...

After waiting for a couple of minutes the system notification that everyone was waiting for had finally arrived.

*Ding!*

System: The First Round of the Tournament's Second Stage is not starting! Participants, please hit the accept button if you are ready.

"It's here," muttered Shin before hitting the accept button. And right after pressing it, another system notification sounded on his ears.

*Ding!*

System: Confirmation is given. Starting the player's transfer. Please wait for a few more seconds.

System: Teleporting in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Swoosh!

Right after the countdown hit zero, Shin was immediately transformed into specks of lights and was sent to his respective battle arena. And when Arthur and Leonard saw that, they suddenly released a helpless sigh before looking at each other.

"Do we even need to watch this round now? There is no doubt that Shin Bro's opponent will surely be in trouble," said Leonard while having a bitter look on his face.

Arthur didn't refute him and said. "I hope that his opponent will not get demolished so easily. Or else, that state that he was in will be gone for waste."

"Well, the next round will immediately start 30 minutes after all of the battle was done. And the process will continue until the semi-finals round of this stage. So, we don't have to worry that much about it," said Leonard.

"Sigh~*, this Shadow Ranking Cup surely came at the right time for him. This will surely accelerate his growth even more," said Arthur before standing up.

Then he turned his head at Leonard before asking. "Since there is not much to watch for the time being, how about we take this opportunity to spar with each other? It has been awhile since we have a match with each other."

Hearing this, Leonard couldn't help but for a huge grin with his lips and said. "That is a good idea. How can I refuse such a very nice offer? After all, we can't let ourselves stop improving."

After that, he stood up and stretched his waist left and right. At the same time, Arthur was already walking out of the room while saying. "That is exactly what I am thinking. We can't let that guy laugh at us when he catches up."

Leonard shook his head when he heard that while also having a bitter smile. Then he followed Arthur with an excited expression on his face.

...…

Meanwhile, Shin was teleported into the battle arena that he was assigned to. As usual, it was just a regular type of gladiators' arena with an audience stand around it; though, those stands were almost empty since there were a very few numbers of audience present on them.

And even if Shin was already expecting to see this, he still couldn't help but release a helpless sigh after seeing it in person.

Fortunately, Shin was able to immediately collect his thoughts and focus in the fight once again. He took a quick look at his opponent and saw a TigerKin standing not too far from him.

After that, Shin activated his 'True Sight' observation skill as a form of habit.

----------------------------

Player ID: Marc

Race: Beastman (TigerKin)

Level: 126

Class:

-Main: Master Berserker (Tier 2)

-Sub: Blacksmith (Intermediate)

Affiliation:

-Guild: Light Cavalier

-Adventurer Team: None

Player's Recognition: Former Titled Ranker

Ranker Title: Mad Beast

----------------------------

Seeing that there was nothing special about his opponent, Shin couldn't help but become a little disappointed. But since he was aware that he couldn't underestimate any opponent in this game, he still treated this opponent seriously. And with that, he started taking his sword-drawing battle stance.

Marc became annoyed when he saw Shin slightly shook his head after seeing him. It was as if Shin was saying that he was not worthy enough of his time. Or in other words, a waste of time.

"D*mn! Do you think that you are already strong enough to underestimate everyone just because you got some attention from that fight on the first stage? Then let me show you that you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg," said Marc with a quiet voice while taking his battle stance to get ready for battle.

After that, the whole area became too quiet as those two waiting for the one-minute countdown to hit zero. And while the arena clock was ticking down, the quiet atmosphere surrounding the whole place was starting to become cold and heavy; especially for Marc.

He felt like he was standing right in the middle of darkness, where a lot of danger was looming around. And as more time went by, he started feeling that death was slowly approaching him.

After a few more seconds of waiting, he started sweating bullets while the feeling of death was starting to become more and more distinct. And when things reached this point, he suddenly felt that he couldn't move his body anymore for being too stiff.

"What the heck is this? What's wrong with my body?" Marc was too confused at his current situation as he could not understand what was going on. And being a Martial-Artist in the real world made this confusion even worse.

"D*mn! He is not even releasing his Aura Manifestation yet I am already feeling this pressure?" thought Marc to himself as he continued to look at Shin cautiously. He started feeling that a single second from the arena clock was an entire year of time.

In fact, that was the last thoughts that he had before he died and was sent out of the battle arena.

*Ding!*

Swoosh!

Shing!

All the things that he could remember was the sound of the system, signaling the start of the battle. Then what came after that was a flash of light that almost blinded his sight together with the sound of the sword being pulled out from its sheath.

What followed after that was him being kicked out of the tournament. And even if he felt injustice from that moment, he couldn't do anything about the result since everything actually happened a little too fast for him to follow.

Even the few spectators on the audience stand couldn't understand what they had witnessed. All the saw was the two combatants taking their respective battle stance while facing each other from a distance.

That sight lasted until the arena clock hit zero before Shin suddenly transformed into as streak of light that passed through his opponent in just a blink of an eye.

Even the system was a second late to announce Shin's victory. Then he was immediately sent out of the battle area, returning it into its former emptiness as nothing had happened. At the same time, all of the spectators were left behind as they stared blankly on that empty field, didn't know how to react to what they saw.

...…

In the meantime, our man in question was sent back to his room. He stood straight on that spot with closed eyes and slightly lowered head; he was in a rare state of enlightenment. And when he opened his eyes, his lips couldn't help but curve upwards and form a huge grin.

"So that was it," muttered Shin to himself as he tried to recall what he did in that match.

From his overall experience in that game, he discovered that there were two main types of energy in it.

One of these two was the energy generated by the player by absorbing the mana from their surroundings, which was commonly known as the Innate Mana. While the other type was the surrounding Mana itself that had multiple properties and was being called the Elemental Mana.

Together with this knowledge, Shin learned from Lawless, Faker and any other peak experts of the game, that these two types of Mana could be treated as the Internal Qi and Mental Energy respectively.

At the same time, he also learned from them that he could circulate the Innate Mana by using the breathing technique that he was using in the Real World. And due to this, he could execute his skills more properly together with a much faster speed and much better effects.

But during the battle on Shunkai Forest, he also discovered that Charlotte was executing her spells in a different way from the others. She even had some tricks that were not a spell, but petty much effective in some cases.

He tried to figure it out during that time, but still failed at the same time. Even though he knew that she was using some sort of Mentalism Technique to use her spells, he still couldn't figure out how exactly she was doing it.

And currently, he felt so dumb for realizing the trick just now; he was trying to understand the process in a very wrong way.

His train of thoughts was right, but he still couldn't do her tricks because he was missing something, which was also the most important fact on it; and that was he failed to consider the properties of the Mana in his surroundings.

Wind was light and quick, Earth was thick and heavy, Water was soft and flexible while Fire was wild and berserk; these were just a few properties that each Elemental Mana had. And there were other types of Elemental Mana that could also be considered.

If not for Shin having the 'Regan's Method' Legacy Skill, then he might take a little more time to realize this simple logic.

Given this knowledge, Shin tried to test out some things in the real battle, which was quite bold. But since he was confident that he could hold himself against his current opponent, he still took that risk and made a gamble.

From the Mentalism Techniques that he had from the 'Four Symbol Scripture', he chose one of them and applied it real time. And that technique was from the Turtle General Series, which happened to be an illusion technique.

He was training this technique in the real world since he was tasked by Old Benn to relearn all of the techniques one by one.

In the meantime, the goal of this technique was to make his opponent feel like being in the abyss, which was similarly meant to make his opponent feel cold and lonely.

Having the picture in mind, Shin controlled the surrounding Elemental Mana during his fight earlier. First, he located the fire elemental mana surrounding his opponent before separating them away. After that, he started controlling the water elemental mana to move towards his opponent, gathering them on his side.

With this, it was natural for his opponent to feel cold, especially that the heat was taken out.

The next thing that Shin did was to start moving the dark elemental mana in his opponent's direction, which would make his opponent feel like being in a dark place.

When everything was done, Shin didn't not expect that this new trick was going to become too effective; especially when he saw his opponent turn stiff on his place as if he was being frozen very slowly.

With all of these, Shin took advantage of the current situation to land a finishing blow, just like what happened earlier.

Learning something new, Shin couldn't help but become excited for the next few rounds that were about to come. "Let's see how effective this trick can be and see what I can learn at the same time."

.....