I opened my eyes.

I was back in the courtyard of ascension, or ascension courtyard (whatever it was called), with both my life and face intact.

I felt my body shiver slightly. Having my face melted off was not the most pleasant of experiences, to say the least.

‘That guy was scary and scarily powerful. Is that the power of a Predom? I couldn’t do anything against him.’ I thought in fear and amazement.

’I do not want to meet that guy ever again.’

I looked around, spotting the soldier on the wall, his giant bow nocked and ready, pointed in my direction.

‘I do not want to be impaled by that arrow again either.’

Looking at his fingers, I saw them twitch ever so slightly, and on instinct, I jumped back.

The arrow landed with a sharp thunk at my feet, impaling the stone floor and sending small bits of debris into my eyes.

“Do not move, intruder!” The soldier yelled down at me.

Ignoring him, I rubbed my eyes and tried to calculate the best course of action.

‘After a few more shots the Cardinals will arrive and surround me, killing me without a doubt. I need a way to survive, and to do that I have to make that situation not occur. Judging by the fact that they teleported directly in a way to surround me, I would wager a guess that they somehow know my direct location in space. If so, there is no possible way for me to escape their encirclement. The only way for me to survive is to either fight back and win, or do what happened last time and fall unconscious. I would rather not be stuck in a cell waiting to be slaughtered, so falling unconscious is not an option. So, the only option is to fight back against them. But how? They have numbers and proper gear, and superpowers to boot. I also supposedly have superpowers, but I don’t know how to use them. Winning against them in a fight seems incredibly unlikely.’

Jumping backwards to dodge another arrow shot at me from the soldier, I looked around the courtyard for more options.

‘If I stand against a wall they wouldn’t be able to surround me on all sides and I would have a slightly higher chance of winning. But I would still die. The only thing I can think of is somehow managing to figure out how to use magic before they arrive and teleporting myself out of here. Even though mastering teleportation in a few seconds feels impossible, I would never know unless I gave it a shot.’

Deciding on a strategy, I ran towards the closest wall to me (the one on my left) and tried to get the magic within me to work. It wasn’t working.

‘Doing magic is harder than I expected.’ I thought as I reached the wall.

Suddenly, the world snapped, and twenty armored men appeared around me in a half-circle, each of them holding a longsword pointed in my direction.

I closed my eyes as the closest one to me took a step forward.

With a slick slice, I felt my head get cleanly severed from my body, and the world turned black.

____

I opened my eyes.

I was, once more, standing alive and well in the center of the courtyard.

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“Well, that didn’t work.” I said aloud.

‘Attempting to beat them in battle seems to be an exercise in futility. I need another solution.’ I thought to myself.

I looked up at the wall where the soldier stood, raising his loaded bow in my direction.

‘I just realized, this is the fourth loop that I am stuck in a weird state of calm. Why is that? Also, I was able to easily dodge that arrow in the last loop, while in all the others, doing so was a difficult task. Is that because of the magic blood stuff injected into me?’

I dodged backwards as the soldier released the arrow, watching as it blurred through the air before thudding into the ground in front of my feet, causing small bits of debris to fly towards my face. This time, I held a hand in front of my face, protecting my eyes from being blinded.

“Do not move, intruder!” The soldier yelled down at me. I ignored him once more.

‘The only way to win this fight is to fight fire with fire. I need to be able to use magic. But how? They are obviously more experienced than me, and also seem to have more magic power than me. Experience can be gained through trial and error, the only thing missing is magic power. How do I gain more magic?’

I scoured the courtyard, before spotting the weirdly shaped button that had injected me with the blood of Duke Craitor.

‘Aha, it’s obvious. I just need to press the button again and gain more magic blood. Didn’t Clarence talk about pure bloods? It’s obvious that if all of your blood is the weird magic type, then you are able to use magic more easily. I’m also guessing that only pure bloods are able to advance beyond Cardinal, since Clarence said that to become a Cardinal you need to be injected with the blood of a Predom, not Cardinal, and if so, it means that to properly become a Cardinal you can’t just have random Cardinal blood injected within you, you need Predom blood, meaning you need it of a higher purity and quality. Being at the higher rank of Predom probably gives the higher quality, and being a pure blood gives the purity. Of course, I’m just guessing, I can’t know for sure without learning more about it. And what better way to learn than first hand experience?’

I moved to the left, dodging another arrow from the soldier, and then ran towards the button on the wall.

As I reached it, the world snapped, and the Cardinals appeared around me.

Moving quickly, I slapped my right hand onto the button, just in time for the same Cardinal from before to swing his sword through my neck.

I felt a sharp pain, and the world turned black.

____

I opened my eyes.

I was standing in the center of the courtyard, my head back on my shoulders.

I felt a tickling sensation and looked down at my right hand. In the center of my palm I saw a light blue liquid squirm beneath the skin.

Suddenly, my brain felt like it was melting and curling in on itself, and my flesh felt as if it were being bitten up by millions of ants.

I screamed and fell to the floor, rolling around to try to ease the pain.

After a few seconds, the pain started to subside, and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

Suddenly, my head was hit hard by a sharp impact, and the world turned black.

____

I opened my eyes.

I was back in the courtyard, my head free of any injury.

‘I don’t get it. Why didn’t I fall unconscious like last time I was injected? Is it because I already had some of the magic blood within me? Whatever the case, the pain I felt from that was nearly on par with the pain of the face melting death. Thus, I’m not sure if I want to do that again, cause that was terrible. I just hope that it was worth it.’ I thought.

I flexed my fingers.

I sure didn’t feel any different.

I looked up at the soldier on the wall and saw him release the arrow from his giant bow.

Surprisingly, I was able to track the arrow with my eyes as it moved through the air. It wasn’t slow by any means, but it wasn’t a blur anymore.

I jumped backwards slightly and watched it as it landed with a thud in front of my feet, the impact causing small bits of debris to fly towards my face.

I was able to see every small piece of rock flying towards me, and I jumped backwards again, dodging the debris completely.

‘What the heck, my perception is insane now. I can also move at higher speeds. I guess the second injection really did work.’

I looked back up at the soldier on the wall as he stared at me open mouthed, a tinge of fear flitting across his features.

Suddenly, I felt a sort of heat begin to grow within me, waiting to be released. Deciding to see what would happen, I let it.

Something blue and bright shot out of my hand at an incredibly high speed and hit the soldier on the wall right in the chest.

He looked down at the hole in his stomach, his face crumpling into a cloddish frown.

I watched as he fell forward off the wall, landing with a light thud on the ground a few meters in front of me.

‘What the fuck! Did I just kill that guy!’ I thought in alarm.

Suddenly, the world snapped, and the twenty Cardinals appeared around me.

“What did you do?” The one closest to me asked in an aggressive tone, raising his sword and pointing it at my neck.