"We have Alysara versus Jowaru!"

The announcer really needs to work on hyping up the crowd and putting excitement in her voice.

The battle starts with the ringing of the gong and we immediately start. The rules say "Don't bring armor into the arena" it does not say that you can't make the armor. The reason why is simple, to create an even playing field where only one person's skills and talents shine. Weapons have no restrictions, at least not unreasonable restrictions. I don't think they'd let a cannon in. This still poses a problem for me. Jowaru brought several bars of steel and is forming armor around herself. I blind her and turn invisible but she just doesn't care.

A bell forms, attached to the steel on her shoulder, it rings with a step. Her head turns toward me.

Echolocation huh? This might be difficult.

Jowaru rushes towards me, the bell ringing. I cast a sound essence spell around me, a spell that produces sound in a way to nullify the sound waves, destructive interference; and, at the same time, I quickly move out of the way. The world fell silent, I stopped hearing the bell and the crowd became mute to me. I find it a lot easier to focus, the crowds all but non-existent to me.

My clone doesn't produce sound so I don't have to worry about that and I channel my fairy strike through the link. A fully charged fairy with four empowerments. The fairy slams into the armor, a little bit going through, but the damage has been drastically reduced.

I smile and launch out an exploding fairy. Jowaru reacts by throwing out a small ball of metal and intercepting the fairy, causing it to explode on contact.

Got some sort of danger sense I see. I watch the skills in her mana signature light up upon use. Jowaru calls back the metal ball but threw it again in a random direction, the ball lands a few meters away from me and explodes like a frag grenade. A piece of metal stabbing my leg causing me to grit my teeth.

Jowaru turns toward me again charges, throwing another ball. I left behind a familiar and use [Beauty Empowerment] on it, ordering it to discharge all its mana into Jowaru and to ignore any metal, but also to not hit the head.

More steel balls explode and more shrapnel found its way into me. I launch several empowered fairies, all my attacks finding their way into the reckless Jowaru.

She can sense metal! I realize, trying to run away from the woman chasing me down. Alright if she wants to run around in circles then let's do something to stop her.

I cast a speed spell on myself and start weaving steel essence cords, one end having a mix of beauty mana in it. I create a clone and handed off the beauty end to it. The clone grabs the beauty mana, the MM force helping to make it grabbable. Using my faster speed I run around her with my clone going in the opposite direction, wrapping Jowaru up who couldn't see what I was doing from being blinded.

The steel essence cord is much harder to struggle out of with it being attracted to the same essence in Jowaru's armor.

As Jowaru struggles I weave a net of steel essence and throw it around my opponent weaving more steel essence to sew the net together. Revealing myself to the crowd as I high-five my clone and start summoning my empowered fairies, taking my time to whittle Jowaru down.

"I yield!" After several minutes of struggling Jowaru gives up.

"Alysara wins the third round!"

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 242!

I pick out the shrapnel and release my bindings on Jowaru. My plan didn't quite work out, her echolocation threw me off a little but that was to be expected, what was not, however, was her metal sense and that was almost my downfall.

"That was a good battle," Jowaru says, her armor receding back into bars.

"Almost got me there, I didn't expect someone to have two sensing skills" I reply. Helping her up.

"It helps to locate where my metal has gone after making it explode," Jowaru says, making the tiny fragments rush back into a ball from across the arena. "I'll be rooting for you, show the rest what you've got!" Jowaru gave me a thumbs up.

"Thank you!" I walk back up the steps and greet an excited Chyzu.

"You did it! However your opponents are getting tougher, you've made it this far because your opponents haven't had uncounterable sensing skills. You need to prepare for when they do and with your lack of sparring experience, it's going to be a really hard battle for you. Your weakness right now is that you must plan ahead and think outside the box to cover your inexperience." Chyzu says, lecturing me about my shortcomings.

"You could have used water magic to turn the sand to mud and slowed Jowaru that way, your magic would have kept your movement the same. You could have conjured walls preemptively in case your opponent had ranged capabilities. You could have used a spell to jump high or even fly out of range and remove the metal to stay hidden. There were a number of things you could have, and should have done. You're good with strategy but you need to work on your tactics"

Each bit of criticism had my high from winning squashed. Chyzu is right, I had many things I could have done and was more mana efficient. If Jowaru hadn't given up I'd have run out of mana eventually and would have to slowly attack and hope she didn't break out.

"And remember this, Aly. You'll have to face me, and I know what you will be doing and I know you'll try to make a plan for me. Now let's see who you'll be up against."

We walk back to the stone hall and look at the board.

"Yuzu, she's new to the three hundred rankings with three hundred and two for her score. I don't know her nor do I know how she fights so you'll have to watch her fight or just wing it." Chyzu says, leaning on a decorated pillar. "Your opponent after that is probably going to be Irela, that metal mage, the one with all those blades. However, If Irela loses you'll be up against Kludon, a fire mage."

"What are Kludon's chances?" I ask. I'm hoping I don't have to fight Irela, My chances against her aren't good.

"Low, Irela would have lost against Jowaru but she normally dominates most fights."

My best chances against both would be to hunker down and attack through my clone. Irela also seems to be good at tactics and may expect me to do that so maybe if I fake it... but Irela will use a barrage of blades across the entire field if I hide so I need to hunker down in a dome but I'll be left open to drilling attacks so I need to find some way to first hunker down against the first barrage and then leave it while it is still under bombardment.

Is there really no chances for me against Irela? I'm having trouble thinking up ways for defeating her.

We go back to the coliseum to watch the fights. With my second mind, I try to figure out how I am going to deal with people who can sense me. I'll need to rely on hindering them. Warriors with mud, tripping them, maybe throw a net over them but that does take a lot of mana. How am I going to deal with mages? My best bet would be to play to my strengths and try to overpower them with the strength of my spells and try to use barriers to block the attacks. With [Twin Minds] I could play defensively and offensively at the same time.

It's definitely going to be more difficult and less strategy but I guess that's how people normally fight, they rely on tactics and trained instincts to help them win.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Uloru walks down the steps, the arena calls for her again. Her next opponent is a lightning mage.

"Uloru, versus Shocho!"

Uloru assumes her stance and waits for the signal.

The gong is struck and Shocho immediately starts off with a bolt of lightning. It strikes Uloru, making her muscles tense up. Shocho continuously feeds the lightning. Uloru brought her hammer in front of her to direct the lightning to it but she still felt the lightning course through her arms and leg.

If I can't avoid the damage then I need to press my attack!

Uloru drew back her weapon and with increasing weight she threw it at the mage, concentrating the gravity pull in one direction as the mage dodge left. Not expecting the change in trajectory the hammer hits the woman with enough force that it knocks her down and dazes her.

Uloru immediately jumps at the opportunity and dash to her opponent, striking her with a fist, and follows with a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of her. Uloru drew back her fist again but when she saw the smile on the lightning mage Uloru knew she made a mistake.

The mage sent out a burst of lightning and lunges at Uloru, grabbing her arms with hands sparking with electricity. Uloru screams in pain as the lighting grows stronger and stronger. Uloru bashes her head against the mage's managing to free herself from the grasp of her opponent but in the process dazed herself.

The world spins around her and a pounding in her head made her realize that she should have kicked instead.

Shocho smiles wide and readies another blast of lightning. The bolt strikes Uloru who's muscles sizes up, making her fall to the ground. The mage continues to feed the electricity but at distance now.

I'm going to lose, aren't I? I can't win against this mage, I only barely qualified for the three hundred rankings after all.

Just as Uloru was about to yield she catches a glimpse of her thrown hammer behind the mage.

I can win this!

Uloru stretches out her arms fighting against the effects of the lightning, channeling her Bond skill [Gravity Well], making the hammer slowly rise. With gritted teeth, Uloru shifts the gravity well and increases its strength. The hammer hit the unaware mage in the head send her sprawling to the ground and ending her spell.

Uloru slowly stood up on wobbly legs and picks up her hammer, reducing its weight. Her opponent, however, didn't stand up. She wasn't dead, Uloru's life sense made her aware of that, but after a minute of waiting, she realizes Shocho is knocked unconscious.

A healer rushes to Shocho to make sure she was well before signaling the referee.

"Uloru is the winner!"

Uloru let out a breath of relief, this had been a difficult battle.

Joining her master at the staging area she receives criticism. "That was very sloppy, if you are going to throw away your weapon use your ability to bring it back as soon as possible, don't just forget about it! Your weapon is a part of you, it's an extension of yourself, you wouldn't just forget about your arms. And what's with that head bash? Going to knock yourself out?" Uloru's master smacks her head. "Did you forget your brain? You could have pulled back and kicked her legs out, tossed her back, and freed yourself! You could have used your Bond to reduce her weight and spun her around, you could have swung her into the ground and forced her to let go! You could have done so many other things!"

"Sorry" Uloru felt small and ashamed. All of those things were far better to do and wouldn't have left her dazed.

"She was a mage! [Clear Mind] helps them resist being dazed! Head bashing them only hurts you! If you hadn't gotten lucky you would have lost! Your weakness is that you don't think, you just act. That mage read you easily and outsmarted you, a lightning couldn't dodge that throw? Didn't you think it was suspicious?!"

Now that she is reflecting on the battle, lightning mages are known for having at least one-speed type skill that lets them run away, she could have used that to dodge the attack, in fact, she made sure the hammer only hit in a non-vital spot.

Uloru is continually lectured all the way back to the stands, where the rest of her village waits.

"That was a hard-fought fight, good job!"

"I knew you could pull through!"

"Yet another win, keep it up!"

Although her village showed support Uloru couldn't feel elated, she has made big mistakes in that fight.

"Clear your mind, Uloru. Learn from your mistakes and move on, don't dwell on what you should have done, instead focus on what you will do" Her master, Kadona, says and pats her head. "It was sloppy but in the end, you won, and that makes me proud" she smiles.

Warmth fills Uloru at her master's words.

"I'll do better!" Uloru promises.

Irela dominates her next battle, like an unstoppable force she looms over the tournament, and like a tyrant, luring her opponent in traps and soundly defeating them.

"Irela Wins!"

The next battle is with the illusionist girl and a wind mage.

The Two Tailed girl split into two and ran out from her erected sand cover in opposite directions, diving behind another pillar. The two bodies launched a pincer attack from behind the pillars at the bewildered wind mage. The wind mage is also new to the three hundred rankings and didn't expect the turn of events, not knowing which one was real she tried to get at a random one only to find it a fake one. She is quickly defeated. Uloru couldn't tell, her [Sense Life] range was too short, but her master's wasn't.

"Interesting, that was very smart," She says with a hand on her chin.

"What?" Uloru asks.

"Two Tails there turned invisible and didn't move from her initial cover, she didn't attack either making the wind mage think she wasn't there. No matter which illusion she went after she would have chosen the wrong one. How Two Tails managed to cast spells through the illusions I don't know, it's likely a Bond skill or a support Bond class skill."

"You don't see a Bond mage often" Uloru comments.

"No, which is why she is throwing off so many people. I heard she has a cursed skill, now I'm thinking that her spellcasting ability is the cursed skill, Mana weaving, spell casting, who knows what else. Be careful of her, she may have that skill at a very high level."

"How high?"

"I don't know, but you're in luck; Irela, that metal mage, is set to fight Alysara, that Two Tailed girl. One of them will lose so you won't have to fight both. Which is worse for you? I honestly don't know. Two Tails is certainly a planner, however, her fight with Jowaru shows inexperience. Irela on the other hand is seasoned but you can easily throw her off with a reckless attack. But if I had to say which one I'd say Irela is worse for you, but only because she's more experienced."