Zane was thankful that the rest of the preliminary round went smoother. He still had to deal with small groups, but they were significantly less difficult compared to the sniper and roots he had to face earlier.
The end of the preliminary was signaled by the entire forest disintegrating into particles of light, while every remaining competitor were transported in a flash of light.
Zane found himself in the same waiting room he was previously in and with his leg restored. “Thank god...” Zane patted the leg.
Looking around he noticed the significant difference in people in the waiting room compared to before they were transported. Before, there were around thirty people in the room, now, there were only five left.
“They really cut down the numbers huh,” Zane muttered. “Did a lot of people really get eliminated on just the preliminaries?”
Leaving the waiting room, Zane was surprised to find a crowd in the halls. When one of them noticed, the crowd went crazy.
“Which family are affiliated with?”
“Do you have team yet?”
Countless questions bombarded Zane, asking for information about him or either trying to recruit. To avoid further questioning, Zane rushed back into the waiting room and jumped out a window.
Thankfully, he only dropped one floor and landed on his feet. At that point, Zane did his best to stay unnoticed until he arrived at his hotel room.
“Are you alright?” Melissa asked as Zane arrived looking completely worn out.
“I did my best to avoid people trying to scout me,” Zane stated.
“Considering you throw dragons around like toys, it was bound to happen,” Melissa commented. “I ordered you some food. Eat it while it’s still hot,” Melissa said before heading to her room.
Zane shrugged and sat on the couch. Multiple containers of food were neatly placed on the coffee table. Zane noticed that they weren’t all ordered in the same place and had wide range of types. On top of one of the containers was a note that said “Finish everything or you’re grounded”.
Zane held in a laugh and began eating.
------
Tevan scratched his head in frustration since he was currently in quite the predicament. There are numerous talents all over the world, and there are a lot of factors to consider when even recruiting a single one.
Would they work well in the organization?
Are there any competitions?
Do they have a clean record?
Their values?
And so much more variables to consider, so it’s obvious that a single organization won’t be able to gain all of them. But of course, there were exceptions.
Subject Z, aka Zane.
Recruiting him would result in conflict with Cassandra Nero and would be seen as a challenge to the Albertian faction, who they were allied with. But Subject Z’s talent couldn’t be ignored. He was capable of using draconic manifestation with seemingly no drawbacks, and the mana control he demonstrated was one of a kind.
The elders of his family along with the board members of his organization all pushed for him to recruit him at all cost. He couldn’t blame them. Any organization Subject Z joins was guaranteed to grow in influence as he gets stronger. And the fact that he joined their annual tournament was like him being served in a silver platter.
That’s why Tevan was in such a frustrating position.
Was Subject Z truly worth all the problems that would come with recruiting him?
While Tevan was contemplating the issue, the door to his office slammed open and his younger sister walked in. “What the fuck is going?!” Tasha yelled.
“Tasha... please... I have something big to deal with,” Tevan groaned, but his sister didn’t seem to care about his problems.
“Why the hell is everyone saying to me “Better luck next time”, “Try again next year”?” Tasha asked. “Just what the hell happened during the preliminaries?”
Tevan sighed and projected a hologram for Tasha. “You didn’t encounter him, so you wouldn’t have known.”
Tasha watched as the hologram showed a recording of a young man summoning a dragon to defeat another dragon in the magic domain, then did it again a few minutes later. “So what? What’s so amazing about summoning dragons?”
Tevan sighed again. “Those aren’t mere imitations. Their fractions of real dragons.”
Tasha didn’t look convinced.
------
“Any last words you vile creature?” Zane asked the chicken leg before taking a bite out of it.
Melissa had just come out of her room to witness it and just shook her head before turning towards the bathroom.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Your vile display aside, it is time for the next stage of your training,” Averin suddenly spoke.
Zane raised an eyebrow as he tossed a chicken bone into the trash. “Already? I haven’t even trained the last ability of my Dragon trigger.”
“This isn’t a simple stage in your growth. This process will coincide with the rest of your training even as you reach stage 4 in your mana core.”
“What the hell am I going to train that would take that long?”
“Your core ability?”
“My what?”
“... how do you not know what a core ability is?”
Zane turned to Melissa who just came out of the bathroom. “Melissa,” she turned towards him. “Do you know what a core ability is for mages?”
“I don’t know what it exactly is, but I do know that it’s basically the unique ability of a mage, or their signature ability? I’m not really sure,” Melissa answered.
“She’s partly correct. A core ability is basically magic that you activate with your mana core directly. Meaning, only you would be able to truly use it.”
“Are you asking me to make my own magic already?” Zane asked.
Melissa stared at him in confusion. “Who are you talking to?”
“... my teacher?” Zane answered.
Melissa looked around in confusion. “Where?”
Zane pointed at his head. “Telepathically?”
Melissa just rolled his eyes and left.
“Great... now I look crazy,” Zane groaned as he rubbed his forehead.
Averin decided to ignore Zane’s issues and continued on with their discussion. “You need to create the foundation of your core ability while you’re at stage 2.”
“Can I just make something similar to yours?” Zane asked.
“That’s impossible. A dragon’s core ability isn’t like a human’s. Our core ability transforms us entirely to revolve around it.”
“What do you recommend I do then?”
“I cannot help you decide on what you want as your core ability, but I will give you advice on things to consider.”
Zane shrugged. “I’ll take anything you give me at this point as long as it works.”
“First, don’t relate your core ability with your affinity.”
“Seriously?”
“It will prevent you from easily being countered. Second, it needs to be something that can help you in a multitude of situations. Having an ability that’s too conditional will be your downfall.”
Zane just nodded along, making mental notes.
Your knowledge of mana has increased.
Zane was startled by the sudden robotic voice. “I forgot I had that.”
His physical growth had reached a wall, so it had been a while since he had heard the robotic voice updating him of his growth.
“Lastly, your core ability needs to be something you truly want.”
The last advice confused Zane. “What do you mean by that?”
“Once you create the foundation and step into the 3rd stage of your mana core, there would be no going back, so you need to be certain of your choice.”
“That was pretty much obvious,” Zane commented.
“Don’t take that advice lightly, human. You don’t know how many beings come to regret not taking that to account for their core ability.”
Zane just nodded since he knew if he talked back, Averin would find a way to hit him from another universe.
“Think about it for now, human. I will revisit this topic.”
-------
“Welcome to the second round of the tournament! I’m your host, Wilder. Ready to give you an exciting play by play of the tournament!”
Wilder flew over the arena on his glider.
“As you all know, the second event of the tournament is the only part that changes every year,” Wilder announced. “And this year’s event is...”
A giant holographic projection of a tower was shown.
“This is a class 2 Dragon’s den,” Wilder revealed. “The remaining competitors would be thrown into the tower and compete to get the most contribution points in clearing it.”
The remaining competitors looked around in worry. Nobody could blame them since a real Dragon den wasn’t a joke. A class 2 was significantly more dangerous than a class 1 where they only needed to deal with a few monsters and traps. A class 2 contained a variety of monsters and even one considered to be a boss monster.
Taking it on while competing with others was far too risky for people that only had stage 2 cores.
“I can see that you’re all worried. But I assure you all that your safety is guaranteed by the elites of the Karama family!” Wilder revealed as a group of people wearing matching combat gear entered the arena. “All of them are at least in the 4th stage, so a class 2 Dragon’s den is nothing to them.”
With the final explanation done, a giant magic circle covered the arena.
“Good luck to everyone!” Wilder exclaimed as all the competitors vanished.
------
Cassandra crossed her arms as all the competitors were teleported to the Dragon’s den that served as the setting for the second event, something that wasn’t part of the information she gathered about this year’s tournament.
“What are you planning, Tevan?” Cassandra questioned.
“I don’t know what you mean?” Tevan replied as he placed down his drink.
“You changed the tournament at the last minute in a way that you could manipulate the outcome,” Cassandra accused. “You can’t fool me.”
“Why would I need to manipulate the outcome?” Tevan asked. “Does it matter to you who wins?”
“I’m warning you,” Cassandra said before stomping out of the room.
-------
Zane wasn’t worried or scared even as a whole crowd of them were teleported to the first floor of a Dragon den in the form of a tower.
Zane’s mana surged, and then he rushed ahead. A moving suit of armor got in his way, but Zane easily swatted it away and ran up the stairway. The spurred the other competitors to start climbing as well.
Each floor was as wide as a football field with each stair leading to the next floor always being at the other side of the floor, requiring everyone to go through a monster infested floor to reach the stairs.
“Out of my way!” Zane barreled through a group of zombies dressed as butlers.
As he went up the floors, it got more evident that all the monsters in this Dragon den were undead. Living armors, zombies, specters, and many more undead monsters.
“All the running you made me do is finally paying off,” Zane muttered as he went up another floor.
Averin didn’t respond.
Zane was stopped by a humanoid mass of flesh. The sight of the monster both horrified and disgusted him. Its movements were very slow, but due to its size and the limited space in the floor, going around it would be a challenge, but it wasn’t impossible.
Zane felt his muscles tensed as he increased the amount of mana circulating through his body. He sprinted around the monster at full speed. The flesh golem attempted to reach for him, but a powerful strike from Zane caused the fleshy hand to explode.
It resulted in him getting covered in rotting flesh, but he successfully got around the flesh golem and would reach the stairs. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he found that the floor didn’t have another staircase at the other side.
He had reached the top floor and sitting in the middle of it was a living armor with no head.