“Direct recruitment! Deserved. Not too many can pull off feats like that,” Zalanir muttered to himself.

  Mumbles slowly crept into the silent environment from both the fighters and the audience. Then, after a random shout, the whole place burned with passionate recognition, applauds, and cheers. The center of this attention, Yar-Pattler, strolled toward his recruiter. A slow walk under the gaze of everyone, but he didn’t appear to care. There was no interaction with the crowd, just a casual guy step by step reaching for his destination.

  During the time, Zalanir sneaked his way onto the spot of the dead mercenary. The vomit wanted to have its spotlight again, but Zalanir suppressed it with all his might. Not now. Not yet.

  Looking at the two mutilated arms, Zalanir noticed that there wasn’t much blood splashed out or oozed out from them. The cut was just too clean. But there was no time for marveling. He dropped down, untightened the straps, and took the brown leather bracers off. The mercenary used them to deflect a number of his bolts, so they had to be good.

  Even though most eyes were on Yar-Pattler with his stroll at the moment, Zalanir was under no illusion that his actions could fly under the radar. He needed to make it quick, so he refrained from identifying the pieces, as well as from going up to grab the long staff on the back of the body. Why did the man have to fall on his back?

  Tucking the bracers under his hauberk, Zalanir dropped to the ground. He doubted the fight would continue after all of this. There seemed to be an unspoken consensus that the first show was over. Everyone was just waiting for the main star to finish his walk.

  It had been stressful and dangerous, but the result wasn’t bad at all. He had kind of grasped and could use Energy Barrier more flexibly now. No more forming it only on top of his arm to use as a pseudo-shield. The staggering effect of sound bolts was also good, though it was still dependent on a good source of noise to pull off. He needed to experiment with it more. And last but not least, he needed to check the cute little flashing icon in the lower right corner of his viewport. His next power-up had already arrived.

  “Now that’s what I call a worthy opening. Our arena fighters gave their best against the infamous Zerkshi mercenaries. Despite facing the very best, we showed that we could hold ourselves and even made them bleed. Tell me, aren’t you entertained?”

  The announcer asked, and the audience sure knew how to respond. It wasn’t at the level of cheers during Harkon’s introductory speech, but still, Zalanir could feel each and every vibration when he lay down here. Now that he knew how sound could be used not just to lure some ants out, he let out a big smile from ear to ear. If he could replicate this, he could literally shake the earth all by himself. Imagined one day he was just humming his favorite melodies, and the whole ocean went berserk. Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold?

  Bathing in the sensation, he reluctantly got up when the announcer went from glazing Yar-Pattler to telling everyone to get ready for the second show of the day. No more laughable odds like 148 to 22; this time it started at 1 versus 1, then the losing side could substitute in other participants. For the pit’s fighters, they would go in with increasing numbers per attempt, so 2-on-1, 3-on-1, and so forth. The process repeated until the reserve ran out.

  Similar to the structure of the fighting pit inside the settlement, a specialized box was set aside for fighters only. Zalanir found a good spot to continue watching. Some participants in the opening show had chosen to get back instead, possibly to treat their wounds or do their own stuff, but Zalanir wanted to stay behind. If this were just some regular arena fights, he would already be on his way to the training area as of now, but not everyday he got to watch the so-called strongest mercenary guild in the nation. Watching was also training as well, so he was sure that the god of training would certainly forgive him for this day off.

  Though he caught the sight of Ulken going back to the settlement. His shackmate had survived. Good. Going with him were three other fighters who looked sluggish on the movements. Must’ve been some nasty injuries.

  Then he saw the Red Nose go off in a group toward the settlement as well. Zalanir didn’t like the man. Continuous provocation and trying to show off too much. Perhaps too much insecurity, or just an awful person from birth? Hard to tell. But leaving was good. He would hate to be near that man.

  While waiting for the fight to start, Zalanir took the time to go through the notifications. He wanted to check the new skills right away, but the lack of notifications got his attention.

  You have slain [Human — Level 38]

  Level advances to 25

  [Mastery: Magical Apprentice] skills available

  Warning: You can delay choosing a new skill only until the next batch of skill offering; otherwise, you lose that option permanently.

  Level advances to 26

  Two levels in a group fight with an enemy where he wasn’t the one who did the fancy finish was quite generous from the System, but he had no complaints. The more, the better. But how was it only one? For the mercenary attacked by Yar-Pattler’s original group, Zalanir could understand because his contribution was just minimal distraction, but what about the first one that Lithma killed? When leaving the arena a moment ago, he even went past the corpse, so there was no way it wasn’t a kill. Did he get scammed by the System? Or was this a bug that he had somehow stumbled upon? The System did look like something from a game, so maybe if he filed a report, he could get another level. Though no matter where he looked, there was no report button anywhere.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Weird, but anyway, he couldn’t hold off much longer. It was skill-picking time.

  [Hardened Shell] — Common: Covers your body with a temporary shell for a duration (small scaling with Level). While the shell is active, gains increased defense (minor scaling with Endurance and Spirit) and a regenerative temporary health bar.

  Essence: 7

  Mana cost: Low

  [Wind Slash] — Common: Launches two arcs of wind (minor scaling with Intelligence) that converge at a distance (small scaling with Awareness). Subsequent hits deal damage at 50% effectiveness.

  Essence: 6

  Mana cost: Low

  [Sound Sense] — Uncommon: Increases your perception of sounds in a radius (small scaling with Awareness) around your spot.

  Essence: 14

  Mana cost: None

  Zalanir wanted to pick Sound Sense right away because this was the first time he had been offered an uncommon skill. In common sense, a higher rarity skill would be better than the more common one, right? Just like gold was valued higher than silver, and was the material of choice when buying jewelry. Though in this case, he was reluctant after reading its description.

  He would have easier access to sound affinity because the skill just said that his hearing would be better. No longer would he need a crowd this big or something providing constant noise like the fire field Shinnya created to have access to sound bolts. If he had had this skill in his arsenal, then a similar situation as to when he was chased by the two striped ants wouldn’t have lasted that long. He knew the value of a sound bolt now, so this skill came just in time to enable him a constant supply of them. Or was it because he discovered the staggering effect that the System offered him Sound Sense?

  However, picking this skill would mean that he only had Adaptability Bolt as the sole offensive attack, which he had started to feel the limitation. Wind Slash would solve that problem. The skill gave him another ranged attack with presumably higher damage; otherwise, the part about reducing the damage of successive hits wouldn’t need to be there. The number had to be quite big for the System to put in that restriction. The scaling with distance based on Awareness was also good, as his bolts tended to fall off if the target was too far away. Gravity allowed him to create more angles, but in a sense also limited him to a mid-range combat style. Wind Slash might allow him to stay far back like an archer to pump out the damage.

  The first skill, Hardened Shell, seemed like a push from the System to make him into a battlemage who operated at melee range. The increased defense worked best if he could take the hits. Coupled with the temporary health bar meant that he could be the ideal tank for the team. The skill was still useful if he operated at a distance, but because he already had Energy Barrier, picking this skill in that case would be rather wasteful. It was a strong skill, but the synergy with Adaptability Bolt — his main attack — wasn’t there, so he chose to discard this option after giving it a fair amount of consideration.

  Back to Sound Sense, the effect of the skill had to be permanent as long as he had it equipped, because it was a passive skill. It would be the biggest twist in the universe if it turned out to be an active skill with wording like that and the obvious zero mana cost.

  A constant effect like this had the potential to be really strong down the line, because he didn’t need to be mindful of it. For Wind Slash, he might replace it if he got access to a better attack, but he doubted he would replace Sound Sense. No, maybe he would, if he had an MP3 player or headphones with a perennial battery.

  The last factor that pushed him toward Sound Sense was the choice of affinity. If the previous two occasions offered him at least one affinity-less skill, then this time, he would need to choose between earth, air, or sound. Earth and air sounded rather basic, whereas sound was much cooler. If one affinity had a dedicated skill acting as an enabler, that affinity must’ve had something that the basic ones didn’t.

  No, the last thought was basically Zalanir talking himself into picking the skill. He just had an inkling that Sound Sense was the choice in this situation. Trusting his first impression, he closed his eyes and confirmed the choice. You better not disappoint me.

  Hundreds, if not thousands, of needles poked his mind at the same time, causing him to cradle his head with both hands while hunkering down. If he could choose, he would rather take physical attacks rather than this torturing of sounds hammering down his brain. They were everywhere. Not just inside his ears, some went directly to his mind, bombarding him with a mess of murmurs, cheers, screams, footsteps, wing-clapping, and various sizzlings that he was in no condition to tell what the hell they were.

  Picking this skill when surrounded by 3000ish people screaming their hearts out was probably the stupidest thing he had ever done. Why didn’t he think for a second about the situation before locking in the choice? The System even subtly warned him about it by asking for confirmation. No, that was a lie, because it asked every damn time, and he just chose to ignore it.

  He wanted to scream, but having learned the lesson, he just gritted his teeth and pressed his lips into each other. He didn’t need another source of sound, did he?

  The effect started to lessen after thirty minutes or so. Or perhaps he just got used to it. He couldn’t tell. His mind had lost the ability to process. It needed full power to endure the mental assaults and to keep him awake.

  Little by little, his heart no longer beat too fast. His breath came in and out in a stable rhythm. The sounds stopped coming in a tangle. He could segregate them now.

  “If only I had a similar mastery …”

  “I win. Haha. I’m on a roll today …”

  “So one-sided. How bad are we …”

  “Puppets are scary …”

  “Look! That girl is a total babe …”

  “Seven in a row. It’s time, I guess …”

  …

  Took him another twenty minutes to learn how to disregard most of the things he heard. He needed to give his mind some credit, because somehow, it knew what was important to pass it onto the processing unit, and what wasn’t to let it out right away.

  He stood up under the observation from the surrounding crowd. Some asked if he was okay, while others mocked him for being a scaredy-cat. Where did that last description come from? He just fought with his life on the line down there with them, damn it.

  And, to his surprise, the second show in the arena was almost over, as the numbers in the reserve force were four and seven, with the former belonging to the fighters. As for the ones currently fighting, well, six of them just got knocked down by two huge mercenaries.