His second battle in the fighting ring was against a goat monster. It had one big walnut-colored backward horn serving as one of its main attacks. Or maybe it was its only attack, because it had been charging and ramming non-stop at Zalanir without mixing up with anything else. The force behind the charge was crazy strong, despite the goat’s speed not turning out to be too fast. Zalanir had a taste of that when he tried to block earlier, resulting in his left arm now being out of commission again. How come his first two battles were both against power freak monsters?

  Though it seemed like this battle would end in the same pattern as his first one. And it did. He kited the beast out using the same hit-and-run tactic.

  You have slain [Soilhorn Goat — Level 10]

  Level advances to 7

  The goat fell after the eleventh bolt. This one had been a lot tougher compared to the ape two days ago. He had used more than a third of his mana in this fight, and that was only because the beast was a sitting duck after its stupid and simple charge. If it had better speed or a higher reaction sense, then he might be in trouble.

  Spirit. He had to spend the free point here. Stamina would have to wait. A larger mana pool and higher mana recovery were more useful for him at the moment.

  Leaving the ring, this time remembering to borrow a buckler and a dagger, Zalanir headed to the training area. His fist wouldn’t have to suffer this time.

  “You sure love training, don’t you?”

  “Aren’t you the same?” Zalanir was surprised that the man talked to him, because even though he had seen him several times here, he was always meditating.

  The man was plump and surprisingly big. Because Zalanir often picked an isolated dummy, he wasn’t aware of it, but looking at the man who was standing to his left, Zalanir lost out by more than a whole head. His round face, curly hair to the sides created a friendly vibe, especially with the gentle smile on his lips.

  “Thought so, but apparently I need to up my game. I’m Kael.”

  “Zalanir.” He nodded at the big man. “Uhm … is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I have seen you fight and train. The skill you used … how many affinities can you turn the bolt into?” Kael maintained his smile, but his body was fidgety, edging back and forth slightly after every word.

  “Why do you ask about it?” Even though he didn’t know much about the culture of this world, at least Zalanir was alert when being asked about the details of his skill. There was no way he would tell a stranger something as important as this.

  “I’m sorry if this comes across as offensive or invading. I mean no harm. In the fight against the panther, I saw you used three types of bolt. Earth, metal, and if I am correct, the last one was air, wasn’t it?”

  Zalanir was taken aback by the question. Had he somehow violated or pissed off someone? The only one on his mind was the Invincible Gang, but honestly, he didn’t piss them off that much to be hunted. Besides, he learned from Ulken that the gang actually resided outside of the fighting pit, so more often than not, they would only come here during the fight hours.

  Besides, he had never seen them in the training area, so Zalanir just needed to stay here for the whole morning, and he would be fine. At least until now, he was still okay.

  The panther. Right. This dude mentioned his eighth and most recent battle in the ring. A rather easy fight, since the metal bolt that he learned recently by targeting the heavy armor of some of the audiences proved to be quite sharp. Based on his experiences, it was better to deal with light defense monsters like the panther, but lack the penetrative power of the earth variant to hurt the big, sturdy ones.

  But why did this guy ask about it? From Kael’s inquiry, looked like he was interested in the air version, which was something Zalanir had cast ever since the first fight against the ape.

  “It was. But you haven’t answered my question. What’s special about it?” Zalanir didn’t think there was any harm to share, as it wasn’t something secretive. He had used it in front of thousands of audiences already.

  “Sorry. Again, I come with good intentions. Maybe you can take this? Consider it a gift from me. Hopefully, it’s enough to earn your trust.”

  Kael took out a silver coin and presented it in his palm. A particular gift indeed. However, there was a problem.

  “How much is it worth? I am from a secluded forest, so I don’t know if a single silver coin would be worth anything.”

  “You don’t know? How? Oops, I’m sorry.” The man coughed into his fist. “One silver coin is equal to ten System coins, as you can see from the General tab. With ten System coins — or common coins, however you want to name them — you can buy a common rarity shirt with effects, unlike those low-quality clothes offered by the pit. I hope that answers your question.”

  “What are those effects?”

  …

  All Zalanir received was squinting eyes. “What? You want my help or not?”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The fatty let loose a sigh. “You know that clothes here provide nothing but a physical protection layer, right? Those with effects provide stats or useful usages based on rarity. The higher the rarity of a piece of equipment, the higher and rarer stats and uses you can have. Wait a second.” Zalanir was taken by total surprise when Kael took off his shirt, exposing the … rather unsightly upper half body of his. “You can use Identify to see what I mean.”

  He did wear a different shirt — looked like a light chain mail — compared to the general leather shirt Zalanir had. After identifying it, Zalanir got what the man meant.

  [Hauberk of endurance] — Uncommon: A piece of upper body armor made by a novice craftsman. Light and endurable. +4 Endurance.

  A quick check reminded Zalanir of how little he had for the Endurance stat. Despite being level 11 now, and even after investing two free points into Endurance, that stat only sat at 11. Couldn’t be helped, though. The mage path he took offered no Endurance on level-up.

  After that, the value of the shirt he was examining shot through the roof in his eyes. +4 Endurance meant a 36% increase in the stat, a massive boost if he could get his hands on this. A sudden thought left him with a sneaky grin.

  “Thank you. So, considering if I join you, what will I get?” Zalanir gave back the armor to Kael, but not the silver coin. It was his now.

  “Really? I can give you two more silver coins for your help,” the chubby smiled widely.

  “What do you want me to do, by the way?”

  “Besides the air bolt, what other abstruse affinity can you make?”

  “It’s just that, to be honest. Even now, it takes me a long time to make one. So you want me to conjure a specific affinity bolt? What is it?” Zalanir started to get an idea of what the ask was from Kael.

  “Not one. Three. Fire, light, and sound. Light and sound are a must, whereas fire is more of an insurance, because I have that covered already.”

  “And what exactly are they for? You have been avoiding that question. It’s hard to do business if you keep me in the dark like that.”

  “Please keep this for yourself only.” Kael turned serious. “We are going to raid an anthill.”

  ***

  Zalanir focused his attention on the small flame floating in the air, aiming and readying his right hand. In a fluid motion, he swiped the flame — or rather, the position of the flame in his eyes — and quickly threw his right hand in front of his body. A fire bolt cut through the air before connecting and merging with the flame.

  Satisfied with the result, he charged forward while looking at the bright sun up high in the sky. His mind went into overdrive, trying to dissect and push aside the air. Then, in a hurry, he grabbed the light with the imaginary hand, turned toward the big tree’s crown on his right, and flung his right hand upward. A line penetrated through the dense foliage, lighting up everything in its path until vanished inside the thick canopy.

  “You got it.”

  Zalanir turned toward the smiling Kael and a red-haired woman. She was recalling the flame that Zalanir targeted earlier, then snuffed it out with a soft wave of her left hand.

  “The fire was instant, but it still took me three tries getting the light on.” Zalanir wasn’t pleased with what he had done. Still took too long.

  “Good enough. Then, only the sound affinity remained. Good luck in the fight this afternoon.” Kael stretched his hand out and tapped Zalanir’s shoulder.

  Zalanir wasn’t sure about the solution Kael proposed, but he would need to get it done first in the fight before venturing out. He had been working non-stop on his skill since the talk with Kael five days ago. Even though the fire affinity was said to be an insurance, because the red-haired woman — Shinnya — was overqualified for that as a level 37 fire mage, Zalanir still took the time to master it first. Not only because of its basic nature, he wanted to master the take action of the skill before tackling harder issues.

  The first part only clicked after he learned to isolate and target the affinity with not only his eyes, but his recognition as well. What he did previously was to look at the area with the affinity he wanted to get, either the ground, armor, or air (though air was more of a luck or percentage take), grabbed the affinity with the imaginative hand, then now he added a third step in-between. By analyzing and dissecting different elements in the target area in a snapshot in his mind, he could grab them easier and thus lowered the number of attempts in the preparation phase of the skill. Or at least that was the principle behind the skill, because the new middle step wasn’t easy at all, especially for abstruse affinities such as light or sound.

  With the light affinity, he only needed to separate the light from the air when looking at the sky. But with sound, he had to find a way to isolate it from both the air and light. Its spreading and ambiguity natures made the work even harder, because sound could travel everywhere, literally.

  Affinities like earth, fire, or water were the easiest to grab because he saw them and could tell where they were. The same concept, albeit a tad harder, also applied to light, because he could identify a source to it, with the most obvious one being the sun.

  But for the sound, almost everything had a sound to it, and the moment it was born, it wasn’t concentrated on one place, but spreading out immediately, with a speed so fast that targeting the source didn’t allow him to grab it. Thus, he had been trying to practice it in the most “accessible and plentiful” environment, which was no doubt the fighting ring. Non-stop shouts and cheers from the crowd just happened to create the perfect practice setting for him.

  Following Shinnya back to the fighting ring, his mind wandered to another favor that he didn’t know he could get this soon: the permission to go out to the settlement. Turned out, one could get one permission for every twenty-five wins in the ring. Not permanent, though. It was a prize for the receivers to mostly go shopping for better equipment, as in case one got that many wins, the likelihood for the common and free items from the barracks to be useful would be close to, if not downright zero. His current streak was at ten. If he could fight every day, or fight multiple battlers in a day, then perhaps he could reach that. But as of now, he was far from it.

  Another condition, which was rather simple and built upon the same requirement, was for a fighter to reach level 35, and to pay a fee to buy their freedom. The exact amount differed from person to person, as Shinnya paid 200 coins, whereas Kael said that he was never “sold” to the fighting pit in the first place, so he was free to come and go.

  After fulfilling these two requirements, any fighter could go out whenever they wanted, as long as they didn’t do anything harmful to the fighting pit. As for Zalanir, he went out by tagging along with Shinnya, or rather, acting as her lackey. Thus, he was carrying a large chest, trailing behind his “master” when they got back to the fighting pit.

  As for Kael, he didn’t return with them because he didn’t have to. Zalanir learned that the plump guy was actually the son of a wealthy merchant in the settlement. The place they had just stayed at was Kael’s backyard. He joined the fighting pit as a special case.

  To put it bluntly, he hired Harkon to find suitable beasts so that he could fight them and level up without risking his life in the wilderness. Or so was the story he told his protective parents. Even though he only knew Kael for several days, submissive would be the last possible word he chose to describe the man.