Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1794.01.11]

“Is this place another Temple or something?” Zeph asked warily, glancing at Aisha. That red notification was quite unnerving for him.

“Nah,” she denied lightly, standing up. “At best, it could be considered an auxiliary building.”

“Of whom?” he asked, following suit.

“Onji Tiwaz,” she said in old Rui, then paused and looked back at him. “Your Interface formed a sub-connection?” she guessed, more asking than stating.

“Sub-connection…” he mumbled, lifting his backpack. “Sounds about right.”

“Good. He likes to take a peek at people with interesting fighting styles or techniques. It means you are doing something right. He connected to mine as well.”

“Same here,” Ghrughah said while opening the carriage’s door. The smell of flowers and damp forest filled the interior in moments, brought inside by a warm whiff of air.

“Only to look?” Zeph asked skeptically, grabbing his winter clothing, spear, and a smaller pack. “Seems excessive.”

“Don’t ask me how it works. Ask the Onjis.” Aisha shrugged and jumped down, Zeph following quickly. “But I am sure that the limited Interface access is one of the easiest and cheapest methods to track more subtle details of a fighting style. At least on this stratum.”

“That would be only partially correct,” someone said from the side.

Turning his head there, Zeph saw the very same attendant that led their small convoy of vehicles here - a bald, pale Kitayamayan wearing a red military-like suit. Despite his impressive height and musculature, he looked small when standing near Ghrughah’s carriage.

“Personal Information Protection laws wouldn’t allow the stadium to install any elaborate observation devices. Our guests, in the vast majority, don’t have any kind of contract with Onji Tiwaz, after all. But our Onji is helping with the battle-oriented techniques contained in General Skills. Thus, the Interface accessibility.”

Finishing the short exposition, he clapped his glowed hands elegantly to indicate a change of topic. The man’s sophisticated mannerisms didn’t fit his burly body and low voice, but Zeph met enough strange individuals to not be put off by the discrepancy.

A second later, more workers showed up, unhurriedly strolling in their direction. “Time is of the essence. Any attendant here can answer more of your questions, but preparations take precedence. Please follow our workers to the inspection rooms. Towers’ specialists are ready to receive you,” he said, indicating a forming line of attendants with his open palm.

In quick order, their identity was confirmed and the group split up, led by the workers. People with a lot of baggage – like Zeph and P’pfel – received an additional helper to deal with it.

Ornamental elevators made from wood were spread through the garden, hidden in plain sight. Each of the small groups took one to move down, deeper into the complex.

The decorations on the lower floor were stylized in Roman fashion; consisting of extensive hallways with colonnades made of sculptured stone. Zeph could see some groups landing further down the corridors but didn’t have time to look around much, as his attendant ushered him into a nearby room.

It was vast, but cozy and brightly illuminated from above. The marble-like floor was covered by red, soft carpets. Sturdy furniture filled the interior, decorated in different shades of red. Grand bookcases covered the walls and divided the room into three parts. A plethora of books and metallic contraptions burdened their shelves.

Three people were sitting around a small table by the back wall. A solid block of black stone the size of a big bed was lying on the ground to their right. It looked just like the operating tables in the System’s Shrine.

When he entered, all of the people stood up. Two men and one woman, all seemingly middle-aged. Their attire resembled more a handyman’s clothes—although, being much more fashionable in design—than loose robes that Makani preferred to use. The color theme was different for each of them – black, deep blue, and silver-red.

“Zeph Einar, I take it?” The woman in black clothes asked.

“Yes,” he nodded, walking deeper inside. “Will you be inspecting my gear?”

“Only your armor, as it can interfere with our protection systems. The rules allow any kind of weaponry,” The deep-blue gentleman said then turned to the attendants. “Thank you for leading our guest. Please leave everything on that table”—he indicated one not far away from them—“and be back in about half an hour.”

Zeph helped to organize his belongings. Just as the attendants left the room, he took off his helmet.

“Should I change?” he asked, looking down at his armored body.

“Depends. If the armor’s material is the same as the helmet, let us examine it first,” the woman said. “Please sit down with us. We will explain the procedures.”

The silver-red man wordlessly took the helmet from him as he walked to the table. Using a few tools that looked like miniaturized screwdrivers, he started prodding it. The woman started pouring some herbal tea for the rest meanwhile.

As they settled down, the Manacaster in blue started his explanation.

“You need to be informed on what is our role in this Tournament,” the gentleman started. “We are here to minimize the chances of your demise. But you should understand – without majorly limiting your Veil usage, we can’t do much. Especially when it comes to purely physical trauma. As so, our methods boil down to three major implementations.”

The man took a sip from his cup and the woman continued the explanation.

“Firstly, we can put defenses near your skin to shield against a massive Magicule intrusion. Activation of these defenses means you will be flagged as defeated. Secondly, we will put life-stabilizing gear on you. In case you are deadly wounded, it will hopefully be enough for the Doctors to keep you alive and transport you to the System’s Shrine – assuming you are willing and don’t have any other place in mind. Finally, we will put a health monitoring device on you. It can also monitor the state of your consciousness and will flag you as defeated if activated manually.”

“Of course,”—the man took over—“We can fine-tune those precautions to better accommodate your fighting style. For example, we can set a delay in the activation of the consciousness monitor, so you will be able to try to forcefully wake up before you are flagged. We can exempt a lost limb from counting as a lethal wound. The possibilities are vast. But keep in mind, people are rarely aware of the real damage they caused to the opponent,” he said sternly. “Most of the deaths during Duels happen because the flagging system didn’t activate. If that Mana signal won’t reach your opponent, they will, most probably, keep attacking until the arbiter calls the end of the match.”

“Besides all that, few different methods exist for applying the safeguards. But we need to know what settings you prefer before suggesting anything,” The woman added.

Zeph squinted his eyes. “So, it’s a balance between my safety and the size of the information leak? Can you remind me what were the conditions of defeat again?”

The woman shrugged. “We are contracted to Onji Tiwaz. Some information will leek by the virtue of you being watched during the fight, but our lips will be sealed.”

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A cup clanked on the saucer as the blue gentleman sent a disapproving side glance in her direction. “For ten years.” He turned to Zeph. “We are contracted for ten years. Your information will be, practically, publicly available after that time.”

Zeph nodded, glad to hear the warning.

“As for the rules,” the man continued. “The conditions of defeat are as follows: surrender, safeguard system activation, and arbiter’s call. The last one can happen if you are non-responsive for 5 seconds, are grievously or deadly injured, disabled, or dead. As you see, your choices here may majorly influence your survivability, as well as your chances of success.”

Zeph grimaced internally. To trade my future safety over my current safety… what a mess…

“Mister Einar,” the silver-red man spoke for the first time, looking away from the helmet. His grating voice was giving a strange, suffocating impression. “Excellent armor you have here. Sadly, Magicule shielding won’t be compatible.”

The other two frowned after hearing that, so the man turned to them and uttered two words. “Living, symbiotic.”

It took them a while to gather their thoughts after the initial surprise. The blue gentleman spoke first.

“Can we quantify its vitality?”

Silver-red nodded shortly.

I guess that’s one problem less… Zeph chuckled bitterly.

~~~

In the end, Zeph was left with barebones for his safeguard system. Instead of Magicule intrusion shielding, his Living Armor was being monitored. Depending on the severity of the first attacks, if Phleya was disabled and the next attack predicted as deadly, the flagging system would activate along with a Mana-disruption device. The second was just a fancy name for a controlled Force-Mana explosion – it would push him away, disrupt most Mana formations in the vicinity, and—hopefully—scatter condensed Magicules.

The Magicule intrusion shielding was functionally designed to work near the skin – it was meant to prevent death after an attack breached other protective means. Placing it on the armor would be like treating the armor as his skin. Depending on the settings, he would either be eliminated by the first strong Spell, or the safeguard system wouldn’t activate at all even in the case of a lethal attack.

It was applied as a system of probes all around his armor, on the inside, just like it normally would. But the sensors were doing something absolutely different and they were left without an enchanted reaction system. Just a few Force-explosives.

For his health-monitoring device, he ordered to set it at the lowest possible threshold, without any additions like a consciousness monitor. The displeasure on the blue Manacaster’s face almost made him reconsider. Almost.

But, in the end, the man’s good advice just couldn’t work. Gru could activate the flagging device even when he was unconscious. His limbs and organs could regrow with time. He was not worried either about blood loss or excessive damage – his body was able to stabilize even in those conditions and could live off of the resources taken from his Soul and Will thanks to Willforce Morphon.

In other words, he had no idea what settings wouldn’t hurt his chances of winning. Worse even – his chances at surviving. Furthermore, he couldn’t clue the Manacasters about any details. As so, he simply didn’t even try to dispute the topic.

In the end, he was given a simple Soul-linkable amulet. Basically, the device would activate if his Soul started to leave his body, and that was all.

Which, by the way, Gru could theoretically prevent… But Zeph wasn’t ready to even start thinking of testing something like that.

Only his life-stabilizing gear was ‘normal’. The probes they inserted deep into his body had some problems because of the implants permeating his body (and because of Gru) but they managed to fine-tune them after some struggles and a lot of wasted time (again, mostly Gru’s doing).

The interesting part came from the fact that those probes were Soul-linked to the Manacasters through some device delivered from Onji Tiwaz’s Temple. It was to be expected, though. It would be utterly idiotic to stabilize a dying man using his own Mana.

I wonder if I wasted an opportunity… Maybe I should have taken some more sophisticated devices… he wondered when being led to the viewing area. I hoped they would use some Spells from their Towers… You could have mapped something more interesting...

Greh! his partner said with disgust.

You are imagining things, Zeph sent resolutely. Why would they consciously make the enchantments’ filler bitter? Who would eat it ev—the memory of P’pfel ravaging the Auric suddenly surfaced in his mind—ugh… okay, wrong question.

Gahah! Gru guffawed mentally.

‘Who, in their right mind, would use that method to prevent possible mapping?’ is the question. Against what or whom? Some metal-eating bugs?

Gre?

Yes. An ancient, modified, evolved, unknown lifeform. Surely.

Gru?

I didn’t taste it! I just can’t insert my Mana into the probes.

Gah, it shrugged unintelligently.

Zeph sighed, giving up. The probes in his armor weren’t Soul-linked to anything, but he still wasn’t able to see how they worked. Gru would also have problems if he wasn’t able to work a little with Phleya – the traces inside that probe were quite small.

What they found after all that struggle was quite depressing, though. An iteration of Tier 1 Spells that he knew about wasn’t something he expected. True, they were simplified and smaller, but that was something he would learn anyway in the future, as an ‘Enchanter’ in training.

This system was made as simple as it could. It operated more thanks to smartly engineered feedback loops between the probes than the Spells enchanted inside.

I just hope that one missing probe won’t disable the whole structure, he thought with trepidation; scrunching his face in distaste.

“Why so sour?” Aisha asked mirthfully from ahead.

His narrowed eyes looked up, finding her leaning against the column near big double doors – full Roman style.

Both of them were, Aisha and the doors.

“Where did you find a toga?” he asked in disbelief.

“Well, I finished early, sooo… Did you know they have a massage center down the hallway?” She smiled widely, pointing behind her. “It was fantastic!”

“Haaa…” His spirit tried to leave his body alongside the sigh. He wasn’t able to take off his armor until the day ended because of the probes inside. “Can I just lay down here and nap for a moment?” he muttered depressingly, tilting towards the floor.

“Very funny,” she deadpanned, slapping his chest to make him stay upright.

“Dear visitors, the first Duel of the day will start shortly.” a delicate, female voice resounded through the corridor at that moment. “Galleries on floor 4 and above are all available. Your seats…”

“Now, come.” She grabbed his shoulder and dragged him to the double doors. “P’pfel already left for the arena, so let’s join the others.”

Behind the doors was a somewhat small, but lavish, observation deck. The tiered floor was furnished with comfortable armchairs and potted plants. The atmosphere resembled that of an open restaurant instead of the stadium stands.

Their group was already gathered near the glass wall, on the lowest tier. A window was replacing the front wall of the room entirely. As they stepped down using wide stairs, he gaped at the stadium wall on the opposing side of the pit.

Large segments of the metallic exterior of the pit were folding up like an oversized clockwork machine, showing the galleries hidden behind large glass panels – the same as their own. The view was so satisfying to watch in its mechanical perfection that Zeph became a little transfixed.

“Late as always,” Kwan commented dryly, looking back at them.

“Don’t hurry up our wildcard,” Aisha said with a fake scorn. “And especially not both of them,” she smiled and chuckled, then looked around. “Hmmm… did they manage to install those magnifying devices I heard about? I wasn’t able to visit this place in… a few years.”

“The mechanism is inside the windows. They abandoned the idea of a private scope,” Kwan explained, turning to the field below.

“A shame…”

Meanwhile, Zeph shuffled himself to the side, near Makani, who was in the middle of an animated conversation with Pavail.

Before sitting down, he dropped all his items on the floor without care.

He allowed his body to sink into the fluffy embrace of the armchair, relaxing completely.

It wasn’t easy to deal with the buyer’s remorse when your well-being was on the line.

The idle talks continued for another half an hour or so, and Zeph used that time to recharge his mental batteries. There wasn’t much to discuss—especially in a public area like this one—so he just ignored most of the conversations.

Soon enough, another announcement was made by the feminine voice. It was accompanied by another show of the mechanical prowess of the builders as the two combatants were delivered near the center of the oversized arena on two platforms supported by elongating mechanical arms. If not for the overcomplicated clockwork, the contraptions would look just like two open-air elevators moving down at an angle, but the details changed it into something glorious.

The first part of the announcement took some time, as the voice had to state the reason for the Duels, basic rules, arbiters’ names and allegations, etc., etc., until finally…

“…On the north side, Challenger P’pfel, the Head of Enchantments and Alchemy Department of Sepia Familia Guild…” came the introduction, spoken in the same calm tone.

The window’s interior moved, causing the view to shift closer to P’pfel’s position.

He was standing there, small, hunched so much that he looked almost like a small ball…

At least, that was Zeph’s first impression.

At the front, he held a wide shield with a crystal window in the middle. On his back was something that looked very much like a silvery, spherical turtle shell.

The view blurred for a moment. When it refocused again, they could see him from the front instead of the back. Zeph noticed an oversized gas mask on his face. Also, the ‘shell’ left a lot of empty space between the body of the small creature and its ‘roof’. However, that space in-between was filled with deep darkness, making it impossible to guess what was inside.

Only the shell, the shield, and the gas mask could be easily seen. All this formed a slightly frightening visage.

“…Contested by Lesser Landlord Avery Rubella Lurona-Kazotaro Laurene, representative of Landlords’ faction….”

The man was quite tall and pulp, decked in what seemed to be an alchemical armory – mostly tubes, satchels, vials, and other, similar appliances. His white, leathery attire covered him from head to toe. Even his eyes were hidden under protective goggles.

“…in the under-level-one-hundred match of craftsmen specialized in alchemy. Please place your bets carefully…”