Rowan was finding himself consistently disappointed in the quality of fights he was given.

  Apparently the majority of the people who attempted to join the event like him and Lucius were considered uninteresting rabble and put in a quick elimination bracket. Forced to run a gauntlet of back to back fights with the winner of each match staying until they were either knocked unconscious or out of the ring. With only four boxes etched in the dirt floor of the arena it meant there would be four total participants that would go on to the main event, and each challenger could only challenge each of the boxed arenas once.

  This took place in one of the side arena’s rather than the largest central one, with the other five hosting similar events for the other brackets. Despite the options for other entertainment the stands were still relatively full, and their constant dull roar of noise was a constant distraction. That wasn’t the main problem though.

  The problem was that most of his opponents so far were literal children.

  It seemed that the under twenty category he was in didn’t have an age floor, and the parents of these small hellions didn’t find it prudent to wait until they were older and better trained before throwing them into combat. Granted, several of the ones he fought just now seemed to be the children of House Petros branch families full of ego and eager to prove themselves. The reason they were in the elimination bracket seemed to be that the main family considered them not important enough to get one of the preferred spots, and they wanted to disprove that notion.

  There were other late teens travelling to the city from the outlying villages like him and his friend to participate, but they were vastly outnumbered by the clamoring horde of prepubescents.

  It was only after he had punted his sixth child out of bounds that he got a proper challenge.

  A large fellow with thick arms and a round frame stepped over the boundary into his box with the other three still having ongoing fights. Beside his opponent was a strange flesh colored ooze that moved and undulated in a way that Rowan found vaguely unpleasant. Unusual choice in a partner, but he withheld judgement. What spirits another family chose to bind were none of his business, and it would be foolish to underestimate an unfamiliar opponent.

  Despite his appearance his voice was quite meek as he spoke a variant on the standard fight acknowledgement with a light bow. “M-may we both fight well and learn from one another.”

  Rowan bowed back and grunted an acknowledgement as the start of the fight truly began.

  He held his ground with Bough at his side and waited for the rounder boy to make the first move. He was currently in the dead center of the box due to his winning strategy of just throwing whoever came at him out of bounds. This was also a good way of making sure he didn’t actually hurt any of the children that had seemed to charge at him with reckless disregard for their own safety.

  For several seconds neither party moved a single inch, but when Rowan blinked due to some sweat getting in his eye he suddenly had a large fist inches from hitting him in the face. With reflexes honed from sparring with Lucius the young man deflected the blow with his arm and followed up with a punch of his own into the other boy’s gut.

  Things did not go to plan.

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  Instead of hurting his opponent, his fist merely sank into their stomach and was unable to be removed with the cloth of the boy’s shirt feeling more like lukewarm meat rather than the rough linen it appeared to be.

  With his opponent’s arm now trapped the large boy began raining blow after blow upon Rowan’s face, while he futilely tried to block with his remaining limb. It was only after the fifth hit that roots shot from the earth below and grabbed his assailant's arms, preventing him from continuing.

  He wondered what had taken his partner so long to intervene, but when he shot a look Bough’s way he saw they were dealing with the surprisingly swift and troublesome ooze. Any attempt the spirit beast made to entrap or contain the fleshy creature just resulted in it squeezing out of the smallest gaps.

  Which just meant he needed to change tactics.

  He planted his bare feet firmer in the dirt and drew strength from below. His muscles strained against his skin, and the rootlike passageways throughout his body filled with qi. With an exhalation of breath he tore his fist free from its fleshy prison causing his opponent to wince, but no actual damage seemed to be done.

  With a command through their link the roots entrapping the other boy’s limbs retreated and in the same moment Rowan grabbed a trunk-like arm, twisted, and heaved, sending the youth soaring through the air. He hit the ground with a splat outside the boundary line, his round body spreading out from the point of impact and slowly coming back together.

  The young man breathed a sigh of relief at seeing his opponent dazed, but unharmed. His theory was now confirmed that any blunt impacts would have likely been unable to hurt the guy unless he risked cracking his skull.

  Rowan spat a glob of blood on the ground to try and clear the taste from his mouth, but the cut on his lip just provided more. A reminder that his opponents didn’t seem to want to extend the same courtesy to him. Mrs. Faber had drilled it into both his and her son’s skulls multiple times that head injuries were no joke, but it was clear others hadn’t gotten the same education on the matter.

  Or maybe everyone knew, but didn’t care. He grimaced at the thought, but chose to think better of people. Don’t attribute to malice what could just be stupidity his grandfather had liked to say.

  With only the boy’s partner left in the ring, Rowan wanted to end this quickly so he could get to his next opponent. He dashed towards the blob, his connection to the earth briefly broken, but the energy in his body remained long enough for him to kick the fleshy ooze out of the boundary into its fallen companion. He was briefly concerned as it tried to latch on to his foot, but thankfully he had put enough strength into the blow that it couldn’t seem to get a grip before it was punted out of bounds.

  He bowed to his opponent, pleased that he had gotten an actual fight out of this, but sad that he had to end it the way he did due to how troublesome they both were to fight.

  Returning the bow with their meek demeanor his opponent scuttled out of the building, apparently Rowan was his last challenge attempt.

  He looked around at the dwindling crowd and didn’t see anyone of note that would give him trouble that weren’t already in a box of their own. Lucius was currently letting a little girl punch the shining metal covering his skin, seeming content to let her tire herself out. The other two remaining contenders were more interesting to the boy for their apparent novelty.

  One was a girl with a cruel grin harassing her opponent with her molten earth spirit. The few times he had looked in that direction he noticed that her opponents fled the arena of their own accord rather than risk getting harmed by the boiling rock, and he could understand why. The arena healers were supposedly fantastic at their jobs, but they could only do so much.

  The other was actually one of the children that Rowan had initially dismissed. He was a small boy, but his martial technique might actually be superior to his own. His small river spirit was also doing an excellent job at deterring and redirecting his opponents out of the arena.

  With no other competent challengers it looked like these were the four contenders for the tournament proper.