Chapter 3 Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

“Feels like some gladiator movie.” Erik grinned, shaking his body and twisting to wake himself up. “Let’s do this.”

He jogged up the ramp, coming into the arena. The size of it struck him first. It was a kilometer wide, a full circle, and the ground was made of rough stone.

There was not one person in the thousands of surrounding stands.

Opposite Erik, a man teleported in through a formation. He had gold and red tattoo lines that ran down his forehead, around his eyes and down his chin. He wore a casters robe without any head protection, making his scowl clear to Erik as he walked across the arena.

Stone rose around him, crushed sand-fine as the air distorted with heat.

Erik advanced warily towards him, circulating his mana and elements.

“Begin!” a voice called.

Erik jumped to his side out of instinct. Glass blades tore a line through where he had been standing, exploding and releasing a fierce heat. Twin whips of shards, like a spine, tore through the floor.

He drew on his elements, his body changing as he rushed forward.

“Stay still, you rat, I don’t have time to waste on Association fighters,” the man spat.

Erik was hit from behind as the whip that had crashed into the ground, reformed and struck him like a train.

His fire resistance saved him. He hit the ground and rolled and punched out with his fists, empowering his body and smashing the shards of flame and sand. He destroyed those in his path, more filling the space in seconds.

His opponent compressed glass and stone together to form spears, turning around and shooting towards Erik.

He rolled to the side, feeling the spears slam into where he had been, the air crackled with mana. Erik extended the ground beneath his feet, throwing himself upward as he jumped, flinging himself to the side.

He compressed the mana around his body, cutting through the air. Blue flames shot from his hands and legs to increase speed.

A forest of spikes appeared around the pillar he had thrown himself up with.

The man removed his hands from behind his back. “You might have some skill. Let me test out some of what your school has so kindly taught me. Thank you for the dust.” The ground cracked and exploded, turning into an expanding dust field so thick as to make it impossible to see through and five meters tall.

“Oh, fuck.”

Glass shards shot out of the dust field, like diamond rain, deadly and in the wrong direction.

Erik rolled, using his legs and arms like a sky diver. A plan formed in his mind. He didn’t look forward as he sent out a blast of lightning, tearing apart glass shards and clearing a hole in the dust field. He threw himself to the side as glass appendages, like scorpion tails, lashed out at him.

Shards hit Erik in the side, the force of the blow causing them to explode and throw him sideways, scorpion tails lashed out at him.

The dust cleared a path between Erik and the man above, who raised his hands. Erik sensed the mana streaking towards the mage, crushing another spell construct. He waited for his opening and reached out with the Earth Element, resonating with it.

The mage yelled. Erik threw himself to the side and pulled on the Earth element, breaking the mage’s connection, throwing dust and glass everywhere. Erik cast silence on himself, disappearing among the cloud.

He moved erratically as meteors cut through the cloud, hitting where he had been.

“What? Where are you!”

Erik saw the world in a makeup of elements and mana, no cloud could obscure his vision.

He weaved through the smoke, coming in at an angle as the mage trying to take control over the dust and glass cloud.

There! Erik burst out of the dust, just meters from the man whose smirk turned into a look of surprise. Channelling a meteor mid-cast, he tried to stop the casting. Erik drew in mana and elements through his body, illuminating him in yellow, red, and silver. He focused on his fist as he smashed it into the man’s barrier. It went from clear to yellow, bronze, and then black as the man shot away, using spells to arrest his movement. Buzzers went off ending the fight.

“What, no, that’s—”

“Please step upon one of the teleportation formations,” the same voice from inside the waiting room commanded them. A sound dampening field cutting off Erik’s opponent.

The caster rushed forward, gathering a spell. A spider shaped golem shot out of the ground. Wrapping around the caster and forcibly cancelling his spell.

The caster’s face paled with the spell backlash.

“Please step upon one of the nearby teleportation formations,” the waiting room voice repeated.

Must be a robot or some Ten Realms version of it.

Erik walked towards the nearest formation, drinking a stamina potion. The destruction around the arena was fading. A ripple ran through the ground and evidence of the fight disappeared entirely.

Erik clicked his tongue. “Going to need to do better.” What kind of freaks are there in Avegaaren if that was the weakest of them?

The formation’s light covered him as he started replaying the fight in his mind.

***

“You’ll be back sooner than you think, be like a vacation from this place,” Kujo Hikokie said, trying to comfort his brother as they walked through the formation plaza.

Ujisuke sighed. “Easy for you to say, I have to wait four months before I can apply for another admission fight.”

“You had him, your spells and blade technique were on point, it was that weapon he used. Never seen anything like it before. At least you’ll know how to deal with it in the future.”

“The weapons and the arrow had their own formations, and they were layered with spells.”

Ujisuke was several years younger than Hikokie but he had made it into Avegaaren already, a prodigy of the Kujo family.

“Look, I’ll keep an eye out for you. You have plenty to train on, and you won’t even need to go to classes. I’m jealous,” Hikokie said.

“Are you ready to depart?” a Proctor asked.

“Come on, now you have someone to beat in the future. Make sure you train well,” Hikokie said, hoping to calm his brother and not get him in trouble with the Proctor.

It took all Ujisuke’s power of will to just sigh. “Look after yourself brother. See you in four months.”

Hikokie patted him on the shoulder as the Proctor guided him to the formation. They disappeared in light and Hikokie turned his eyes back to the two men, the one that had defeated his brother and the other that had defeated the glass mage.

He’d arrogantly declared that his sect was better than the Imperium. Like all of the sects rabble he had lost his position as fast as he gained it.

Different groups in the realms sent people to Avegaaren, to better themselves was part of it, but they were also hoping to take their teachings and pass it on to the rest of their people to create a power that could compete with the Associations.

They didn’t care for the ten realms, just their own greed.

The glass mage had barely got into the academy, even with all of his sect’s resources, and being the most promising fighter of the younger generation.

Hikokie looked at the two new students talking together and heading deeper into the academy. He pressed down his anger at the sight of the one that had defeated his brother. They didn’t wear clan or sect symbols, they didn’t wear any association medallions or markers either.

I wonder where these two came from?