When I woke up, I was confused as to where I was for close to a minute. The lights that I had somehow taken to leaving on, illuminated the room enough to make it look like I was back in my old earth room. And everything else just a bad dream. But when I turned to check the time from my phone, the reality of the situation came rushing back.
Pain. Excruciating pain, not soreness. Maybe it was soreness, but right then, it was pure torture and there was no way I got that from a dream. I didn’t think it was possible, but it felt way worse than what I had felt the first morning after I spent the whole day weeding with Boni and Silas. How would I even be able to fight today feeling like this?
Then I remembered, there were no fights that day, but that was no relief for me. In my experience, the kind of pain I was going through wouldn’t just disappear in a day, I would still be sore the day after. And if I went through another demanding fight, then it would be even worse the day after. This, this will be my state of being until I lost.
Pain was not a new thing for me in the Realm of Mesily, maybe I was in more pain than before, but it was still pain. Plus, I was in the twenty golds category, with the potential to get to forty. Twenty pitiful golds. Why Hartie? Why do all this? Was money really that important?
‘What time is it?’ I asked Clare. I didn’t think I could go back to sleep again. My brain was fully cleared, and with all that pain, I wasn’t even sure how I had stayed asleep. I must not have tossed at all, spending the whole time asleep rigid like a dead log.
‘Four hours to sunrise.’
The middle of the night. Of course it was the middle of the night. Why wouldn’t it be? Since I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, I slowly got out of bed, hissing and cursing all the way until I stood up. It felt like I was already sweating, but bringing my hand to check was more painful than the information was worth.
‘Clare, why do you not use the twelve or twenty-four hour system when I ask what time it is?’
‘You never specified.’
‘When would I have had to specify that?’
‘During the initial integration into the System.’
‘Just how many other things have I overlooked because of my laziness then? Show me everything that I would have had to make a choice on during the initial integration. No, belay that. I will get back to it when I do not feel like I am slowly being flayed alive. Use the twenty-four-hour system from now onwards.’
‘Noted.’
I began my morning routine, excruciatingly slower than I had ever done it before. The stretches were death tempting, the light exercise felt like a trip to hell and back. Over and over again. I think I read somewhere that one should rest when the body didn’t feel up to task, and I also read that I should work through the pain, or soreness. Why were there conflicting pieces of information? How was a novice supposed to know which was true and which wasn’t?
I was just glad when it came time for my morning shower, night shower, considering the time. The cold water was oddly refreshing, but warm water would have been preferable. Maybe there was a way to adjust the temperature of the water, the whole establishment seemed advanced enough.
A few minutes of fumbling with the shower head, and even trying to imbue Mana into it, got nothing in return. There was a short second when the water felt warm, but I suspected that was me warming the water and not the shower head itself. I finally gave up, accepting that not everything was as advanced as I wanted it to be. It fit the reality I was getting used to.
Based on the little I had seen of the city of Sjuma, the Council Office and the area around it felt like things that had been built recently. Like some advanced people had come, built them and then left, the state of everything else was as I had seen in Yange the only difference being that stone was used for construction. I still didn’t know why Yange didn’t use stone like Sjuma.
After my shower, I put on my farmhand clothes, threw on the long coat and marvin to ward off any cold I might feel outside, grabbed my staff and the few potions I had saved up in the fights, and went to check if I could get food from the receptionists. The place was called an Inn, it had to operate at unseemly hours, and the time it had taken me to finish my morning routine sure made the time more morning friendly.
I was lucky and found the counter populated with one of the receptionists, maybe I had seen them before, I was having a hard time remembering. I made true with my promise and went to order a different meal, then I realized I didn’t know any other meals that the diner offered. I had seen the others eat, but I was having a hard time remembering what they ate.
I gave up and decided to go with something simple. “Bread and meat stew, with a healthy serving of meat,” I told the receptionist.
That was imperative. With my sore muscles, I would need every gram of complete protein I could get my hands on. Maybe I should have gone with a slab of meat instead and forgo the whole stew and bread part. Looking around as I went to my usual table to wait for my meal, I noticed that the dining area was lightly populated. They didn’t appear to be competitors to me, but I was hardly the best character to determine that.
Of the three days I had known them, I could only recognize around ten of them, the rest were complete strangers to me. I didn’t even know who else had made it to the semifinals. I also didn’t know where my semifinal match would be. All my fights had been in the Junior Arena, but I had emerged victorious there with my next opponent being the winner from East Arena, Lina’s arena. I really wished it wouldn’t be Lackey.
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When my meal came, I quickly wolfed it down. I felt like I could go for a second serving, smaller though, but decided against it. When I was preparing myself to head back to my room, I saw Paul approaching. He was still dressed the same as the first time I saw him. Either he had the one piece of clothing, all his clothes were of that design and coloration, or he preferred those as his outside clothes.
“How was your night? I see you beat me today,” he said as he took a seat.
“I slept earlier than usual. Even earlier than the first day here.”
Before he could even begin on another sentence, his meal arrived. That had been fast. Shit, I forgot to time my own. I guess there is always tomorrow. I decided to study the menu after I was done with the day’s activities which included visiting the library, I had seen one near The Competitors’ Inn, and going to the woods for a little [Staff Making] session. My current one had developed tiny fractures in the early matches and the last one had made it all the more worse. Plus, I needed backups and the sooner I began working on them, the better.
The others joined us as we consumed our meal in silence, offering their greetings. By the time Lina arrived, the last one, I had become aware of the dour mood they all seemed to share. But unlike me, theirs didn’t seem to come from the exhaustion and pain I was suffering from. How could they not feel what I was feeling?
“What’s wrong with you?” Lina asked me. I had avoided getting involved in the little conversations they got going between themselves. “You look worse than they do. And they lost.”
She was referring to Oki and Tes. Oki lost in his quarterfinal match, denying him the chance for a rematch with Dawkins in the semifinals. He had been calling it fate, his chance to right the wrong he had suffered the year before. But his opponent didn’t share his sentiments, he called her the devil in guise of a human. While Tes had actually lost to Dawkins himself, they had every right to be dour.
“Every part of me hurts. Even talking is uncomfortable,” I told her. The pain had lessened somewhat after my morning routine, but it was still too much for me.
“Is it your first time?” Tes asked.
“I thought I had already said it was my first time in the competition,” I said, giving her a dubious look.
“I meant, is it your first time using so many potions continuously?” she amended.
“Yeah. I think those two are mutually inclusively.”
“That would do it,” Oki said. “The second time I came to The Grand Competition, I was wrecked by my fourth fight. Now, I don’t think I’m even sore anywhere. Tired, yes, but not sore.”
“I think I’m sore on a few places myself,” Tes said.
Lucky for them that that was all they felt. Was that how long it would take for my body to get used to the constant torture of the fights and the potions? I hoped not.
“You must be happy you made it to the semifinals,” Paul said.
“Yeah,” Lina joined in. “Three days ago, most people thought you wouldn’t get past your first fight. I’m not going to lie; I didn’t think you would make it either.”
“Me too. Though I have to admit that most of that was because I didn’t know how you fight. And I still don’t,” Tes said as she pushed her plates away from her.
“He is good. For his Level,” Paul said, he really didn’t need to add that last part.
“I don’t think I’m that good. Did you watch my last fight? The guy was throwing me around like a ragdoll.”
“I wouldn’t call it that. Besides, when you got your bearings, you took him out fast enough.”
But he had it all wrong, I didn’t get my bearings at all. “It was a lucky hit. Nothing else. I feel like I cheated, like I don’t deserve to be in the semifinals at all. And it’s awful.”
“Awful?” Tes asked.
“It feels empty. I want to win like I did in my first two fights. I struggled, but I still came out victorious. A clear winner, without a doubt.”
I felt embarrassed for saying all that. It had been something I was trying to keep for myself, maybe even from myself. I had been there; I had already accepted my defeat. But when the opportunity presented itself, I took it. Who wouldn’t? But that didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling bad about the way I had won.
“I don’t know. To me, it looked like you were doing fine given your opponent’s capabilities,” Lina commented. And Paul nodded in agreement.
“How did your fight with Lackey go? I never asked,” I asked her. Mostly, I was trying to divert the attention from the topic of that fight. I also really cared about how she had fared.
…
I really intended to read about the fighting styles used in The Grand Competition, especially after learning that Lackey hadn’t even made it through the quarterfinals. But when I got to the library, I got lost in reading about shields. The library itself looked similar to the one I had been visiting in Yange, the aisles and sound-proof cubicles. The only thing that was different was the stone walls and floor, encompassing the much larger floor space. I had taken books on the two main topics on my priority list; shields and Mana attacks, I had not found a book that covered the topic of fighting against a heavy Mana user. I had hoped that reading on how they fought, I might pick up a few things I could use in the coming fight, either to defend myself, or even attack my opponent.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the book before my time to go make staffs came. The only thing meaningful I learnt about the shields was that the rings, and details, were an indicator of the properties of the shield. Which I found rather unwise, or stupid. Why would I want to display what my shield can and cannot do? That would just make it easier for the opponent to know what attacks to use to easily get through.
But like everything I had learnt so far about how magic, or Mana, worked in the Realm of Mesily, there was always another side to the story. For the shields, it was very funny. Very funny indeed. Apparently, shields could be decorated. Yes, all those circles and intricate designs, and letters and glyphs, could be a mere decoration of the shield.
I cursed myself for focusing my research on how the shields looked and not the more important topic of how to actually make one of those shields. No matter how costly it had appeared to be, I still thought that having it in my arsenal of Skills would be better than not having it.
Making the staffs proved to be easier than I had anticipated. And even after creating three of them, thank you Mana for making the process faster, I still had more than four hours in my allocated time for creating the staffs. I decided to spend it working on some of the Skills I had neglected of late, and the new Skills that I had gained. The one really.
…
After trying to no avail to gain a version of the return Skill that my first opponent had, I spent several hours working on the Skill [Enhanced Hand], and it had leveled up to level 6. I was happy with the results, more than sure that the next time I came into a grappling match with anyone, I would come out on top, as long as I had Mana left in me. Otherwise, I would still be the weak me. With my new leveled up Skill, I decided to see just how much of a punch it packed.
There were trees around, and quite possibly no one near me to witness if something went horribly wrong, like me missing the whole tree altogether, it was a very likely possibility. I pushed that thought out of my mind as I looked for a nice thick tree for a test subject. In a forest, that didn’t take long. When I was satisfied with the selected tree, I slowly gathered all the Mana in me for an [Enhanced Hand]. Which was a lot, since I had just drunk the Mana potion I had been saving up. It was meant to make me super strong and powerful, what better way of knowing about its efficacy other than going full out. I could already see it, punching the trunk of the tree into smithereens.
I pulled back my right hand as I directed that Mana into the hand. Then punched.