Jude put away his staff, even while it was enchanted to not be as eye catching, it still looked more like an end game item rather than a level 30 one. But as he did so, he could hear the shouts of an angry Serena and her guards. Not wanting to be caught in that mess again, Jude pulled out the less conspicuous sword.

The sword materialized on his side in its sheath. Jude rested his hand on the hilt and used the sword to activate . If another person watched Jude walk along, it would look like he would take a casual step, but each time his foot landed, he would disappear and be ten to twenty meters ahead.

Jude continued this way for some distance, occasionally looking behind him to make sure the crazy girl hadn’t figured out where he went. But being distracted he nearly ran into a person. He missed him by a mere inch, but with the speed of caused an air pressure that almost made that person fall over.

***

Jorgan had been casually walking along the roadway toward the competition. His black gold coin rolled across his knuckles with a practiced fluidity. He had slept in till noon this day and didn’t get around to leave for the competition several hours after that. Even with all this, he figured he would still be early. It would take some time for the very few to make it past all the gate tests and it wouldn’t be until tonight for when the competition would start.

He lived in the Core City, and at the age of 25, he already had three classes maxed out at level 30. He was well known around the city for his skills in fire and was hailed to be the next Archmage in 10 years. But even with all this, his pride didn’t get the best of him. At least, he didn’t think so.

Making his way towards the competition area, he didn’t expect to see another person. The Core City was unlike all the other city districts, there was much more space between the buildings and residents, and it was unlikely that you would see another person other than a servant or slave. Even if they competition had already started for the other districts, it was highly unlikely that someone from the Outer City would actually make it here and the Inner City contestants would have already passed by now.

So when Jude came flying by, it was truly startling. A strong gust of wind nearly made him fall over, and his precious competition token fell to the ground with a clank. Jorgan had a very high rate of perception due to his advanced classes giving him an enormous about of Spirit. But even he had a hard time grasping the movement of the figure that rushed by him.

After picking up his gold coin, he looked at the young man and was surprised. He could tell that this person was a magical class and most likely here for the competition. But he never saw a Wizard with high enough physical stats to be able to move like that.

Jorgan knew all the potential rivals he had in the Core City but didn’t recognize this lad. Anyone from the Inner City who could truly compete at the tournament would have already been invited to live in the Core City. If this kid had lived in Geonar, then he would most likely have heard of him. But this year, the competition was pulling people from all over. So he could be from anywhere.

This piqued Jorgan’s interest.

***

Jude was a little embarrassed since he was the one who nearly knocked down another person. When stopped him 10 meters ahead of the man he passed he turned around to apologize.

The person he nearly ran into was tall, almost 2 meters in height with jet black hair that matched his clothes. He wore a black suit that reminded Jude of a Japanese school uniform for boys. Except this one was on another level of quality with dragons embroidered in black all across the outfit. You could just barely make out the dragons until the light hit it just the right way and then they seemed to jump out of the fabric. Jude wondered how they were enchanted.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t see you there,” Jude said.

“It is not a problem,” Jorgan replied and resumed rolling the coin across his knuckles. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

Jude looked sheepishly and didn’t hide the truth, “Someone named Serena stopped me and said that I was trying to sneak into the competition. She was making things hard for me, so I escaped from her.”

“Serena?” Jorgan laughed, “You sure have rotten luck. When she starts going, nothing can stop her. You were smart to run!”

“So it’s not just me then?” Jude asked.

“No, she’s even given me a hard time before. But why would she think that you are not part of the competition?”

Jude pulled out his red token and said, “It’s because of this. This was the token I was given, but she claimed that they only give out black gold tokens.”

Then Jude noticed that the coin Jorgan was playing with and continued, “I guess that is a black gold token?”

Jorgan smiled, “That it is. Is that a red copper token?”

“I hadn’t thought about the metal, but I guess it could be a copper coin that has been lacquered,” Jude said.

“Copper means that you came from the Outer City. Silver is used for the Inner City and Black Gold for the Core City. Serena wouldn’t know all this because she is a little snobbish being the daughter of Duke Berkry.” Jorgan kindly explained, “The red color means that you are using a unique class as your primary. Wizards will have their coin retain its original color while Healer classes will have a white line going through it.”

“Thank you for the explanation. My name is Jude.” Jude introduced himself.

“And I am Jorgan,” the other smiled.

Neither of them exchanged titles, and a friendly air bubbled up between the two. They continued walking together towards the competition, and quickly the topic of conversation changed to magic.

After a bit of discussion, Jorgan became comfortable enough to ask, “What was that movement skill you used back there? It seemed like a physical skill, but I could also sense magic in it as well. If I’m not mistaken, it had some sort of minor illusion to make lower leveled people seem to like you disappeared. Is that one of your special magics from your unique class?”

Jude was surprised that Jorgan was able to see through his skill so easily. Not only was did the other party only see it once, but he was also very accurate in the functions of it.

Jude replied, “You can say that. I’m actually able to imprint specialized magic into items.”

He then pulled the sword out of the sheath and showed it to Jorgan, “This one has three magics in it. One is the movement skill you’ve seen, one is a control type of attack, and the last is an area attack.”

Jorgan was startled at this news; he had never heard of skills like that being so easily imprinted into items. Weapons or armor that had skills or magic's attached to them were incredibly rare and often legendary items. There had to be a drawback, either Jude wasn’t able to make very many of them, or there was something else. But looking at the sword and its glow, he could tell this was a magnificent item.

“Are you sure you should be telling all this? I feel like you are revealing your weakness to me.” Jorgan said.

Jude quickly caught on to what the other meant, “You mean to say, if I lost my weapon I lose my skill? Don’t worry, this is not the only one I have, and I doubt there are many Wizards that have Warrior skills to disarm.”

That was true, Jorgan admitted, Wizards didn’t need or have skills for disarming their opponents. Jude seemed impressive, but he still doubted that Jude would make it to the finals where they would be fighting the melee classes.

However, there had to be some drawbacks to Jude’s skills with items. There was no way Jude could just pump out legendary level items without any drawbacks.

“So do the skills and magic you impart into the items stay for a long time?” Jorgan probed.

“What do you mean?” Jude asked. “The skills I impart are quite permanent. In fact, it is tough changing them after I set them in place. It has caused me more than one headache.”

Creating legendary items has caused you more than one headache? Jorgan thought. That’s understandable, but the way you said it was way too casual! You are talking about doing something others find impossible! Very few can use to create standard spells and abilities. And even then, it takes them at least a year’s worth of work. This is why things like Storage Rings were so valuable! Yet this guy talks about casually making items that would make any Master Inscriptions jealous with envy.

Jude had no idea what was going through Jorgan’s head, but seeing him lost in his thoughts, Jude did not bother him as they walked along.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at their destination. The White Square felt more like the coliseum from Rome. The bottom was a large oval, but raised up from there was the center stage. It was a perfect square, tiled with large square blocks one meter in each direction. They looked to be made of marble and Jude knowing that marble was a weak stone, he could help but touch it with .

He found that the stones were actually a thing called Hardened Marbelite. Looking at the stats, not only did he know that these rocks were incredibly tough, but they also contained a CHA stat! It was rather odd, but they were gorgeous, so it wasn’t out of reason.

A crowd of nearly two hundred were already gathered. Seeing this, Jorgan seemed to snap out of whatever he was thinking and was surprised to see the size of the crowd. Jude was beginning to wonder if this guy was always this excitable.

“I thought I would be early, but there are already so many people here,” Jorgan commented.

Another man walked up to them dressed in a blue robe, black pants, and a puffy white shirt. He said, “Jorgan, you are late! There is a on the line this year, so the competition is much higher.”

Jorgan’s face turned dark as he saw the other approach, “Morcheron, I didn’t think you would take yourself away from your studies to come here. Isn’t crossing the sea much more important to you than a ?”

“I run into a lot of sea beasts, so this is exactly what I need for my studies,” Morcheron replied. “If I remember right, I’ve won the last five matches against you. There is no way for you to win with me here.”

Morcheron chuckled, and Jorgan turned red, “Water doesn’t always bet fire. And this time I will show it to you. You better hope not to meet me in the ring, for the next time we fight, I will win for sure!”