Chapter 44: Blood Racing in Excitement, A Worthy Rival

For Crimson, sparring and battling were part of his every day life. He’d sparred with Mars, Verity, and dozens of other adventurers. He was extremely experienced in person-to-person combat, and enjoyed it. He loved facing an opponent who was objectively stronger than he was, and overcoming the difference with [Skill]. It was hard, but that was what made it satisfying.

In a fight there were three key factors that a person could have: strength, ability, and adaptability. If you had overwhelming strength, it could deal with any amount of ability, no matter what kind of [Skills] or experience a person had, there’s nothing they could do against an opponent with stats an order of magnitude higher than theirs. The same logic applied to ability and adaptability. If you had a specific area that was significantly higher than your opponent, then you could win - even against ‘impossible’ odds.

A few weeks back, Crimson had fought flying monsters that attacked Lupaken. He was objectively much weaker than his foes in several ways, but he had overwhelming ability that allowed him to overcome their strength.

Obviously, it is best to have copious amount of all three things, but he was focused only on a single area. Just by looking at Crimson’s [Advanced Sword Mastery], it could be inferred that he would be more [Skilled] than almost any opponent he could face, but he was lacking in strength, and he wasn’t sure about his adaptability.

Adaptability could be applied to the idea of a ‘Trickster,’ someone who overcomes impossible odds with clever tactics and strategy, great enough to overcome strength and ability.

Adaptability was likely Crimson’s weakest area.

As he walked out onto the stadium floor, the sun just barely cresting the edge of the arena to cast light onto the battle field, Crimson surveyed the three by three grid that had been made in the arena floor.

He didn’t dare glance up at the private boxes, Rhinese and a woman - whom he inferred was Elegance - were boring holes into the back of his head with their eyes. Rhinese he could understand, but why Elegance? She…he shook his head. She had [CHA] and Charisma based [Skills] in such a great amount that even just thinking about her would fascinate him.

Draven was alone in the announcer booth today. The deal was that Crimson would join him the second he got out, and they’d done everything they could to paint a target on his back.

He was the number one seed for the Open Category, and that would make a lot of the other contestants angry. A 16 year old kid, being deemed the most likely to win by the tournament staff? How insulting for them.

Typically, being seeded in a tournament was a matter of respect, of being told “you’re too good for the lower categories,” but that wasn’t the case here.

He quietly listened through the announcements, bowed to the Royal Family, and waited for his name to be called. Because there were nine squares, there were nine seeded individuals. The Open category had too many people to get through in a reasonable amount of time, so the concurrent battles were the solution.

Using the Royal Box as the main point of orientation, the upper left corner was the ninth seed, and it increased going counterclockwise around the edge, until it reached the top center, which was seed two. The centermost square was the first seed - the hardest slot to occupy.

Crimson technically shouldn’t have known which seed he was, but the nature of the deal he’d made meant that he was informed prior to the event, though he’d only found out this morning.

Interestingly, the fifth seed was Mortimer, the winner of the under Lv.10 category, and the second seed was Fade, the winner of the under Lv.25 category. The bulk of the contestants were from those two categories, but the third and fourth seeds were both from the Under Lv.45 category, and there was no one attending for the under Lv.50 category. They stood to lose too much if they lost to someone weaker. Crimson found that pretty boring, since the purpose of the Open category was to give people the chance to learn and grow from each other.

Damaging blows were forbidden, they were all provided gear, and their stats were enforced at 10 for everything except [LUC], which was effectively immutable. Crimson and everyone else had already been checked to ensure their stats were properly limited, and any removal prior to the end of the event would result in a criminal prosecution. It was designed to be an ideal space for learning and growth, independent of competition or spite, but in practice it became more like a vanity project.

It could also be considered legalized smurfing since it was typically very dangerous to attack someone who was a lot lower in level than you. If you wanted a penalty from the gods, attacking someone with a 20 Level difference was the fastest way. That meant that honorable people tended to not participate in the Open category, despite the rules allowing for it so long as you could qualify for any of the other categories, which is to say, Lv.50 and under.

Crimson was announced as the first seed, and he headed to the centermost square and took a stance with the [Padded Bokken] he’d been given, the tip resting on the ground, and waited patiently for the competitors to be announced.

His first fight would be against the ‘weakest’ competitor, since the point was to learn, the idea was letting the weakest learn from the strongest, so his competitor was the person who placed last in the Under Lv.10 category.

Since neither he nor his opponent could deal damage to each other, each blow was assigned a point value, up to a maximum of three points. The first to score thirty points on their opponent would win, and if the time limit was reached, then the person who had scored more points won.

After a long drawn out pause, the King stepped forward and spoke, “I call upon Riskter, we beg thee to grant us thy blessing, grant us eyes that we might see, ears that we might hear, minds that we might understand, and hearts that we may learn. This is my prayer unto thee, so it is said.”

At the end of his words, the entire colosseum glowed momentarily. After the glow faded, symbols started to appear and disappear in the air, twinkling like stars.

—————

-Alert: Riskter has increased [Skill] acquisition rate.

-Alert: Riskter has increased [Skill] growth rate.

-Alert: Riskter has temporarily applied the [Skill: Increased Learning Rate] to all within the boundary.

-Admin Riskter has requested the user to equip [Titles]: [Divine Interpreter] and [Mentor].

—————

As requested, he swapped his [Titles], and mentally commanded his [Blade Spirit] to leave the practice sword he was holding - he’d get in trouble for dealing any damage - then turned his attention to the nervous opponent standing across from him. Crimson could easily stomp on his opponent, especially at this level, but instead, when the round began he carefully began offering advice and suggestions to the young man to help him learn from the experience.

His primary desire for the day was to learn and grow, and if he helped others do the same in the process, it would only be fair.

As they neared the time limit of three minutes, Crimson gently struck his opponent once. The blow was rated as only one point because he struck in a non-lethal area with little force, but the score was 1-0, so when time was up he won.

He was the only one who gave the courtesy to fight his much weaker opponent to the end of the time limit.

They got a one minute break, then shifted positions. Everyone who won moved up a square, while the losers stayed put, and the next person in line stepped onto the last rated square. The loser of the center square had to leave to go to the back of the line, for those in the lower ranked squares, losing three times in a row meant going to the back of the line.

There was no room for error with Crimson, and if he got out at any point, he had to return to commentating - he wasn’t allowed to go to the back of the line for another chance.

If the Open category was truly open to people of all levels, there would be no way for him to stand a chance, he’d be out instantly on the second round, but between the dregs of the Under 45 category, and the bulk of the fighters being from the Under 10 category, Crimson had a chance. A small one, but he did have one.

The minute up, Crimson opened his eyes to greet his next opponent. If the tournament staff weren’t drunk, he’d be facing the person who should have been the real first seed. The person who had demonstrated the most [Skill] during the bouts. Crimson had been one of the ones to nominate him, so the anticipation of facing Fade directly was nigh uncontainable.

Fade had red hair that was similar in certain aspects to Crimson’s eyes: it shifted colors. From a lighter red, to a darker one, each strand of his hair seemed to be ever so slightly different from the ones around it.

His eyes were a matte violet, and intense. He was conventionally attractive, and taller than Crimson by a large margin, giving him a reach advantage. In his right hand was a large one-handed axe, and in the left was a shield. They were both padded like Crimson’s bokken, but the intensity of the wielder would make a weaker willed person forget that detail.

Crimson made direct eye contact with him, trying to glimpse his will before the battle began, and he flinched at the unexpected gaze. Fade was…barely contained rage. It whirled like a firestorm within his eyes, and was further offset by the friendly expression he had on his face. Crimson had never seen anyone this angry, but he had seen someone consumed by this much greed: Talis.

They squared up, Crimson holding his sword with the tip pointed at Fade’s eyes, and waited for the signal to begin.

Fade spoke to him in the moments before the bout began, “Thanks for standing up for me yesterday, and I’m sorry for eliminating you here.”

On the face of it, Fade’s words were correct that Crimson would lose, a higher level almost always meant more [Skills], but they had a much more even playing field than anyone who didn’t know Crimson would think.

He responded, “Don’t apologize, and I won’t either. Fight with everything you’ve got.”

Fade looked surprised for a moment, then grinned widely, “Thank you.”

The signal was given to begin, and Fade immediately charged at him.

Crimson knew from the second that he started to move that a lot of the tricks he used on less skilled foes wouldn’t work here. It would be a head on fight.

Fade aggressively slammed the shield at him, trying to knock him off balance to open him up for a heavy blow, but Crimson stepped around to the right, hiding behind the shield to try and attack his legs, but Fade jumped back the instant Crimson started to swing.

He had very good instincts.

After a few more exchanges with neither side landing a point Crimson had a realization. At this rate, they would run out the time, and Crimson would lose. Typically in the case of a tie, the person who had been there the longest would be favored for the victory, but for the center square, the challenger was given an advantage.

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Crimson stepped up his game, the point of this tournament was to grow, so he decided that even if he would lose, he’d learn something from Fade and get some [Skill Levels]. Pushing [Footwork], [Parry], [Mikiri], and [Advanced Sword Mastery] to their limits in a set of reckless moves to try and suppress Fade.

He spent a minute of the three on the offensive before backing down. Fade was specialized in defense, Crimson was struggling to find any advantage against an opponent nearly as slippery as him.

Fade’s [Axe Mastery] wasn’t a very high level, and neither was the other [Skill] he showed Crimson, [Shield Bash], nor did he seem to have more combat experience, but his instincts were excellent. He seemed to have a seventh sense for each of Crimson’s attacks, and was deft at handling each one. Likely, the only reason he’d struggled during the finals of the Under 25 category came down to stat differences, but without those differences, his instinct was worth just as much, if not more, than any [Skill].

That didn’t mean Crimson couldn’t win, it just meant that he had to shift from a strong offense to playing chess. If Fade’s instincts and defensive ability were this overwhelming, then the only option was to lure him into a situation where no amount of either of things would save him.

With half the time left, Crimson began plotting as he exchanged blows, focusing on learning Fade’s habits to find a gap. He tended to relax a little every time Crimson backed off, lowering his shield slightly. He would tense up too much whenever Crimson advanced, and every time Crimson successfully dodged or blocked a blow that seemed like it should hit him, he got a little angrier, Crimson could see it in his eyes. It contrasted against the obviously overjoyed grin that got bigger every time this happened.

He was honestly a bit confused about what Fade was feeling. He seemed thrilled, overjoyed, but with Crimson’s [Eyes of Will], he could see the rage there.

He made firm eye contact with Fade every chance he got. No matter how many times he tried it, Fade would still flinch, seeming unable to adjust to the sudden pressure of Crimson’s will.

That was another gap he could use, but not yet. He had an idea, so he started making eye contact intentionally every time he backed off, and every time he approached, he focused his gaze on Fade’s axe or shield.

They began to near the end of the time, and with a quick test, he saw that he had properly ingrained the habit into Fade, then charged at him while staring at his axe. When he was just out of Fade’s reach, he stopped dead, using [Footwork] to kill his momentum and looked Fade in the eyes, Fade relaxed, ever so slightly, and Crimson dove into that gap with reckless abandon. He barely got past the shield, used his arm to receive Fade’s axe, and slammed his own bokken into Fade’s collarbone, where it met up with the base of his neck. The instant he landed the blow, time was called.

There was a tournament staff member watching Crimson, and he walked over to Draven where they spoke in a low voice for a minute, then he announced, “3 points to 2, Crimson wins for a lethal blow!”

Crimson had been tuning out the crowd as much as possible, but the deafening cheers broke through his concentration, and he looked around. The cheering was the loudest he’d heard the entire tournament. Their fight had been the closest, most intense of any that had occurred that week. They were essentially evenly matched, Crimson’s ability, and Fade’s adaptability were extremely similar, so it was nothing short of luck that Crimson managed to win, and his strategy paid off. Even the other contestants - who had all finished their fights after a minute - were watching them with stunned expressions.

Fade turned to leave, but Crimson caught his arm in an iron grip, and he turned back to Crimson to make eye contact once more. He still flinched, but it wasn’t as bad as during the fight.

Crimson spoke, “Would you be willing to give up your [Class]? I have an opening in my party for a defender, and you’re the best of any I’ve ever met.”

The rage he saw in Fade’s eyes didn’t matter, just so long as it could be controlled and channelled, it would be worth it for a guy this good.

Fade looked surprised, and hesitated, “Look, I…my [Class]…”

“Is utter garbage. It’s a Mid-Grade [Class], right? I can help you get a better one, if you let me, you can even choose the same [Class] once more, but I can help you get a High-Grade one, or even better.”

Confused, Fade said, “Better? There is no such thing as better than High-Grade…”

“Of course there is, there’s Hidden-Grade and Ex-,“ His words cut off, seeming to catch in his throat. He tried again, “…and Ex-,“ the choking sensation once more.

—————

-Admin Riskter: We request that you keep Exceed-Grade a secret. We don’t have the means to support many of these [Classes].

-Admin Melia: We are open to negotiation, go to the temple this evening to pray with your [Holy Interpreter Title] equipped and we’ll talk.

—————

Crimson grunted, then spoke, “Regardless, the gods reward efforts and ability. There’s no way that someone like you should have a Mid-Grade [Class], you deserve so much more, and if you join my party, I’ll help you get it!”

Fade looked at him, for the first time, Crimson saw other emotions in his eyes than rage. There was fear, uncertainty, doubt, and hope. Crimson could capitalize on that hope.

“Tell you what, don’t give me your response yet, go to the Adventurer’s Guild and ask about me. Emma, Lars, Mars, Verity, and Lena will all be able to vouch for me. I await your favorable response.” Crimson let go of Fade’s arm at those words, and the larger man stumbled away, seeming lost.

The minute he was supposed to get for a break was almost over after that discussion, but Crimson quickly checked his [Blessing] to see if any [Skills] had leveled up.

—————

-[Skill] Level Up!

-[Skill: Parry] 1/10 —> 6/10

-[Skill: Mikiri] 2/10 —> 4/10

-[Skill: Footwork] 9/10 —> 10/10 (Max)

-[Skill: Sword Armory] 2/10 —> 3/10

-[Skill: Advanced Sword Mastery] 2/100 —> 8/100

-[Skill: Ul Byrn] 1/10 —> 2/10

-[Skill: Eyes of Will] 7/10 —> 9/10

-[Skill: Blade Spirit] 3/10 —> 4/10

-Generating Quest…

-Quest: Setting an Example

-Do not lose for the rest of the day 0/1

-Bonus: Do not take another point for the rest of the day 0/1

-Time Limit: 5 Hours

-Failure Condition: Losing

-Reward: Undecided

-Accept?

-Admin Riskter: I will reward you appropriately, set an example to strive for.

—————

He could only describe it as a bounty. That was probably two or three weeks of training right there. His [Eyes of Will] had been pretty stagnant, so that was likely two or three months of progress.

He couldn’t help it, and physically expressed his joy by hopping around a little bit. He heard some loud laughter from the front row, and glanced over to see Verity who was holding her gut, doubled over in laughter at seeing that. She was loud enough to be heard as far away as he was, so it was likely that most of the audience could hear her.

Crimson flushed, feeling extremely embarrassed, and with a cough to try and dispel the feeling, turned his attention to his next opponent. He had a moment before the battle began, so he quickly hit ‘Yes’ to accept the [Quest]. There was nothing for him to lose by trying.

The next round was announced, and the shuffle of people moving to new spots took a bit longer this time since one person in each square now had to leave for losing twice in a row. The participants began to move up the the squares until they all had two participants once more.

The next round began, and Crimson swiftly began to feel frustrated. His opponent was trying to use [Skills] to suppress him, but Crimson’s [Skills] were superior, though lower in quantity. His opponent used attack [Skills] one after the other, infusing his sword with different elements for each attack, and doing cheeky things like throwing dirt in his eyes. This man was clearly a bad actor who just wanted to stomp on the competition.

Crimson eliminated him in a minute, while only counterattacking, going as far as to kick him in the fork of the legs after the dirt incident. The implication was, “you want to fight dirty? I can too.” It didn’t deal any damage, but any man would have a moment of panic after being struck in that general area, so that would suffice as punishment. He tried to kick Crimson in the same place as revenge, but Crimson used that moment to knock him to the ground and stomp on his face, earning 5 points for those two blows.

After his fight with Fade, he could only feel bored and frustrated with trashy individuals like this.

The next fight was a lot better, it was Mortimer, the winner of the Under 10 category. Crimson had fought him yesterday, but was more than happy to do so again today.

He had a pretty neat strategy, seeming to decide that the way to win was to get one blow on Crimson, then force a battle of attrition. He summoned a pair of shields for each hand and created a spear to float in the air between them, fending Crimson with the point.

It was a good idea, and Crimson nearly got hit more than once, but Mortimer had paced himself poorly, nearly running out of MP and forcing him to dismiss the shields. Crimson was still coaching him the entire time, and had thus been passing up openings he’d seen to continue to teach. He severely reprimanded Mortimer for pacing himself that poorly, punctuating his final line with a knock-knock on Mortimer’s skull, earning him one point, as well as victory in the round.

The most of the rest of the fights weren’t worth going over in detail, but some of the [Skills] he came across were. Once of his opponents was an archer who could create footholds in the air, and used that to try and snipe Crimson. He had knocked her off it by throwing some of the arrows back at her, causing her to lose balance and fall to the ground. Since the fall hurt her, causing her to lose 30% of her HP, he nearly got in trouble before it was determined that she would be disqualified for reckless [Skill] use. He was let off Scott-free.

The next [Skill] was one that was subtle, but Crimson was too trained to not notice. The other man was a sword-user as well, and he had a [Skill] that increased the force behind his blows, each of his hits felt almost like Crimson would be knocked off his feet, so after blocking two of them, he started avoiding them and easily won the bout.

There was a [Skill] that shattered the ground under his feet, he had responded by casting [Mud] and causing them to slip.

There was one that just tried to bombard him with magic, seeming to have some kind of multi-casting [Skill]. This had actually been a tricky fight because what mattered was whether the magic made contact, not whether it did damage, so the defense he’d used against the flying monsters from the dungeon break didn’t work since it would look like the spells were making contact.

There were a few other mildly interesting [Skills], but none of them were so compelling.

Prior to the final bout, Crimson glanced at his [Blessing] once more. His [Skill Peak] informed him that [Footwork] was ready to advance.

—————

-[Skill] Level Up!

-[Ul Byrn] 2/10 —> 3/10

-[Parry] 6/10 —> 9/10

-[Mikiri] 4/10 —> 5/10

-[Advanced Sword Mastery] 8/100 —>11/100

-[Footwork] has advanced!

-[Footwork] 10/10 —> [Adaptive Footwork] 1/10

—————

He’d been using [Footwork] for a lot more than just fighting, so it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t become something like ‘[Advanced Footwork]’ or the like.

Crimson’s blood couldn’t help but pump for the final round. There was no better way to end the tournament with a rematch with Fade, who had fought his way up the seeds once more to face Crimson.

A wide grin on his face, Crimson uncharacteristically greeted Fade with a handshake - a relatively uncommon act in this culture - and welcomed him on to the central square.

The only words they exchanged, “I won’t lose this time!”

“Well, I won’t even take a point this time.”

Crimson could see the excitement he felt reflected in Fade’s expression, there was even enough of it to break through the rage in his eyes. Both of them felt confident, and neither would give any ground, but there was one key difference: Crimson had improved by leaps and bounds in [Skills], and understood Fade’s tempo. His instincts were great, and it wouldn’t be an easy fight, but Crimson knew that he could win.

The final key factor that brought Crimson confidence was exhaustion. Both he and Fade were extremely tired from the day of fighting, but Crimson had spent a long time building up his endurance, and was in better condition - even respecting the fact that Fade got a several hour break while he didn’t.

The fight began, and Crimson began to wield the might of his new [Skills]. With the improved [Mikiri], he could respond more quickly and more accurately to Fade, though he had to intentionally bait him into making ‘lethal’ blows to get that [Skill] to trigger, it didn’t matter because his improved [Parry] let him handle the danger with ease. [Adaptive Footwork] made it easier than ever to perform moves that would be considered ‘ankle breakers’ in basketball. He had also finally identified what [Ul Byrn] was doing. It was letting him understand his opponents. He got a better sense of their combat style in a few blows than he would’ve gotten with an hour of observation, and once he understood their fighting style, he could also understand how they would move and behave. It even worked on Fade’s sharp instincts.

Slipping around like an eel, he suddenly thrust, his sword making a ‘cut’ across Fade’s arm, sinking the tip into his shoulder, before flicking the bokken up and smacking him on the side of the head with the flat of the blade. Those three blows earned him a total of 6 points.

Though even with all the improvements Crimson had gained, Fade was still an adversary that pushed him to his limits. His [Skill] with the axe had gotten noticeably better, and his [Shield Bash Skill] came out a lot faster and more often. It was doable, but to ensure that he didn’t lose any points, he was forced to resort to using magic.

There were a couple times that Fade almost cornered him enough to lose a point, but a quick bit of water splashed in his face Crimson managed to get out of it the first time. He used [Arc] to make Fade jump back when his sword got caught by his axe, and he used [Flare] to create an opening by shooting it at him and forcing him to duck down.

Crimson was forced to admit to himself that he was quite the hypocrite. He was using tactics that he would’ve condemned if an opponent used it against him. It didn’t feel great, but he was feeling greedy for the bonus reward that Riskter offered, and so decided to use magic in creative ways instead of just bombarding Fade with spells. If he wanted, he could just use [Manipulate Water] to smack him repeatedly from all sides and force a victory through a barrage of those minor blows, but he had more self respect than that - it wouldn’t help him improve.

With just a few seconds left on the clock, Crimson scored his thirtieth point against Fade, winning the bout without taking a hit. The exhilaration of victory was so great that it exceeded all the excitement he’d ever felt in his life. This is what he’d wanted, this is what he’d needed. If he wanted more of this, he’d need Fade.

He offered Fade another hand-shake, and they both grinned at each other. Fade’s rage as seen in his eyes was the most intense he’d seen the entire day, but he was acting normal, so Crimson started to suspect that the rage was either unnoticed, or it was unnatural and being suppressed. Maybe he had a [Rizvim]?

He bowed to the crowd, bowed to the Royal box, directly bowed at Rhinese while trying not to look at Elegance - he still got fascinated for a moment - before striding off the field to cheers. There were technically no winners or losers in the Open category, but everyone knew who the true winner was.