I stayed in the same room as before for another night, and used the time to keep trying to decipher the meaning of the enchantments in my body. It soon turned morning.

Unlike the other two rounds, the third one would be inside of the city, in the arena.

Plenty of people had gathered around Scorched Hill to watch the last two tests in temporary wooden seats, but the third one was always the most popular by far. It was also the only one that made the organizers money, as the audience had to pay a modest price to be allowed a seat at the arena.

The place was similar to a colosseum, but the central circle was raised about 10 meters, surrounded by water on all sides. I had asked around once again, and the round was divided into four. A quarter of the remaining contestants would go up on the platform first, and the round required people to fight it out against everyone else and try not to fall off or get seriously injured (in which case the wyvern rider on hold would swoop in and take the injured person to the priests), and when only two were left, that round would end. This would repeat four times, for a total of eight winners.

'This should be fairly easy.'

I did not want to boast, but my overpowered Endurance and heavy weight would make me pretty much impossible to topple by level tenners, and I could dish out some pretty impressive punches. I didn't wanna jinx myself though, so I decided to stop thinking about that.

I exited my room and headed towards the city walls. A big portion of the city, due to the many expansions, was outside them, and our housings which were at the very edge were naturally part of that big portion. The buildings were mostly made of wood around that area, but as I made my way towards the more developed areas, some structures with stone foundations and several stories started popping up.

The smell also started getting worse, but I decided to bear with it instead of turning off my nose.

I soon arrived at the nearest gate and, as expected, the wall was quite a sight to behold.

Made of nearly cut and piled stone bricks made with a greyish white material, the wall stood tall at probably 15 meters in height. Its whole length was sparkled with thin windows, and each of them had a circular enchantment around it, which my limited knowledge on the subject allowed me to discern as a semispherical magic shield, although much, much more rudimentary than the one around my core.

It looked to be meant to protect the people behind the window when they were casting magic or drawing arrows, but would have to be deactivated at the release since it wasn't one-way, not that as far as I could see at least.

The walls were also covered with a fairly simple enchantment of hardness, but it had been dynamaxed, meaning the lines were as thick as an arm and would probably gobble mana up like crazy.

I made those observations as I told the reason for my entrance to the gate guard and showed him my newly given card, and he acquiesced quite swiftly and let me in.

I had already gotten a bit of a spoiler from [Map], but the city inside of the walls was completely different.

Firstly, the smell was almost gone. The roads were paved, yes, with actual cement, pretty much all the ground floors of buildings were shops or other such places, and the structures were at least three stories tall, if not four.

I continued towards the center of the city, taking in the luxurious decorations of some buildings and the expensive materials of others, many of them made from the same pale stone as the walls. The bustling streets were filled with pintoresque characters (although they all avoided me) and, although most of the people didn't seem too spirited or wealthy, I didn't see a single beggar or a person dressed in rags.

In the center of the city stood a giant white cathedral, opulently decorated and with towering stained glass windows.

It had many similarities to gothic cathedrals but also just as many differences, the biggest one being that it was twice as tall as even the biggest of cathedrals back in the middle ages, and quite big in area with many wings. It was to be expected though, as that building was both the religious and administrative center of the city.

Fairly close-by was the arena, which was almost exclusively used to house every year's Tournament of Grace. I briskly made my way towards it.

I showed my card to the guard and got allowed inside without issue, and soon enough I was standing next to about 200 other contestants, in what looked like a waiting room. It had a direct view of the central platform where the action would go down. Oh, I forgot to mention, there was a time limit. If after 30 minutes there were more than 2 remaining contestants, that round would be ended with no winners. Mind you, that had never happened even once before, since the announcer would make sure to announce regularly how much time was left, and in the last minute people gave it their all to knock each other off, sometimes causing there to be only a single winner or even zero, but not due to the time ending.

Most contestants were now wearing metal armor and wielding swords or other weaponry, with a scant few in the telltale garments of a mage, although they probably had normal armor underneath their robes and cloaks.

An organiser entered after a while, and said

"Numbers 1 through 53, please follow me!"

I looked at my card with a shining 161 on it, and calculated that I would barely enter the last group.

The next half an hour of watching fights was quite entertaining. In the first one, the winners were a mage that only casted fireballs, but used them with perfect timing to knock their opponents back, and a muscular guy full of scars wielding a two-handed sword.

The first minutes nobody had done anything, but as people started knocking out of the arena the ones who looked the weakest, all hell broke loose and it became a clusterfuck until there were about seven or eight left. That's when teaming up, ambushing, and backstabbing became the meta. It was quite interesting indeed.

The next two rounds went in a similar fashion, with the winners of one being a rogue-type with a similar cloak to mine and the stereotypical daggers and a normal-looking swordsman, and the winners of the other one a bald, axe-weilding tanned man and a woman wearing full plate armor and helmet along with a greathammer. The only reason I knew her gender was that her faceplate had been smashed apart and her face could be seen.

I did not know the gender of the rogue, but the knight lady could very well be the only woman who'd won until now.

The same announcer who explained the other two rounds stood on a tall platform to one side of the arena, and he announced that when he rung the bell, the 30 minutes would start, and we'd be allowed to start whacking each other.

Looking around all 360 degrees around us were packed with rows upon rows of seats, containing people cheering excitedly. They had already watched three other matches, but I supposed they gave it that all with the cheers since this was the last one.

Many people around me were tightening the belts of their armors or doing some last minute polishing on their swords, but as I had nothing to prepare other than checking I had full mana, I felt quiteawkward.

The announcer indicated there was one minute left, and people's gazes turned sharp.

Next time he spoke up, ten seconds were left.

Then five.

Three.

Two.

One.

He rang the bell, and—

We all stayed still, eyeing each other.

'As expected, the same as with all the other rounds.'

I could start knocking people out of the arena, but I didn't really want to draw too much attention to myself.

Unfortunately, I was forced make a move when a fierce-looking man in light armor but with two longswords came barreling towards me.

'Now, I'm still not a master at moving my body, but—'

Clank Clank

The man's swords fell to the ground with two swift arcs of my arm, but his momentum kept him going forward. I sidestepped and turned around, appearing behind him, and threw him out of the arena with a kick in the back.

'—something like this isn't a problem.'

I immediately became the center of attention, but nobody charged towards me like the guy from before.

Instead, an arrow came towards me from an undisclosed location, aiming for my chest.

I tried to avoid, but the arrow was fast. I only managed to move a tiny bit, but it was enough for it to only hit the lump of undisclosed material that was plastered onto my left shoulder so that mana wouldn't leak out due to my missing arm.

The crystaline material shattered upon impact, launching a spray of small crystals that broke through my cloak and flew in all directions, but thankfully what remained was enough to still cover my stump.

It didn't cause any real damage, but it sure shocked people.

The arrow didn't seem to have been carrying any mana, but the Strength required to launch an arrow so fast while maintaining accuracy wasn't something a level 10 archer, who would focus on Agility, could ever hope to achieve.

Then, I heard the sound of wind being cut once again, but I was ready this time. The arrow seemed to try to mess with my senses, to hide its presence, but my Soul Power made that camouflage useless.

'That's gotta be a skill'

I had that thought as I dodged to the side, allowing the arrow to pass by—

The arrow turned in mid-air. Not by much, but enough to send it towards my other, more important shoulder.

Thankfully, the turn slowed it down quite a lot, and my Intelligence slightly improved my thinking speed and allowed me to catch the arrow in time.

It wasn't clean, and I exerted too much force due to surprise and broke the arrow, but it was still pretty darn impressive.

It took me a moment to process it. 'That just now was another Skill. A ranger of at least level 25 has somehow snuck into the tournament. And he's out for my blood.'

'But why? Did the Shadow Emporium somehow learn of what I did to their division? No, they would deal with me in secret, not like this. Maybe the church discovered I'm a golem?'

I quickly arrived at a conclusion.

'Does it even matter?'

No.

'If someone's out for me, I just have to deal with them.'

And so I looked around the ever-thining amount of contestants, to try and see where the next arrow would come from.

But no more arrows came.

But, I did notice something. There was a strange feeling, like something was subtly whispering into my mind that there was nothing important in one specific place.

I metaphorically grabbed that feeling, easily squashed it, and used it to guide me towards where it came from.

Soon, I saw it.

It was an extremely unremarkable-looking woman, with average looks, equipment, and attitude.

But I knew now, that was what she was trying to achieve. She was the perfect image of inconspicuousness, and with her skill that drew attention away from herself, she was the perfect person to kill someone unnoticed. I also saw the bow and quiver on her back, which only made me even more certain.

I rushed towards her, kicking off the platform a few idiots who tried to get me and getting a slash in the back for my carelessness (although the cut was only a centimeter deep).

She obviously noticed me as soon as I started moving, and after confirming it was her I was going for, she threw towards me the arrow she had been aiming at me for a few seconds.

But when she released it, I realised.

'She was charging the shot. A third Skill? She's level 40!'

I suppose it was about time I explained. You get a skill at level 10 when you choose a class, and up until level 100, you get another one every 15 levels, meaning 25, 40, 55...

'I would explain further, but I really have to dodge this arrow now. I don't wanna die.'

It was aimed for my head, so tilting my neck was enough to allow the arrow to just barely whizz past me. I was scared this one would also be homing, but it looked like she couldn't imbue both Skills at once.

'Wait, why am I guessing things? [Inspect]!'