“Hey, can I ask you a couple questions about the coliseum system?” Jay asked.
“Hit me.” Akira replied.
“Why have my rankings changed slightly? Is it because I’ve trained? I thought it might be that, but some stats went up and others went down, and I don’t think I’ve gotten worse at anything.”
“No matter how much you train, it won’t change your rankings. They’re strictly based off coliseum-sanctioned fights. You probably went up in some stats because someone above you in the rankings died. You probably went down in others because someone behind you or maybe a new gladiator, had a good fight and overtook you. Make sense?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Jay didn’t miss how casually Akira had mentioned people dying. Essence, Harmony, and magical weapons were fun, but Jay couldn’t forget that he was a gladiator now. He had a fight to the death in just a few days.
“Also, how did you make that shopping list? All I can do is look at my rankings.”
“That really bugged me when I first got here. The more fights you have, the more privileges you unlock within the coliseum system. After your next fight, you’ll be able to fully access the shopping interface. As well as looking at the leaderboards and past fights. If you get up to C grade, I’ve heard you get your own coliseum AI.”
“Isn’t it a bit unfair? Surely the newest people need the most help.”
“If you want help you can join an alliance, but fighting isn’t supposed to be easy. Running the system is seriously expensive, and there are more fighters in E grade than any other. Most gladiators die within their first five fights. The coliseum can’t waste any resources on them.”
Jay was once more reminded about the harsh world he now lived in. Here it was win or die. There was no room for fairness. Still, Akira’s coldness struck him. It wasn’t malicious, like Q or the others at the Flaming Tomb, but Akira had clearly been hardened by his new world. He might have been born on Earth, but Akira lived and breathed Eterna now.
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The bright multicoloured storefronts of Reveller's Avenue lit the way towards the Celestial Swords. Jay wanted to test out his new gear, but Akira insisted he rest. Jay begrudgingly did as his friend asked. He didn’t want to drag him into a fight again.
Vega shouted them over to a corner booth as soon as they walked in. She gave Akira a long, and worryingly detailed, retelling of an alchemical explosion that had happed on Tinkerer's Avenue earlier that day. Akira listened, nodding and damn-that’s-crazy-ing for a few minutes, before leaving in search of Lyra.
Jay and Vega sat silently. Locked in an awkward stalemate.
“So… How was training today?” Vega said.
Small talk’s better than nothing, I guess. And I wasn’t gonna speak first.
“It could’ve gone better. I managed to recreate the thunder strike from before, but I could only do it once. I’ll have to practice more tomorrow.” Jay said.
Surprisingly, Vega was a very patient listener. Jay recounted his day to her, and she seemed deep in thought throughout, especially when he described the more technical aspects of his sparring.
As he finished, Jay was about to ask her about her day. But he stopped after seeing the annoyance on her face.
“You wasted all your time today. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you last night. You really needed to focus on lightning, or something else. Thunder’s a terrible fit for you.” She said.
“What?” Jay said, happy that Vega seemed more annoyed at herself than at him. But shocked at what she had to say.
“Based on what you said you’re an intelligent, speed-based fighter. Not someone who focuses on raw power. But you figured it out yourself today, a massive part of thunder is raw power. That’s why you burnt yourself out after just one punch. Your personal essence just doesn’t match thunder that well. That’s why you found it so hard to control.”
“Akira didn’t seem too shocked though?” Jay replied. He hoped Vega was mistaken, that he hadn’t wasted a whole day of training.
“That’s because the kid’s a fucking genius!” she laughed. “I’ve never seen someone pick up Harmony as fast as that guy. He probably saw you tire out and assumed that’s what normal people do. If you were a good match with thunder, you should’ve been able to do five or six punches. At least.”
Fuck.
Jay hoped she wasn’t right, but the deep chasm that had just opened in his gut told him that she was.
“But I need something that can damage the gorilla.” He said. “Nothing else I did with the storm sage even came close to doing that kind of damage. I’ve got nothing else” Jay tried to sound confident, but even he could hear the desperation crack through his voice.
“You’re thinking too much about your opponent. Look at your strengths instead. When you think about your opponent too much, you get dragged into their game. You should be the one dragging. Especially when you aren’t fighting another human who can plan and counter you.
Jay wanted to get angry at her, but she had a point. For one reason or another, Jay had gotten too caught up with his opponent. He had forgot his own strength. It would be hard to outpace a gorilla, but that was his way of fighting, overwhelming force wasn’t.
“Fight your fight, Lightning.” Jay whispered. Coach’s old mottos still rang true, even here.
“What?”
“My coach said it whenever I got into a slugfest instead of sticking to the plan. Sometimes I knew it wasn’t the right decision, but I did it anyway. Get punched in the face enough and you stop thinking straight.” The warm fuzz of nostalgia washed over Jay. It felt weird, being nostalgic for getting punched in the face. But it reminded him of a much simpler time.
Jay wished he had Coach here to help him, but he didn’t. In every step of his fighting career, Jay had his coach behind him. He’d always had guidance, wise hands and a wiser head steering his path. But now his journey was an inherently personal one. Jay didn’t know that much about essence, but he knew that.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Jay missed his coach's guidance and he valued his friends' help. But his fate rested solely on his own shoulders now. Two teachers had given him two sets of information so far. He couldn’t follow either of them, he had to make his own.
If Jay asked Vega for an explanation, she’d probably give a third. In this world, everyone charted their own path. If you followed someone else’s, you’d drown in their wake.
“Sounds like you had a good coach.” Vega said softly.
“Yeah… Seventeen years of boxing. He was the only one there for all of it.”
Jay's nostalgia froze into wistfulness. His old life wasn’t painless. He’d experienced great loss before. But how he yearned to go back, even for just an hour, a minute even. This was the second time in his life he didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.
“I didn’t mean to sound harsh.” Vega’s voice derailed him from a dark train of thought that didn’t need to be continued. Jay realised that he’d been staring into the distance for almost a minute. Vega must’ve thought she’d really upset him.
“You probably didn’t waste your whole day, it’s just something I thought you should know.” She said.
“No, you make a lot of sense. I guess you aren’t rank one for nothing.” Jay said, donning a brave smile.
He’d gotten off to a bad start with Vega, witnessing the drunken argument with her sister, but she was far more intelligent than she initially let on. She might not have the tactical analysis of her sister, or the theoretical brilliance of Akira. But she had something. The X-factor that separated the great fighters from the simply good ones. Jay had only seen her fight once, but he knew the air of a champion when he saw it.
Maybe it was just small observations that most people missed, maybe it was a deeper understanding of the mechanics of fighting. Jay knew there was something. He made a note to study both how she fought and how she trained. Maybe there was a trick or two that he could pick up on. Her fight style didn’t look particularly tactical at first, but perhaps he was just looking from the wrong angle.
“Rank one for a reason. You got that right. Make sure to tell my sister that next time you see her! Give lightning a try tomorrow.” Vega winked at him and polished off her drink before leaving the booth.
Jay put his bottled lightning on the table and sat there staring at it. Most of the time the bottle looked empty. But Jay occasionally caught glimpses of the bolt. A streak of white, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, sometimes even red, bouncing around its cage. Restless and skittish. Refusing to sit still.
Jay expected to feel frustrated, or upset, from Vega’s words. A full day wasted was a big deal. Especially when he only had four days left.
Instead, he felt hunger, aggression, desire. The unstoppable urge to fight.
Jay ignored Akira's advice. He’d already been wrong once today.
He placed the bottled lightning in one pocket.
He placed the Conquerors fists in the other.
He got out of his seat and calmly walked out of the tavern.
And ran straight towards the coliseum.
It would’ve helped to know a closer training room; they were supposed to be dotted throughout the island after all. But Jay was still settling in, so he ran to the only one he knew.
Jay jogged through the empty coliseum hallway, past the half empty coliseum training rooms, and walked in. The swords were gone, but there was still a makeshift boxing ring drawn in the ground. Jay sat in the centre of the ring and set the bottled lightning in front of him, resisting the intrusive urge to uncork it. Jay closed his eyes and held the sage’s crystal in his hands.
He was forging his own path. But others could still help him find his way.
Jay had a whole crystal, stuffed full of directions to trawl through. It was time to get to work.
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“The sky's heartbeat, pulsing with the raw energy of the universe. The crackling laughter of the sky, mocking the temerity of those that dare defy the heavens. A symphony of the cosmos, played on the drums of eternity, truly understood only by those who tread the path of the storm. This is but a glimpse of the essence of thunder.
“But the storm fathers many sons. And thunder has an older brother. The herald who announces the storm’s presence. The shining beacon of light, warning the world that this is no mere raincloud. The vanguard of the storm. Lightning.”
It’s gonna be a long night.
“I call this technique Eye of the storm.” The storm sage said. He’d rattled off countless metaphors, similes, and allegories about the storm before finally starting an explanation. He now stood next to Jay's airborne body, floating above the crater in the water. “The storm is unequivocally all encompassing. While chaos reigns in its outer reaches, the storm’s core is a hub of tranquillity. No matter the circumstances, the universe inevitably reaches a state of equilibrium. It is impossible have relentless war, without interluding peace. Impossible to have a victor, without a vanquished adversary beneath him. The storm seeks balance too. Pure energy, pure might, isn’t possible. It isn’t the nature of the storm. Yet this presents an opportunity for the sagacious harmoniser? Well, they must dictate when and where the calmness lies. They must ensure it’s nestled in the deep recesses of their mind, quelling the nascent primal fears. Far removed from the fire of their heart or the steel of their sword. The technique accelerates the minds alacrity, improving reactions, intelligence, and simulation. Intellectually astute warriors can harness this technique, leveraging the storm to navigate the turbulent throes of combat.”
I know some of those words.
After some gruelling literary analysis, Jay felt he had an idea what eye of the storm was. He’d have to think of a new way to induce it, pondering on the nature of the storm didn’t match Jay’s style, but he knew the goal.
Eye of the storm accelerated the user’s mind. It boosted their mental abilities depending on where the user focused.
Jay had used Eye of the storm twice during the sage’s trials. The first was directly after the thunder punch. His perception of time slowed down, and Jay used his accelerated mind to plot the fastest route to the nearest tower.
The second was when he located his own tower. That time, instead of focusing on raw computing power, Jay's senses enhanced, and he was finally able to notice his tower.
Although there were two separate uses, Jay knew that learning the root of the technique would let him do both.
He kept watching the sage’s memory. Letting the rhymes fade into background noise as he passively scanned for anything useful. There wasn’t much, the sage mostly ruminated on various elements of the storm, occasionally stopping to poke fun at past Jay.
Jay could see why memory crystals like this were valuable. If he had a more Romantic nature, maybe he could draw more wisdom and inspiration form the sage’s words. Instead, he had to take them as they came and try to extract what value he could.
Jay watched the stone walls rise around his tower and his attention perked up. Maybe a battle would draw some more practical words out of the sage.
“There is beauty in the brutality of battle, but for this I have nothing to say. Watch the battle. It may become fuel for your fire, gravel for your path, but you will find no knowledge of the storm here.”
Well that’s disappointing. I’d at least be able to get something out of a poem.
Jay wondered why the storm sage didn’t comment on the battle. Was it because he didn’t use any essence in it? Was he disappointed? Or was Jay getting too in his own head, confusing indifference for negativity?
Jay tried to stop that line of thought, it would only incite self-doubt. There was no way to find the actual answer without asking the sage, and that was out of the question. Instead, he watched the fight. Even if he didn’t use essence in that fight, he still won. He still fought.
The fighter inside him would never die. Jay kept that in the front of his mind. No matter if he was fighting an eel, a gorilla, or whatever. He had to fight.
Barely visible lightning still fluttered around the bottle in front of Jay as his mind returned to the coliseum. As much as he couldn’t grasp the storm sage’s descriptions of it, Eye of the storm was an almost perfect technique for Jay.
Jay stood up and moved the bottled lightning outside the ring. He hopped on the spot, wishing he’d had the foresight to look for a skipping rope at the market, and redrew the lines in the gravel.
Vega may have been right about a lot of things, but she was wrong about one.
Jay's whole day hadn’t been wasted.
Through his spars, and his struggles to channel thunder, Jay had learned a valuable lesson. The most valuable lesson.
One that translated to boxing, Harmony, and every other skill conceivable.
He’d learned how to learn.