The next day, I arrived in front of the Martial Arena and found it to be already filled to the brim with all kinds of people. On the VIP section, I could see the City Lord sitting there with his personnel guard but I couldn’t find his daughter. Wait a sec, if that guy is the City Lord, he must have a pretty nice ability right? I mean I have heard that he is a peak-Foundation Stage practitioner. Also, I have a feeling that his personnel guard is stronger than him, even though he looks pretty weak. All the participants were scattered around the ground in the centre and there was a bit of time remaining before the preliminary round begins. I moved towards the VIP section to stand since I wanted the City Lord and his guard to be in my ability’s range. After making sure the distance between us was less than 100 metres, I activated [Ability Devour] on City Lord and then his guard.
[Minor Battle Sense] acquired
[Minor Reflect] acquired
[Minor Battle Sense (Tier-4)] – Lets the user see the flaws in the target’s movements. It also highlights the target’s weak points.
[Minor Reflect (Tier-4)] – Lets the user reflect 20% of the opponent’s force back to the opponent. Applies to only physical moves.
Haha…not bad. These two abilities will help me immensely in this tournament. Along with my [Holy Heal], I have a very high chance to win now. I have noticed that a lot of abilities have ‘Minor’ written in front of them, which could only mean that a ‘Major’ one also exists and maybe even a higher one too. I should check this out in the public library.
Suddenly, a booming voice is heard all over the Martial Arena.
“Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to Martial Arena. Our City Lord has organised a Tournament celebrating the Awakening of our young miss to a tier-6 ability. Without any further ado, let us begin with the Tournament. We will first begin with the preliminary round. 500 participants will fight in each of the 4 smaller stages until there are only 10 standing in each stage. Before we begin, I think I should announce the prizes first. The second runners up will receive 1 Bone Cleansing Pill, the runners up will receive 2 Bone Cleansing Pills and the champion will receive 5 Bone Cleansing Pills.”
As soon as he finished, all the participants along with the audience gave a deafening cheer. These awards were indeed quite generous. I think the guy who announced this must have some kind of voice amplification ability, otherwise how can his voice be so loud?
“Alright, all the participants having token number from 1-500 jump onto the first stage, participants having 500-1000, jump on to the 2nd stage, so on and so forth. Let’s begin the preliminary round Ladies and Gentlemen.”
So, I gotta go to the second stage. I made my way there and jumped up. There were already a lot of people up here and most were rugged looking men with myriad of weapons. There were only a handful of females and I only saw 5 youths of my age.
“Ohk, looks like our participants are ready. Let’s begin the preliminary round then. 3……….2………..1……….Fight”
As soon as he said fight, everybody jumped on each other. I could see a lot of people forming groups and eliminating the weaker participants. There was this one female, a beastmen of panther lineage, who was sweeping the floor with a large broadsword. There was another youth of my age standing at the other end of the Arena and surprisingly only a handful of people were attacking him every now and then, even when he looked so weak. Does he have some kind of presence erasing ability? Suddenly, I feel a thick killing intent and I ducked. A longsword passed where my head was and I saw a man with a huge scar on his face standing behind me. He raised his sword to attack again, but before he could, I elbowed him in his stomach and punched his chin, making him unconscious. A few more people attacked me, but thanks to [Battle Sense], I could easily see their flaws and dealt with them easily. Plus nobody seemed to be in peak Body Enhancement Stage so far which made things easier for me. By now, only 50 or so participants were left on the stage and everybody was eyeing each other and thinking whom to choose as their opponent. Taking me as a weak opponent since I was young, 5 guys pounced on me. I chuckled and dodged 4 sword strikes and took the 5th one which was a punch, head-on. The punch looked quite heavy, so I angled my hand in a 45 degree angle and used [Reflect]. Most of his force got dissipated due to my move and I could handle the remaining with ease. I heard a *crack* sound and I knew [Reflect] worked. That guy started screaming holding his hand, so I ignored him and moved onto the remaining 4 guys. They were charging at me simultaneously, but unfortunately there were not skilled and I could see hundreds of flaws in their moves. I easily side-stepped their attack and kicked a guy on his stomach. I ducked an attack coming from a guy from behind and punched his face. The remaining two came together at me, but from opposite sides. I chuckled and avoided the first strike. The second strike was just an inch away from me when I hit the hilt of the sword, changing its direction and it easily passed above my head directly to the neck of the first guy. The second guy was shocked and I used this opportunity to kick his balls and punch his face. Hmm….all out. I looked around and saw only 9 people standing in the stage, so that means we are done with this round. That beastmen lady and that presence erasing youth had also qualified. After a few minutes, the announcer’s voice was heard.
“Ohho....those were some nice fights. I can see that we already have our winner of the preliminary round. After a break of one hour, we’ll move on to the next round. Two participants will be chosen at random from the 40 present here, who will come up to the large stage at the centre and fight. There will be 20 matches in this round. The winners will then proceed to the next round. All the best participants.”
I sat down and closed my eyes. Most of the participants did the same. An hour passed quickly and the first round started. Surprisingly, the beastmen lady was called on for the first round and her opponent was a bald man with dual swords. The result was as expected, the bald man was thrown out of the stage in less than 2 minutes. In the 9th match, that presence erasing youth got eliminated. His ability was not much useful so I ignored him. It was the 15th match when my number got called. I went upto the large stage and my opponent was a tall man with a spear. He was emitting a heroic and dominating aura, quite worthy of wielding a spear. He was wearing normal leather armour and from his disposition, I knew he was an experienced fighter. Our match started and both of us ran towards each other. He was faster than me and moved his spear towards my head. I ducked and tried kicking his legs. He side-stepped my kick and swept his spear in an arc. Through [Battle Sense], I saw a flaw in his move and bend my body as the spear passed above my neck just a cm away. We fought like that for a few more minutes until he got impatient and his spear started glowing. He probably has an ability which enhances his attack for a while and as expected, he swept his spear towards my heart. He was quite proficient with his move, but there was a single flaw. I kicked his spear just 3 inch away from its base, which was the weak point of his weapon, and the direction of his attack changed. Due to the momentum of the attack, he couldn’t react in time and I punched him in his head very hard. He fell down and before he got a chance to get up, I kicked him in the head again. He fainted right away and I won.
That was a nice experience. Without my [Battle Sense], it would have been impossible to win this match. I don’t want to use Holy spear since elemental type abilities are mostly above tie-5 and I don’t want to garner much attention for now. I moved back to my spot and the next match started. In an hour, all the matches were over and we moved on to the next round. There were 10 matches in this round and my number was called in the 3rd match. My opponent was a thin and frail looking man, but he was quite skilled with his daggers. Plus, he was avoiding my blows like he knew when I was going to attack. But his offense was nowhere near enough to be a threat to me and this match became a match of attrition. At the end, my stamina won out and taking advantage of his exhaustion, I did a spin kick to his head and he fainted. I was interested in how he could guess my moves before I made them. Is this his ability? I didn’t waste any time and before I went down, I used [Ability Devour] on him.
[Minor Foresight] acquired
[Minor Foresight] – Gives the user the ability to sense his opponent’s moves before they are made. Only works when the target’s level is not very high in comparison to the user.
So that’s why. This is a useful ability. I wonder how powerful its upgraded version is. The rest of the matches proceeded as usual, but something unexpected happened in the 10th match. It was between the beastmen lady and a black clothed girl. This girl was covered from head to toe and only her green eyes were visible from a small opening. She was a very talented dual wielder and had won all of her matches using her dual short swords. But as soon as the 10th match started, she disappeared from her position and appeared right behind the beastmen lady, with a sword at her neck. The match was over just like that. What was that? Teleportation? Nah….all the teleportation abilities are tier-7 or above ones and a tier-7 ability user just can’t pop out of nowhere. Then the only possibility is that it’s a speed type ability and quite a fast one I must say. I am totally going to get that ability, but not right now since they are outside of my ability’s range. The beastmen lady was quite depressed and luckily passed by the place where I was sitting to head outside the arena. She was quite strong, so maybe she has a nice ability too? So I used [Ability Devour] on her.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
[Warrior] acquired
[Warrior (Tier-5)] – Gives you the ability to become proficient with any one weapon very quickly and doubles all your base stats.
Oho…she has a tier-5 ability. That’s quite rare and it looks like a very nice ability too. I don’t think that lady was an ordinary beastmen. Going by the description of this ability, all of my stats like strength, speed, stamina, everything has been doubled. Plus, the first part of the description explains why that beastmen lady was so proficient in her broadsword. Well, I don’t have any weapons as of right now so I’ll leave that part for later. One thing I noticed about [Ability Devour] is that it lets me activate multiple abilities at the same time which is quite convenient.
Now that all the 10 matches were over, there were only 5 final participants left. Me, that black clothed girl, a red haired dude carrying a halberd, a blue haired girl wearing a veil with a whip and finally a blonde handsome man with a sword. The Announcer then declared that one of us will be given a free ticket to the semi-finals through a lottery and the rest of the 4 will fight. Then a guy carrying a bowl having 5 folded papers went to each one of us and told us to pick one but not to open it. The Announcer then declared number 5 to be the lucky winner and when I opened my paper, it was number 5. Since when was my luck so good?
The Announcer then asked me to stand outside the arena and declared number 3 to fight number 4. Number 3 turned out to be that red-haired guy and number 4 was the blonde handsome man. They went onto centre of the stage and the fight started. The red-haired guy was gaining the upper hand with his halberd while the blonde guy was defending with all his might. Just when everyone though the blonde guy will fall off the stage, the blonde guy produced a shield of fire out of nowhere and dealt a decisive blow to the red-haired guy. The blonde guy then went for the final blow, but suddenly the red-haired guy’s spear started crackling with electricity and both of them collided head-on. In the end, since the red-haired guy was injured, he was defeated and the blonde guy won with a narrow margin. Their abilities were not bad, but I had decided to only take powerful abilities, so I didn’t bother to get their abilities.
The next battle was much interesting. The blue haired girl vs the black cloth girl. Judging by their figures, both of them should be quite the beauties and since they were hiding their faces, that only added to their mysteriousness. As soon as the match started, the blue haired girl erected a blue shield around her which gave the black clothed girl no time to sneak up on her. The shield was pretty tough and the blue-haired girl used her whip repeatedly to keep the black-clothed girl at bay. Unfortunately, the shield was not invincible and after many strikes, it cracked and broke apart. Despite the blue-haired girl trying her best to restrict the black clothed girl, the match still ended with a sword on the neck of the blue-clothes girl and the black clothed girl winning with her speed.
If I have to win, I need to do something about her speed. I can just steal her ability, but I had decided to only steal from others when they want to kill me or my friends. Normally, I’ll just copy their abilities and leave them with theirs. I guess I’ll have to acquire her ability before the next match. As soon as their match was over, this round was finished and the announcer declared the next match will be decided by lottery again. This time I deliberately stood near the back-clothed girl and activated my [Ability Devour] on her.
[Flash] acquired
[Flash (Tier-6)] – Gives the user the ability to boost his/her speed upto 4 times. Speed can be further increased by consumption of User’s energy.
What the…….a tier-6 ability? In our city? Wait a sec…..is she the daughter of City Lord? Because that is the only person I know who has a tier-6 ability and I don’t believe our city is famous enough to house a tier-6 ability user without the public knowing anything about it. And this ability……is very powerful, increasing my base speed upto 4 times.
The result of lottery were announced and this time the black clothed girl got lucky and I had to fight the blonde guy. He appeared to be I middle Body Enhancement Stage, nothing I couldn’t handle. We went onto the stage and the fight started. My base speed was already high thanks to [Warrior], so I easily defeated that fellow.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our best two participants here for the final match. Whoever wins will become the champion of today’s tournament. On the left side of the stage, we have Flash and on the right side we have Devourer. Let the match begin”
Heh….both of us gave our ability’s name as our alias. The match began and she disappeared from her place again. But this time, thanks to my [Minor Foresight], I could sense where she will come from and managed to avoid her attack. Her eyes clearly showed surprise but she didn’t stop her attacks. She was continuously attacking me with high speed and I had no choice but to double my base speed using [Flash] to continuously dodge her attacks. This went on for more than 5 minutes and I could see her building fatigue. Even though [Flash] increases your speed exponentially, it does not provide you with unlimited stamina. She had clearly exhausted most of the stamina while I still had more than half of mine. That was my strategy from the start, to use her own speed against her. Perhaps realizing this situation, she slowed down her speed and we started fighting with the same speed. But she didn’t have convenient abilities like [Minor Foresight] and [Battle Sense], so I was easily dodging her attacks and kept attacking her weak points. I decided to end this fight, so I played feint and acted like I was gonna kick her legs. She jumped up and that’s when I made a grab for her neck. She was in the air and had no way to dodge my move, but somehow managed to save herself from a hair’s breadth. Unfortunately, that was not true for the clothes covering her face and instead of grabbing her neck, I snatched on to the cloth covering her face and it got torn apart.
What came out of it really shocked me. I mean, Sylvia was a really divine beauty, but this girl was beautiful in a more seductive way. She had jet black hair with green eyes, scarlet red seductive lips and was pouting in a way that made my blood boil. Combined with her large bust and sexy body, she was totally as dangerous as a succubus. Living with Sylvia, I had gotten pretty acquainted with divine beauties so I calmed down pretty quick, but the audience was still gawking at her. The City Lord had stood up and I could see he was furious. So this girl was really his daughter and judging by his mood, she took part in this tournament without his permission.
“Look what you have done. Now Dad will scold me hard and it is all your fault” black clothed girl said with a pout and folded her arms, which lifted up her chest even more and made her look even sexier.
“Hey miss, it’s not my fault that you took part in this competition without your father’s permission. Now if you don’t mind, let’s finish this match” I said and dashed towards her. Her sexy behaviour disappeared and she took a serious pose too. I knew very well from the beginning that she was using her charm to distract me mid-fight and deal a decisive blow but I am no fool. Living with Sylvia has pretty much made me immune to beauties. I mean, sure I can appreciate them but I won’t let it affect my heart, especially during battle. She abandoned her twin swords and took out a black dagger from her clothes. Looking at the aura of that dagger, I could say it’s an enchanted weapon. An enchanted weapon is a weapon which has been made with expensive and rare materials and is divided into 12 tiers. An enchanted weapon is quite costly since they can only be made by enchanters or people with enchanting abilities, who are quite rare. She uses the full speed of [Flash] and plunges the dagger straight towards my throat. I had already predicted she’ll do something like that with [Minor Foresight], but the dagger was quite fast and it’ll be difficult to avoid getting hit. So I moved my body a little but to the right and in the nick of time jumped up. The dagger penetrated deep into my shoulders but I managed to land a heavy kick in her stomach with all my strength, which by the addition of [Brute] and [Warrior] is 5 times my base strength and made her fly straight out of the stage. I sit down on the stage panting and tear a piece of my clothes to bandage my wound. [Holy Scion of Light] had increased the natural healing ability of my body so a little bit of bleeding is no problem for me. If I leave this wound as it is, within one hour it will be completely healed even if I do not use [Holy Heal], which I didn’t wanted to use right now as it produces a very eye catching glow when used. The black clothed girl stood up and wiped the blood coming out of her mouth. She gave me one last look before walking towards her father’s seat. The City Lord seeing his daughter is not heavily injured sighed and sat back.
“And that was an amazing fight Ladies and Gentlemen and finally, we have our champion of the tournament, the Devourer.” The announcer screamed and the whole audience cheered. A medic came upto the stage and helped take care of my wounds. As per the instructions- I, the black clothed girl and the blonde guy stood at the centre of the stage where the City Lord gave us our awards and I finally received my pills.
“That was a very nice performance young man. And thank you for going easy on my daughter. She has a very rebellious attitude, just like her mother hahahah” he said to me before we dispersed. The black clothed girl blushed and ran away with a ‘humph’. Hehe…..she is quite cute when she is not fighting. I took my pills and walked out of the arena. I could feel that someone was tailing me thanks to my heightened senses because of [Minor Foresight], so instead of going home, I went out of the city towards the forest. Reaching the point where I normally meet Sylvia, I turned around and said “Come out. I know you are following me since I left the Arena”.