Chapter 63

I pushed through the soreness I could feel in nearly all my muscles as I slowly made my way to the field, the sticks on my shoulder not helping at all. The previous fight had really worked me up in ways I hadn’t expected. I maintained a slow pace as each swing of the leg felt like torture, with every landing sending pinpricks throughout the whole leg. It had taken three fights in the Baronies to make me even come close to feeling what I was going through.

I soldiered on, hoping that by the time I made it to the field, the soreness will have washed away and I could commence my normal training. In a world full of Mana and magic, how was it that muscle soreness was still a thing after a hard work? What exactly did those healers do for the period that we were incapacitated? Just shoe up the bare minimum and send us on our way to the next fight? Weren’t they supposed to return our bodies to the way they had been before the fights?

I lightly rubbed at where Marta had stabbed me through in the final moments of our fight, it was the second time I had received a killing blow in the fights, or at least a near killing blow. Then again, if there weren’t healers nearby, I would have actually died. Maybe I should try and acquire a few healing Skills, would those be allowed in the fights? How would that fight even pan out?

When I made it to my training field, the soreness was still there, and it didn’t feel like it would be going away anytime soon. I decided to forgo the more physically demanding exercises and focus on the Mana Skills and other Mana related exercises.

I began by working on strengthening my staff, or the substitute stick I had picked up on my way to the field. Creating Mana channels was easier than when I had initially began practicing, it was the adding of the necessary attributes to the channels and Mana within that I was having a few issues with. Based on the results of my previous fight, I wasn’t sure if the strengthening I added to my staff actually worked. So, I came prepared for a thorough test. Six different sticks, and the two pails of [Mana] potion I had saved up.

I would wreck them until they began responding to my efforts, or ran completely dry.

The first stick was left unenhanced, it was what scientists called the control group, or control stick in my case. I proceeded to coalesce Mana trying to picture to the best of my knowledge what I knew of steel, which wasn’t much, truth be told. Messily, I didn’t even know the difference between steel and iron, other than it had carbon in it. I might have read somewhere that too much carbon made it brittle.

I then directed the Mana into one of the other sticks, creating Mana channels in the form I had read in the library. I wasn’t sure if I got it right, but I felt the Mana settle down as I withdrew my connection from it. I wondered how I could go about determining just what kind of attributes I had added to it, but gave up in liu of the more exciting option of smashing the sticks till they broke. I raised an earthen pillar nearly as tall as I was and compacted it as hard as I could manage.

Starting with the control stick, I used [Staff Strike] with it and whacked the pillar with all the [Strength] I could muster. The stick didn’t survive the first hit. I took the newly enhanced stick, supposedly, and repeated the whacking. And it survived the first whack, and went for the second and third and so on. Ten whacks later, it finally cracked and completely broke on the next whack. My arms on the hand were screaming bloody murder at me. It was a very different experience to whack a solid earthen pillar compared to a flesh and blood person. Very different indeed. But the results were very encouraging, I was doing something right.

I went through the process of enhancing another stick, taking deliberate measures to picture steel as much as I could. But before I could begin my whacking, something told me to [Identify] it, and I did.

‘[Mana Attuned Stick] – [Quality : Poor]’

I looked at it, surprised by what a whimsical thought had given me. But at the same time, I realized that the information was far from what the woodworker had claimed. He had been able to tell what kind of attunement had been done, my [Identify] Skill had given me none of that. Was it because it was so low leveled, or was there another way of inspecting the qualities of the stick?

While I thought about it, I took one of the other sticks that hadn’t gone through attunement and [Identify]ed it.

‘[Stick – A piece of wood]’

Encouraged by my newly discovered super Skill, I [Identify]ed the stick I had just whacked the pillar with until it broke.

‘[Mana Attuned Stick] – [Quality : Damaged]’

Damaged? That piqued my interest, what exactly did damaged mean? I tried probing it see if there was any Mana left, and there was. Only that it was slowly dissipating to the aether. I tried controlling it so that it would stop escaping, but my first attempts were repulsed. Then I remembered about using the same kind of Mana, as I was creating the Mana I realized that maybe that was how someone knew, by studying the kind of Mana already inside an object. But when I tried to study it, I didn’t get anything different, just the feel of Mana that I had used to create the channels.

I gave up and focused on making the sticks more durable, and by the demise of the sixth stick, the quality hadn’t changed, but the stick had managed to withstand thirty-six good whacks before it cracked, and four more before it gave up.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

After running out of sticks, I focused more on my other Skills, such as [Chains], [Mana Shield] and [Mana Slash]. I hadn’t used them in the fights aside from [Mana Shield] but I knew that they would be called up soon enough.

My [Mana Shield] offered protection mainly against Mana attacks, but it also did offer a modicum of protection where physical attacks were concerned. I needed it to get better at the Mana protection and improve immensely at the physical side as well.

With the results I had received from attuning the sticks, I was able to add a few more properties, or make the shield a little bit tougher to crack as attributed by the new circle it had gained, becoming a two circled shield. There were only four glyphs on it, each on the cardinal position. Sadly, I had forgotten what all those glyphs meant. The last time I had read on shields, I hadn’t had my notebook to take notes. It was time I rectified that.

The [Chains] Skill benefited too by making the links that much tougher to crack when I pictured them as tough as steel when I activated the Skill. The [Mana Slash] surprised me the most when it sheared off the top portion of my earthen pillar. I had thought that Mana attacks only did Mana damage, but it looked like physical damage was also on the table.

With physical damage on the table, I tried to create a Mana hurtling projectile. The results weren’t pleasing per se. A vague silhouette of what [Hurtling Projectile] dislodged from the ground shot for the pillar, but on impact, the projectile shattered and disappeared into nothingness. It took several tries before I gave up and asked Clare what the problem was.

‘The pillar is made of compressed earth while the projectile you are throwing at it is modelled from a loose earth.’

I couldn’t believe that the reason was so simple. I went back at it with the thought that I had finally cracked it, but the results proved the same, with my projectile shattering on impact. I soon noticed that the projectile resisted my attempts at making it denser by compression. If it refused to be compressed the way I had done with the pillar, how was I supposed to make it compact enough to destroy the pillar?

After running out of Mana for a second time, I decided to call it quits and returned to the city. I no longer felt soreness in my muscles, so I decided to give the training facility a shot, to at least try and add a point in [Strength], it could be the thing that saved me.

After around two hours there, and completely using up my remaining [Stamina], I slowly walked to the Competitors’ Inn for a late lunch and maybe a nap.

I was surprised to find that the dining area was moderately populated as I shambled into the Inn. Looking left and right, all I saw were unfamiliar faces sitting in nearly all the tables. There was the likely possibility I wouldn’t be able to get a free table to myself. I quickly went through my options as I made my way through the center of all that, hoping that no one was paying attention to me, but knowing that someone most definitely was.

On the last few steps before I had to commit to one option or another, I was of mind to go to my room and delay my lunch for an hour or so, but then I got a whiff of the smells from the kitchen and my stomach grumbled loudly that I thought the patrons sitting in the nearby tables heard me, it.

I decided to just have the meal and be done with it.

I approached the receptionist promptly then, but got tongue-tied as I tried to figure out what to order. I could go with the usual, but I also wanted to try something new. I tried picturing what I had seen others eat but came up blank. Then I tried picturing a food that could possibly exist and came up even more blank. So, I just decided to wing it; I knew that I needed meat or any other source with high complete protein, it is the other part of the meal that I didn’t know what to do about. In the end, I had one of my usuals, chapattis and meat stew, with an avocado on top.

When I turned to find a table to sit at, I realized that the corner table I was used to was empty, either it had been and I hadn’t noticed, or it had recently been vacated while I tried to come up with a meal to eat. Either way, I went for it.

“Hartie, come sit here,” Sunshine called me over when I was about to sit down.

I looked at the empty table longingly, then stared at their table which was already full with four people. To sit there, I would have to carry over a chair, and end up squeezed between two people, and by the looks of it, I would be the only one eating. I turned my gaze at the empty table I was at, then back at Sunshine.

“But I want to sit here,” I whined in a reserved tone, tapping at the table I was standing right next to. Their table was right next to it, and yet, I hadn’t seen them at all until Sunshine called me over.

“What is the difference? The tables are practically in the same area,” she argued.

“But I will have a bigger space here.”

“Let’s just join the two tables,” Artina said as she stood up from her chair, already moving to start repositioning the other chairs.

The others soon followed, and I found myself pushed aside as they went through the process of joining up the two tables. Looking around, I realized that several others had done so too. But it didn’t ease any of the embarrassment I felt coursing through me from the attention we drew with such a commotion. Even the waiter had to wait until they were done before she could hand me my food, which I profusely thanked her for, and apologized for the inconvenience.

“D—” Sunshine began to say something, but I raised a finger to forestall it, and then began wolfing down my food. In three minutes, as Clare later told me, I was done with the meal, a record time for me. I proceeded to summon a bit of water to rinse the stew bowl and then more to wash the food down.

“You can speak now,” I told her when I felt like I had calmed down, though I was still sweating a little, from the exercises I had gone through, or the eating, I wasn’t sure.

“I challenge you to a eating competition,” Sunshine exclaimed.

“And I vehemently refuse,” I quickly replied, wanting nothing to do with such kind of competition. If there were prizes, that would be another matter altogether.

“Why?” Sunshine asked, looking at me pleadingly.

And I ignored her completely, turning my gaze to Artina and the others. “What have you guys been have to?” I asked.

“Training.”

“Training.”

“Crying.”

I turned to Akos in surprise, “Crying? Why?”

“Because she beat me into a pulp in the second round,” he said as he threw a glare at Mutex, who didn’t seem fazed at all.

“You guys qualified for the second round?” I asked before my mind could fully analyze the situation. Sunshine began laughing then, completely forgetting about the declined challenge. The others just stared at me in amazement, with Artina going so far as to shake her head, mirth clear in her face. “Of course you did.”

“So, you made it to the third round,” I said, looking at Mutex who nodded slightly. Then I turned to Artina, “What about you?”

“Yeah, though just barely.” She replied, wearing a concerned expression on her face, the first time seeing one since I met her.

“No one can stop me,” Sunshine said even before I could think to ask her. “I’m assuming you made it too.”

I nodded to that, and the conversation continued, of which the details I couldn’t recall even under threat of death, either because the topics were so mundane, or I began to doze off almost immediately.