The Third Step: Chapter Sixty-Four

Okay,  so the event ‘Sensory Sphereoids’ might not literally be tug of war, but to my mind, it was basically tug of war. The event was one of the ones that could potentially net me the training time needed to keep Ikki and Orykson around for a bit longer, and I’d signed up for it immediately. I was actually going as Malachi this time, rather than as the fox, and I even hid my tail away within my soul mana to stop me from being linked to the other identity. It was fairly well-known that I had powerful mana senses, and so it wasn’t inconceivable that I’d be able to win a spot on the Mossford team. After all, the sport wasn’t especially popular in Mossford, so there would be limited competition. Truthfully, I’d never played it before, but the general rules were simple enough. 

I’d take my position at one end of a long, narrow court with a goal over my head, and my opponent would take the position opposite to me. A copper sphere, enchanted to respond to the power and fidelity of mana senses, was placed in the center, and each of us would attempt to move the sphere into the goal across from us. After a score, the orb was reset, and the first person to score three points won. 

There was a complex and long list of spells, natural treasures, and other things that were explicitly banned, but none of them were really a concern for me. This wasn’t a combat game, so any sort of battle spell was banned, but I hadn’t been planning on firing dragon breath on my opponent anyways. Sensory growth items weren’t banned, and neither were Analyze spells. Those would be my primary tools in this event, so I didn’t need to worry too much. As I walked toward the room where I’d been told to wait, running over the rules in my mind, Orykson appeared next to me. I raised an eyebrow, and he simply shrugged, then wrapped us in the power of his Title. 

“You may not be officially participating in Mossford’s name, and no explicit favors are granted in the ancillary events, but the nations of each competitor are still posted, and there is a soft power that comes with that.” 

I made a face at him. Of course it came back to power. Hard or soft, monetary or magical, political or physical, I got the sense that Orykson wanted all of it. 

“Don’t be a child,” Orykson chastised. “Besides, I’m legally empowered to bring details. This year, there were a bit over a hundred and thirty qualifications, and the nations with more than three official competitors were able to drop their extras. That means seven rounds, and to qualify for any reward worth mentioning, you need to be in the top four. To earn my tutelage, top two. You’ll have a brief few breaks in the beginning, but don’t get used to it – with eight tables, they’ll move quickly, and the break in your last few rounds will be virtually nonexistent.” 

“Got it,” I said, nodding as I materialized my staff. “Any last minute advice?” 

“Don’t bother trying too hard to hold back early on. Conserve mana, certainly, but this is a single event, there won’t be time to analyze you between matches. Use whatever power you need to win,” he said, then sighed. “Shame you haven’t completed your full-gate spells. With the Assess Spirit ritual and Concentrate Spellpower, you’d have a much higher chance to win.” 

“Gee, thanks,” I said dryly. In response, Orykson flicked his fingers and I appeared in the stadium, now alone. It had been cut in half, as there was some sort of event relating to fire mages working to create sculptures of animated flame on the other end, while the eight dueling tables had been laid out on the other half. The organizer on the field looked up and checked something off on his clipboard, then called out and went through the basic procedure with us. I wasn’t called right away, which let me watch the early rounds of the matches. These would likely be cut out when it went out over the communication mirror network, at least in most broadcasts. The sport was popular in parts of Kijani, Aergarde, and in the Tower-City, but few casual watchers cared to watch the winnowing. I was live, and even for me, it was a bit boring. Nearly everyone on the field was a knowledge mage, mental mage, or both. Occasionally there was someone who also had a third mana type, but it was… boring. 

Thanks to Soulgaze, I could tell that most of their mana-gardens were built similarly. I couldn’t make out exact details, but almost everyone in the crowd was rocking a standardized build that felt near identical to people with the same mana type. Almost everyone with mental mana felt the same, almost everyone with knowledge felt the same, and the people with both felt like a combination of the two builds. There were a few people with radically different builds, like me, but not many. I supposed that was the price of specialization – if you already had the best way to do things, then why deviate? 

“Malachi Baker and Jillian Encounte?” 

I hopped up, then teleported to my spot on the ring, where a woman with knowledge mana stepped up across from me. The ball was placed, time was called, and both of us flared our mana. I channeled power into all of my sensory spells as our mana senses slammed against one another’s, and for the first time in… I wasn’t even sure how long, I felt my senses pushed back. Jillian’s magic might be standardized to the same extent as most of the participants, but that meant she’d built her strength to be nearly perfect for this event. And as a peak fourth gate, that wasn’t an easy gap to close. 

The ball inched closer to us, and the middle aged woman across from me raised an eyebrow, her braids clacking as she studied me with a little more interest, her mental mana bucking and straining. 

“I didn’t expect someone without knowledge or mental mana to do this well,” she commented, and I swept a dramatic bow to her. 

“What can I say? I’m full of surprises,” I responded, even as my mind worked. I tightened my grip on my staff, reaching for my resonance and working to infuse it into the staff. It felt like she was doing something similar, so I needed to match it. 

The problem was, my Nascent Truths were at half-mast, at absolute best. The Druid lent some idle support to my beast spells, but this wasn’t really in the purview of the Druid. Benevolence wasn’t working to oppose me, but nor was it especially interested in helping me. I wasn’t helping them or helping someone else. If anything, I was slightly hurting them, since most of them played this sport for a living. And Guardian was fairly useless here. I was protecting my own self interests, which was a thin thread at best, and not one the Nascent Truth particularly cared for. If anything, it seemed to push back on me when I started thinking that way. 

Well, my Nascent Truths would be useless here, but my staff wouldn’t be. I could command its power however I wanted, as long as I understood how to do it. The parasite might have reduced the neutral power to three quarters of a normal staff, but it was still something, and I wove the power that resonated within my garden to the power of my spells. 

The ball, which had been slowly inching toward me, slowed even further. If before it had been moving like a drop of water, slowly sliding down a glass, now it was moving like a snail. Jillian’s eyebrows rose, and she tilted her head. 

“Are you trying to burn me out of mana? It won’t work. Even if my legacy didn’t help my mana regeneration, I still have deeper reserves than a teenager.”

“I’m not a teenager, but I do take your point,” I said. It was clear that she overpowered me, so instead of trying to push on the ball, I tried to spin it. She immediately countered, and did so with such force that I nearly lost control of the ball, as it was clear that she also knew more tricks with the orb than I did. Well, nothing for it, then. I dipped into my reserve of soul mana, and funneled thin streams of it into my sensory spells. 

The effect was instantaneous, as the orb rushed away from me, moving at the pace of a brisk walk. Jillian’s eyes went wide as she was overwhelmed by the hyper-concentrated mana produced by my very soul, and I scored a point. For round two, I didn’t even try to match her without soul mana, and within twenty seconds, I’d scored two more points, and advanced to the next round.

The next two rounds went essentially the same way. I did struggle more against a combination knowledge and mental mage, as they clearly had some sort of ace up their sleeve that allowed them to focus the spell onto a hair thin line and knock the ball sideways. Knocking the ball out of bounds reset it and removed a point from whoever had knocked it out, but with me up one-zero, they’d had no reason to not try and whittle me down that way. I’d eventually won by spinning my mana senses around them and casting a soul mana empowered Impel Senses, which locked them down long enough for me to score twice, though they did seriously put a dent in my reserves after that. 

The fourth round, which was the fight for top eight, put me in a rough spot. I was up against someone with the absolute strangest mana-garden I’d ever felt before, and I was only able to get a small amount of insight into it via my Soulgaze spell. Interpreting the sensation I got, it felt as if their mana advanced upward, rather than outward. It gave them less overall mana, as their fourth gate – floor? – represented less floorspace than a fourth concentric ring would have. If anything, it was even worse, as the entire tower seemed to taper upwards, as if the tower was coming to a point. 

But for all the disadvantages, there were advantages. Words seemed to hum around them, as if they had two dozen Nascent Truths active all at once. I didn’t know how that was possible – the Word of Power spells were, as far as I knew, only accessible at fifth gate. Yet the tower hummed with them, a cohesive paragraph of words that demanded reaching higher and higher with its babel-ing. That babbling also seemed to cause the few spells they did have to be supercharged, almost to the ridiculous heights of someone like Ivy or Kamal. Weirder still, their spells seemed to grow between floors in a way that almost reminded me of early access to roots, what with the resonance that came from them. 

I bit my lip and considered what I should do. I had a few options. It was entirely possible that the tower wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it was, and that I’d be able to pull out a win without pushing myself. I could boost my Runelight Lens to fourth gate – I was half a step into that realm, after all. But that would put spiritual pressure on me until I finished my advancement, and with my spirit already saturated, I didn’t know how long I had. There were the leftover potions from the Obsidian Forest. Those were potent, but if I needed to rely on them in future matches, then I’d risk spending tomorrow – the day of the top thirty-two fights – with what was effectively a hangover. I could do both, and I was sure I would win this fight, and maybe even the contest, but it would be risky. Then there was always Burn Future...

Did I even need to win this event, though? I’d signed up for four of them, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t have options. I only needed to win two to keep Ikki and Orykson around. But if I won more, that could give me additional prizes – mentorship with other powerful people, cash, enchanted items, and more. It wasn’t like I didn’t have incentive to win. 

“Malachi, you have thirty seconds remaining to get down here, or the match is forfeit.”

Oh, Primes.