Derek waited in his preparation area under the tournament floor. Even here he heard the muffled roar of the crowd above him. He worked hard to block the excitement he felt from it and instead focused on his breathing to regain the mana he had used in his last fight. When his mana reserves were topped off, he noticed the crowd was still quite rowdy but was otherwise quieter than it had been when he had started.

After a few moments, Ovid came into the room. “Derek, you have five minutes. Your opponent will be the fourth year Magic Warrior, Wesley Crane. He is early tier three but his spell casting and fighting skills are worse than yours so you should be able to power through the difference in attributes. Keep your head on straight and you have this fight, got it?”

Derek nodded to him and got up from where he was seated. After a little bit of warming up, he grabbed a sword and buckler and headed towards the ramp up. He heard the crowd growing louder again as his next fight was being announced. He could not help but feel strangely energized by their excitement as he came up the ramp onto the tournament field.

Taking his place, he saw his opponent on the other side of the field with a partizan and the same War Priest standing to the side. Seeing his opponent’s choice of weapon, Derek started to consider his options for defeating him. The War Priest smiled as he saw the two of them stepping into place.

Making eye contact with them both he shouted, “Fighters are you ready?”

The two young men responded and he announced the start of the fight. Derek and his opponent both cast enhancements on themselves and started to test each other’s defenses. After a few probing engagements, Derek pushed in hard on his opponent, attempting to smash aside his opponent’s weapon to get in under the range of the polearm and pressure him at close quarters.

The other young man deftly dodged backwards, stabbing and slashing at Derek, while keeping him at range. He was confident that if he kept Derek at a range favorable to him, he would be able to win the fight, so he collapsed backwards rather quickly, aiming strikes at the feet, head, shoulders, and arms as he did so. But that was when a significant change occurred.

As the young man collapsed back to keep the range on Derek, Derek similarly collapsed backwards as well, broadening the range between the two significantly. This caught his opponent off guard and the young man had only barely had time to switch from falling back to moving forward once again when Derek’s Firestorm spell hit him. Suddenly caught in the area of effect of this hybrid Wind and Fire attribute spell, the young Magic Warrior could only rely on his shield to protect him, but he was startled to find that it was starting to collapse rather even under this.

Just as his opponent started to try to break out of the FIrestorm, Derek finished with his second spell, Earthbind. His opponent’s feet sunk almost to the knees into the tournament grounds below him. Derek then began slashing out with weapon channeled Wind Blades.

With the pressure from the Firestorm almost collapsing his shield spell, Wesley was caught further off guard by the sudden entrapment in the tournament floor below him. Flustered, he attempted to brute force himself out of the trap, but then he felt several sharp shocks against his shield before it collapsed. With a bright light, his armor protected him and the round ended.

“First match of round two, Derek Thorne wins! Congratulations! Fighters return to your waiting areas,” the War Priest confirmed the results of the fight. Derek nodded politely to his opponent and the referee before returning as he was instructed. He had used much less mana in this fight, but he sat down immediately, quickly collecting himself and refilling his mana pool.

When he was finished he glanced up to see his Weapons Master leaning against the wall. Ovid nodded to him, “Good job growing used to the environment this quickly, some take several days in this environment to get used to all of the distractions.”

Derek smiled as he heard the cheering growing louder through the walls and ceiling of the room, “I can understand why, it really does quicken the heart to hear it.”

Ovid looked at him seriously, “That’s true. You have done well to get this far, but your next opponent is Marcus Riley, he already defeated his first opponent. He’s peak tier four and incredibly good at what he does so no one's expecting you to defeat him. Just do your best, you probably have twenty or so minutes before your next fight.”

Derek nodded, “I understand, how did the other fights go?”

“Like you and Marcus, Xavier Celtus also won his match quickly. We are now waiting for the ninth and tenth year students to finish their matches. The two mages are just standing at range and battering each other’s shields. It isn’t particularly interesting but the crowd seems to be enjoying it. I suppose there is something to watching the light show as two mages batter at each other with the brute force of the elements.”

Laughing at his Weapons Master’s joke, he imagined the scene above from the sounds of explosions and roars of the crowd above. The fight lasted quite a while longer before the winner was decided. Derek couldn’t be bothered to find out the results just yet as he focused instead on getting into the correct frame of mind for the upcoming fight.

Soon enough, it was his turn to ascend the ramp again. As he ascended, he felt the anxiety he felt about his opponent get washed away by that same invigorating energy coming from the crowd. After a while, Derek stood in front of the War Priest again. Across from him was his opponent, the supposed number one contender in the tournament. He did indeed wear a robe, but unlike the mages Derek had faced before, Marcus was carrying a glaive.

Seeing Derek’s surprise at his weapon, Marcus laughed, “Don’t be surprised, Junior Brother, as a Battlemage blessed by the War God, I spend just as much time learning to fight with weapons as I do with my spells. Since the staves here do not have any enhancements that can assist with my spellcasting I opted to use this glaive.”

Derek nodded when he heard this, “That makes sense, I suppose. Why not use armor as well, then?”

Laughing again, Marcus shook his head, “Why though? the mage robes provide the same absolute defense the armor does and they’re lighter. While the robes may not match my flair, I will take whatever minor enhancement I can get from the lower weight.”

“Oh. That’s a rather pragmatic way at looking at things, to be sure.” Derek said, thinking over what he just heard.

At that, the War Priest joined in, “Pragmatism is a great trait to have as a follower of the War God. Otherwise you don’t live very long. Now, are you two ready?”

With a “Yes!” from both young men, he started the fight. Derek immediately cast his Righteous Blessing enhancement at level seven while tracking off to the left. His concern that his opponent might try to snipe him while he was buffing himself proved false as his opponent cast a similar enhancement to what Tristan used, floating upwards. Seeing that his opponent was casting lighter, faster spells like Flame Bullets and Wind Blades, Derek trusted his shield and ability to dodge while casting another powerful enhancement spell.

Roughly fifty percent of his opponent’s spells struck his shield, draining away a small fraction of his mana before his second enhancement snapped into place. The temperature on the stage began to rise as flames began to appear around Derek. With the boost to his mind from the Righteous Blessing enhancement, he was able to cast all of his spells at one level higher, so he opted to cast the mana intensive Righteous Fury at level eight.

Now, between both spells, his Base Attributes had more than doubled, with an additional thirty in each attribute. With the enhancement from both spells towards his Elemental Attributes he was now able to cast tenth level spells in Light, Order, and Fire Elements, and eighth level in the rest. The only negative was that maintaining both spells at such a high level was causing an intense drain on his mana reserves, not to mention any cost from casting further spells, which he was going to have to do to defeat his flying opponent.

Derek saw his opponent’s eyes widen from seeing the overlapping enhancements drop into place. The confident smile on Marcus’s face seemed to turn feral as his desire for battle was stimulated. The young man began casting spells at the recently buffed Derek.

Derek didn’t stand still. He felt an intense pressure from his opponent and he felt his own instincts respond to his opponent’s emotions. Sprinting forward, Derek prepared a series of Wind Steps to approach his opponent while firing off several Weapon Channeled Dispels at his opponent. He sensed danger from below as the ground that originally had been softening to create a quagmire to slow him instead shot several stone bullets up at him.

Derek’s shield absorbed several of them while he dodged the rest. Meanwhile his opponent was forced to shift several times to avoid the Dispels arcing towards him. After a moment a series of Wind Blades and Fire Bullets came blasting towards Derek again. Seeing the veritable wall of incoming spells, Derek dodged to the right, utilizing more Wind Steps to protect himself. He continued slashing forward with his Dispels using as many tricky angles and combinations of attacks to trap his opponent or catch him off guard.

Marcus was forced to focus more on defense, dodging and countering the incoming Dispels with spells of his own. This gave Derek time to close. When he did, he found himself trading blows with his opponent. Derek felt quite a bit of pressure as his opponent continued to rain down spells even as the two fighter’s weapons clashed again and again. But Marcus wasn’t feeling much better as he felt the strain on his own mana from the constant damage from the fire coming from Righteous Fury.

The clash between the two young men was intense. Both displayed tremendous skill in both weapons and spells. The crowd was ecstatic, both the uninitiated and the masters were all quite impressed by this fight. Derek even started to pick up on how to occasionally separately cast simple offensive spells while he was trading melee attacks with his opponent. Seeing his opponent pick up his own technique through combat, Marcus began to laugh uproariously, his battlelust peaking.

Even as Derek’s techniques improved, the end was still a matter of time. In weapon skills they were equal. In attributes, the two enhanced opponents were not different enough for either to really say they have an advantage as even if Derek had a statistically higher amount, his familiarity with that strength was not sufficient to give him the full utilization of it. In spell techniques, the Battlemage had a significant advantage, but most importantly, the tier four Battlemage’s mana pool was much more robust than his opponent’s and Derek’s compounded enhancements were a much higher drain on Derek than his opponent’s singular one.

After several minutes of frenzied fighting the Battlemage shouted, “Good! Good! To think that a first year would be this exceptional! Junior Brother, this is it! Take my strike!”

With that, Derek saw his opponent’s pole arm glow a violent red as it came slashing down from above him. It quaked with the might of the spell being cast through it. Derek sensed a great sense of danger from it so he brought his own glaive up to meet it, focusing a Dispel of the highest level he could cast into it and channeling as much mana as he could.

For one moment the intersection of those two weapons caused the world to wash in the colors of Red and White. After that moment, a concussive blast spread from where the two weapons met and Derek’s world turned black.

In that dark world Derek heard a powerful and arrogant voice, “Ha ha ha, great show, that’s the way. Never back down! Hey old man, give me a hand with this here trinket you made….”

Derek Thorne-

Previous Classes-

Magic Warrior, Rune Smith

Permanent Enhancements-

Rune Smith, Tier One: +2 Strength, +2 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind

Demon Warrior, Tier Two: +2 Strength, +2 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind, +2 Dark, +2 Chaos, +2 Light, +2 Order, Demon Sense

Disciple of the God of the Forge: +3 Strength, +3 Body, +7 Fire, +7 Earth

Blessed Child of the Hearth Goddess: +2 Body, +2 Mind, +5 Order, +5 Light

Greater Demon Heart: +3 Strength, +2 Body, +2 Agility, +3 Mind, +5 Dark, +5 Chaos, Expanded Essentia Pool, Masking

Blessing of the Sun Goddess: +2 Agility, +5 Order, +5 Light, +5 Fire

Storm Plum: +5 Water, +5 Wind

Temporary Enhancements-

Righteous Blessing, Level Seven: +14 to Basic Attributes, +14 to Order and Light Attribute, Level 7 regenerating shield.

Righteous Fury, Level Eight: +16 to Basic Attributes, +16 to Order, Light, and Fire Attribute, Level 8 regenerating shield, Level 8 damaging aura

Equipment-

Talisman of the Sun, Forge and Hearth: eight mature sprites +8 to all elemental attributes, other assorted benefits

Marcus Riley-

Previous Classes-

Magic Warrior, Battlemage, Battlemage, Battlemage

Permanent Enhancements-

Battlemage, Tier One: +2 Agility, +4 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Battlemage, Tier Two: +2 Agility, +4 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Battlemage, Tier Three: +2 Agility, +4 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Battlemage, Tier Four: +2 Agility, +6 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Great Blessing of the War God: +7 Strength, +7 Body, +7 Agility, +7 Mind

Rite of the Arcane Awakening: +5 to all Elemental Attributes, Improved Affinities

Temporary Enhancements-

Elemental Infusion, Level Seven: +14 to Basic Stats, +14 to Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth Attribute, Level 7 regenerating shield, Fly, Heal over time, Fatigue reduction over time.