49th of Season of Air, 80th year of the 32nd cycle

  Finally, after waiting half an hour in the bushes, Newt could move again. He skulked through the jungle for a handful of minutes, carrying four flags in his hand, when he saw three flags planted in the ground, their owner nowhere to be seen.

  Newt focused on his mindcore, closing his eyes. The forest was over-saturated with mana, he knew that already, but by removing information gained through eyesight, he could tell just how much. The image cleared, the flows of mana growing better defined, highlighting a bunch of bushes two dozen yards to the left of the flags with turbulent mana around them as if waves crashing against the rock.

  Newt couldn’t see the person’s outline, or any direct evidence of their existence, save for the fact that the natural flow of mana changed as it ran into an obstacle. Another, much larger disturbance existed around the flags, giving Newt the feeling of a beast ready to strike inside a solid fortress of mana.

  Newt opened his eyes and stalked the hunter, moving through the bushes while making as little noise as possible. The moons he had spent skulking in a higher realm portion of Summersweald showed their benefit for the first time.

  He squished a twig beneath his foot and tensed. Fortunately, the slender branch sank into the moist soil rather than snapping. Newt still stood frozen, waiting for any sign of his prey noticing him, then moved forward.

  The young woman wore the golden robes of the Diamondsouls, which blended in surprisingly well with the surroundings. Newt scanned the area once more for any strange mana phenomena and found nothing suspicious. He readied himself mentally, then struck like a viper. The glaive speared the woman’s chest, and she disappeared, her flags clattering to the ground.

  Newt looked around once more, and with nothing out of the ordinary, stepped into the clearing and collected the flags.

  The first one he took disappeared. It fused with his starting flag, along with the rest he had collected, and his starting flag changed. Newt looked up as the haft in his hand grew thicker. The cloth itself widened, a number five appearing inside his order’s colors.

  After taking a moment to adjust, Newt found the concept practical, and yet when he gathered the remaining two flags, they didn’t merge with the others to form a ‘seven’ flag, and Newt still had to carry three of them.

  He wondered about the peculiarity, then advanced with care. The air was still, but wind rustled the leaves above, a sound Newt hadn’t noticed while waiting for his half an hour of stillness to pass. Newt looked up and saw rays of light passing through the disturbed canopy.

  I’m not imagining it, this realm looks more real now than it did when the challenge started.

  He stopped, considering the matter as he closed his eyes and scanned the surrounding flows of mana. After seeing no localized disturbances, he advanced quietly, stopping every hundred paces or so to check his surroundings.

  The increased mana sensitivity after the Soul Waterfall’s tempering is so worth the moon I spent fixing up deformed seals.

  He smiled, then moved a bush’s branches and kept stalking.

  Two minutes later, instead of an ambusher, he found a handsome young man wearing a bluish-white robe rimmed with blue so dark it was almost black. Newt considered an ambush, but it seemed distasteful against an opponent who openly traversed the jungle in search of a challenge.

  So, he stepped out of the shrubs. The young man froze, but seeing Newt just stand there, he nodded in acknowledgement.

  “I am the Swordpeak family’s retainer Sailingcloud, friends call me Sal.” He stabbed his flags into the ground. Newt glanced at them, noting that Sal had gathered twelve points.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Sailingcloud.” The man smiled at Newt’s address. “Explorer’s Gate’s Newstar, friends call me Newt.”

  “Likewise, Newstar. You fought well in the first event. It was a pleasure to spar with you. Let’s see if I will fare better in a more natural environment.” Sailingcloud drew his sword and saluted Newt, who returned the gesture with his glaive.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The two stood facing each other for a heartbeat. Both young men had smiles dancing about their lips, no hint of fear or nervousness, then they lunged at each other like one. The sword flashed, but a glaive met it. Sailingcloud twisted his wrist, the blade following it and sneaking out of Newt’s lock to slide down the glaive’s haft.

  Flames pulsed from Newt’s blade, but the swordmaster somersaulted back, bending his body out of the fire’s way. Sailingcloud pivoted and swept horizontally in riposte. The blade struck Granite Crust, a retaliatory inferno surging out of Newt’s body, but the airhead mageknight had already retreated.

  “Using techniques a realm beyond your own is impressive and incredibly rare, but it affects your staying power. Normal mageknights can fight for a long while before exhausting themselves unless they enter a really intense exchange, but you can last how long? Twenty-thirty moves?”

  Newt knew his weakness, but he did not fear it; his impressive physique more than covered the disadvantage of running out of mana. Besides, he sent an empowered attack to end things quickly and save mana in the long run. No, something entirely different bothered him.

  “And yet I’m inferior enough for you to lecture me mid-battle?”

  Sal winced. “My mistake. We can discuss matters like this after the event.”

  With that, he flew at Newt, slashing and stabbing. Newt ceased his retaliatory flames and used his mana for defense. Granite Crust made him impervious to Sal’s attacks, but that didn’t stop the swordsman from trying.

  He struck like a whirlwind, testing for weak points, but Newt’s defense had none. Sal’s attacks left nicks and blemishes, which disappeared as fresh surges of mana repaired Granite Crust.

  Newt fought to the best of his ability. Swinging a glaive, but the weapon was ill suited for close combat, and his opponent was frighteningly fast. As Sal slashed at Newt’s upper arm, Newt released the haft of his weapon and grabbed the swordsman’s wrist. The man’s eyes went wide with surprise, then a granite fist smashed into his face.

  Newt expected he would have to punch his opponent at least half a dozen times, but the realm difference between their bodies meant Sal disappeared immediately, the event’s administrator judging his skull crushed.

  Newt dismissed his techniques and moved to grab Sal’s flags, when he sensed a tingling in his back. Granite Crust spread from the point just as a blade stabbed, aimed at Newt’s kidney. Newt blasted the unseen opponent with a jet of flames and turned. The attacker screamed and disappeared before Newt caught sight of them, but that was all right. What he saw was another stack of flags worth nine points.

  Several moments later, Newt had eighty percent of his mana remaining, twenty-eight points to his name, and he was ready to earn more.

  Sailingcloud was right. I can’t keep relying on higher realm techniques. It would be far smarter to use them to blindside my enemies and win fights in unexpected bursts of power, but the problem is my glaive skills are subpar compared to the rest of the contestants.

  Unfortunately, Newt had few options other than taking the time to train and build up skills. He felt like cursing. Everything he wanted to do, everything he wished to learn, all of it burned time without mercy.

  Newt looked around, chose a random direction, and took it, noting the smell of flowers coming from high above and the musty smell of damp earth. He realized the world had changed once more, wondering whether it had anything to do with the number of flags someone had captured.

  ***

  “It’s been less than an hour, and only three hundred and ninety-seven contestants are left, averaging eleven flags.” Northstar’s voice was flat, void of emotion as she strove to deliver the information with as little bias as possible. “Explorer’s Gate’s Newstar Salamandra is in the lead with twenty-eight collected flags, and the world is shrinking, as you can tell from the map. It’s also worth noting that five hundred and thirty-one manabeasts are still roaming the realm, twenty-seven of which at the early stages of the fifth realm, and three at the middle stages.”

  Northstar disagreed with the trial format and wondered why the grandmaster who had created it needed living saurians. Not just that, but those well beyond the contestants’ realm. Was it to test their drive, or luck, or ability to assess the situation?

  “Ooh!” Her boorish co-host once more shouted when there was no need for exclamations. “The fifth realm sailback just snapped Shadow Valley’s Hardrock Bellhop in half, taking the lead in flag count with twenty-nine.”

  The man annoyed Northstar to no end. He interrupted her calm, impartial broadcast whenever he had something he could shout about. Still, his interruptions and attempts to monopolize the program gave her enough time to think about the challenge, follow the contestants and beasts alike, all to better anticipate what would happen and what her listeners would be interested in.

  “Who will the Bigfang devour next?” The troglodyte sitting next to her shouted, giving the water-aligned sailback a pet name.

  “It would appear that the sailback and Newstar Blazing Salamander are heading towards each other,” she said in a calm voice, trying to soothe the damage her co-host had dealt to their listeners’ eardrums. “In a dozen seconds or so, we should see a clash of power against power with little finesse involved. Who will win? A fourth realm young talent or a fifth realm beast?”

  Northstar winced. Sleek was rubbing off on her, and her words were starting to sound needlessly sensationalist.