Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1794.01.13]

Makani’s floaty form was standing a hundred meters away from a tall man decked in black armor. The rough terrain of the rocky desert was mostly flat where they stood.

Despite looking like a Sith impersonation, Makani’s opponent didn’t have any visible weapons on himself – no sword nor any other equipment. But going by his impressive height, his armor was way too bulky for a normal, tall human.

On the other hand, Makani’s robes were uncharacteristically lively today. They billowed in an invisible updraft, fluttering like feathers. Only Zeph and company knew what he was hiding underneath.

They stood straight, unmoving; gazes locked, hands down but at the ready.

A dry gust of wind stirred up the dust; a tumbleweed crossed the path of their locked gazes.

Late because of the equipment inspection, Aisha barged into the observation hall at full speed—not literally, thankfully—right on time.

The countdown reached zero and in a fraction of a second, two small air explosions displaced the sand around the combatants as they moved.

The Guildmaster Ross Donavon had his hand directed at Makani, turbulent air currents – the side effect of his attack – flying to the sides and behind. A black blur that almost instantly reached Makani, missed. The still-advancing beam of distorted air near the Manacaster was the most probable culprit. That wave, repelling all sand in its wake, reached Donavon in the blink of an eye.

There was no time to dodge; not after firing from his own weapon.

Another small explosion of air took place – a gentle one in comparison to the Heat Beam.

Donavon was pushed back violently but managed to keep his balance. He stopped after taking four steps back as the Spell abated.

The dust in the air was vibrating. Strange shapes started forming on the sand surrounding Makani, wiggling and morphing. He didn’t move from his spot yet, ignoring how close the projectile was to hitting his torso. His hand was now outstretched in the direction of Donavon.

The man didn’t seem bothered, though. After regaining his footing, he lifted his arm again while positioning his body sideways.

Another exchange, almost identical in nature. This time Makani fired his Spell earlier, pushing the projectile further away.

The previously visibly vibrating particles of sand now seemed to move erratically in the air. They were still floating with the winds and slowly gravitated towards the ground, but something kept throwing them around.

After recovering his balance, Donavon turned his body and aimed with both hands. But this time, he didn’t fire immediately. As Makani’s Spell hit again, he fought to keep his footing while waiting for it to wane. The sand and rocks around him were being pulled back along with him after he Anchored himself.

But instead of weakening, the Magicule stream was gaining in power. The wind started flowing along with it – the air sucked in and sped up. At the release point – Donavon’s body – a small sandstorm started forming. After a second, he had to take his first step back. After two seconds, he started losing his balance. After three, he was already tumbling away.

Makani’s robes were fluttering wildly in the winds surrounding him. His body started floating in place.

Strange shapes under Makani’s feet stopped morphing and instead started expanding. The sandy soil leading to Donavon’s body was wiggling like worms despite the strong wind buffeting it from above.

There was a moment of stillness in the fight – only the winds and sand moving around – but it didn’t last long. An implosion took place at Donavon’s position. Then another one and, suddenly, the stream started parting as the air around him stagnated. His black form emerged from the curtain of sand and dust falling back to the ground in his vicinity.

Long cracks filled with sand dust were decorating his once-pristine armor. Zeph could only imagine how much of a surprise that was for the audience. The effectiveness of resonating sound attacks was a marvel if done correctly.

But that was also a signal for Donavon to cease this ranged exchange. Angry, red symbols flared with light all around his armor. With an explosion of force, he jumped a dozen meters into the air.

Instead of redirecting the Beam, Makani stopped the Spell and immediately shot upwards himself – the direction of winds reversed as he started sucking back all of his Mana that he could to strengthen the updraft –while fueling his enchanted robes.

He did that just in time, as when Donavon’s velocity started dropping when he neared the apex of his ascend, he sent a barrage of projectiles using both arms. The weapons were hidden inside the armguards of his armor and the compartments started heating up quickly. The rate of fire could be compared to a skillfully employed revolver, but it was evident that the man’s accuracy dropped drastically. After the first projectiles missed their target, he quickly corrected his aim. But Makani already started moving in an erratic spiral to dodge – all the while focusing on a construct between his hands.

The barrage lasted for a good two seconds. Some ‘bullets’ were close to hitting but, in the end, were deflected by whatever construct Makani managed to employ around himself in the short time.

Donavon stopped firing, his armguards were red hot and he already started falling. His suit flared with power again, producing chaotic jets of air near his legs and back. It catapulted his body forward and up.

The armguards were completely cooled down after the two seconds of acceleration. After another second, he and the Manacaster were almost at the same altitude. And much closer.

Makani was hugging something invisible to his chest using both arms. Seeing that Donavon was closing distance fast, he catapulted himself in his direction and above the man, producing a series of localized air explosions behind his back that propelled his body.

Donavon was already sending another barrage when Makani finally straightened his arms in the direction of the man. His forearms were kept parallel, but his straightened palms pointed slightly outwards.

The Guildmaster wasn’t inexperienced. He instantly recognized that something dangerous was coming up. He tried to decrease the distance to some extent to gain an advantage, but the Manacaster obviously wanted him to do just that.

He abruptly stopped shooting and crossed his arms, grabbing his shoulder pads. His armor flared in a golden light and a huge part of it – starting from the pads and ending at his lower back – separated. The light intensified and—just as Makani’s Spell manifested—an explosion of force took place, sending the fragmented part of the armor up at the Manacaster and Donavon down at an angle. His armor was still alight with golden shapes as he was descending.

But he didn’t manage to escape in time. Or rather, escape wasn’t an option in the first place.

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A sphere of condensed vapor erupted outwards with Makani at the center, expanding in a blink of an eye before reaching the ground. The attack was focused – the densest, bottom part of the sphere rolled over Donavon and hit the land with enough force to make it flex, burst, and blow up. A white circle marking the face of the shockwave continued its blistering expansion on the ground level even after the vapor sphere above dispersed, bringing destruction in its wake.

Rocks cracked, boulders were tossed away, vegetation bent impossibly… When it reached the walls of the stadium, everything shook, and a thundering sound reverberated in the observation hall.

The discarded part of the armor was pushed back before it shattered midair and exploded impotently into a dark green cloud. Donavon’s form was thrown towards the ground – his armor broken and crumbling away. When he hit the hard, rocky terrain in a cascade of falling debris, the match ended with all its colorful glory.

It wasn’t the end of the spectacle, though. Makani seemed unconscious – tumbling through the air like an opened balloon. Something in his gear broke. He was being tossed around by randomly activating enchantments and random jets of air. He broke through the green cloud, tumbled in the air some more, and finally crashed into a big boulder.

Everyone sucked the air through their teeth seeing that.

That had to hurt… Zeph wasn’t any different, his face contorted involuntarily. At least the safety mechanism didn’t flare up…

~~~

Makani was conscious when he was brought back, but his health was deteriorating rapidly.

Pavail didn’t need more than one look to know what was happening. “Parasitic, mutated fungi. Soul-linkable. Non-lethal kind,” she gave her diagnosis even before the two medics put the litter with the patient on the table. “P’pfel!” she called, turning around.

“On it,” The Gremling confirmed, already trotting to his alchemical station.

Everyone else moved closer, seeing as Makani wasn’t in any mortal danger for now.

His helmet was removed long ago by the stadium medics. A broken nose, lost teeth or two, and an ugly bruise covering the right side of his face… It looked painful. But what truly mattered was a blueish rash dotting his skin.

The Manacaster was already pumped with anesthetics, so Zeph was a little surprised by his hard grimace. At least, until he heard his soft mumbling.

“…even after that… useless…”

“Oh, do I hear the sounds of a broken masculine ego?” Aisha asked mirthfully as they stopped by his bed.

Makani opened his one good eye to glare at her. “Merchant’s ego, if any. Donavon wasn’t dealt with by my attack but by the ground…”

He was speaking nasally and with some difficulty.

“Were you always this bloodthirsty?” Kwan asked with a faked surprise. “Who would have thought you would want him dead so badly…”

“Don’t play with me! I’ve used most of the medium, pure Manasolid on that attack! And it didn’t even do its job! Do you know how much did it cost us?” His outburst managed to somehow unlock some airway through his nose, but also started a profuse bleeding.

Pavail frowned seeing that, then shrugged. She grabbed his flattened nose and – with one quick movement of her wrist – put it right in its place in the accompaniment of a slightly sickening crunch of cartilage and bones.

Makani yelped, more from surprise and sound than any pain.

“If you are going to be this lively, we should speed up your treatment a little,” she announced indifferently.

“Ugh, I will stay still for now…” he said, covering his nose with a hand and touching it delicately to check what just happened.

“His armor was designed to counter air shockwaves and vibrations,” Ghrughah cut in, returning to the topic. “It simply served its purpose. It’s already a surprise you managed to demolish it completely.”

Makani groaned but couldn’t retort. He didn’t have a good alternative for that Spell of his for the simple fact that none other could work with that amount and density of Mana. The Tier of Enchantments and Spells wasn’t directly related to that capability – special variants had to be made, especially because the Mana from Manasolid wasn’t his to direct freely. In the case of the enchantments, P’pfel didn’t have many options – mostly enchantments utilizing Force-Mana. But even then, Makani couldn’t bring more equipment to the field if he wanted to be able to glide in the air. Also, the materials able to work with this caliber of Manasolids were at least of a class of stratum-one, which would add to the costs even more.

“You need to teach me that Spell someday,” Zeph said, curious about how it could work on, basically, pure Ambient Mana. “Anyway, we better prepare,” he turned to Aisha.

She shrugged. “Ready where you are. I have nothing to report from the previous examinations. Well,” she glanced at Ghrughah,” it’s not like they brought anything interesting for the two of us…”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

They gathered Zeph’s equipment and left, leaving the grumpy Manacaster and his bantering entourage behind.

In silence, they descended to the examination hall. They were early, so his equipment was sorted out in quick order.

He brought a set similar to the one on the first day – some explosives of different kinds, his spear, backup weapons in the form of a few knives, and some auxiliary equipment. The only major difference was a heavy, armored backpack that was already saturated fully with his Mana-L. It had a tube with a diameter of almost ten centimeters attached to the side. The tube was elastic and movable, sticking out from behind his right shoulder for easy access – he could reach it with his good, right hand with no problems.

Besides that, the enchantments on his armor were slightly different this time – prepared mostly for defense. He didn’t need Mana obfuscation effects anymore. Most probably, at least.

He put on everything and moved to the side to wait with Aisha for his opponent.

A few minutes later, the Landlord entered the hall.

He was wearing a simple gray armor. It had many armored compartments affixed to accessible places. He seemed to use a small shield and a straight sword as his main weapons, but was also geared with a spear. Besides that, he brought one of the ‘jetpacks’ that Zeph saw earlier in the Duels.

The man’s face was young. If they were on Earth, Zeph would place him at around twenty years. Cleanly shaved with short but stylized dirty-blond hair, golden eyes, and a handsome face.

He greeted everyone by name, giving them a nod and a good-natured smile.

“I’m Landlord Hale Jaekandu Lurona-Kazotalo Dugan,” he finally announced with a graceful bow.

Turning to Aisha, he started placing his equipment on the table.

“It’s an honor to be examined by Leilucia’s High Priestess,” he started, using an honorific that didn’t exist in reality. “Especially one with such far-reaching fame. It would please our family greatly if a meeting could be staged after the unpleasantries of this day. The—”

“Oh, I see. I understand. Our official channels aren’t up to par,” she interjected with an indifferent tone, lifting his sword up.

“No, no. You jest, my lady. It’s merely a simple invitation for a small talk…”

Zeph tuned the man out. He was rubbing him the wrong way. In his eyes, the gibberish coming out of the man’s mouth was worth as much as a professional salesman’s spiel.

Instead, he focused on helping Gru. Direct contact between his Mana and the items was necessary to asses if anything was alive or held a Soul. Especially if it could become dormant.

The inspection continued for a few minutes, Jaekandu filling the empty space with the sound of his empty words. The stadium workers were processing the items right after Aisha was finished with them to speed up the process.

Gre… came the conclusion from Gru after the last item was handed over to the stadium examiners.

That’s not ominous at all… Zeph sent back.

They found nothing. Not even a trace of anything suspicious. And the man’s Soul looked absolutely ordinary under their casual scrutiny.

Aisha also didn’t react to anything; didn’t signal that anything was or could be wrong.

“We are done. Please put your equipment on and come closer,” the old man in robes declared.

After a minute, Zeph was face-to-face with his opponent. The man, for once, had a serious expression.

Their declarations were said without hitch. Zeph couldn’t feel any malicious intent from Jaekandu; saw nothing of the sort in his gaze.

Somehow, that made him even more worried.

After a short farewell, Aisha sped out of the room and the two left for the moving platforms.

During the ride down, Zeph was already producing his coolant. He kept it close to better insulate it with Mana-L and Telekinesis construct, and because even when released, it wouldn’t harm him. The temperature of the air was high enough, and the ground wasn’t frozen here.

As was previously agreed, they were going to be placed in the forest area. The trees here were sparse and relatively small, but the higher ones weren’t that far away. It wasn’t the best terrain for Zeph – what with his disabled arm and lack of vertical mobility – but he accepted anyway. The cover was better than in other types of terrain and he could play that to his advantage.

His detection abilities could shine in such an environment.

The platform touched the ground and he started walking.

The forest was eerily quiet, as many of the critters left the area. The stadium’s audience was hidden behind the thick glass of their rooms and halls, too, so all he could hear was his own breath and pumping heart.

That’s why he almost jumped out of his skin as a high-pitched giggle reverberated in his ears.

The laughter sounded familiar. Eerily familiar.

He stumbled just when leaving the platform, his head already swiveling right and left in search of the source of the voice.

Finding his balance, he involuntarily took a defensive stance and started fervently turning all around like a startled animal.

He couldn’t find anyone else. Jaekandu’s platform hasn’t arrived yet.

The sudden injection of adrenaline caused his heart to pump fast and heavily as his whole body was put into a state of high alert. Cold sweat covered his face in seconds.

Gru… did you hear something? he sent to his companion, swallowing loudly.

Gre? Confused, it asked back…