My first opponent was an average looking girl: brown hair, eyes, clothes. She was about as nondescript as you could get. I couldn’t tell if she was a noble or commoner, or something in between. About the only thing I could confirm was that she was human, which didn’t say much. Ironically enough, I would probably remember someone like her who didn’t stick out that much, so she was likely from another academy.

“Competitors, are you ready?” Instead of the announcer commentating on each fight, a judge would preside over each fight to ensure fairness and that no rules were being broken, as well as determining the victor of each bout.

My opponent and I both nodded at the same time, and the judge said, “Begin!”

She already had some blood out, and started chanting while quickly making some hand gestures, giving me Naruto flashbacks. It had been so long since I used chants or hand gestures to cast spells in my specializations that I almost forgot other people had to do them.

I wordlessly drew the blood I had used in the healing section, which I had kept wrapped around my wrist like a bracer, and manipulated it into a circular shield covering me. From there, I broke off a small piece to create some needles, and flung them at her, aiming for her midsection.

While she was still chanting and stationary.

The look of shock on her face as they headed toward her was satisfying, as it meant she stopped chanting, leading to her spell fizzling out and producing nothing. The judge usurped control over my needles before they could connect and said, “Student Rhaaj of Svenia Academy is the winner! Student Elsbain, please leave the competition area.” It took her a second to react, but soon enough she bowed slightly towards me, a gesture I reciprocated, before she left the stadium.

After she was out of earshot, the judge looked at me with a harder gaze than the one he had a moment ago and said, “Student Rhaaj, you either need to work on your aim or your control. One of your needles was headed for your opponent’s liver. Judging by your knowledge of healing, I don’t believe I need to say more.” Shit, he’s right.

I was only concerned with making sure my needles connected, which is why I aimed for her center of mass, but I hadn’t stopped to think about what would happen if the blows actually landed somewhere vital. I nodded to the judge and said, “I’ll do better next time.” I honestly meant it too.

Being an unintentional killer was probably worse than being an intentional killer.

The judge considered me for a moment, before he nodded at me and gestured for me to wait by the edge of the area for my next match to start.

I had barely walked over to the edge of the stadium when a different judge called me up to compete, my opponent already standing there and waiting.

He was seriously geared up, wearing an enchanted set of armor that covered almost his entire body. The original plate armor was a bronze alloy, but it was only barely perceptible with the blue glow of the runes overshadowing it and turning the armor into a darker shade of blue. The person within the armor had his arms crossed as he saw me approach, his sneer clearly expressing his disdain for my mundane clothing compared to his.

Even as I stood a full foot taller than him.

“Student Pencoit of Baloun Academy, are you ready?” the judge asked, getting a nod from the obviously noble student.

The judge turned to me and asked the same thing, “Student Rhaaj of – “

“Hahahaha! Seriously?! Your parents actually named you Rhaaj? Bahahaha! It’s like they were hoping you’d be useless! Bahahaha!” Student Pencoit doubled over in raucous laughter, hugging his stomach as he cackled like a villain.

“Student Pencoit, control yourself!” the judge said, and as he spoke, the armored noble immediately stopped laughing and his face went pale, sweat visibly dropping from his forehead as he stumbled back and slowly stood upright, the very words the judge spoke physically forcing the student back.

There it was again, that…force voice technique. I had seen a few people use it by now, and it still remained an elusive mystery to me. I couldn’t even research it in the library as I didn’t know what it was called.

But I had someone I could ask about it standing right in front of me. I made a mental note to ask the judge about it after the match.

Turning back to me, the judge asked, “Student Rhaaj of Svenia Academy, are you ready?”

“Actually, is that even allowed?” I asked the judge, pointing at the armor set the noble had on.

“Sigh, while it is…unbalanced, the rules do not forbid competitors from using equipment they have purchased prior to the event. Although I will add, young Pencoit,” the judge turned to my opponent and said, “This is an event to showcase blood magic, not your ability to spend wealth. If you activate any of your offensive enchantments, you will be immediately disqualified, and I will make a personal recommendation to your instructors that you receive disciplinary lessons. Am I clear?” he sternly questioned, to which the noble nodded vigorously.

“Now, if there is nothing else, are you both ready to begin?” he asked again, looking between the two students in front of him, getting nods in response, before saying, “Then…begin!”

As the judge rose above the combat area for a better vantage point, my opponent had regained his earlier swagger, the nervousness from the judge’s technique completely gone. “You don’t belong here, peasant. The only place you belong is in the dirt, like the –”

And in the middle of his sentence, he tapped his left hip, the bronze armor instantly manifesting a red-blood sword in his right hand as he charged straight at me, his sword held at the ready.

Is…is that supposed to be a sneak attack?

I was incredulous that he would attempt one given the conditions of the field. There was a good fifty feet of empty ground separating him from me, as we stood on opposite ends, and I had enough time before he reached me that I was able to calculate how long it would take for him to reach my position if his armor didn’t have any other tricks.

Four seconds.

In combat, four seconds was practically an eternity.

By the look of unrestrained glee in his eyes, Pencoit wasn’t expecting me to be able to react to his charge. He probably thought I’d given up as I showed no signs of chanting or hand gestures.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It was a fortunate thing, then, that I had outgrown such methods months ago.

His armor was a massive variable that I couldn’t account for, so even landing blows was in question, as I had no idea of its capabilities. Winning by knockout was unlikely, which left the ring-out as the only viable method.

I had made a preliminary plan by the time he closed in on me, drawing a bit more blood from myself than I already had out. My timing would need to be precise for this to work, so I took another step back, edging closer to the boundary of the small arena.

Right when he was a step away from me, he unleashed a crazed battlecry and swung his blood sword in my direction, a diagonal chop aiming for my shoulder. I pivoted my feet, twisting my body as his swing missed me by inches, and shaped the blood I had concealed behind my back into a heavy, two-handed warhammer, taking the extra second I needed to condense as much blood as tightly as possible into the broad side of its head.

Before Pencoit could reorient himself, I firmly grasped my blood hammer and swung at his back with all the force I could muster. The hammerhead managed to connect with him, and although some runes lit up, their effects didn’t stop me from sending him tumbling out of the mini-arena and into the grass, his face completely buried in the dirt, and earning me the win by ring-out.

Huh, I wasn’t planning on being ironic, but the universe must have a sense of humor if HE’s the one in the dirt now.

“I declare the winner by ring-out to be Student Rhaaj of Svenia Academy!” the judge shouted, before slowly descending from the sky and landing in front of me. “Student Pencoit, please exit the stadium before the next match.”

“NO! NO! NO! NOO!”

A manic and almost inhuman shout broke out from the mouth of the armored student who was on all fours on the ground, pounding his fist onto the dirt, before his senses returned to him and he began standing up as quickly as his armor allowed him to.

“THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! I REFUSE TO LOSE LIKE THIS!”

He rose to his feet, his eyes unnaturally bloodshot and widened to the point he barely looked human. He pointed at me as he screamed out in denial, arguing his superiority and convincing no one.

“THIS, THIS THING DOESN'T DESERVE TO WIN! ONLY I DO! ME!”

He had snapped. There was no other way to describe it.

He was going to do whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. As long as he felt good at that moment, who cared what followed after?

The judge approached Pencoit and tried to use his force voice technique to subdue the unruly student, but the runes on his armor lit up in response, negating its effects.

“Student Pencoit, you should –” the judge began to say before being interrupted.

“NO! YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

With madness completely taking over his eyes, coupled with the glow of his armor as he activated another of its enchantments, the young noble seemed almost demonic as he instantly materialized a real, tangible, non-blood construct spear above his shoulder and, without any input from him, it autonomously launched itself straight towards me.

With no warning.

No hesitation.

And from six feet away.

There was no time for me to do anything but react.

So I did.

For the majority of the event, I had kept a stream of blood wrapped around my left forearm in between, and sometimes even during, the different trials. It was easier to keep the blood out in preparation for the next section, rather than having to draw and store the blood over and over again. I had dissipated my blood hammer and reverted it back into its normal liquid form, where it resumed its place on my forearm, before all this craziness happened.

The blood around my forearm arranged itself into a facsimile of a hoplite shield, a convex circular form, that protected the majority of my upper body, where the spear was aimed at. The density of my shield wouldn’t fully stop its momentum, but I was trusting that the angle at which it struck the shield would cause it to be deflected away from me.

Naturally, I should have expected that the rich boy wasn’t just launching a piece of mundane wood and metal at me.

It pierced through my shield effortlessly, ignoring the blood like it wasn’t even there, before it subtly but unmistakably angled upwards, such that the spearhead would lodge itself somewhere near my throat.

I had even less time to react than before the crazed asshole threw the spear, and I had no time to consider the consequences of my actions as I did something…impulsive. Though in my defense, it had worked before.

I shot out some essence from my core right as I tried to rotate sideways, hoping to reduce the chance of the spear hitting something vital. It was hard to determine the effectiveness of my movement, as the spearhead grazed the underside of my chin, leaving me panicking for a moment at the stinging pain and the blood dripping onto the ground, before I stopped the blood flow and immediately scabbed it over with blood magic, chanting a healing spell for cuts a few seconds later.

I patted my head, torso, and the rest of my body to make sure there weren’t any other injuries before I felt I was physically alright.

I turned around, expecting to see the insane noble charging at me, but was met with the sight of a furious-looking judge magically restraining an even more furious and demented student, his entire body thrashing and struggling to break free from invisible restraints that prevented any major movement. Fortunately, whatever spell the judge had cast had also managed to stop Pencoit from speaking. He probably had more to say, judging by the murderous look in his eyes and the incessant mumbling I could barely hear, but I highly doubted he’d be saying anything of note.

“Forgive me for my tardiness, student Rhaaj,” the judge said to me, even as he kept his eyes trained on Pencoit's writhing spasms, “It has been…years, since anyone has caused such an incident at the festival. For a student to do something so…” he trailed off, his fierce glare speaking volumes more than any of his words possibly could.

“Do you need a healer?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “I’m fine, I think. I feel a little dizzy, but I think that’s normal, considering…everything. Wait, do you think there was poison on that spear?!” I half-shouted uncertainly, the adrenaline making me more jumpy than usual.

“Perhaps it’s best if you see a healer now,” the judge said to me. “The competition can wait.”

I nodded at him and left the arena as fast as I could, but I heard the announcer’s voice booming again, drowning out the sounds of the boo’s and jeers of the crowd. Apparently, they weren’t too happy that someone had basically attempted murder during the festival, and it seemed they weren’t the only ones who shared that sentiment.

“Everyone, you have seen with your own eyes a student performing an act of violence and dishonor. I want to assure everyone, first and foremost, that student Rhaaj, the victim of this incident, is perfectly fine and is being tended to by healers as we speak, as he demonstrated quick thinking and remarkable magical ability.”

His technically inaccurate statement was met by a wall of clapping. There were no cheers or whistles, as there had been for the majority of the festival, but only applause.

It was a sign of respect, though I felt my actions weren’t particularly worthy of it.

I walked through a tunnel that eventually led outside of the stadium, but there was a healer station right by the exit, where participants who lost left the competition. I had barely stepped into the healing tent when I felt a soothing effect take hold of me, reducing my heart rate and subtly influencing me to relax. It was likely the result of a formation, which I had learned in class was common among military healers. A healer dressed in a white robe rushed over to me and dragged me to one of the empty cots there, dozens more arranged in orderly rows.

“It’s the ambushed kid!” the healer shouted, right before a team of healers surrounded me on my hospital bed, I mean, cot.

I was barraged with questions about how I felt, my physical condition, my mood, and plenty of other things that seemed to have tangential relations to my general health. I answered their questions to the best of my ability before the healers began examining my body, using various spells and tools to diagnose the effects of my latest fight, if you could call it that.

Projected on the far wall of the tent was a live feed of the competition going on in the stadium, which clued me in as to how the healers knew what happened to me. The judges were letting the other competitors rest while I was in the healing tent, putting the competition on hold until I returned.

The queen herself had made an appearance, informing the public that the guilty party would be disciplined and punished to the fullest extent possible, and that the law applied to everyone equally.

I was mostly left alone at that point, as the healers treating me were standing to the side and whispering to each other, arguing over what I was suffering from. The relative peace and quiet let me replay what had just happened.

A spear launched at me by a sore loser of a noble brat, who positively screamed ‘spoiled rich kid’ and who had likely never been told no before.

My reflexive attempt to make a blood shield that had no effect whatsoever on the spear’s trajectory.

And the most important and unexplainable part of what happened today.

I had once again shot out some of my stored essence at something that placed me in imminent danger, and as had happened previously, the targeted item was sent to my inventory, or subspace, or whatever I had called it before.

What are the odds nobody saw me vanish the spear?