In a desperate attempt to deal with my disappearance act, Gaius erected a stone dome around himself, reinforcing it further with his earthly mana. Unfortunately, I hadn’t just turned invisible. I phased right through his barrier and pierced Gaius’ shoulder from the back with my sword, impaling him.

“H- how?” he stuttered, as the blood turned his garments red. I let out a frustrated sigh, seeing as he hadn’t been teleported away yet. That meant I would have to escalate further. Gaius recovered from his initial shock and attempted to slam his stone-covered fist squarely into my gut, only to be met with a fistful of smoke as my form disappeared. Next thing he knew, a large wound was left on his back, drawing blood and making him gasp in pain. He switched strategies and tried to make a stone wall to block me inside of the dome, probably thinking that I needed line of sight to apparate. Unfortunately for him, I had passed up that skill-evolution when I had gotten the offer, picking the more reliable version of [Dark sight] instead.

At this point, I was starting to run out of mana. [Ghost apparition] was hugely inefficient, and it didn’t help that I had to leave behind all of my overloaded mana with each phase, forcing me into a normal swordfight. Thankfully, Gaius wouldn’t know that I only had a few jumps left. On top of that, to finish this fight, all I needed was one.

I reappeared in the middle of the arena and dropped down on top of him, putting my blade at his throat.

“Surrender, or I’ll give the healers something to worry about. Last I heard, curse marks are hard to heal.” I threatened.

From the way Gaius shivered, I could tell my threat had gotten through to him. In the end, he let out a resigned sigh and lifted his hands in surrender.

“Very well, I do believe I’ve thoroughly lost, this time. Would you do me the honour of giving me another spar sometime, Mr. Arthur?” he asked politely, though the bitterness in his eyes gave away how he truly felt, even if he tried to hide it with his well-practiced smile.

“Of course. Just ask when you’re ready.” I replied in a more relaxed manner than I felt. A moment later, Gaius was finally teleported to the medical centre, where he would be healed.

“Just like that, it’s over! Arthur used some kind of teleporting-skill to outmanoeuvre Gaius, securing himself a spot in the finals of the singles tournament! At this rate, he could even become a double champion in one tournament, a feat that is rarely achieved in normal tournaments, let alone when the competition is this talented and skilled!” the announcer said hastily, embellishing my possible future achievements a little in the process.

The match had been won, which meant there was just one more to go. Now that I had gotten into the finals, the sword I was holding would truly become mine, as long as guild head Rashid kept his promise. Furthermore, I noticed that several skills were ready to tier up, so I resolved myself to picking suitable upgrades before the finals started.

Before I got to my skills, though, I wanted to see how Emeri’s match played out. I had been out of sorts during her last one, since Cerion had been wounded, but now I would be able to focus on my two possible opponents in the finals.

I sat down next to Cerion and rotated my core until the match was about to begin, which meant that my core was now filled to the brim, saving me future trouble.

Emeri and Arcellus both carried a similar, stoic arrogance as they entered the arena, though in Emeri’s case that might have just been a façade to hide her shyness. Either that, or I had a terrible eye for people. Maybe both of those were true, actually.

Arcellus had regained some of his crazy demeanour, no doubt high on his victory over Cerion, who had been one of two people to defeat him, technically. If this trend continued, he would soon be spouting nonsense about the joy of battle again, in an attempt to convince Emeri to join his budding cult of nonsensical fools. Even if I agreed with some of the stuff he said, that didn’t mean I would say so to his face.

Finally, the announcer started the match, causing both contestants to jump into action. Emeri wasted no time and created five white illusory spears to accompany her own seamanship. The number of spears had increased from three t five. Either she had gained a skill-evolution, or she was holding back before. It quickly became clear that the latter was more likely, because all of her skills seemed more powerful this time. They still flowed from one into the other, but they did so faster and more effectively than before. Soon enough, Arcellus was starting be pushed back. He had opted to use just his own swordsmanship to counter Emeri’s assault. This had worked at first, thanks to his incredible talent and skill with the sword, but eventually, he was starting to be overwhelmed by Emeri’s combos.

At that point, he, too, started to use his bread-and-butter skills, throwing small suns as his opponent in between each successful strike or block. Several patches of the arena were reduced to rubble as his skills exploded and charred the ground around them, though Emeri had managed to expertly avoid each of his attacks, remaining unscathed.

Like this, the battle continued for a few minutes. Emeri would use all of her skills and fluidity against Arcellus would use all of his skills alongside his incredibly powerful mana, and neither managed to budge the other. Apart from the ultimate skill Arcellus like to use at the end of battles, they had both used each and every skill in their arsenal. At least, the ones they had shown in previous battles.

And yet, it wasn’t enough. This was possibly due to the fact that they were partially resistant to each other’s elements, which meant a portion of their power would be negated on impact.

Emeri’s spears, for example, didn’t pierce Arcellus’ shields nearly as quickly as they should’ve. The opposite was true as well. Emeri hardly seemed fazed by the raging flames Arcellus continued to emit.

At some point, they started to talk to one another. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but from the looks of it, they were trying to taunt each other into overextending. Something, anything to overcome the stalemate, I supposed. Nothing seemed to work, until, surprisingly, Emeri was the first one to pull it off. Something she said enraged Arcellus so badly he went directly into his ultimate skill.

The sun above the arena started to flare as Arcellus became a walking eruption of flame. He flooded the arena with his scarlet element, emitting so much heat the barrier around the arena was starting to have a hard time containing it. Mercifully, the barrier held on, sparing me from feeling to a roast duck.

Emeri, however, didn’t look fazed by the heat. I started to space out as the light around her white armor became blinding and overtook the orange glow of the fire. Things were coming to a head, yet all I could focus on in the moment was the outline of Emeri’s armor in the middle of the bright light, as she slowly twisted into a charging stance and pierced straight toward Arcellus.

An enormous, sharp bolt of white light erupted from the tip of her weapon and shot at her opponent. As far as I knew, Arcellus’ defences shot through the roof when he used his ultimate skill, yet they hardly slowed the projectile down. He tried to block the white bolt with some small suns, but they failed. Then, he moved to dodge, but it was too late. Even his split-second reflexes weren’t fast enough to make that happen. The bolt hit him full-on and launched him into the arena wall.

The resulting blast was so forceful that the flames around the arena petered out. As the dust settled, Arcellus’ body was revealed, stuck in the stone arena wall as cracks had spread from the point of impact. Suffice to say, the organisers didn’t hesitate to pull him out of there and whisk him to the medical centre.

Only now that the spectacle was over, did I realise I had stood up halfway through to get a better view. As I looked down at the arena, I noticed Emeri staring back at me, though she quickly looked away when she noticed.

With a grin, I left the booth and headed to the waiting room, excited for the final fight. Finally, I, too, would get to face off against her. I was curious to see how I could incorporate her skills into my own fighting-style, which was far too rigid and methodical for my taste.

Sadly, I didn’t come across my soon-to-be opponent on my way there, possibly because she would need to wait for the next fight as well.

An hour-long break had been announced after the last match, which meant that I had more than enough time to get my skills in order before the final fight.

With that in mind, I opened the first of three entire skill notifications.

[Dark sight](N/A)

Tier 2 skill.

You possess the ability to see using darkness, rather than light. You can see dark elemental mana.

Tier 3 upgrades

[Dark prism sight]

You possess the ability to see using darkness, rather than light. You can see dark elemental mana.

You can see mana of all elements when in high concentrations.

[Abyss sight]

You glance at the abyss.

It stares back into you.

[Dark flow sight]

You possess the ability to see using darkness, rather than light. You can see dark elemental mana, as well as its intent.

I read through my options and sighed when I noticed the second. I had gotten the same skill [Abyss sight] as an option last time, though the description had changed a but, for some reason. I wasn't willing to risk everything for one dangerous, if interesting skill, though.

The other two options were more viable skills. The first was objectively a good skill, though I wondered whether or not the overlap with [Weak mana sense] would make it useless.

The last skill gave me pause. It involved some kind of 'intent'. Was the mana itself supposed to have 'intent'? It left me confused. Still, it seemed like the most directly useful skill, since it involved something fundamental that I didn't have access to yet, while the other two options were either too dangerous or had no use. My mane sense would eventually become more accurate, so there was no reason to have two skills developing in the same direction.

My mind set, I picked the skill.

At first, I didn't notice a difference, but when I covered my sword in pure dark mana, I started to understand what 'intent' meant. Somehow, I could kind of see what the mana was currently doing. The mana around the sword currently had the goal to stick to the blade and to make it more... sharp? Dangerous? Powerful. The mana was somehow giving me that concept. I supposed that was how the skill worked, then. It allowed me to see dark affinity mana, and to find out how it was being used by others. That might seem useless at first, but it would also allow me to experiment with a clearer goal in mind, myself.

A moment later, I had the idea to test my skill on dark overloaded mana, instead. I created some and watched as it burst free from my metaphorical veins, turning the skin around it a sickly black before Dark form healed it. The overloaded mana was strange.

My new skill gave me all kinds of mixed signals. The mana, that was just floating in the air, by the way, was quickly switching between concepts. Float, then explode, then turn, then fly, then cling and so on. It was as if normal mana remained inert when it wasn't being used, while overloaded mana was kept stable by my overload aura by constantly switching between conflicting 'orders', so to speak. The orders balanced and cancelled each other out, making the otherwise chaotic mana usable. For a long moment, I stared in awe as my skill [Overload Aura] worked to keep the mana in place, watching as the mana shifted and flowed, twisted and danced. There was something otherworldly about being able to see the constant flux in the mana.

Eventually, though, I had to continue choosing my skills.

After all, the next two skills that were ready to tier up were both class skills. In fact, one could argue they were my most important, signature attacking skills. [Curse mark(guide)] and [Overloaded orb] were both ready to evolve.