I wasn’t in the waiting room too long before I felt the wounds I had gotten to my hands and face finish healing. Mid-fight I wasn’t able to notice the healing, but as long as it was small cuts and with how slow I did heal hopefully it wasn’t noticeable.

Once the feeling stopped, and everything felt mostly right again I got into my circulation position and started thinking again about my feet. My right ankle point had broken through already, it must have happened at some point during the fight.

With it only being one of them though, I felt uneven. Moving my aura around in my legs was a bit harder now and annoying. Thinking about it moving, and then only feeling it move on only one side was disorienting and made me shiver in discomfort.

Every time I tried to move it in sync just hoping that it would just break through, nothing happened. I only consistently felt frustratingly uncomfortable.

After what felt like a while, I was about to start trying just to move it in my right foot only when I heard a ding, closed my eyes for a second, and opened them in the arena.

“And he’s back, just after a spectacularly entertaining victory. Let’s see what he has to offer now.”

Across from me stood a woman with a sword already in hand. I reached for my own as she charged forward.

“And she’s already starting, how eager!?”

In one movement I was forced to unsheathe my sword and aimed, intending to block her downward swing. Without controlling the amount, I enveloped my hand and my sword in my aura and swung cleanly through the air.

The crowd was silent for a brief moment, and I looked at my hand confused. Why didn’t I feel any resistance? Did I miss? But I wasn’t in pain.

The crowd roared even louder than my previous fight. I looked over to where she should’ve been, and she was holding the hilt of her destroyed sword in her hand eyes wide. A thin slice on her neck, since I didn’t feel any resistance, it should’ve gone clean through, but I guess the floor’s mechanics had kicked in.

“What an amazing first blow! To think in the last semi-finals, he was overpowered by those with skills greater than him! Breaking a sword in one swing, is he only know showing us his true power?! How will his next semifinals match go?!”

With three dings rung, I was back in the waiting room. I was still dumbstruck and didn’t move from my position.

Did I really just do that so easily? How much aura did I use? My stamina had gone up, but I wasn’t ever using it that desperately in training.

My body felt on fire as I put my sword away. And around me, for a brief moment, I saw a faint glow within the people somewhat close to me and in the air itself.

I tried to look again but saw nothing. I shook my head. Was I already so exhausted that I was seeing things? No, I’ve never been that tired and I felt a lot more tired after the first run than I feel now.

I sat down and leaned against the wall.

I was back in the semi-finals, if I won this, I was at least one more fight away from getting out of here. I didn’t get the chance to leave after I lost my last semi-final so maybe I’d get to leave if I only lost in the finals.

Nahh, I doubt it. They want to be entertained, and the previous fights have been fun. The more I sparred with Alrick and Thran the more and more I was excited to keep fighting. I could really pinpoint that feeling now, it was like a fire was lit inside of me. And for the first time I wanted to fight, I wanted to get better and fight more people who were stronger than me.

I needed to get better, I lost in my last semi-final, I shouldn’t be sitting here just waiting.

I sat up properly again and focused once more on my feet. I did my best to only move the aura in my right foot. It took a while though. I thought it would be as easy as it seemed to be while I was fighting. That time I just put aura into my sword with my right hand, well at least I think I did.

So why was it so difficult now? Was it because I wasn’t fighting? Because I didn’t feel that rush, I felt right before getting attacked?

Everything was frustrating, no matter which way you looked at it. Being able to think and understand circulation would give me an advantage but I couldn’t do that well enough. It seemed I did better while fighting using my aura than just sitting here moving it.

Then there was that thing about being able to see mana that Alrick mentioned. I know he said it was a rare thing that usually happened after years and years of training but wasn’t it essentially the same thing as aura sight?

I mean I know that they’re different things, but then what was what I saw earlier? Mypheryn mentioned that the literature on aura was all messed up currently, so what if Alrick was wrong? What if it was really only dependent on how many points you had opened? Or which points you had opened?

I didn’t really remember the diagram that Cyrus showed me too well (or annoyingly most of the things we didn’t specifically practice physically), but I did feel a point of pressure at the base of my head so there must be aura in my head.

I turned on my sight and looked around trying to see what I felt. Other than the fact that I saw no aura in anyone remotely close to me, I did feel a bit more weight to my head. If aura was coating my eyes to help me see it then it should move from there to that pressure point, right? Well, I didn’t think guessing on this would really do any harm…. Well, at least I hope it didn’t.

For the next couple of minutes, I focused on that imaginary path I was thinking of. But the more I thought of it the more points within my head that I started to feel pressure at. I tried harder to move it and as I did, I could feel a point somewhere start to gain in the pressure feeling.

As I heard a soft chime somewhere, I took one last effort to throw it through before I felt was teleported. The instant I was now in the ring I felt that pressure completely dissipate, and it build at a point somewhere in my head that wasn’t at the base. I couldn’t tell where it was exactly, but the second I opened my eyes I knew I had done something.

My sight, at least, was better than before. I glanced up at the crowds and could see the people more individually. Before I had thought it was a diverse crowd just because of the various colors and shades I had seen. Now though, I knew it was diverse because I could see the different types of people there. beastkin, elemental-kin, humans, and dwarves, didn’t see any elves (not like I could really scan the entire crowd to be sure though).

I looked towards the sky and stared at the clouds quite distracted by the amount of detail I could see. They weren’t just fluffy masses; they had more detail to them like I’d seen in paintings.

“Back from his last quick and easy match, and apparently distracted by the sky, we have our fourth semi-finalist. Let’s see how he fairs in his next match against a mage.”

The announcer’s voice reminded me where I was, so I looked across from me.

Even though I now saw details, I only really saw them when I focused on a specific thing. Whatever it was I was focusing on was detailed, and things around it were blurry. Other than that, there was this weird muddy colored haze around most things. But I blinked and it went away, both the pressure and the colored haze. The general details of things I could now see didn’t, which was an interesting change.

Cheser, the small child from before came out into the ring again. He had some small marks on him but overall, he was a bit less shaky than the last time.

“Alright semi-finalists, once the flag drops the match starts.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Like last time I didn’t want to start until Cheser was gone, but who knows if the mage across from me would do the same. She was an air-kin, I think. I mean the announcer said she was a mage, but there was no staff in her hand, most humans used a staff or a wand, or something to direct or enhance their magic.

With air-kin I had only heard about them briefly and never met them. Their physical description wasn’t ever given so it was hard to imagine what they looked like if I had ever even considered it.

Like Thran, her eyes had more elongated pupils than humans, but her skin tone didn’t feel much different. Thran’s skin was an earthy grey tone, hers was similar to an average human.

Well, most adventurers were a bit tanned from being outside all the time, but she didn’t have anything like that at all. If I thought of air, a color really didn’t come to mind so even if I had tried before to think of what their skin could’ve possibly looked like, there wasn’t anything that could come to mind. And since all elemental-kin’s skin tone was associated with their race subset, then I guess it would make sense that it wouldn’t change just from the sunlight.

Either way, I knew that earth-kin and air-kin didn’t get along, so their fighting styles must’ve been vastly different. I only hoped that meant that she wouldn’t just rush at me the second the flag dropped.

“3…2….1”

Cheser drops the flag and still sprinted out of the ring. She watched him do so before getting into a stance with her hand pointed at me. I didn’t just run at her before she cast this time since it was as good as any chance to just test whether or not what I did had actually done anything.

I did the same process of turning my aura sight on. Since I was sensing aura users in the crowd, my range had grown considerably (previously I had only been able to see people in my general area). The haze was back now and when I looked at her the haze that was around seemed to be condensing.

Being able to see the haze though wasn’t consistent and it took concentration, on my part. I looked around more than her and right as the haze started to fade from my vision, I saw movement from my right towards me.

My sight of it disappeared and I dodged the expected path and felt a rush of air blow past my back.

Did I really do it? No way!

She looked at me, her brows furrowed before starting a new chant. This one though was much quicker and before I could think to turn my sight on, I felt myself get thrown backwards. I managed to slam my foot into the ground, digging into it maybe a bit too far, at least the wind wasn’t blowing me away anymore.

She glared at me and changed tactics. Her robe was pulled off as she ran at me. Underneath she was wearing more fighter style equipment. I thought Thran said he was different than most kin, well I guess an earth-kin wouldn’t consider talking about air-kin. I pulled my foot back and wanted to see again as I put my hands up to defend from an attack she’d throw my way.

I saw a bit of a haze and movement as she swung her fist towards me. She was too far away for her hand to physically hit me, but I ducked my shoulder to dodge the movement I had seen and felt the air slide over my back.

I kept my head up to watch her, since I couldn’t sense where she was like I could with those with aura. She was closer now, and with force, I got my foot out of the ground, and stepped towards her for a right hook.

Her hand flattened and came up to defend.

She got ahead of my hand slightly and with the back of her hand, she pushed into my wrist forcing my punch to miss. The distinctive tickle of air was behind the force and her other hand, flattened too sliced up and across my body. Like her initial punch she didn’t touch me, but I felt the air slice through me and cut my skin.

The level of pain was hardly noticeable to me, however, the pushback I had felt from the cut itself led me to stomp my foot into the ground again.

Which was just in time for her left fist to come into contact with my stomach, bringing a torrent of wind with it.

I would’ve been blown away from her if my feet weren’t as firmly planted as I managed to get them.

She clicked her tongue and went to step away from me, but I grabbed her wrist with my left hand and headbutted her.

Which also hurt me, so I let go of her hand. She was able to step back, but it was probably because of the pain.

I had to finish this fast though, the floor’s healing wouldn’t kick in unless it was life threatening and the cut wasn’t small enough to completely go unnoticed when it healed.

She had gotten further from me than I thought and was in a stance to perform a larger spell. Close range combat must not have gone as she wanted.

I worked fast to close the distance between us. The haze revealed a swirling pattern beginning around her. I’d have to move quickly before it was completed.

I abandoned trying to plant my feet firmly and just tried to get to her as fast as I could. And once I was a step or two from her, I firmly planted my right foot in the ground and slammed my left into her abdomen. The movement of the haze collapsed and she coughed hard and was thrown to the ground.

I had to get my right foot out of the ground to get close to her again and had to do it fast enough to get to her before she got up. I was able to land a few more hits on her as she tried to deflect me from the ground.

She spun on the ground and with her (though I noticed a little too late) came wind and I was taken off my feet.

She made enough time for her to get up but I was close enough now to get a firm grip on her ankle. I felt the familiar tingle of my own healing.

“Sorry.”

I muttered this as I put all the force I could into crushing her ankle. Her scream pierced my ears making me wince and let go as she fell to the ground.

The crowd roared in excitement as she teleported out of the ring.

“What a fight! An air mage that usually fights with elegance brought down to the level of our brutal fighter! He moves onto the finals! The ring needs to be reset but we will start soon.”

I was teleported away, my wounds all healed then teleported right back to a repaired ring.

I didn’t get any time to rest, but I knew I used my aura much more than I had even in the last run of the tournament. Even though I made it here I didn’t think I’d last very long.

“Welcome to the Finals! Even though it’s a repeat of one of his previous semi-finals matches, let’s see if his skills have improved at all. In this final match it will be blade against blade, elf against stryant. One who is far less skilled against one who is impressively proficient.”

This was the first time the announcer mentioned our races, not that I had even met a stryant before. If it wasn’t Alrick’s comment about him knowing I was half because of my aura, it was clear now, my ears were long enough to count me as not a halfer.

If I didn’t look it, why did Lykor know I was a halfer? With my aura not awakened, was he even able to tell? But why would a blacksmith in the countryside be that proficient?

Elves did live long enough; would they all get to that level eventually? I’ve never seen a half-elf before, though I have seen plenty of half-dwarves. Their ears always seemed to be a mix between dwarves and humans. Sometimes they were even mismatched. Did I just assume that half-elves would be the same?

I didn’t have time to think about this now though, the cheers erupted once again, and my opponent was here.

Across from me was a woman, with green tinted skin. She was tall, her hair was long and tied back with plant like ornaments. Her even darker, yet radiant green eyes were directed at me in a collected face. If she was looking down on me, I couldn’t tell, but after that statement, I wouldn’t doubt if she thought it’d be easy (and with how tired I was she’d be right).

Cheser came into the ring, but I watched as her eyes followed his movements. She then glanced up at me as he stopped walking.

“I hope you will wait for the distraction to leave the ring, my previous enemy wasn’t so patient, and it showed in his fighting.”

I only nodded.

If there were others that had been aggressive, that explained why Cheser was trembling the first time I saw him. But after she said that he seemed to calm a bit more.

“Alright! 3…2…1!”

The flag dropped and he turned and ran out of the ring. I gripped my blade and watched her follow him with her eyes until he was fully out of the ring. Then in an instant with barely enough time for me to react, I managed to block her first swing.

I felt the weight of her blade. She had a slight smirk on her face before she moved her blade and swung again.

The more our blades clashed the more the exhaustion creeped in. I was having fun though; I didn’t want it to end. I pushed harder for my aura to sustain me, and I sensed she was an aura user too. I hadn’t met one yet, so I didn’t even bother checking earlier.

And now that I was fighting someone in a fight as intense as this, I didn’t want it to stop even more.

With each blow we traded I felt the difference in our strength physically and with our aura. It was a different sensation than fighting someone using mana. I didn’t get a lot of time to fully fight Cyrus with my aura and I wished I had if it would’ve been this fun.

That fire in my stomach was lit once again and a grin creeped up on my face. I managed to not just defend but throw her blade backwards enough that I was pushing her back occasionally instead of being dominated like I had been.

It didn’t last long, she recovered quickly blocking my cross strike with ease.

I could see her pathways so clearly. And then, in an instant they were gone. My vision darkened and I fell to the ground.

I jolted up but was now in the slightly familiar bed of the training hall. I panted, somehow still feeling the rush I felt while fighting. That was unbelievable.

I got out of bed, bouncing on my feet and hit myself in the stomach repeatedy, a bit more excited than I had been in a while. I used to feel so awkward fighting, I used to hate it only thinking of it as a function for my job.

I practiced sometimes with Lyra and Valera, but they never went hard on me, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was enjoying this. I still had energy physically, since I was healed by the floor so I got out of bed, but I couldn’t start using my aura just yet.

I couldn’t feel any pressure other than the ones I hadn’t broken through. Now that I thought about it, the number of pressure points had increased and yet also decreased.

I noticed more in my head, but they were in positions I didn’t recognize earlier. I felt more in my torso, even in the same spots, or at least in close proximity to the other ones. I didn’t clearly remember the diagram that Cyrus had drawn up but the way he described it and my own image of it was different from what I was now feeling.

I also felt new ones in the spots I had opened. The opened ones were now evenly distributed between my left and right limbs, so the unevenness in my feet was gone, but now that I felt more in every part of my body, how much progress had I actually made?