By forcing himself to be disciplined, Ludere got to where he wanted to go. Unfortunately, there was some truth in the framework of how he showed up. Everyone else knew that he was disciplined, and they were excited to match up against him.

  He expected more fanfare, especially after working at the arena for so long, but that was on him. The children of nobles knew what they had to do when they were all about that life. They wanted something efficient.

  That was what was happening. As men and women lined up for their single elimination battles, he realized that there was a way that he could come out of this, on top.

  The one thing that he was short? Money.

  He approached several of the first round competition and sized each of them up. When he had a good idea of what was about to happen, he talked to his friends.

  "Cire, how much do you think I should bet on something that looks like it's going to be a clear win. I'm going to start figuring out how to bet on some of these. I'll give you even odds on—no, two to one on our friend's first match."

  "Mila? She's going to clock whoever she's put up again. You want to bet on her?"

  "Soup, yes, I want to bet on her. Or rather, I want people to bet on her, and I'll be the bookie."

  Cire laughed. "What money are you going to use for this?"

  He smiled.

  They were interrupted by officials.

  Two men walked around them inspecting the arena. It was a ring on the sand with enough space for dualists to circle endlessly. It was in the arena, but it was enough for the crowd to be involved. If somebody missed with a blunted weapon, then there was a chance that they might hit another student that was watching.

  Cire walked up to the line in the sand. "What's my part in this?"

  "You're the bank."

  She sputtered. "Surely, you are joking."

  "I'm Ludere, and I never joke about these kinds of things. I'll take the bets, you just back me up. I'm almost guaranteed now to give a fair wager. As we, between the two of us, could represent the house, then everybody else can come and they can play by our rules. That is, if they want to try and place bets on each of these. I'm just saying we could make it easy. One's an hour away, per person, per bet. If they win, they get two. If it's a long shot, they would get three."'She looked like she was just about to get it.'"You want me to put my money on the line, when you take bets from my friends about the fights we're about to go through? They’re betting on themselves, and you need me to finance?"'"You're absolutely correct. Mila or I would not be able to afford them."'Cire nodded. "If I lose money—"

  "You won't."

  "—if I lose money, then this stays between us."

  He let her go and went to start examining. Before he took five steps, three of the boys from his class swarmed him, asking him about this betting ring he'd set up.

  By the time he'd made it to the other side of the ring, thirty people had talked to him about their matches, and how they wanted to bet on themselves. He took several of those, though he knew the ones that were overconfident, based off of his skills.

  Mila was up first, of his friends. She had brought out a blunted spear and sword just in case. The competitors got to choose their own weapons, and he knew that she was going to be there.

  Several of the instructors watched as Mila and her competitor walked up. They inspected each potential weapon before returning them to their owners.

  Mila and her opponent, a man who Ludere had already forgotten the name of, stood across from each other. Her competitor was probably the scion of a mercantile family. Powerful, but mostly in the domain of money and potential. Was his name Hunter? Another student in his class—looked like he was about to enjoy himself. He hoped she would quickly disabuse him of that notion.

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  If they had been wearing togas, he would have been quickly able to identify whose family they were in.

  For this, there were tunics only.

  Each person wore a dark training tunic. Chalk was attached to the end of the weapons. Connecting with someone would make marks. With enough marks, a person will be disqualified. Or if they decided to surrender or give up early.

  Mila squared up as the grammarian dropped his arm.

  Her opponent rushed in. A classic Celusian blunder forced her to move to the side. He barely stopped on time, before a ring-out would have ended their bout. Mila circled him, extending her spear out. There was a clear difference between the way the two of them held it and he could see it.

  Mila had her spear like she had the skill, and he held the spear like a club. He even swung it like a club.

  Instead of parrying, she ducked.

  She deftly moved underneath it, and then returned to the neutral stance she had.

  She sent out a feint, then another one.

  On the other foot, he was moving to react to her strikes, instead of going on his own rampage. Her moves were fast and calculated.

  His were frantic. He tried to block using the spear like a sword. It wasn't a sword.

  His grip made it clear that he had chosen this weapon to try and show off, instead of trying to actually do this intentionally. Either he was strong or stupid.

  He didn't want to win. He just wanted to humiliate her by beating her.

  Mila got him in the chest and throat, rapid fire, to end the match.

  "Match!" He was speechless as the grammarian called it out.

  Ludere checked with his skill and his list of who he would have paid this out to. Only two people had bet on his friend, including himself and Cire. Already he was going to be splitting a lot of the winnings with her. That would be fine.

  Cire walked into her position. The match was fast, so people had to be ready to go. No match would last more than two to five minutes, and the single eliminations meant that if you won, you could be in another fight very quickly. If your opponent didn’t show up? You were automatically advanced to the next round.

  Cire grabbed the training spear and swung it several times. Her opponent looked ready to piss herself.

  Ludere wasn't sure if she was putting on an act or not.

  True, the Senator's daughter was a fearsome sight, but it didn't mean anything in the long run. They were all playing; there was no scenario in which she was about to get executed by a Senator's daughter. Even though he was pretty sure that she could do that with just her magic.

  He shuddered at the thought of her attacking with Willpower.

  As powerful as he was, she had the image of being born into a family that understood how these could be used. His father wanted him to join the Legion so that Ludere could have an easier life after his ten years of service. But when his father settled down in the capital, he realized how many of the empire's promises were just lip service.

  Sure, they could give him his land, but they were going to make him wait. It was in the waiting that he realized that the government could hold all the cards, and then decide not to hand any out. It was just the same way they approached things with gems. The will of the people was to spread the cards out equally, but the will of the government? They wanted to put their finger on the scale. Just the way that all of these children of Prefereti wanted to win in their battles. Of course they weren't going to fight fairly. Nobody wanted to fight fair.

  Watching his friends demolish the people that were presented to them, he thought about how many times people with no business gambling came up to him and tried to bet on things that they had no way of knowing, and how much money had been lost that way. It was a great deal of money.

  He quickly accepted all the bets that had been made to him, and paid out the ones that bet on his friend and benefactor. Cire didn't even break a sweat.

  She fought her opponent so effortlessly that he had to double check that she'd actually won the battle, and not just completely eviscerated her foe.

  If any of his friends could have become a demon just out of spite through raw force of combat will? It was definitely her.

  He had to remind himself that he had decided to not fight her and reveal all of his Skills, if that was how it came to pass. They'd already talked it out, and it wasn't worth it.

  Not only was it not worth it, there was no way that was going to come worth it. Because even if he got that top spot, nothing would change. They might pretend to respect him, but he's seen how much becoming a Regnicus had done for him. The answer was not much. Everyone wanted to be his friend, but no one wanted to have his back. Well, besides the people that either owed him out of a sense of friendliness, and that whole deal with blackmail.

  When his name was called, he wasn't surprised. He counted it out. They were doing one or two matches at a time, giving people enough of a setup to get going and swapping out frequently.

  Bella might not have been sweating, but he was. He needed to do exactly what he'd done in all their sparring sessions. But, this time, try his best to make it look like Cire.

  He knew how she fought.'They'd fought over and over again, multiple times, doing drills with various forms of the spear and sword. He didn't have her level of Sword Proficiency, but neither did she have his level of Spear Proficiency.