45th of Season of Air, 80th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt lost eight comrades to wise strategy in the three following battles. This included Rexheart, who won two fights before losing. Each time, Newt found himself forced to finish the matches personally. Seal scribes, in particular, had presented a challenge for him, but he endured and plowed through their tricks.

  After the moons he had spent learning and reading, he considered himself a master tier scribe even without an official badge, and deconstructing the complex spell seals he saw laid out before him was within his ability, allowing him to just barely eke out a victory.

  And even then, if it weren’t for his danger sense warning him of his opponent’s backstabs and invisible attacks, they probably would have defeated him.

  Assuming Newt hadn’t lost count, the scribes were their tenth opponents, and his team was about to face their eleventh battle.

  This is going to be the final fight, right? Newt estimated his mana reserve at around sixty percent. The scribes had drained him more than any other battle.

  As what remained of his team neared the battle-room, Newt wondered who he would meet in the second-place finale. Unexpectedly, his team’s opponents were two black-rated mageknights, five reds, four orange-reds, and nine orange ones.

  These guys lost the finals upstairs, and now we have to face their nearly full force here.

  Newt smiled. Dandelion had won, meaning even if he lost to the team before him, Newt was richer, and placing third in an event was his order’s new historical record.

  “You only need to defeat four, Big Brother,” Flare said.

  Newt chuckled. That meant two black-rated shadows and two darker reds. A rational part of him knew he should have let the seal scribes eliminate Flare, but the thought sat ill in his mind. Unlike the rest, she didn’t volunteer, and his path was one of protection. Deep down, using helpless allies as fodder conflicted with his nature.

  Flare stepped forward, as did one of the blacks. The person, it was impossible to say whether they were a man or a woman, held a sword. They had an athletic, lean build. Their hair was tied in a bun, and the outline of the sword they wielded appeared very common. Everything about Newt’s adversary spoke of average, save for their rating.

  The person saluted with their sword, and Flare returned the salute. Then the matronly voice announced the official start of the match. The battle ended in a blink. The swordmaster lunged and pierced Flare. She failed to react in time and disappeared from the arena without putting up resistance.

  Newt had carefully watched the attack and knew not even Rexheart stood a chance of dodging even when he was at his prime. With nothing else to do, he approached his opponent. He had tried to protect his brothers and sisters, but the rules of the challenge were against them and they stubbornly insisted on fighting, both to test their skills and to stop being a burden.

  The swordmaster waited patiently and saluted. Newt returned the gesture with his spear, and the match began. Just like against Flare, the swordmaster moved with impossible speed.

  Like a gale, they descended on Newt, slashing and thrusting, no regard for self-defense. Newt dodged and retreated, rock spikes covering the ground between them, but the swordmaster paid them no heed. They stepped on them, as light as a breeze, and Newt recognized an air element’s movement technique.

  The black silhouette was the master of the blade, Newt’s stabs and sweeps clumsy and easily dodged. The sword slashed for his throat, but struck Granite Crust, sending off sparks. Salamandra’s Skin burst with concentrated flames and consumed the black shade, but Newt had no way of knowing whether the shadow’s shield had deflected the fire as it jumped back.

  He landed heavily, and Newt pressed forward, slashing. The shadow rolled, its movement slow, and Newt hounded it, thrusting and sweeping. The shadow tried to parry the third blow, but covered in burns its blade slipped, and Newt’s glaive bit into its neck.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The shadow and its sword disappeared, and Newt stared in confusion.

  He was completely spent, out of mana. That’s why he couldn’t defend himself from my retaliatory flame.

  Newt stood in the ring, with the second black silhouette watching him. They waved their hand, and a red-rated warrior approached. The red was slimmer, their body petite, and Newt thought them a woman or a child too young to participate in the tournament.

  She saluted, and Newt returned the gesture before the battle started. She swept her sword ten feet away from Newt. Luckily for Newt, he summoned Granite Crust immediately. He sensed the danger a moment before the invisible blade struck, but there was no avoiding it.

  A crescent of compressed air struck his defense, and the outer crust cracked, the layered defense’s second scales stopping the blow. The woman swept her sword again and again, hitting Newt thrice before he recovered. He charged towards her, fiery blasts propelling him forward, but she fled, sweeping her sword and shooting invisible crescents at him.

  After the third charge, Newt realized he couldn’t catch her. She’s wasting my mana.

  Newt stopped, understanding his opponents’ strategy. The black would send two reds to exhaust his mana, then finish him off. That made chasing after the air-attributed mageknight a losing proposition. He would waste too much energy even if he caught her, which was not guaranteed.

  Newt stopped, but the woman pelted him with attacks, standing just outside his reach. Her position meant to goad him, her barrage exhausting his mana on defenses.

  Defense is more economical in terms of resources. A portion of her energy disperses as the attack travels, and she doesn’t hit with the entire surface of her attack, meaning there’s waste there as well.

  Pressurized air sliced at Newt’s defenses as he thought. The duel was an exchange of mana. At best, she was burning thrice the energy Newt had to waste on his defenses; at worst, the ratio was five to two. Meaning if she started with her full energy, which was unlikely, she could hammer Newt down to ten percent of his total reserve.

  The battle will drag out, and if she’s the one with the most mana, she will exhaust me. After several moments of consideration, Newt made his choice.

  Confuse Senses exploded, and he sprinted after the woman. The sudden noise and blindness disoriented her long enough for Newt to stab her and win the match, but his next opponent would expect the technique. The only question was whether they would manage to exhaust him.

  The battle had drained five percent of his reserve, so, even in the most unfavorable scenario, Newt would have five percent of energy left for the battle against the leader and win the second place.

  The next battle was as annoying as Newt had expected. The opponent was on the lookout for Confuse Senses, and Newt made two dozen feints by outstretching his hand as if he was unleashing a technique, the blades of air missing him, and the rest of the time, he struggled to dodge, the end result being a victory at the cost of fifteen percent of his reserve.

  The black silhouette approached, calm and steady. Newt watched them, wondering about the state of their mana reserve. They had lost on the upper track, and if anyone fought, it was the two black-rated warriors. Has the newcomer fought until the point of exhaustion like their comrade, or did they lose in an instant?

  Newt could only guess. One thing was for certain - he couldn’t allow a black-rated warrior to hit him as they pleased, regardless of whether their ranged attacks could pierce his defense.

  The two combatants saluted each other, and the duel began. The black shade leaped at Newt, and Newt jumped back. There was no unnatural swiftness; the opponent was trying to get inside Newt’s defenses, to neutralize his advantage and capitalize on their own. And yet, something about the situation was off.

  They aren’t using their mana to move, and they know I can and will retaliate with fire when they strike me. If they have no mana, they would immediately lose. No, they have enough for a shield, and one attack, which they believe will break through my defenses.

  No! Don’t be too confident, they might have a larger reserve of mana.

  Newt fought conservatively. He retreated, barely holding out before the onslaught, the opponent outclassing him in skill and speed. Newt’s body was powerful, but he still lacked training and experience, losing ground where he should have been winning it.

  A few dozen seconds into the duel, Newt realized he would lose if he kept hoarding mana. It was his biggest advantage, and by his calculations, the duel should be their final match.

  The swordsman lunged again, and Newt lashed out with his fist even as he retreated. A wave of fire shot from Newt’s fist, expanding and turning into a screen. Newt’s previous two opponents would have dodged, relying on superior movement techniques, but they had mana to spare, the black shade did not.

  The shade jumped to the side, their flight too swift for something which relied on muscle alone. Newt unleashed another wave of fire, then another. The fifteenth struck the shade, and they disappeared. Newt could not recall the last battle in which he had wasted so much mana when the wall opened before him, sweeping away the thought.

  There’s more?