There were things I could do without my body being awake. But I had gone back through my memories for any obligations that I hadn't fulfilled yet, and came across my promise to have a spar with Gaal, the bear man who had tried to block me from getting into the druid floor the first time.

It really was only days ago, it felt like weeks. More pressing things kept came up, but it was relatively quiet now. I wanted to set up a proper sparring ring, and I could leave my biological side sleeping while I did that, but after that it would be time to be active again. It had already had seven hours of sleep, and had had several dreams in that time.

The Forest Keeper floor excavator was being controlled by a simple program that would ping me if anything unexpected happened, and it was only using a minimum of my power. I moved the larger thread portal from my biological side's pocket and sent it to the utility floor between the druid and human floors, and while it was going I brought up a new model for the sparring ring stadium I wanted to make.

A circular platform of soil, topped with a rough canvas, raised half a meter up from the floor would make for a good fighting surface. The druid sparring circles were ten meters in diameter, but I went with fifteen meters. And I remembered how dangerous the spar I had against Dael could have been for the spectators if I hadn't managed the debris that had been generated.

Surrounding the entire platform from floor to ceiling with reinforced glass would allow the fights to be seen while increasing the safety markedly. A door into the glass room, also made from glass, with a barrel hinge that allowed it to open inwards into the room.

For the seating I decided to surround the room with five rows of stadium-style seating, allowing the people in the back rows to easily see down into the fight. The whole setup would take up twenty two meters, which the floor could easily accommodate.

I had the whole thing planned by the time my thread portal made it down the two floors to where I wanted to set it up, and it was a simple matter of pulling stone from my Pocket Dimension through the portal and converting it to match the model.

I sent Chantelle a ping after I'd finished. I was pretty happy with how it had turned out. I was only seeing it through my power, but the seating was in a onyx black which contrasted with the brilliant white of the canvas flooring in the sparring room.

Chantelle arrived in the simulation thirty seconds later.

"Sorry about the delay." She said. "I was in the middle of testing a ward." She grimaced. "It didn't work."

She looked around the model, walking through the seating and the glass walls of the room to examine it thoroughly. She adjusted the simulation to take into account mana, which was just ambient at the moment.

"This is already built?" Chantelle asked. "On the third floor?"

"Yes." I said. "Is there a problem?"

"Well, you forgot to add lights." Chantelle said. "And assuming it's a fighting area you will want some strong physical wards on the glass barriers. I'm sure they're strong, but they won't do much to stop magical attacks."

Lights were easy to solve, I'd just make portals to my Pocket Dimension and have electrical lights. And while I was at it I could put in cameras to view and record the fights.

"Could you ward it?" I asked. "I was planning on having an official spar with Gaal."

"Sure, I could use a break from the difficult wards." Chantelle said.

It took me twenty minutes to set up the portals and lights so that the sparring room was well lit, and a few minutes more to set up the cameras. Chantelle was done in half of that time. I added an extra four cameras equally spaced around the outside of the room, which with the cameras above would give me a good three dimensional recording.

By this time my biological side had had more than eight hours of sleep, which was more than enough by my count, so I woke myself up. The grogginess of half of my consciousness was an odd feeling while my digital side was fine. Brutus was standing guard in the portal nexus room, despite there not being any external portals in the room at the moment, and the only reason the druid portal was in the room was so that the guards could move back through it. Otherwise it would be secured in its own portal room.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I headed towards Brutus, shifting the stone so I could step through into the room.

"Greetings my lord." Brutus said.

"Greetings Brutus." I said. "I made a dedicated sparring room. Does Gaal still want to have an official spar with me?"

"He does, and very much so, my lord." Brutus said. "I will have him informed that you are ready. Where is the sparring room?"

"On the floor below the Druid floor." I said. "And there is enough seating for two hundred and thirty humans. Some of the People are quite a bit bigger than a standard human, but there should be enough space for as many of them to watch as would be interested."

"Thank you my lord." Brutus said, then turned to Bala. "Go inform Gaal and Dael, then gather the rest guards and meet us at the sparring room."

Bala dipped his head and ran off through the portal. Brutus and I followed at a slower pace and went down the stairs to the utility floor. The sparring room was to the left of the stairs as we came out, light shining through the hallway that led between the black stone walls of the seats to the glass room.

We walked through and I opened the glass door into the room, stepping up the half meter onto the canvas inside, Brutus following me.

"Glass?" Brutus asked.

"Heavily reinforced, yes." I said. "And Chantelle warded it as well."

I stepped up to the wall and hit it, hard. There was a loud thump but no other response. I gestured for Brutus to take a shot. He considered it for a moment, then stepped up to the glass and lowered his horns until they were just touching it. He leaned into it and dragged his horns down the glass, which made a squeaking sound but was left unmarked. He nodded and then swung his fist into the glass, driving from his feet. The same loud thump.

"Strong." Brutus said. "Have you given any thought to the terms of the spar?"

"I hadn't." I said. "I don't mind, I don't have anything really new to test. I thought to have Gaal go all out and I will match him, meeting him head on."

"Hmm." Brutus said. "I would suggest an exhibition match then, magic allowed. It would go until one of the combatants acknowledges their defeat."

I nodded that that was fine. People had started arriving, starting with the guards, two boar men, two more ox men, and Gaal, the bear man. Brutus went to talk with Gaal, who nodded.

Dael, the deer person leader of the druids, arrived a few seconds later and stepped into the room to talk with Brutus and Gaal before coming over to me.

"Everyone is coming to watch." Dael said. "If you could wait to start until after they arrive?"

I nodded. A few minutes later the last of the beast people had arrived and Dael and Brutus left the room, closing the glass door behind them.

Gaal roared and extended both of his arms toward me. The base of his paws glowed with a golden light which flowed out to his claws, extending them into five centimeter long vicious blades. I wanted the match to be a good one, so while I was analysing everything from a sped up perspective it wasn't nearly as much as I had been doing in my fights lately. And I was pretty sure I could use my speed to outmatch him, too, but that wouldn't be any fun.

I walked slowly towards him, and he walked towards me. We met in the center of the room and Gaal swung down at me full force with one of his paws. I crossed my arms to block the strike, my left arm in front, and reinforced my arms as it hit. The force broke my left forearm and the claws tore down to bone before they came to a stop, leaving my right arm just bruised. I was thrown off my feet and into the glass wall seven meters away, rolling in the air to land feet first.

Gaal stayed in the center of the room, a look of concern on his face. A quick estimate told me that it would take me three seconds to repair my arm. And Gaal looked like he would give them to me.

But if I needed to take the time I may as well acknowledge my defeat. I took him much too lightly. I used my power to hold my arm together, compressing and stopping the bleeding. I took out my pocket portal and shaped it into a shield fifty centimeters wide, backed by stone within my Pocket Dimension.

I walked back into the center of the room and settled with my shield in front of me, inclining my head towards Gaal. He swung down with one of his claws again, but this time there was much less force behind it and it was moving slower. I pushed his strike away with my damaged left arm with the shield on it, redirecting it.

I stepped in towards him and slapped him in the face with my open right hand before stepping back again. He leant forward and roared in my face, swinging with both paws, one at my neck and the other at my stomach. The attacks were coming from either side and would arrive at the same time, so I stepped into the attack on my left, shifting my shield to take the attack in its center.

That attack stopped dead upon hitting my shield and I moved at nearly my maximum speed to do the same on my other side. I was stepping forward to hit him solidly with a palm strike to the solar plexus when a flash of red came from the pendant around my neck, followed by the sound of crashing glass.

The match deserved an ending, so I redirected my attack to hit him under the chin with just enough force to snap his head back without breaking any bones. I caught him as he collapsed to the floor.

Our wards were down again.