“Our Hero, it might be a bit sudden but I’m afraid we can’t stay here any longer.”
“What are you talking about?” without caring about my response, the old man this time swing his rod around, making a symbol of circle in the air above me.
“My preparation is complete. Young man, don’t bite your tongue.” Just a moment ago I was in my village watching the various stall during Harvest Festival, now the scenery in front of me has changed into that of clear blue sky decorated with a white fog that I recognized as a cloud.
The air pressure is pushing me up yet the force of the planet is pulling me down, those contradicting force result in a bit of dizziness on my part. That old man must be a grand wizard! Only someone of that caliber could teleport someone far away into high altitude of the sky. No never mind that! How could I survive this fall!?!? Maybe I’m lucky if I fall down on ocean so I look down only to be greeted by the sight of land that I’m too high above to recognize.
“Lesson one young hero.” A voice ring inside my head, it must be the old wizard doing! “Oh yeah before that, don’t bother replaying me by talking, you’ll only bite your tongue talking in this altitude. Instead just think of your response, we will communicate telepathically”
“And ehmmm.... As I was saying before lesson one. You have graduated from a random young man into a young novice hero. You must be wondering right on how to use your newfound magic ability right?”
Ability? I never thought about it. Just tell me on how to survive this fall. I think aloud while looking around, searching for the wizard appearance which I haven’t seen. “Don’t bother searching me, I cast invisibility spell just before this.” Damn it!
“Now... now... don’t be so hasty young hero. There is a reason I made you face this ordeal. You see normally to use their first spell an apprentice mage needed a year of practice to attain the right state of mind but as always there is a shortcut to everything. Have you noticed yet? Your pupil become dilated, your heart increased its rhythm, and the substance inside your body is flowing faster than before. During dangerous situation, our body will automatically enter a trance state, a state of mind where you are focused more than ever in your life.”
He is right, I must have fall really quickly yet somehow I perceive the time around me slower than before. I can notice the color of the bird that just so happen to pass my falling trajectory, I can find a black thunderous cloud among the sea of white cloud.
“So you do understand. Magic is limited to the imagination of its user. You are someone of rare magic attribute, the time magic, so imagine yourself, what would you do to survive this fall with your time magic.” What would I do.......
If I manipulate the time of my falling the it won’t help as I will still fall from dangerous height then the time that I should manipulate is not mine but those of others. I look down once more and the terrain before me become more clearer as I become closer to my death.
“What are you doing young hero? What are you waiting for? You’ll die like a pig if you choose to do nothing.” Shhh... quiet, I’m nearly on my target.
I focused my eyes and shift the trajectory of my fall into a sea of tree, a forest. As my trajectory become clearer to the point that any curvature in my trajectory is irrelevant, I watch the tree below me and I imagined that young tree growing to a hundred of years later. I imagine the tree to become one gargantuan living things where its trunk is higher than the king castle. As I focused my attention, a white light is shining in the tree, forcefully transforming it into a gigantic flora. Just in the right time, the leave too have grown plentiful and stacked on top of each other, turning it into a soft cushion for my landing.
Ouch! Indeed my landing is safe but the air pressure from falling has left several brushes on my body. Worst of all that damn wizard still lock my ability to talk. Where is he now anyway?
“Miss me aren’t you? I assume that means you are ready for the second ordeal,” Wait no! “And here we go!” The old wizard make circle in the air once again. This time the scenery in front of me change from those of forest into a place filled with watching eye.
A circular structure with many people cheering and announcer giving hype. On the centre of it fighters were made to slaughter each other. That must be it, he teleported me into a middle of gladiator fight in capital city!
“What do you think young hero? Surely fighting those finalist from the brutal gladiator sport is a good exercise before trying to save the world.” Did he say finalist? Oh, I’m done. Even the bottom barrel of gladiator fighter has enough physical power to kill average person in a swift manner and now I’m standing facing the two finalist.
“Hmmm.... What is that? A stray human just appeared from the thin air!?” The announcer seems rightfully confused by my appearance “Guards, take him outside, we can’t have the final fight be delayed any longer.” Thanks god, finally a sensible person, if the guard take me outside, I don’t need to do this stupid ordeal.
“And you are calling yourself a combat auteur when all you want to watch is scripted fight with predictable outcome.” Wait that’s not me! But that voice is my voice! The old wizard took my ability to speak and use synthetic voice that resemble mine to provoke the announcer! “Why don’t we spice things up dear audience? How ‘bout this 2 on 1 fight with no rule and no restriction until one party declared defeat. Those pansy fighter in your playground game is not sufficient even if both are finalist but come to me anyway, I’ll fight you both.” Noooooooo!
“It seems we are being underestimated here.” The one who speaks is one of the finalist, part of the mer folk species, a muscular man from samebito race, half shark and half humanoid. He bring a trident in his hand which if I recall is a traditional weapon among sea creature.
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‘Crack’ ‘crack’ the sound of those bare knuckle bone is loud enough to be mistaken as dull weapon. The source of that sound is a fighter of tigrecentaur, with the leg of those of horse, having the body of humanoid yet retain the appearance of fierce jungle tiger while having two extra arms from its hybridization. This other finalist seems to fight with his barehand. “This kid, he just came here and decided to be annoying. Are you with me Vorge?”
“Indeed our rivalry can wait until later, Ashura. What we need to do first is...” the samebito took stance with his trident “let’s teach this pretentious fucker of what it means to ridicule the holy place of fighter.” In response Vorge, the tigrecentaur also took martial art stance.
I’m finished. Retreating is out of option and even though that old wizard is able to use magic at expert level, I’m sure he won’t help me. “That’s right young hero. After all it won’t be much of an ordeal if I blast them with fireball from their blind spot.” It’s good that my guess is right but you really are useless. “Ouch, that’s hurt to hear. Look I may not help you directly but I can give you advice and such.” Still better than nothing I guess.
After the instant conversation I have in my mind, I take a stance too. Not a strong or particularly good stance as I don’t have experience fighting unarmed and this stance is merely worse reproduction of the one I saw in painting years ago.
“To all of our audience, this may seems sudden but both finalist have declared their consent to this fight. And so The bonus final round may begin!” With that signal from the announcer, a gong is beaten.
“Let’s use the sure kill tactic.” Said Ashura, Volgen nod in agreement.
Ashura leapt upon me, launching all the four arms in sequence as a barrage at me. I step back trying to avoid it but with the acceleration made from his horse body, my body is not fast enough to react to his attack. “Lesson two my young hero,” Now of all time! “As you can see your body reflex is those of bad quality compared to one who fought in battle. Before during the fall you’ve decided that using time magic on other things is the way to solve the situation, at that time you’ve decided using it on yourself is folly attempt but now the situation is different. Why don’t you try applying it? I recommend for you to especially apply it to your brain before doing it to other part of your body.” My brain? I don’t really understand but it’s not like I have a choice.
In an instant as I imagine it, a light shine at my brain, what I imagine at that time is... Forward... faster.
The eight consecutive punch combo. From the right, from the left, up, down, diagonally, there is no blind spot to be had, not to mention side stepping is impossible considering with his leg power Ashura can change his trajectory faster than his enemy move. But it’s all so slow, not only the punch, the cheering from audience have also become slower. “Excellent. What you have done here is increasing the perception of time of your brain can handle into a bit faster than normal. That fist may look slow but I can assure you getting hit by those will give you enough concussion to make you sleep for 3 whole days.” Wait if I comprehend the world faster and thereby able to move faster than everyone perception, how are you able to talk with me like this? “Ah ,a magician never reveal all his trick. More importantly try looking behind you, a bit to the left.” It was Vorge thrusting his trident. “You see these champion is no mere chump. With just a single glance both are able to make a tactic, a pincer attack on this case. Ashura punch combo is normally able to take down average fighter but on the off chance that his opponent able to dodge it, Vorge with his mastery of trident is ready to kill the opponent from the attack blind spot.”
I see that the trident nearly hit me had I step back a bit more. So all I need to do is to try dodging the punch and the trident simultaneously. I tried jumping my way out of the attack but my body just doesn’t move. Oi old man, tell me what happen here, why can’t I move my body now. “Spoiling the fun is not my style so how about if you try focusing you magic to move your body then we’ll see what happen from there.” What a shady answer, still his advice is actually logical. I imagine my muscle and my bone moving in this accelerated world of perception. At some moment I feel a tingling then it finally moved. I kick my leg up forward trying to dodge the pincher attack, normally this will fling myself forward at a not so much distance but somehow I fling myself to the air!
I kick my leg up, a sounds of torn can be heard and even though it sounds somewhat familiar, I choose to voluntarily ignore it in fear of the implication. The force from my leg makes my body float into the air where I slowly fall down. Isn’t it kinda bad? The old wizard doesn’t give me any warning so I do hope nothing is wrong. As my leg slowly touch the arena, starting from my foot to my hip, the force from the ground bend it into a shape that shouldn’t happen. The finger on my foot are about to burst out, a protruding bone can be seen on some spot, and blood is spilling from the crack of my skin. I scream in pain “AAARARARHGH!!!!” but the sounds I heard is fainter than my normal voice.
Only then during that excruciating moment of pain I realize, that the wizard must not be able to keep up with my speed, that’s why I haven’t got a new message and my mouth can be used again. Ignoring my pain for a moment, making my eyes looking away to the top away from my leg, I imagine my magic stop and as time get back to normal, I scream “I give up! Please don’t hurt me! I’m sorry for anything I’ve said before! I give up!”
A pathetic sight that I will remember for the rest of my life. Crowd throwing rotten egg and sewer water at me as the gladiator staff dragged me out without caring about my injury. During the way everytime my leg step into the ground and I scream in pain, the old wizard would laugh at me “What a hero you are. Running away from your very first fight.” Hey! At least I survive, that’s gotta be count for something.
Finally outside the gladiator arena, the announcer secretly approached me and whisper “Hey kids you did good entertaining the crowd back then. Here, a token of my gratitude,” He handed me a purse. “Oh and I see you got potential surviving the champion attack, next time if you want to enter the gladiator legally then just call me all right.” Then he leaved me there alone with the wizard on the street of the capital.
I checked the purse and what a surprise, a considerable amount of lyres is inside it. Bless The Great Typhon, after all this, I have enough capital to rent a room in tavern and relax for once. “Nuh uh,” what do you mean by that, explain now! “Remember how you recklessly broke that leg and I with caring heart heal it in an instant afterward?” You mean after I was forced to walk on that broken leg and being kicked out to the street? “Same thing. My point is... nothing comes free and so...” No! This is mine, besides you also take back my ability to talk after I declared giving up! I clutched the purse of lyres in my hand as strong as I can. “Good grip young hero but amateurish.” Even though I can’t see the old wizard, I can hear the knock of his rod and in a moment the purse disappeared. “You see these lyres will be used as registration fee for the adventurer guild, you must be excited right finally slaying monster and saving princess.” Ugh! Fine! Fine! I will play the hero part if you forced me like that, just answer me this one question. “Anything my young hero.” Where will we sleep tonight since you say those lyres are going to be used as registration fee. “What nonsense are you spouting? A true hero can sleep anywhere be it the luxurious room of royalty or the stinkiest underground sewerage system, a tavern on your early journey is nothing but needless luxury.” I cry hearing that statement. Mother, father, just how long will this wizard stop torturing me!