“I object,” a shrill voice sounded, “He is cheating! There is no way a rake could produce that kind of effect!”

Most of the wizards and magic classes present could determine that the magic Jude had used did not originate from him, but came from an item. This was done by sensing not only the source of the magic but also the cast time and command words, their sequencing and a few other things.

Jude, who was still on the stage, turned towards Serena, “And how is it that I cheated? There are no restrictions on magic or items in the competition besides single use items like scrolls. I won this item through the preliminary process so how could it against the rules to use it? Or did the others violate the rules when they used the items were awarded?”

Serena turned purple with rage. Her carefully crafted plans were quickly falling apart. At first, she thought Jude was making a fool of himself by carrying the rake around. But now she realized that he had done that to make a fool of her. But she wasn’t a fool, and she would use this situation to throw it all back to him.

She stared at him with a hard glare and her tone equally matched it, “Everyone knows that the rake you just used is a practice item with now real strength. But to fool everyone, you must have used some extraordinary single use item to make it look like the rake was amazing.”

Jude chuckled at her and responded, “How can the first place prize be something so simple? It might seem like an ordinary rake, but I assure you, it is not.”

Serena was shocked at his response, and even the crowd now believed Jude’s words. First place should always get some sort of grand prize, even if it were a commoner winning it. Clearly, the rake that Jude won couldn’t be some random practice item, but the rare tinkering of some grandmaster.

Serena knew that she had lost the crowd, but she couldn’t stop now. “I have never heard or seen a weapon with such a powerful, only rarely seen one-time use items have such a terrifying power. Why don’t you prove that you aren’t cheating and let someone inspect the item?”

She knew the origins of this item very clearly. After all, she was the one who wrote the runes along the handle. There was no doubt in her mind that Jude did something tricky and this was the perfect ploy to see him kicked out of the competition. Not only was she annoyed that he won first place, but what really enraged her was that he kept cropping up and escaping her. She now saw him as her own pet project to destroy.

“No,” Jude said. “Why do I have to prove that I didn’t cheat? Do you have any evidence I cheated? No, all you have is conjecture. If I have to submit myself to inspection each time I take action, I would never get anything done. Am I to verify with you every spell I cast during this tournament? Or should I let you inspect evey single item that I have on me? This is not only an invasion of privacy it is also slander.”

Jude didn’t mind having the rake inspected, but he was getting exasperated with Serena’s attitude towards him. He could understand the first time they meet that she might suspect him, but after winning first place should have settled all doubts about his ability. He truly had no idea why she was obsessed with taking him down and could only assume she had some sort of mental issue.

“Only the guilty would refuse this request,” Serena said. However, she didn’t say it to Jude but to the whole coliseum. “Are we all here to see a fair competition or are we going to stand idly by as someone cheats right in front of us? And if this is his attitude now, how do we know that he didn’t cheat his way into first place in the preliminaries? This type of character-“

“Enough!” Yorik yelled from the judge’s podium. “It is not the responsibility of a contestant to judge other players. That is why we have judges and referees. Stand down and let us handle it.”

Serena paled visibly, but on the inside, she cheered. There was no way that the judges would not pass up a chance to inspect the rake and she knew very well how that would turn out.

Yorik looked down at Jude from above and said, “I am aware that you have some grievances with Serena, but to ease everyone’s minds we will need to inspect the rake.”

The prizes had been switched behind Yorik’s back, so even he didn’t know the real origins of this item. However, unlike Serena, he and the other judges were able to tell that the skill did originate from the rake. The purpose on the surface was to ease the crowd, but what they really wanted to see was how this item was made.

Jude did not deny the judges and handed over the rake to be inspected without complaint. Each Judge cast Identify and depending on their rank, they received differing results. Yorik was the oldest and had a long history in Inscription Magic. His Identify had already reached Rank IX and what he saw was shocking. But it also made him chuckle.

Yorik stated, “We have inspected the rake, and it does indeed have a skill attached to it capable of the results that we saw. Contestants, please keep in mind that we judges have a keen eye and are very capable of finding cheats. I do not want to hear anyone else raising complaints about someone cheating unless they have undeniable evidence. Do not worry, we judges may be old, but we are old foxes. We can spot things far better than you think.”

Serena’s mouth dropped open and couldn’t believe what she heard. How could that rake, the rake she made, have that kind of power!

***

Jude sat back down with his rake and watched the next series of battles. The rake’s durability was incredibly pathetic, and if it weren't for a few tricks that Jude had used, it would have exploded after a single use. Then it really would have been a single use item.

Now it had about sixty percent of its durability left. If he used it one more time, he could still have it repaired and able to use it again. But the condition of the rake didn’t bother Jude in the least. The real purpose had already been served.

The battles continued, and it wasn’t long before his next match. This person was a little better prepared after seeing what happened to the last victim err opponent that faced Jude.

But still, Jude’s opponent flew off of the stage after two blasts from the rake. But this made the rake far surpass its durability and was reduced to an ash like powder.

The people roar with excitement, and many had held similar believes to Serena but were still swayed by the overawe of Jude’s performance. It was an exciting spectacle to see.

Serena herself was rather glad about this result. She had no idea how the rake had become so powerful, but now that Jude didn’t have the rake anymore, he would be doomed to lose. She thought Jude was a complete idiot for having wasted an item that others would consider a trump card. At the very least, you should have it repaired before using it!

Jude didn’t know the raging thoughts of Serena, but he could see the various queer expressions that flashed across her face.

***

The sixteen had now become eight, and with there being four stages, this round of fights all took place at once. At this moment, Jude realized that he had a particular weakness.

Up till now, Jude had plenty of time to recoup mana. But now that the rounds would take place back to back, he wasn’t sure if he would have enough time to recover his mana entirely. A typical person would recover their mana after an hour and Jude, with his many gear bonuses, took about half that. The geniuses of the Core City and others who made it to this point all seemed to have the meditate skill, and they appeared to be Ranked fairly high in it as it only took them several minutes to recover their mana.

The only benefit that might Jude had over them was that he could recover mana even while he was attacking, but he doubted that these elites didn’t have the equivalent in gear. So perhaps there wasn’t an advantage at all.

Meditate was one of the first skills that he had lost. At the time he had gained an equally equivalent bonus to his Spectral Weapons, but now that he had lost all the basic skills there was no room to complain. Complaining wouldn’t get him anywhere. Later he would have to figure out a solution, but for now, he had to find another way.

Either he had to win quick or he had to conserve mana.

“Jude vs Valice on stage one,” stated the announcer who then went on to list out each of their titles before going to the next stage.

Then again, if they keep doing the titles of everyone, maybe I won’t have to worry about time to regain mana! Jude laughed to himself. But he knew as the number of contestants decreased, the amount of time between matches would too.

Morcheron, Jorgan, and Serena all happened to be on separate stages, but Jude paid little mind to them as he focused on the opponent before him.

Valice had left a deep impression on him after he had fought her Barbarian friend. The Barbarian was already a tough opponent, but he had felt chills when she arrived to intervene. In a casual stroke, she was able to subdue a Barbarian in his rage. Jude was no fool, Kohan the Barbarian only got his reputation through the ability of his shaman Valice.

“Are you going to pull out another rake to play with me?” Valice asked from across the stage.

Her body was still layered in strips of leather that form a patter like wicker. The cut was modest, but the layering of the leather left numerous gaps that made it indecent. Light blue tattoos also floated across her body; these were the visible manifestation of the buffs that shamans could cast. The fact that she had so many showed how proficient she was in . She likely had a large boost to all her stats.

She carried a gnarled staff topped with a beast skull that had something like goat horns on top. Little brass bells dangled from each horn, but only seemed to make a sound when she wanted them too.

Jude was tempted to summon Anthea but companions, like consumable items, were restricted in this competition, which was funny odd to him since Summoners could still call forth their elementals. He had no choice; it was time to pull out his staff.

With an outstretched arm and a grasping motion, Jude’s staff revealed itself to everyone present. It was still under the effects of the illusion, so it’s appearance was that of a water staff. Jude was resigned to use it as such until it was absolutely necessary to reveal its full structure.

Many people were already focused on Jude as he had already proven to do strange things, so when the staff appeared there was a great shock to the crowd. They were already discussing the possible origins of the staff, and there was no doubt in their mind that it was a legendary weapon.

Unbeknownst to Jude, Morcheron stared greedily at the staff. How could a water mage not want a legendary staff based on water? And from what he had seen of Jude so far, he did not specialize in water but had a weird amalgam of spells. He felt that the universe was being unfair to him. How could someone else receive a staff that would clearly shine in his hands? He had already won the Cloudmire Robe which was near legendary itself, how much better would it be if he also had this staff?!

“Begin!” the referee shouted.

Jude hadn’t tested this staff out in real combat and at most had cast two illusion spells so instead of starting off strong he decided to work his way up.

Even though the staff was currently in its most basic form, according to Jude’s design, it still had multiple ways to use it. The first way was processing. Here Jude could input mana into the different elements and form custom spells by hand. As long has he did the inputs correctly, it wasn’t much different than using the Modicuit skills, except for the sheer variety and flexibility that the processor could handle. Because of this, it was about the same speed as Jude’s normal silent chant casting. The second way was the stored spells in the circuit nodes. By comparison, these were incredibly fast to cast and were comparable to other items skills in their speed. But they lacked the flexibility that the processor could produce. However, they were completely reliable as the spells were pre-programmed. It was like clicking a button.

Jude had little worry about the stored spells but was more concerned with using the processor in battle. It was one thing to use the processor without the stress of battle and plenty of time to correctly input mana into it. The difficulty skyrocketed during action. And this was the very reason why he needed to test this first.

Once they started, Valice immediately started chanting her spell. But even with the processor being slower than the stored spells, it was still faster than traditional casting.

“Water Bullets,” Jude said acting like he was casting magic the normal way.

Several large water balls containing about a gallon of water shot towards her like bullets. But with her enhanced stats and her natural animistic grace, she deftly dodged each strike without failing to continue her chant.

Each ball that missed hit the ground or wall behind her with surprisingly powerful impact sounds. This water was dangerous!

“Storm Call!” Valice said as she finished her chant.

Outside the stage, it looked like a massive thundercloud had been cut into a perfect square over the stage, but from Jude’s perspective, it was much different. On the stage, it looked like a massive storm cloud had descended. It covered the whole sky and obscured the coliseum seating. The rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning could be seen high up in the sky.

In the month that passed, since they last met, Jude had gathered a bit of information on shaman. He knew that Storm Call was the 2nd Rank spell in the Winds and Rain magic. On the surface, it seemed to do little other than call in a thunder storm. But Jude knew that the real effect was much more potent. A rain storm allowed the shaman to quick cast all their Winds and Rain magic, and it also increased the spell damage of the Winds and Rain magic.

Jude’s Water Bullets were an elementary use of his staff’s processor, and he decided to up the level of difficulty.

But before he could finish his next spell, Valice cried out, “Thunder!”

A bright light crackled above and a soundwave of thunder focused entirely on Jude. The soundwave was so loud that it rattled Jude’s bones. This spell had the effect of stun and could last anywhere between two to ten seconds.

Valice laughed has she said, “Form 1, Lynx Rufus!”

A spotted animal skin appeared from behind her, and her form shifted down into a cat as the skin enveloped her. Her whicker like clothing expanded and merged with the animal skin, but afterword seemed to disappear as her transformation completed.

This whole process did not surprise Jude in the least. He had already seen her use this exact tactic to defeat her last two opponents. The stun from thunder gave her enough time to transform and close the distance. Once in melee range, it was hard for a wizard to compete with a skin walker.

But what Valice didn’t know was that Jude had Ellie. One of the mithril buttons she had created to enhance his clothes combated the stun effect and neutralized it. This was why he hadn’t prepared a defense for this strategy. He already had one by coincidence. Instead, he decided to play the part of being stunned.

The thunder did interrupt the spell he had been casting, but it was no problem to recast it in the time it took Valice to transform.

By the time she was halfway to him, Jude said, “Formless Ice.”

Wizards believed that ice was part of water magic, but what Jude was doing right now was combining both water and wind. And the effect was exactly what Jude wanted.

The storm had placed a lot of water on the stage, but now it froze into a sheet of ice. Normally, one spell would have a hard time changing the effects of another spell, but since Storm Call merely called a storm in, it lost the majority of the effect of being a true spell after the storm arrived. Because of this, Jude was able to easily take control over the might of the storm.

Not only did the water on the ground turn to ice, but hail and icicle like spikes started raining down from above.

Valice was shocked by this turn of events, but she was also an experienced combatant and didn’t lose her cool. While the ice made it harder to move, her lynx form still held the advantage on ice over other creatures. Her paws were broad, and the fur and claws anchored her and kept her from slipping to much.

The raining ice was much more troublesome. The hail was the size of baseballs and the ice spikes like swords. Luckily there was little control over how they fell, and she only suffered a few minor injuries. But the closer she got to Jude the thicker the hail became.

Changing tactics, she bounced back to a safer area and took off the skin like it had just been laying on her back the entire time. Then the skin expanded into a canopy above her as a source of protection.

Then she shouted, “Hail!”

This was her Wind and Rains magic Rank VI spell that also created hail in a storm. Unlike Jude’s Formless Ice, this spell targeted hail precisely, and she began to battle Jude over the control of the falling ice.

Jude was a little disappointed to see Valice retreat, the spell he cast was more lethal the closer he was to the target. The core part of the spell was formless and could not be seen and like a sentinal, it remained by him. But it also meant that it was harder to control the farther it was away from him.

The moment she cast her own hail spell, not only did new hail begin to form, but she also began to contest the control over the hail Jude had formed. Just like Storm Call, Jude’s Formless Ice held little sway over the hail while Valice’s Hail spell focused on taking direct control.

But how could Jude’s spell be so simple? The reason why taking over an element someone else controlled was so hard was because that person’s mana already resided in it. Right now, Jude’s Formless Ice spread out like an invisible blanket, the mana from the spell permeated the falling rain, turning it into ice.

But Valice’s spell was slowly forcing Jude’s mana out and replacing it with her own.

This struggle over the ice expended a lot of mana. Jude couldn’t afford a confrontation like this if he wanted to compete in the next few rounds, so he didn’t struggle against Valice.

Winning the battle of control sent a flash of glee through Valice. But Jude didn’t waste any time as Valice continued to fight through the process of taking full control over the weather. Instead, he pointed his staff at Valice and said, “Go!”

A whole opened up in the falling hail as an invisible force blasted its way through. Jude’s face turned red as he struggled to keep the spell under control. Valice’s face went from joy to horror as the invisible force passed through her. Skin, clothing, tattoos and even her hair quickly turned white as she froze all the way to the core.

Then a heart-wrenching snap sounded out as her body cracked then fell to the ground in large chunks.

But what surprised Jude was that the frozen Valice was hollow! It was as if he froze only her skin and clothes. After her body fell, the lynx skin reformed into that of a great cat and swiftly dashed towards Jude.

Having no time to formulate a new spell, Jude activated the Spectral Shield on his bracers. The lynx Valice pounced on him like a rumbling avalanche, and with the Formless Ice spell now gone, the ground and hail had also stopped, letting Valice do as she pleased.

When she neared Jude she leapt up into the air and said, “Second form, Ursus Arctos!”

A new skin, four times larger than the last appeared behind Valice, and she transformed yet again. Now a grizzly sized bear was falling down upon Jude. His heart trembled as the enormous body quickly engulfed his vision.

The bear slammed Jude down to the ground with an enormous impact. The Spectral Shield instantly popped but saved Jude from the majority of the damage. Still, he felt like a truck had hit him, his head was ringing, and his bones ached. But he didn’t have time to go through the pains of his body as the bear had raised his giant paw and fierce claws up for another strike.

Jude was in a bad spot, he had Blink stored in his staff to be quick casts, but with the bear holding him down it was pointless to use it. The only water based spell that he had stored was Fog for escaping, but again, he was still under the bear so it would do him no good.

It looked like he was going to need to reveal the staff's true form, unless…

“Water Bullets,” Jude yelled.

The bear’s claws dug into Jude’s shoulder just as the spell went off. Water Bullets was a simple spell to cast, and from Valice’s earlier display, it was easy to dodge. But at this close range and with that large of a body, it was impossible for Jude to miss. The sound of several explosions rung across the stage like gun shots. The five water balls created five deep impressions on the across the bear's chest and arms and pushed the bear clear off Jude.

Valice’s bear form contorted in rage and pain. One arm hung limply, and she felt like she had several broken bones across her body.

Jude wasn’t in a much better condition as his shoulder was torn open with five streaks dripping fresh blood.

“Third Form, Canis Lupus!” Valice cried in a rough bear voice.

A new pelt appeared behind her and wrapped around her as she shifted into yet another form. This form was the most impressive yet. She was a four-meter-long and two-meter-high wolf with snowy white fur except for her back which was a mix of gray and black. Worst of all, her injuries seemed to have disappeared.

“Water Bullets,” Jude shouted again.

They were still pretty close, but this new wolf form was incredibly nimble and avoided all his strikes.

“Spectral Shield,” Jude activated his bracelet as the greater wolf slammed into him with its open maw.

At the same time, Jude created a simple wind spell that blew him out of the wolf’s mouth just as his Spectral Shield broke yet again.

“Water Bullets, Water Bullets, Water Bullets,” Jude kept chain casting the spell, not to hit her but to keep her away until he had a better plan.

Finally, he made her jump several meters back; then he activated the stored spell Fog.

Jude had designed this spell primarily for running away from a dangerous enemy. But when combined with Analyze Area, he could both be obscured from his enemy and track them as well.

Thick white mist spread out from Jude until it filled the whole stage. It was so thick that it seemed to absorb the falling rain into it making it thicker. It finally thickened to the point that the rain stopped falling and you couldn’t see an outstretched hand.

From the stadium seating, the view was different. Each stage had a complicated series of Foundation Magic's that let the crowd pierce through all sorts of large area effect illusions and obscuring magic. This let the crowd and judges see the action even if the contestants could not. But this fog was made up of more than just magic, and the Foundations had a hard time peering through the thick haze. But the people were still able to make out the vague shapes of the two main characters within.

Jude activated Blink to change his position and quickly distance himself from the wolf.

Valice lunged toward the last place she saw Jude but grabbed nothing but air.

Jude switched spell to a more complicated version of Water Bullet and whispered, “Ice Shot.”

A shard of ice formed the size of a traffic cone and shot towards the wolf with an eerie whistling sound.

Valice, in her wolf form, had sharp hearing and a good nose, her reaction speed was absolutely amazing as she narrowly dodged the sharp piece of ice and then leaped in the direction that it came from. Her acute hearing and sense of smell helped her adjust her course as Jude used Blink once again to adjust his position.

Over the next few minutes, Valice continued to track Jude down, but in this war of attrition, she was losing. By this point, Jude’s scent was everywhere making him harder to track, and she now suffered several bloody wounds from the large ice spikes.

This time, instead of following Jude, she retreated to a corner of the stage and shifted back into her human form. Her only choice was to try and call another storm to disperse the fog. Hovering around her, were the three pelts. They now looked worse for wear as both she and the pelts were heavily damaged.

As quickly as possible she started her chant, but Jude appeared beside her like a ghost. He was wielding the staff in one hand and a sword in another.

Had the fog thinned?! She asked herself with wide eyes. Why is he carrying a sword? Wait, it’s THAT sword!

Jude could have easily done Blink and Force Wave with his staff, but he was still hiding its true might. Thus, it was much easier to use the sword as its abilities had already been reviled.

Force Wave.

A huge ripple extended out from Jude's sword pushing back the fog. Valice and her pelts could not resist, and since she was already at the edge of the stage, she was forced off flying through the air.

Jude’s Force Wave cleared away the fog, and he finally let out a breath of relief. Shamans really were hard to fight.

If only Jorgan could have taken this fight…

“Fourth Form, Corvus!” Valice said as she flew off the stage.

This time a pelt didn’t appear behind her, but a cloak of black feathers. The feathers wrapped her tightly, and she became half her normal size, turning into a crow. A flap of her wings stabilized her flight as she circled back.

Jude was thinking up another way to take her out when she landed on the ground outside the stage.

Turning back into a human she looked up at Jude and said, “I could have kept going, but the price would have been too high. You win this time Spell Analyst, but next time you will not.”

With that, she turned away and left.