Chapter Sixteen 

I had been quite enjoying myself, so far. There had been several contestants that had little to offer by way of interesting techniques or applications of magic, but some others... well, there had been plenty of displays of less-than-clever magic used in entirely wrong ways that somehow succeeded. 

There was another thing. I had been monitoring the magical emissions of the fighters below, ‘tasting it’ as it were, for any familiar scents. There were still plenty of my phylacteries missing out there. I wasn’t concerned with finding them with any alacrity, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t at least try.

My main goal was still seeing interesting magics, though.

I wouldn’t let anyone know, but I may have pressed a bony finger on the scales. There was a long, well-worded contract at the centre of the tournament, and there was a small carve-out in it that essentially allowed a discerning judge (myself) to make choices to favour one competitor or another in the case of a tie or other events.

‘Other events’ carried a lot of room. 

I may have used light, subtle applications of Minor Illusion or Healing Word to keep the more creative competitors in the running. They’d never have the chance to show off everything they had worked on if they died in the very first round! 

Besides, I never did it if the fight was clearly one-sided. Really, I was saving the loser the pain of losing later.

Or something like that. I was an undead lich, I didn’t need to moralize or make up excuses for doing what I did. 

So far, I hadn’t been too impressed, but it was still worth it. A few neat tricks picked up here and there likely didn’t seem like much, but when one had spent several thousand years studying something to master it to the best of one’s abilities, a few new tricks was like discovering uncut diamonds in your daily bread, an uncommonly rare and precious occurrence. 

That, and I was learning more from how the people of this age fought without having to stand across from them on the battlefield.

“Are you having fun, Master?” the limpet asked.

I turned and glanced over to her. Young Miss Cinder had just concluded her own bout. She had not used anything too impressive, but then, nor had her adversary. She had swept in with surprising speed and had overwhelmed her foe with several waves of poisonous gas, some physical, others conjured through a variation of a spell I knew. Then she had finished them off with a few well-placed needles, likely coated with a powerful soporific and aimed at precise pressure points. Her foe had ended up on the ground, drained, dazed, and put to sleep against their will.

“I am,” I said. “I have learned a fair bit already. This event has been worthwhile already.”

“Really”?” the Limpet asked. “Because... well, this wasn’t cheap. And the main prize... honestly, it’s a lot. I’m kind of surprised that no one has tried to steal it yet.”

I chuckled. “It’s not a physical item. It’s spellwork. They’re welcome to try to steal it from my mind if they wish.”

“Oh,” the Limpet said. “I suppose that would be... something. Honestly, this has been going too well.”

I reached over and quickly pressed a bony hand over the Limpet’s head, stopping her cold for a moment. “Don’t,” I said.

“Don’t?” she asked. “Don’t... what, Master?”

“Don’t tempt faith like that. The gods of faith may well be dead, but that doesn’t mean that some of their ancient contingencies aren’t yet in place.”

“There are gods of faith?” the Limpet asked.

“Were. In any case, don’t push it if you can avoid it. Bad things can always happen, it is your duty as leader to prepare yourself and your underlings to work around those negative consequences.”

“Right! I understand, Master,” the Limpert said with a quick bob of her head. 

I nodded in return. I had quite the good test subject here. 

I returned my attention to the arena floor as two new contestants walked into place. One of them was exuding enough cold magical energy that even from up here I could tell that they were a mage of some sort entirely dedicated to frost magic. Across from them was an unassuming man in slightly rumpled robes who had the look of someone who had just walked across a country without pause or much bathing.

“Hailing from the lands far to the north of the Lightning Gate, Wang Peng, the Tomb Cold takes his place on the eastern platform! And hailing from... nowhere in particular, the Unwise Sage.”

I leaned back as the stage was prepared. One side filled with ankle-deep water which quickly froze over. A few magical effects from the stage preparation crew had snow falling down across that half of the arena. The crowd appreciated it.

The other half filled in with grass over dirt, turning into an open plain with a few little patches of flowers to break up the plain greenness of it all. 

“Let this battle... begin!”

Wang Peng moved immediately, sweeping across the battlefield and carrying a tide of shifting snows with them. Then he spun around and flung their arms out. Ah, Ray of Frost, a classic, but adjusted to be a wider cone. 

The monk casually moved to the side, narrowly avoiding the ray which turned a wedge of grass into frosted-tipped blades. 

The monk avoided a second spell, a Cone of Cold, then ducked and weaved out of the ice mage’s attempts to stab him with an ice-covered blade. “Man, you’re real frost-trating, you know?” the Unwise Monk said.

I chuckled. Frost-trating! That was a new one!

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a little hot-blooded for someone that uses so many ice-based attacks?” the Unwise Monk asked. 

I was starting to see why he was named such. His innocent question was a taunt, and the ice mage played right into it.

“I will end you! You’ll be a mere stepping stone on my journey to the top!”

“Wow, those kinds of anger issues are snow joke,” the Unwise Monk said. Then he leapt up and out of the path of another Cone of Cold. “I see that I’m not getting you to thaw. Did I annoy you?”

“You insult me!”

“Yeah, a little, but a good cultivator would let that kind of thing slip... like on ice. Heh! Oh, wow, don’t be so cold-hearted. I mean, not that it matters, you keep missing. Are you even cryo-lified to be fighting at this level?”

“I will freeze your very soul!” Wang Peng screamed.

The Unwise Sage sighed, then slipped into the cultivator’s guard and delivered a quick, hard punch to his solar plexus. He went flying back, gagging on nothing even before he rolled across the grassy field. Still, he was up on his feet soon enough, even if it was with a wobble.

“You really have sub-zero grace,” the Unwise Sage said. “I think this is the part where things start to... snowball out of your control.”

The crowd boo’d, because they were uneducated peasants who didn’t know the true art of wordplay even as it was laid out before them. I, however, was rather appreciative. 

Some of those where bad. Bad in the same way that a typhoon was bad, or a volcanic eruption. Bad, but not powerless.

“M-master, are you giggling?” the Limpet asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied with a casual wave of dismissal. “I am merely enjoying myself.”

“Oh... why is that so scary?”

“Because you know better.”

***