A gust of cool air woke Sam up and he tried to rise. A sudden and sharp pain in his stomach deterred him. Looking down, Sam saw that most of his body was bandaged up. More importantly, a System notification waited for him. His body would heal on its own, and any boost to his power was imperative.

You have deepened your Mantra.

“I fight for meaning. Adversity will not deter me.”

Your Mantra is what catalyzes your life, what makes you go through the struggle of cultivation, the pain and the strife in the hopes that one day you will have a brighter future. Knowing on a basic level what motivates you will allow you to persevere when others will fail. You have found a deeper truth within your mantra, one that encapsulates your journey. Your resolve knows no bounds, and all shall fall before you.

Sam smiled. He had been expecting that. That tiny blue dot of energy must have been his Mantra, taking him back from the brink of defeat. That had been the only reason that he had won.

Sam wondered what was going on back in the arena, seeing as he was out of the fight for the moment. He looked up towards the ceiling, hearing a faint noise, and he saw that there was a small screen there, broadcasting the events that were going on at the arena. He smiled. That was helpful.

The fight that was currently going on was between Drake and the man who called himself Thomas Aquinas. Drake had a conventional fighting style, wielding a large ax, but his opponent was quite unusual. Thomas carried a scroll and a quill, and every few seconds he would write something down on it, something that caused Drake to roar in pain. Sam was not able to see what it was from here, but it almost appeared, from the movements of the man’s hand, that he was writing down equations.

Every time that he attacked, he looked off at something near Drake, something invisible. Then he wrote on his piece of paper.

It continued like that for a few minutes, Drake too distracted by his tormentor to attack properly. Eventually, the dragon man grew tired of this and roared in anger, the sound much deeper than that of a normal human's roar. It sounded like that of an actual dragon, and Sam suspected that it was some sort of skill.

The roar disrupted Thomas’ writing, causing him to drop the quill and he looked up with a startled expression. Raising his hand, the man prepared to say something, but Drake had no more time for his games. The man sprinted across the sands, faster than his opponent could pick up his quill and paper, and swung his ax towards him. Thomas made no effort to dodge, but as the ax came closer, it began to wobble slightly. It was a tiny motion, barely visible through the television screen, but it was there. As it was about to hit Thomas, the weapon flopped over in Drake’s hands, slapping Thomas uselessly. The attack still sent the man stumbling back, but it hadn’t cleaved him in two, like it should have done.

Sam pursed his lips, trying to figure out what was happening here. Metal weapons did not just turn to rubber suddenly. There must have been something that Thomas had done to cause this effect. He was clearly using some kind of magic, but it was an invisible kind, and one that was not readily comprehensible. It was almost as if he was rewriting the laws of physics on a limited scale.

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As Sam looked again, he could see what the man was writing for the first time. It was some sort of calculus equation, one that, if he was not mistaken, charted the motion of a particle. The man scratched off the number 10 that was before a variable in the question, and replaced it with the number 3.0 x 10^8 m/s. That was as Sam soon recognized, just under the speed of light, and as Drake roared in pain again, Sam understood what was going on. Thomas was speeding up the molecules in the air by an incredible degree, allowing the tiny particles to interact with far larger bodies of matter.

Sam had once read that a grain of sand going at the speed of light, or just below it, could destroy a small town. A molecule going at that speed would be nowhere near as powerful, but it still would be enough to cause serious pain if it struck someone. It would be like standing in the middle of a particle accelerator. However, it was still too weak to do much more that cause the other man pain, and there was only so much that a single molecule could do. Especially one that was still under the constraints of the laws of physics.

Drake closed his eyes, shuddering each time one of the particles struck him, and started to walk towards Thomas. The other man began to write faster and faster, his motions becoming frantic, but Drake ignored that too. Small streaks of red started to appear on his body as the particles cut into his flesh, but it was as if none of that mattered. At the last moment, Drake opened his eyes and breathed out. A flamethrower like wave of fire erupted from his mouth and engulfed the man standing in front of him. Sam saw the flames struggle against the strange energy field around Thomas but they eventually broke through and the man let out a single scream before he was teleported away.

With that the battle ended, and the scarred form of Drake roared his triumph out into the stands. He had few supporters, but those that were there were especially vocal in their cheering. Sam tore his gaze away from the screen for a moment, deciding to do something more productive with his free time. It had been a while since he had checked on his skill branches, and now was as good a time as ever to see what was going on.

Skill Branches

75 Skill Points available

Branch of the Body

5 available skills

Branch of the Mind

4 available skills

Branch of the Soul

3 available skills

Branch of the Weapon

6 available skills

Branch of the Ruler

4 available skills

Sam had enough to pick up one of the weaker abilities, but he closed the screen before he could do so. There was only one skill that was worth getting at the moment, which was Dao Resonance. The only thing allowing him to fight on an equal level with people like Rodney Kane and Andrew Munro was his Dao. In terms of levels, both men were quite far above him. If he could get an even greater level of proficiency with his Dao, and perhaps gain a new one, or upgrade his current one, then he would be set for the foreseeable future.

The greatest problem that faced him was that the Overlord and the other top people on the levels leaderboard were getting close to F Rank. If they reached that and managed to get a head start on Sam, he would be in deep trouble. He still had 15 levels to go before he could rank up, and there was no way for him to close the gap now. Sam sighed and returned to watching the screen in front of him. He could already feel his body knitting itself back together, and he would probably be out of here in about an hour, too long to return to the arena before this segment of the match was over, but hopefully short enough for him to be ready for the next event.