Now that Kiri’s match was over, Nate took a moment to look over the advancements he’d made from his battle with Gregory.

Amplified Magic 17 > 19

Empowered Runic Artistry 27 > 28

Runic Creation 30 > 31

Imbue Intent 31 > 32

Awareness of the Runic Artist 29 > 30

They weren’t huge, but he was inching forward with many of his Skills. Amplified Magic was approaching its first evolution and he was looking forward to that. But those were thoughts for later. For now he needed to assess the remaining competition and determine if any were going to require specialised approaches from him.

Turning his attention back to the arena, he watched as the next competitors took the field. In the preliminaries he’d ignored many of the battles, as well as the ones fighting them. Being prepared was how he intended to win most of his victories, but the fact was, there were only so many ways you could swing a sword or wield a spear. Many of the competitors had similar classes and therefore similar skills. There had been exceptions of course. He’d watched more than one of Null’s fights as well as one of Coralie’s after Frick’s warning about her ability to imbue her Concept into her spells.

There had been others he’d given some attention to as well. Gregory, who he’d just faced. Britt, the third member of Null’s team. She’d shown very little beyond a brutal ability to swing her hammer and what he suspected was an armour enhancing skill. Helena and Gabrielle, sisters he thought, had warranted a viewing based on the fact that he couldn’t see their Classes. Like Kiri and himself, they were obfuscating their Classes and he had yet to bother brute forcing it. That time was well passed though, with Gabrielle out of the Tournament and Helena’s skillful execution of the spear-user. The next time he was near her he intended to find out what her Classes were, consequences be damned.

Flash was an interesting one as he’d managed to hide any active skills so far. He wasn’t sure if he’d just missed the fights where Flash used them or if the guy just had the easiest run imaginable. Either way, Flash remained an unknown quantity. He’d managed to watch three of the guy’s fights and every single one had him fighting a short-weapon user. The other two members of Coralie’s team were in the top thirty-two as well, but neither had appeared particularly impressive and given they both possessed Rare Classes, he wasn’t too concerned about them being a threat. That left the remaining unknowns.

The Earth Mage who’d lost to Null had managed to make it through as well. Nate thought he must’ve been one of those who had to fight an additional match, but that alone showed how capable he must be. It was just bad luck, or maybe orchestrated misfortune, that saw him pitted against Null in the preliminaries. He was kind of hoping he got to fight him in his next match as it would be his first opportunity to compare himself with an actual Mage around his level. Luc didn’t count. The memory of Luc’s training sent a small shiver down his spine. It had been brutally effective and equally painful.

Without turning away from the arena, where even now two competitors were battling, he used his Awareness of the Runic Artist to assess the remaining competitors. Most were uninteresting, just more skilled melee combatants. But three stood out to him. The notifications flashed in front of his eyes for two of them.

Enduring Martial Artist (E) (39) / Enduring Steel Mage (R) (1)

Dreaming Mentalist (R) (33) / Thoughtful Enchanter (U) (7)

The third was obfuscated and he considered brute forcing it for a moment but decided to do so later. It wasn’t Helena anyway, as she’d left the area, presumably to console her sister Gabrielle after her brutal loss to Kiri. He could sense that the martial artist was a woman, wrapped head to toe in the kind of clothes you’d expect from someone who lived in a desert. The other was a short and delicate looking man. Nate wasn’t surprised that someone with that kind of skillset had made it this far. He doubted there were many competitors with the skills or equipment to resist a Mentalist. It was interesting that this one had decided to branch into being an Enchanter. The Mentalist was even wearing a few enchanted items. None of them had sigils in them that he could sense, which was a bit frustrating, but not unexpected now that he knew the methods used by Enchanters. That said he could still sense Concepts emanating from the items, likely thanks to his Runic Knowledge skill specialised in Concepts. An amulet that whispered of protection, a wand that whispered of fire and a ring that whispered of light. Nothing worth worrying about, though the amulet might warrant some additional study, if he got the chance.

The roar of the crowd broke him out of his musing and he looked up to see the match had wrapped up. One of the competitors had lost an arm, but even as he watched, golden light enveloped the man, the arm flowing back up to reconnect to the man's body like it had never been removed. Kiri bumped his shoulder.

“You looked a bit distracted. Just thinking, or were you worrying about things?” she asked quietly.

“Just thinking. Assessing the competition,” he responded, glancing at her and smiling.

“Anyone interesting?” Kiri replied, roving her eyes over their fellow competitors.

He turned back towards the arena, trying to seem nonchalant. “Couple of unknowns and the usual offenders, plus the one wrapped up head to toe. There’s another that’s interesting but only in that his Classes are interesting. He is absolutely no threat to either of us.”

He was going to leave the conversation there but Kiri bumped his shoulder again which got a smile out of him.

“What?” he asked.

“Are any of them a threat to us?” she asked with a smirk and not a hint of humility.

Nate shrugged. He didn’t want to say no, as while Null might not be a threat to her, or at least not as far as they could tell, he was most definitely a threat to Nate. On the other hand, Coralie might be an excellent match-up for him. He wondered if Fate had its finger on the scales again, as Coralie was called up at that moment to face one of the remaining warriors. Both he and Kiri became very focused, though he suspected for entirely different reasons. He wanted to see how Coralie handled the fight. Kiri was probably just considering how she could handle Coralie. The thought made him smirk which earned him a gentle elbow to the ribs. He really needed to work on not letting every emotion he felt sneak onto his face.

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

Coralie looked calm. Icy even. It begged the question of whether or not embodiment influenced your personality. It was obvious that a large factor in embodiment was your experiences, but did it go beyond that? It was possible, but he had too little information to go on for now. Hopefully the University would have some answers, or if not answers, at least some information on the topic.

Coralie’s opponent was a tall man, wielding a sword as tall as he was. He wasn’t one of the battles Nate had caught but he remembered that he was another Blademaster Class. As the referee announced the start of the match he watched as the Blademaster flashed forward. Definitely a boosting skill as the man launched showers of sand behind him, covering the distance between Coralie and himself in three steps. It wasn’t enough though, as Nate watched Coralie seal herself inside a cage of ice. The cage had grown at such a prodigious rate that Nate was absolutely certain that Coralie must have a Channelling Speed over a hundred and fifty. The spell had been formed and completed in a little over a second. It was a reminder for himself that he really needed to raise some of his Magic Stats.

His Magic Power and Mana Reserve were respectable, but everything else was lagging significantly behind, and just watching Coralie’s spell made him realise that even with his higher rarity Classes, he was at risk against those with decent rarities and plenty of wealth. Because there was no doubt in his mind that her stats had been considerably inflated by Orbs. Maybe some Skills as well. It was entirely possible she had a similar skill to his Amplified Magic. He doubted her rarity would be as high, but as Aisling had pointed out months ago, Skill Level could make up for that and his Skill wasn’t even at its first evolution yet. Coralie’s could have passed its second evolution already.

The entire thought process had taken him less than two seconds. During that time the Blademaster had continued to try and hack his way through the ice barrier. It likely wasn’t obvious to everyone else but as he did so, he was getting slightly slower with every swing. The dirt and sand of the arena was starting to sparkle in the midday sun as they froze, the cold seeping into them along with small amounts of water. He suspected that it was just atmospheric water and not any produced directly by Coralie. As the effect got closer to the edge of the arena it finally entered his sphere of awareness and his eyes widened. Frick had been right. Coralie was somehow adding the concept of Frozen to some kind of domain based spell or skill. The entire arena was becoming frozen while she waited within her barrier of ice, completely unperturbed.

Even the referee seemed to want none of it, slowly drifting back towards the edge of the arena. Nate even sensed mana flow into a skill within the man as he presumably tried to protect himself against the effect. It took another minute as the Blademaster continued to slow until he finally stopped moving, standing as still as a statue, sword upraised. Whatever boosting skill he had been using simply wasn’t a match for Coralie’s ability to freeze everything around her.

He, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned at all. He’d sensed the outskirts of her skill and was confident he could drain the mana out of the area around him, preventing her skill from ever being able to reach him. Alternatively he could try and oppose it with a Fire Rune. There were other options as well, but even having seen her speed and skill with mana, he was confident he could defeat Coralie.

Kiri however seemed concerned. He could sense it in the way her muscles had tensed when the freeze effect had gotten close enough to the edge of the arena. He bumped her shoulder to get her attention as she stared intently at Coralie. Glancing at him she smiled, but he could see the worry in it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The freezing effect…it affected my…stuff,” Kiri replied quietly.

She was clearly worried about any other competitors listening in, but it was more interesting to him that the freezing effect would affect her soul energy. Was it because a Concept was involved? Soul energy had passed straight through his barriers more than once, and they were made purely of mana. Certainly runes were involved. Runes led to sigils and sigils led to Concepts. His Barrier rune on its own wasn’t enough to stop soul energy, however forming a runic array with his Soul rune was. Was that because his Barriers subconcept didn’t cover soul energy on its own? That meant that Coralie’s did, somehow.

He was about to start offering to make Kiri some runes to counter Coralie when he saw Kiri’s eyes narrow. He felt her spine straighten as she looked at him for a moment before shaking her head slightly.

“I’ve got this,” she whispered vehemently.

“Are you sure?” he asked carefully. He believed her, but friends helped each other. He could spare a little time to make her a rune.

“I’m sure. Don’t worry about me. Just promise to watch okay?” she asked.

“Always,” he replied, smiling at his best friend before they both turned back towards the arena to assess the next match and their potential future opponents.

*************

Nate sat in his room thinking over the day's battles. His Awareness of the Runic Artist was active as he kept an eye on the inn and its surroundings. He knew he probably didn’t need to since Deverell was also watching the place, but two sets of eyes were better than one, or whatever his sphere of awareness counted as anyway. Staring down at the bracer in his hands, he could feel it approaching the tipping point as he channelled Conceptual Material into it. It was almost at the Legendary tier and he was looking forward to seeing how powerful it was when it was done. But that wasn’t what was occupying his mind.

Turning to Frick, who was sitting on his bed also channelling Conceptual Material into a scarf, he asked the same question for the third time that evening. He had to be certain.

“And you’re sure that this is what it looked like?” he said worriedly, tapping the image in his notebook.

“As sure as I can be without using my eyes, Boss. I was using your sphere of awareness. That’s what it felt like. Size and shape. There is a heap of them so I am pretty sure I got it right,” Frick repeated, for the third time, without complaint. Which he felt was honestly impressive on its own as he was definitely harassing his Familiar on the topic.

Nodding, he finally made his decision. It was risky, because if Frick was wrong it could backfire horribly. He’d need a backup plan. But this was likely the best way forward against Null. Because at this point, he was convinced he would get that matchup. If the Prefects had a choice between throwing him against Coralie or Null, they’d choose Null rather than risk him outperforming his fellow ‘mage’.

He knew it wasn’t going to be Kiri as Luc and Aisling had both assured him that the only way he’d face his teammate was if it was in the finals, competing for first place. The same was true of Null and Britt as well as Coralie and Flash. Apparently it was an unspoken rule and the Platinum’s had the Prefect’s word it would be upheld. All the Prefects, because honestly, at this point, he trusted Prefect Raoult and Prefect Allais about as much as he trusted a mosquito not to bite him. They wanted the best for their kids and they weren’t afraid to throw their weight around to do it. But two Prefects weren’t about to piss off the third, along with three Platinum’s. Not when they had an alternative option.

There were only three people that thought he had a chance against Null. Frick, Kiri and surprisingly, Luc. Luc’s exact words however had been, ‘Remind his Father who’s the strongest fighter in this shithole.’ Luc had of course been referring to himself, but apparently that extended to his pupil.

With a smile he glanced at Frick. “Let’s do it.”

Frick pumped one blue hand, flashing his sharp-teeth in a vicious smile, “This is going to be so goblin.”