Clink-clink-clink-clink, “I’m ready. Prepare yourselves.”

Mirai nodded, bending to loot the bone turtle. A small pile of [Bone] and a skill shard appeared, but she just grabbed it and jogged up the stairs onto the viewing platform.

At the top of the stairs, she called to Edgar, “don’t let this saggy sack of skin get to you, Edgar. You’re gonna be fine.”

The undead paused, pushing up one of his cheeks.

“Whatever, he throws at you. You got this.” She spoke with a fierce gaze.

A short pep talk, but effective. Edgar nodded, cracking his knuckles and drawing his claws. Realizing immediately that in the excitement of Mirai’s fight, he had forgotten to use the skill shard that the bone hound had dropped and actually learn the skill.

“Are you ready, Edgar?”

“Give me one second…”

“I’m a generous man. Take thirty.”

Edgar fished in his inventory and used his skill shard, learning [Overdrive].

Skill: [Overdrive]

* Player's speed is temporarily enhanced.

* Aspect: Fire

* Duration: 3 seconds

* Cost: 5 Mana

* Cooldown: 12 seconds

* Level: 0

* Experience to unlock leveling: 0%

He felt the skill settle inside him. It felt quite different compared to learning the skill from an epiphany. It was still a euphoric feeling. As he reached for the skill, he could see the skill forming around his body and feel the heat of it in his body, as if fire had infused his blood. It was quite an intense feeling compared to [Acrobatics]. The sensation was rather heady, leading him to believe it would also increase the speed of his mental processing.

It was handy that the skill consumed mana vs. stamina like [Acrobatics], although five points of it was half of his total stamina. Drawing his stamina to zero in the middle of a fight could be disastrous. Having watched his stamina like a hawk during his fights so far, he knew both running and dodging consumed a small amount of his stamina. It recovered so fast, it was rarely an issue, but the stakes were high and he was still inexperienced. Going to zero at a critical moment could spell his doom.

He took a brief moment to acclimate to the feeling of the skill inside himself. In a pinch, this could be a useful skill, but for now he’d defer to the skills he was familiar with.

His thirty seconds were up.

“I summon the frozen swordsman!”

A rift unfolded above the arena, releasing purple sludge and cold wind. The sludge coalesced into the skeleton of a man in armor. Its bones and armor were both a frost blue color. Its sword was decorated with a large rune.

Monster: [Frozen Swordsman]

* Type: [Undead]

* Level: 1

He was starting to see that for these monsters, the runes corresponded to skills. He wasn’t sure if that was due to the fact they were summoned or if skilled monsters would always have runes corresponding to their skills, but made a mental note to ask Raiden if—when—they got back.

The skeleton shuffled its feet and settled into a two-handed fighting stance, sword at the ready.

“Fight!” the undead arena boss shouted, and the fight began.

Edgar charged, trying to make the most of his speed for a quick victory, but the swordsman shifted his grasp on the sword and stabbed it into the ground. Tendrils of ice laced outward from the sword as the ground quickly turned to a sheet of ice.

Edgar reacted a moment too late, trying to stop his charge but losing his footing and falling. On his back, his momentum sent him flying across the ice, directly at the swordsman. They pulled their sword out of the ground and raised it again, ready to split him like a lumberjack would split a log.

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As the sword came down on him, Edgar frantically activated [Acrobatics] and scrambled to dodge. With the flexibility buff, he managed to twist and spin out of the sword's path. Passing between the skeleton’s legs, he slid across the ice, spinning wildly until he crashed into a pile of bones.

Scrambling to his feet, the frozen swordsman had already pivoted to face him and was taking one step at a time towards him. It appeared to find solid footing regardless of the icy terrain. The runes on its sword were dim and showed no hint of recharging any time soon, but the damage was already done.

Edgar wracked his brain, glancing up at the arena boss, who was looking down at him with a wicked smile, clutching its red coin tightly. This was truly a bad match up. He’d be hard pressed to use his movement abilities.

Rising to his feet again, he slipped and stumbled, but found steady enough footing. As the skeleton approached him, he managed to dodge a few swings of its sword and slide out of attack range. As he glanced around the arena, a new fear emerged as well.

The arena didn’t have any walls. If he wasn’t careful, he’d slide right off the edge and plummet into the abyss below.

With careful movements, Edgar shuffled across the ice towards the set of large rib bones protruding from the ground, grabbing one of them for support. An idea began to form as he looked between the eight or so bones. One or two of them were broken, but they were thick, massive things that wouldn’t topple if he crashed into them. Hopefully.

As the skeleton came within striking distance again, he felt [Acrobatics] come off cooldown. Aiming himself at one of the other large rib bones, he activated the skill and pushed off. The sword passed so close to his face he could feel a cold breeze, but he skated away to safety. He even managed to spin and grab the large bone, preventing himself from crashing into it.

He could hear Mirai cheer for him from the viewers platform and he smiled.

Getting a feel for the new mode of movement, he began pushing himself between the bones, getting up a good speed. As his [Acrobatics] skill came off cooldown again, he prepared to launch his counter attack.

As he skated past the skeleton and its attack missed, he dropped onto his back and used his feet to land on one of the bones and kick off at high speed. Activating [Acrobatics], he managed to roll to his knees, hop to his feet and then somersault at the skeleton, which was still just lifting its sword from its missed attack. Edgar activated [Tail Whip] and his tail came whipping down, striking the skeleton in the back and it was done.

The skeleton fell to pieces and Edgar continued sliding past, cheering as he rolled back to his knees. He could feel essence rushing into him again, and even more this time. He cheered, grabbing at one of the rib bones to prevent himself sliding off the edge of the arena and flicked open his character sheet as well, just in time to watch the numbers rise.

Six percent bump in essence from that one fight, not bad! And wow, Acrobatics got fourteen percent! Tail whip got eight... The skills are definitely moving faster than my character level… I’ll have to ask Mirai about this…

The skeleton’s icy magic lingered, dissipating slowly, but the arena boss dismissed it with an impatient wave of its hand, “sigh… I really thought that would… trip you up.”

“Way to go, Edgar! Brilliant!” Mirai beamed.

Edgar crouched to loot the frozen swordsman’s corpse. A stack of twenty-five [Bone] and one [Essence of Water (Ice)], which was like an orb of glass with ice at its center.

Item: [Essence of Water (Ice)]

* Crystal of hardened Essence, used in Leveling Rituals.

* Aspect: Water (Ice)

With his senses heightened from the fight, he could even hear a subtle cracking sound emanating from it as the ice inside it slowly, slowly undulated. It shone with the same frost blue color as the swordsman.

He watched as the swordsman’s corpse turned to dust and finally allowed his body to relax a bit. Of course, they weren’t out of the woods yet.

Clink-clink-clink-clink, “good fight. Very… creative… Prepare yourself for the final round, boy. I have something special prepared for you. We’ll see if this cleverness of yours is enough.”

Edgar didn’t respond, walking over to the stairs up to the viewer’s portal with his attention fixed on Mirai. She walked past him with a look of fierce determination on her face. They shared a brief look as they passed. Edgar could tell she was already stepping back into the zone, focusing intently for her fight. He nodded.

She took up her position below. Drawing her sword, she moved quickly through a few forms, but she was already limbered up and focused.

“Are you ready?”

“I am.”

“Then I summon the burning swordsman!”

The rift opened again, spilling that gross summoning goo that formed into a skeleton at the far end of the arena. It was similar to the skeleton Edgar had fought, only its bones and armor were red. Also, this one appeared to have runes on its armor instead of its sword.

Monster: [Burning Swordsman]

* Type: [Undead]

* Level: 1

Edgar gathered himself, watching as Mirai squared off the skeleton. He wondered what sort of skills—probably fire—the swordsman would bring to bear. It would be a monster the arena boss had chosen specifically to counter Mirai.

He glanced at the undead, who held his gaze.

“Enjoy your rest. You’ll need it for the next round.”

Edgar snapped his gaze back to the fight as the undead’s voice filled the space.

“Fight!”

~~~~~~~~~~

* Check out the Stats Page for this Chapter here