This fight would be an interesting one, as Big Boi, despite his name, was a mage. He had two wands rather than a staff like most of the other mages, and was dressed in an odd ensemble that looked like that of a clown’s outfit, but even more garish. Entire book series could probably be written about the man, although not ones that were especially kind to him. They would be very funny though.
They began their fight with a cautious analysis of each other, with an entire minute spent circling the arena, looking for a place to strike. Eventually, Big Boi grew tired of the wait and he launched a projectile at Eliza from his right hand wand. It looked like a blob of multicolored paint, and where it landed, the ball spread out over the sand, dyeing it with its bright hues. Then it started dissolving it, revealing that it was not merely paint. Eliza looked at it warily and edged away from the impact zone.
The other man let out a laugh that sounded faintly insane, and Eliza gave him a look that spoke volumes about her opinion about him. Then again, anyone who dressed up as a clown in normal society probably had a few problems going on in their lives. The fact that normal society did not exist anymore still did not excuse that.
She dodged around another few of the paint balls and made her way towards her opponent. As she approached, the other man waggled his finger disapprovingly, and something that sounded like a children’s lullaby started playing. It was creepy, as all lullabies are when heard outside of a bedroom, and perhaps in one as well. His eyes started to light up as if he was a cat, and strange shadowy figures appeared under him and started walking towards Eliza. They had no substance and she ignored them, but when one of the shadows reached her own and slashed at it with a long talon, she winced as a cut opened up on her body. Big Boi started to cackle and then he spoke.
“You can either defend against the shadows or against me. Who will it be?” The man ended that proclamation with a high pitched giggle as he started confidently walking towards her. The giggle was made to rhyme with the other words, which made it far worse. The man’s voice was too high for someone of his age, and it reminded Sam of those movies about demonic possession. Perhaps this man really was possessed by one, albeit a demon that liked to dress up like a clown and laugh maniacally. Actually, that sounded exactly like what a demon would do.
Sam exited his thoughts as the battle started to heat up. Eliza tried to slash at one of the shadow monsters, but nothing happened as her three dimensional body could not harm the two dimensional shadows. Then she had a lucky break and as she lashed out at one further away, the shadow of her knife crossed the shadow of the shadow creature. It let out a hiss and then vanished. A smile broke onto Eliza’s face and her opponent scowled.
She erupted into a frenzy of slashing, and the tell tale glow of mana started to infuse her strikes, making them faster and more accurate, as opposed to more powerful as with Sam. Her movements reached a crescendo, and a moment later all of the shadows were dead. As she stood there triumphantly, she realized that she had forgotten about Big Boi. But it was already too late.
A lance of amorphous rainbow gel speared out from his hand and into her torso, skewering the woman on what looked like an icicle of frozen paint. He leaned in, obviously wanting to relish in her suffering, but as she started to mouth the words of her surrender, she suddenly threw her knife into the man’s side. His lack of Constitution and Resilience made it that his body shattered under the impact, and he was torn away from her, leaving the spike within Eliza’s body. She raised her hands in victory and then collapsed.
Sam let out a sigh of relief. If that creepy bastard had won, then he would have been one step closer to claiming the best rewards. Some of Sam’s enemies were just as bad as him, but at least they were sane. He would take a sane opponent over one who acted unpredictably any day of the week.
As the man was carted away on a stretcher rather than being teleported away and another one was summoned for Eliza, showing that the System liked to mix things up once in a while, Sam took a look at the leaderboards. There were only 45 people left in the winners' bracket now, and the battle was getting into the endgame. The presence of the leaderboards really made it easy to know who was going to win, in some way making it not as fun as it normally would have been, but on the other hand if there were upsets, then they were very exciting to watch. Sam would have rather been in the audience for this tournament and not have to worry about fighting, but for the sake of his future and the pursuit of justice on Earth, he would have to fight, and win at that, for him to be able to succeed. His next goal was to surpass Rodney Kane, and then he would finally be able to challenge the boss battle. The Overlord himself.
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The next day, Sam sat under the watchful eye of his training robot, who he had taken to calling Sarge, as he prepared to go for another delve into the Interweb. He wanted to do some more research on the basic principles and history of the Multiverse, especially about the Dao. He did not know if such information would be available where he could get to, but he was sure that there would be something about it. Sam channeled his mana fee into his citizenship card and closed his eyes as he entered the Interweb. This time he arrived where he had been last, outside of the library. That was good, as it meant that he would not have to walk all the way there again. A message popped up in front of him and he read it.
Novices’ Library added to fast travel destinations.
Current list: Universal Spawn Point, Novices' Library.
It seemed that the Interweb, just like many video games, had a fast travel mechanism. Sam entered the library and plugged into one of the ports there. As he entered the strange liminal space of the archives, he saw the piece of paper about the Dao Annals floating next to him. Sam dismissed it and searched for something else. Intoning the word ‘Dao’ into the void brought up a host of options. Sam scrolled through them and eventually found something promising.
What is the Dao? An academic research paper by the F Rank Scribe Tal Vantor.
The Dao is known by many names across the Multiverse. The Way, the Intrinsic Concepts, the Mandate of Heaven. However, all of these names do not encapsulate what it truly is. The Dao is, with lack of a more precise term, the conceptual image of everything that exists. It exists without any input from the outside world, as it is, in some way, the world itself. There are different tiers of the Dao, organized by how overarching, or how powerful they are. As a lowly member of the Archivists' Association, I do not know the names for the higher Dao tiers, but I do know the first three and what they mean. Firstly, there is the Dao Mote. This is the initial and weakest stage of the Dao. This the domain of the lesser concepts, such as the ones created by sapients which do not exist naturally. Some of these are higher up in the hierarchy, but the basic emotions such as Anger, Joy, Sadness and other such feelings can be found there. More powerful forms of those are on the next tier, which is that of the Dao Fragment. This stage adds another level of profundity to the concept, and this is where concepts such as Grief, Wrath and Euphoria can be found. In addition, some of the basic physical laws are here too, such as Momentum and Inertia. Then there is the first of the more powerful Dao circles. The Dao Seed stage. This is where the first of the more complicated and powerful concepts can be found, such as Wealth, Power and Strength. As well as those, some of the other physical concepts can be found, usually to do with living beings such as the Daos of the Sheep, Horse and Wolf. Despite the popular ridicule of these Daos, they are just as powerful and efficient as any other at this stage. The general rule of thumb for Daos is that the more complex it is, to a certain extent, the more powerful it is. In some cases, the natural power of the Dao influences its ranking as well. Now, for a description of how Daos influence sapients. Throughout the course of a person’s journey to power, they can tie themselves to specific Daos that grant them great power if nurtured properly. These Daos usually suit the person in question, for example, I possess the Dao Fragment of Ink. The Daos after the Mote stage possess different levels to them as well, with a greater stat and power bonus depending on that. Fear the wizened old man, for he most likely has a powerful Dao. In some cases, insufficient cultivation can be made up for somewhat or even entirely by mastery of the Dao. I have added a link to this phenomenon below.
High Elder Zanthros, the G Rank Galactic ruler: A preliminary guide by E Rank Scribe, Cantor Selven.
Sam closed the page and immediately opened up the link. He knew that he was getting sidetracked, but he had to see this for himself. The idea that someone of his rank could rule a galaxy was something that he would not believe until he had seen proof.