The Third Step: Chapter Seventy-Six

“By the way, do you know anything about the blood and abnegation mage who cut out Kamal’s magic?”  

Dario and Morgan had left to meet with Ming as the ceremony for the closing of the swords tournament wound down, but I’d stayed with Ikki, wanting to discuss this with him. 

“Do I? Certainly. But there is a limited amount I can share with you. If you wish to learn more, there are certain information brokers who sell packets of gathered information and speculation on competitors. At this point in the tournament, the packets sell for a premium, though you are in the spellbinder division, so it is likely to be cheaper.” 

“I don’t have money,” I said, then sighed. “But I take your point. What can you tell me?” 

“He is not fighting under a mask, like you, so I can tell you some of the more public information on him. His name is Kiran, and he has no last name. He is from a small settlement in the unclaimed lands. Not one large enough to even be a proper city-state, like Delitone or the Crystal Coves. Frankly, it is a wonder they haven’t been killed – all it would take is a single reasonably powerful fourth gate beast or malevolent spirit to wipe them all off the map.”

I hadn’t even been aware there were such small settlements out in the unclaimed lands – like Ikki said, without lots of people banding together, it was hard to generate powerful wards that allowed for settlement. That was one of the theories of why humans had been wanderers for so long – keep on the move to avoid being killed. The topic was interesting, but it wasn’t the real goal of my questioning.

“Does he have an earring made out of a blood ruby? And do you know – or rather, can you tell me – where his room is?” 

“I cannot tell you, however, all of the apartments given for reaching the top sixteen of the tournament are located on the same floor of the inner sect compound living space. As for the earring…” Ikki was strangely quiet after that, and when he responded, it was very measured. “If he did, it would not be allowed within tournament rules.”

I nodded at that, but was glad that my assumption that a blood mage would have the vampiric artifact hadn’t been entirely off base. Ikki shifted the topic to the general tournament after that, and we spoke for a little while longer. Dusk emerged from where she’d been absorbing mana from the plants, animals, and minerals within her realm to pay off her accumulated mana debt from Burn Future, and she happily joined the conversation. We spoke for nearly an hour about random ideas for fighting, as well as my plans after the tournament, before Ikki had to leave to attend to his duties, and I left as well.

I didn’t have an answer to everything that I’d been hoping for. I hadn’t instantly convinced Ming to be mad at the Storm King, rather than the Windrider. I hadn’t found the earring. But I had enough of a lead that I was comfortable. I would need to beat Ming in order to earn her respect, and I would need to win the next round in order to have a shot at meeting Kiran – assuming that Kiran didn’t fail. I was taking that chance, though. Ikki had implicitly suggested he put Kiran as a top sixteen competitor, and I trusted Ikki’s judgement. And so, as I walked back to my rooms, I decided that I’d be spending the rest of the break training. 

There were thirty-one opponents that I might face off against, and none of them were weak. Even the worst of them, the representatives that had power poured into them by a home country in order to represent on a global stage, were still dangerous enough that dismissing them would be a bad idea. But thirty was also a big number. Too many for me to develop counter-strategies for. I was sure that the people who had the full resources of a country poured into them would be able to have analysts prepping them, but my squad was small, and even as a mentor, Orykson wasn’t going to provide that kind of training for free. So instead, I just worked on sharpening myself into the best fighter I could manage. 

That plan sounded great! All the way up until I arrived back at my rooms, which was when I got an urgent message that an event had been moved up, and that I needed to head out basically then and there for it. Worse, it was perhaps the single event that I was the most suited to; one that Orykson had all but demanded I signed up for. Ikki normally didn’t put himself down as a sponsor for this event, but he had this year. Perhaps I should have been delighted. This was my chance to get everything I had wanted out of the tournament when I had signed up, after all. If I could just win, then I’d be able to keep up my current cycle of training with Meadow, Orykson, and Ikki. But I’d just seen Dusk lose an event. It was true that Ming had come in the top two for hers, but I’d already done that once. Could I pull off a second win? 

I took a deep breath, doing my best to calm down. I had the faith of powerful people for this event. Even if Elohi almost always won, since they could easily repurpose their search and rescue teams for this. Even if – no, I was getting in my own head again. Dusk put her hand on my cheek and quietly reminded me that this was one of the few group events. We could do it. I gave her a nod, then we rushed out, Kene, my dad, my grandma, and the other people who had come to watch and support me following alongside me, at least until I was forced to peel off into the competitor waiting area.

“Alright,” an announcer said, clapping his hands as we skidded into the room, taking our seat. “Now that everyone’s arrived, a quick refresh of the rules. Any of the bronze constructs are worth one point. Silver are worth three. Gold, five. And jade are worth ten points. This is not a timed event, but will end when all three jade tokens are found. The area is six hundred and fifty acres in size. Attacking other competitors or the scrying spells used to broadcast, is strictly forbidden. Using…”

He continued on and on for what felt like forever, going over the full rules of the event, but it was ultimately simple – constructs had been animated to wander through the wilderness, hiding from us. We had to find them and return them to a designated spot in order to gain points, and scoring determined the ranks.

I was more interested in feeling out the teams around me. Most of them were teams of three, which was the maximum size allowed, and almost all the groups had a standardized composition: a flight mage that was slightly less hyper-specialized on speed than the ones Dusk had faced. A knowledge mage focused more on divinations than specifically on mana senses. And finally, a spatial mage with a connected demiplane and some teleportation magic. 

There was some variance – some groups had mental or temporal mages that focused more on psychometry for tracking, and some groups had two teleporters, but by and large, they were all fairly standard, as I had come to expect within the bounds of the rules. 

The fact we had teams of three did make me wonder if I’d be able to get away with Dawn’s help, but I still didn’t want to publicise the fact that I had a starsoul dragon. I touched her mind, and we came to an agreement that she’d focus her magic on me, but not her magic – that was confusing, but I thought she meant that she’d manipulate her dominion and push it into Dusk and my spells, but wouldn’t actively cast any spells to help us. 

The announcer finished his readout of the rules around then, and waved a hand. A moment later, a portal opened, and he began calling out names. Teams walked into the portal, then he would shift the location to another part, so every group would start equidistant from the central drop-off point, as well as far from one another. Given that I was competing under my real identity for this, it didn’t take long for me to be called. 

“Baker, Malachi and Baker, Dusk!” 

I rose as Dusk hopped down onto her cloud, and we stepped into a silver circle made of forged solar mana, a hard light spell demarcating my starting spot. The area that the Silent River Sect had prepared for us was mostly an ancient pine forest, filled with towering evergreens, low brush, and gently babbling forest. There were no beasts I could feel within, but I could feel a ward behind me, outside of the hard light. It wasn’t strong, I could have easily punched through, but it wasn’t designed to be an actual barrier, just to denote the area for the competition. 

I began to spin my mana around me as I prepared for the circle of light to drop. I forged a spatial anchor here, as a spot to allow me to use Sensory Network from, just in case. Hannah appeared next to me, her dominion of exploration and seeing new things perfect for this. Arthur appeared at my other side, less suited, but still able to move quickly and through obstacles. I channeled my Ghost Tether and Ghost Eyes through them, while my new Mistsphere pumped, prodividing them with power. I cast Cwn Anwnn’s hunt, empowering their dominions alongside with Dusk’s, and even Dawn’s. 

I prepared to cast my full suite of sensory spells, downed a potion, then materialized my staff and reached into my Nascent Truths. Benevolence lent me a thin trickle of resonance due to my desire to maintain a relationship with Ikki. Guardian flowed a bit stronger. It wasn’t full strength, as these were constructs, not real people I was rescuing, but practice was important in being a guardian to others. Finally, Druid rushed through me at near full power – navigating the ancient world was one of its purposes. Power cascaded through me, and I channeled it into my senses, as usual, but also directed some of it into empowering Hannah and Arthur the best I could. 

I reached for a collection of spells that I rarely got the opportunity to use, but that I was excited to have the chance for. Lesser Psychometry joined with Area Psychometry as I prepared to look for the paths that the constructs could have taken. Then, as a final step, I wove soul mana alongside Concentrate Spellpower, focusing them on Foxstep, as well as my Timemind. Dusk’s dominion joined those, and the entire world around me seemed to slow down.

The forged circle of light vanished, and my magic exploded out from me.