Exiting the waiting room, Eve floated across the sands before she positioned herself on the starting stone dais before once more dropping as the anti-magic field from her opponent snapped on.

Instead of full plate, her opponent wore a mixture of chainmail and plate. While that didn’t bother Eve, the fact that he glowed with multiple defensive enchantments was quite annoying. Light was slowly bleeding into shadow as night started to take hold. Eve wasn’t above playing dirty, quietly making Thirst slip into a full ninja suit outfit mode complete with camouflage pattern.

Fighting fair is for suckers and morons. Eve thought moving forward with silent steps.

Her opponent, known as Charles, if Vivien could be believed, took a moment before orienting on her stalking figure. Eve noticed the flare of mana that bled into his helm giving it a ‘visor’ look in the mana. Clearly some type of optical enhancement to allow him to see even as dusk approached.

Eve unsheathed her Jian allowing the sheath to vaporize into dust like before as she took a low guard again. Unlike the previous fight however, she chose not to lunge in. A shield made Savage Survival Mind wary, when her normal method of teleporting was unavailable. Instead of racing to attack, she decided to let the enemy make the first move this time around. Defensive fighters tended to react in patterns based on their experience.

Just like turtles.

However, every pattern has a weakness. Eve thought as her opponent started to babble meaningless drivel at her as he approached. Does he think I’m going to be angry that he constantly comments on my tits, ass, and sexual preferences? I’m not the one wearing chainmail and plate in the middle of a sandy arena where the temperature has barely dropped. Were it not for magic, such action would cook what few braincells he had.

Eve looked deeper at the enchantments searching for what she knew had to exist. Tracing lines as she casually parried the enemy’s sword strikes and dodged his shield bashes until the face behind her ninja mask took on a cruel grin.

No matter the armor system, there’s always a cooling method. Eve thought as her Jian whipped out like a striking snake. She could smell the delicious scent of terror as her opponent realized the meaning of her vicious attack.

Eve wasn’t aiming for a quick kill, no, like her first fight, she was aiming for the connections that kept the mana circulating in her enemy’s armor. The ones that were keeping her enemy cool. Not in the mental sense, but in the actual physical sense of dumping heat. The late desert heat was practically baking the sands as dusk set, and while she didn’t suffer from the heat due to Isa, he did.

Armor was extremely effective in Eve’s opinion against an Elemental fighter. If you were used to throwing spikes of ice, fireballs, lightning, or acid suddenly being unable to attack from range was an issue. Added to that an opponent in full plate armor compared to a mage’s normal silk enchanted robes, and the outcome was pretty brutally in favor of one side over the other.

Unless the mage is secretly a ninja witch, who can see your cooling rune enchantments, and is a cruel vindictive bitch. Eve thought her Jian struck out once more as the deadly dance continued. She brought Weakness to the top watching as the fracture lines appeared on the enemy’s gear. There were not very many as the enchantments enhanced the chainmail and plate pieces with durability, along with the sword and shield.

Eve took a two pronged approach to attacking. She would target fracture lines on the shield, and then switch to the cooling enchantment’s weak points in a constant cycle. Compared to the previous fight, it was a long slow grind of cut, thrust, chop, parry, and dodge. There was simply no quick way to victory in this battle even with Savage Survival Mind.

The scent of despair slowly tickled Eve’s nose as the dance continued. Unlike her opponent, she wasn’t relying on physical stamina to move, a marked advantage in the dance of blades and shield. After almost fifteen minutes of fighting, her opponent was moving slower than before.

Savage Survival Mind decided it was time to step up the pace.

Eve’s blade began to cut and thrust with increasing vigor giving Charles no chance. A fracture line appeared on the shield at close to the same time one of the cooling enchantment runes met their end. The enemy babbled meaningless insults and taunts, but she ignored the increasingly desperate man.

The words of the dead meant nothing to Eve.

He favors his left foot quite a bit, now. Eve thought parrying increasingly desperate slashes from her opponent. An old injury, or a congenital weakness? No matter.

Shifting her weight, Eve struck with her left glove directly onto the weakened opponent’s shield. Shatter gave no chance for a comeback as the resulting blow lifted Charles from his feet and blew him back several meters. Without giving any leeway, Eve pushed forward ruthlessly striking several unanswered blows to sever another two cooling enchantment runes.

It was only a matter of time now.

Without a comprehensive cooling enchantment, fighting in the heat was murder. Without a shield, Charles no longer had his left side covered. Either one of these issues would be a problem against Eve, but both of them combined spelled doom. Another fifteen minutes passed before Eve finally let her opponent collapse to the sands in a rictus of agony.

Examples need to be made of people, sometimes. Eve thought after completing the almost ritualistic murder. People don’t get the point, until you give it to them in a clear concise manner.

Eve turned from the cooling corpse before flicking her Jian clean and creating a new sheathe for it. Saluting the crowd, Eve teleported to the ramp exit. Screaming cheers and chanting sounds of her name resounded behind her until she entered the waiting room.

“Food!” Bridgette said, now awake and aware previously the shorter woman had been in a food coma.

“Excellent work, only three left, Boss.” Vivien said, her eyes glued to the book she had been reading earlier. She glanced at the empty table with undisguised greed.

Eve threw some more dishes on the table from her inventory, switching up from the previous two times with bread, curry, rice, and grape leaf wrapped lamb pieces. Sitting down she took a long look at Vivien before Eve said, “What should I expect for the last two rounds?”

“Nothing major, probably two night predator species. Usually a cat of some type, and then a bigger cat. This place doesn’t have a wide selection if you get my meaning.” Vivien replied sneaking a plate of lamb pieces over to her side.

Eve didn’t miss how the apple pie had vanished into Bridgette’s stomach in mere moments. She secured her chocolate cake, and a bowl of curry rice before abandoning the rest of the battlefield developing on the table.

Thirty-six million Slots. An enormous amount to work with. Eve looked at the options the thought-stream dedicated to planning her build offered. The most prominent weakness that had been exposed so far was combat within an anti-magic field. Currently her opponents were weaklings who depended a great deal on the field, but Vivien’s comments from earlier made Eve think.

What if I was fighting a genius that could leech stamina? Or someone that threw bombs indiscriminately with no pattern? Someone who used poison acid gasses? Eve thought. The fact that the final humanoid fighter I’ll be against can stealth in the anti-magic field rings all sorts of alarm bells.

There were two ways she could handle the issue. First, Eve could ‘stack’ passives like Grace and such others. It had the benefit of requiring absolutely no brainpower while providing both a short and long-term gain in power. The second, was to shore up the current weaknesses that had been exposed by the Arena.

The real question is, do I think the next battle will be another pushover? Eve thought.

“I think the next battle will be a pushover.” Eve said, “Which is why I’m going the utterly paranoid route to power. Walk me through the fight you had in the past with the rogue type up next please, Vivien.”

Vivien looked confused before replying, “Nothing much. I was wearing a few silks and some cheesy leather armor that showed skin. The bastard kept popping in and out of the shadows like he was using teleport, shadow step, or invisibility. All of which should have been impossible with the anti-magic field up. I got lucky and caught him out with a stun, and then beat the ever-living-shit out of him. Not much to tell.”

Eve frowned and asked, “Was it day or night when you fought?”

“Uh, late evening?” Vivien replied her eyes narrowing.

“Describe the exact process in which you lost sight of the enemy, please.” Eve said, a terrible suspicion growing in her mind.

“Uh, he would move to a shadowy area, and poof he was gone.” Vivien said, “What’s wrong?”

“Did he ever take a step forward before vanishing?” Eve asked.

“No, now that you mention it he didn’t make any motions, it was like a switch was turned. One moment he was there and the next, gone. It was really weird, I couldn’t smell him, there was no sound, and there was no fluctuation of the mana field. It was like he ceased existing, now that I actually look back it was super bizarre. It was almost like he…wanted…to lose.”

Bridgette’s face snapped to Vivien as a horrified expression crossed both their faces.

“Wanted to lose? To take third? Almost like a sleeper agent held in place waiting for a really big payoff to arrive?” Eve said, her mine filling in the possibilities.

“Why?” Bridgette said her eyes growing wide.

Eve took a bite of chocolate cake and said, “This place is all about profit. The Arena doesn’t gamble, it can’t afford to. I suspect the loopholes in your contract were placed there because the Arena doesn’t want to push you to a dead end. People with no way out, they have a way of making things expensive for their owners.”

“So third place is the cutout. A person placed in perfect position to end a streak before it reaches us, who might choose to lose if it costed the place enough.” Vivien said with grim expression as she took another bite of lamb.

“Exactly. Then someone comes along from out of town. Unlike normal fighters, I have a specialist in business. We set up a massive series of wagers and the Arena rubs its hands in glee.”

“Big loss, bad business.” Bridgette said with tears in her eyes.

“Exactly.” Eve said, her eyes scrolling over the Class Skill Spell List. She could just be falling back into the rabbit hole of paranoia, but what better time to do so than when she had millions of Slots to spend.

Matt always had that mantra about planning for the worst, but I prefer the one I learned in boot. Eve thought. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance pygmies! The Seven P’s were a well-known mantra from the depths of yore that any military mind knew by heart.

Eve decided if she was going to be paranoid, it was best to go all in. Slots were worthless if she was dead. Best to shore up weaknesses, and plan for what she suspected the rogue, Mick, used to vanish. If she was wrong, it was a massive loss of Slots. Narrowing her eyes Eve pushed Bibliotheca Body and Mind to Rank V. Twenty-eight million Slots were used to purchase two additional Traits, and empty her entire piggybank out again.

Eve took a look at her Status, focusing on the new Traits. Each of the new Traits synchronized with either the Mind or Body to devastating effect.

Shield of the Library

Dimensional Effects cannot intrude into the Library.

Dimensional Effects cannot enter the Librarian’s Domain.

Passivity is not permission, morons!

Sword of the Library

Paper will bypass Dimensional Effects within the Library.

Paper will bypass Spatial Effects within the Library.

Paper will bypass Temporal Effects within the Library.

You are never out of reach of late dues!

Eve finished her choices and food before stepping into the now traditional bath before battle.

I really hope I’m wrong. Eve thought as she let the hot water relax her mind and muscles.