Sen chooses to spectate Xue this time, and sees that she is for the first time using her sword and shield combination, steadily blocking the two handed sword her opponent is using and slowly bleeding them out. As the match ends, she wipes off her sword and exits the arena with little fanfare, ignoring the spectators.

Sen then sees that Lynna is still in a match, and spectates her, curious as to what’s taking her so long. When he gets in, he sees her being suppressed by superior stats. Her opponent is someone he recognizes, one of the people on Team Cloud, one of the professional teams in the region. She constantly uses her twisting sword to make up for the difference in speed, but can’t keep up the energy expenditure for long, falling to the superior stats. Sen shakes his head. Players supported by a guild have a massive advantage in leveling their stats.

As he leaves the spectating arena, he instantly sees Lynna complaining to Jennifer. While Lynna isn’t a particularly sore loser, she tends to rant for at least half an hour after losing in a match she cares about.

“I ran into freaking Bagel! It’s supposed to Sen that has the bad luck!”

Sen smiles, he usually is the one with bad luck. Deciding that he wants to see if his luck will continue, he checks out the tournament bracket he’s in. There are two hundred fifty six people left in his bracket, but Sen simply scans over the names, only recognizing one of them, and when he sees it he grimaces. It’s LostMind, the leader for Team Cloud. While he won’t be scared of him in gladiator, when he’s sure to be outclassed stat wise, and when the game includes skills, he’s pretty sure he’s going to get stomped. Maybe he’ll have a chance if he is better with Gale Steps, but as is he’ll simply have to do his best.

Thankfully, he’s on the opposite side of the bracket, and the top two both advance to the next tournament, so Sen should have a chance to compete in the next round of the tournament.

The next few matches, Julie has managed to keep her string of wins, as no one has been able to see through her illusion, and nobody expects her to throw knives at the ground to form it. Sen had watched her quarterfinals match against a very mobile enemy, where she had filled up the entire arena with arrays, making dozens of false copies of herself. Sen is aghast at that. While he as a spectator has her real body highlighted by the giant screen above the arena, her poor opponent is running away from all the images as Julie leisurely follows her around. Sen has to leave early in pity for her opponent.

Xue on the other hand falls in the quarter finals, losing to a player who has pumped most of their stats into energy, sending out a bunch of waves of pure energy. Xue is simply not able to get close, and falls before her opponent runs out of energy.

Her face seems to have a darker undertone as she gets out, but is taking her defeat better than Lynna. Sen has no clue how to comfort her, having a rather low EQ, so simply stands there in silence along with her. Lynna on the other hand, goes up to her, chatting with her about topics other than Fifth dimension, and eventually she’s drawn into a conversation about Gladiator, which seems to distract her from her loss.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

When Julie has finished her match, he’s surprised to see she’s actually a bit annoyed.

“So what’s with the long face? You beat her pretty handily.”

“Yeah, but it costs me an F ranked core for each array. Even with all the hunting we’ve been doing, I’ve been spending most of it, and I didn’t bring enough of them. If the next opponent is as mobile, I’m going to run out before the finals.”

Sen nods, they don’t have time to get any more hunting in, and while Julie isn’t a total slouch in the swordsmanship department, it’s a bit mechanical, lacking the spark that truly skilled sword users have. The fact that she usually plays mages in games doesn’t help her there either.

The semifinals appear, and Sen is faced with an opponent that has a very similar weapon to Sen. Sen grins, he knows the swordsmanship for greatswords in and out, and he knows how to abuse even the slightest mistake in it.

Sen is preparing to have a fun fight, and when the white walls of light go down, they each give each other a bow of respect before starting.

“You may be the real AncientSword, but I have no intention of losing even if you are!”

Sen smiles, it seems that his opponent knows him from gladiator. Unfortunately, he hadn’t noticed his name on the brackets, so he isn’t sure who he is. The fight starts with both of them holding their sword overhead. As they approach each other, they both swing down at nearly the same instant, both of them using a skill to increase the damage their strike will cause. The two blades impact, and Sen twists his sword a little, parrying his opponents sword to the side, noting that his opponent is stronger than him, even though his strength stat is at D. Sen capitalizes on the opening, slashing his sword from the side, this time not empowered with Weight of the Mountain, but his opponent gets his sword back in position to only take a light cut on his arm.

The following fight is brutal, his opponent trying to overwhelm Sen with power while Sen uses his skill to avoid that. Sen has to reduce the force of each of the strikes due to having less strength, but he abuses his advantage in skill to wound his opponent.

Eventually he started to wear down his opponent, and is expecting the win to be reasonably easy, when the man uses some sort of skill he hadn’t known existed. The next time their swords clash, his opponent’s sword actually bites into his sword a good half an inch. Sen starts in surprise, it seems he won’t be able to go for any more clashes. The rest of the match is filled with mind games. Sen trying to parry the flat of the sword whenever he would use the skill, and directly clashing at others to bait him into using it more.

Eventually, it’s his opponent’s energy that gives out, and Sen, still having the energy for body strengthening, finishes him off with a thrust to the chest.

Getting out of the arena, he takes a look at his sword, and his lips turn down in sadness. He quite likes his sword, and now it has a few massive chips in it. He sighs, it seems it’s time for him to upgrade his weapon. That is one of the least favorite parts of games for Sen. In his previous life, he’d used the same sword for at least years in his previous life, and felt a connection to each of them, while in games it’s common to trade them out every few levels.

He doesn’t have enough time before the next match to get a new sword though, so he’ll simply have to see if his sword will hold up for now. With only Julie and him left in the tournament, they both stay quiet, trying to keep their focus rather than chatting with the others.

It seems like far too little time before the next match, and Sen’s energy has only recovered to three quarters, having used a lot of it in his previous match.