrion, only he was quite a few miles away on the other side of the map. It was easy to follow the signal due to the emergency beacon that was hidden on his shirt. Most of the others would have protested had they known that this was how Mr.Headmaster and Mr.Kyrion knew where everyone was and who we were. They even sent out alerts when the flowers didn't match who was wearing them.
“Hmmm…” Bastion heard the wolves begin to surround him in the east where his teacher had been.
The cowardly Bastion slowly walked to the west, listening as the wolves followed in stealth. Waiting for an opening to attack. As the young boy passed a tree, a man in a white uniform with a silver sigil bumped into him. Knocking Bastion to the ground?”
“A kid? Ah right that cocky Rion’s brat. Don’t move, I'll be sure to make this quick.” The man picked Bastion up which didn’t result in a scream just abject confusion as the person had no hair, eyes, or even a face. It was as though he was looking at a blank canvas.
Sometimes Bastion hated his thinking engine, some people didn’t even show up to him, sometimes he would see floors where there were none and when he read, most of the time, the words jumped off the page and went off to buy some milk. Powerful people showed up, along with an aura that revealed a person's true feelings.
As Bastion was held, he slipped a hand around the man's wrist and pulled from them. Within seconds the practitioner had been drained of spirit and mana, passing out. Suddenly a force sent him out of the arena. Leaving Bastion alone in the forest again.
“Oh, that's a lot of wind power. Now how did Mister do it again? Comforting Rend!”
Seven wolves appeared only to be trapped in a ball of brown wind, where ten wind blades passed over the creatures. Instead of cutting, they passed through without dealing any physical damage. Although in seconds they began to fall as though they were poisoned before dying as their lungs seemed to expand and pop within their forms, the only sign of damage being the blood that flowed from their noses and mouths.
“Uh…That wasn’t supposed to happen like that.” The smell hit Bastion and the stench of death was heavy. The young boy turned to the side and continued to run.
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Eden looked around the forest and sighed. She wasn’t much of a fighter and was just here to fill a slot so instead of looking for her allies, she pulled out a stack of paper slips and placed them on every tree within the area creating an array of confusion. Anyone who entered without clearance would find himself wandering around in circles for a long time. Such a spell used the components as the catalyst and Mr.Cecil had given her a special silvery liquid to paint on them.
Within ten minutes every monster within two miles had entered the sphere causing it to gain the attention of a wandering Captain.
Eriya smiled as she snuck up on a hiding Eden from behind, and slipped a pair of envenomed needles into her neck. Immediately sending the fledgling out of the arena.
Within seconds the child was rushed to the healers to make sure that she would survive. Substances like this were frowned upon due to lasting effects. While it was a painless elimination it was quite reckless.
Eriya then moved forward only to find herself trapped in a field of monsters her senses disputed and even the very trees took shots at her while she was distracted.
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Rion and Volain found Bella within two minutes and prepared the ingredients for a fire. When a pang shot through his chest.
“Rion. What's wrong?” Bella asked as she placed the meat on a spit.”
“Bella, Eden has just been eliminated due to poison. I have my priorities, and it’s still in their system.”
“What can Rion do about poison?”
Kyrion’s expression morphed into something very few have seen, and he rarely showed it to anyone. Kyrion was beyond angry as the sky went from blue to red as an inferno shooting upwards began moving about the area at a high speed. Combining the forest for the poisoner. His hair was no longer orange and his eyes no longer vermillion, yet the fire that covered his form hid these changes.
Within forty seconds, two of the cloth-garbed warriors were eliminated along with a confused man in armor as a fist passed through his torso and cauterized the wound before he was teleported away.
Rion had gone berserk and was going to find out who did this to his friend. If they didn’t have a cure, he wasn’t certain how far he’d go.
“Rion!” Yelled Hel as Rion passed over her only to get no response.
Hel was quite surprised to see her captain moving around aggressively.
It took a few minutes, as Kyrion’s senses found where Eden’s mana had last been then looked into the array of confusion where a practitioner was running around in circles being hounded by monsters.
His burning form was missed by the warrior below as she was preoccupied. Rion pulled a boulder from a dimensional bag covered in a powerful flame, using a small percentage of Divine Essence. The boulder was wound up, before getting thrown with all of his strength as the sound barrier was destroyed and light was tested.
The earth shook, land split and an explosion of force caused molten earth to erupt from the ground. In retrospect, Kyrion realized he shouldn’t aim an attack like that at the ground going forward. Had he been higher or used something quite a bit bigger the destruction might have been a bit more devastating.
As Rion relaxed he felt a force move him out of the arena despite not being slain.