Kai held his hand out. “Hi, I’m Kai. I guess we’ll be fighting today?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question but it certainly came out that way.

The woman looked at his outstretched hand and sneered. “I doubt anyone who watches it will call it a fight.” She walked past him to the edge of the sparring ring and turned to look inward. Two of the people Kai had mentally classified as mages took opposite positions in the sparring ring as everyone else cleared out. One less mage to deal with later on. Kai looked around to see how the other fighters had paired off. Actually that means I’ll only fight a mage if they make it to the finals. The other mage must have drawn the number two stone and was paired against Vin for the first round. Nice, I also won’t face Vin until the final either. That means my next match will be the spear guy or the axe guy. Need to focus and get through this first.

Kai’s thoughts returned to the present and he watched the match between the two mages. They were fast, much faster than he thought a mage would be. They also had a large amount of mana, at least based off the effects of the spells he imagined they were expensive. One was an ice mage that was able to freeze the ground in an aura effect around himself. He also threw icicles at his opponent. She however was the better fighter. She wreathed herself in lightning which accelerated her movement even higher than super fast as Kai had taken to calling the speed the two moved at. The two moved back and forth, Kai caught a few glimpses of the fight but couldn’t follow the specifics, his Perception just wasn’t high enough. About a minute after the fight started the lightning mage had won.

As the ice mage and lightning mage stepped out of the ring Alric motioned for Vin and the final mage to step in. Alric asked them if they were ready and both nodded. “Begin!” Alric shouted.

The mage immediately wreathed himself in flame and shot forward toward Vin as he tried to close the distance. Vin had already put three arrows in the air. The first one barely missed the mage as it came within about three inches from what Kai could see. The mage was neither good nor lucky enough to dodge the next two. The second arrow pierced the mages foot and pinned him to the ground for a moment, long enough for the third arrow to drill deep into his gut and punch through his back. Blood and saliva spewed from the mages mouth as he collapsed. The match was less than ten seconds and the mage had taken maybe four steps before it was over.

Kai looked at the woman he was to fight next. She didn’t seem impressed or intimidated by what Vin had just done. How am I supposed to compete with these people? This is suicide to fight them. The fire mage was healed up and dragged from the ring. Alric motioned for Kai and the woman to step forward.

He stepped into the ring and readied himself. Alric asked, “Are both fighters ready?”

The woman across from Kai nodded and drew both her daggers. Kai took a deep breath, closed his eyes and thought back on his recent spar with those two crazy guys. One of them had used daggers and he’d managed to deflect his strike. There was no way this woman was as good as that guy, he led a squad. I can do this. Kai told himself and nodded to Alric.

“Begin!” Alric’s voice rang out.

Kai fired off a Mana Bolt and charged forward. He fired another Mana Bolt towards his opponent’s right side. She dodged but kept moving closer to Kai’s right hand side which held his bokken. The two clashed in the middle. She was fast but Kai was able to keep up and parried three quick strikes. As he parried the last strike from her right hand she had left her middle exposed as she was overextended. Kai capitalized with a Heavy Blow to her gut. He followed that up with a leg sweep. She didn’t go all the way down but she stumbled enough that Kai was able to land a jab with left hand. He spun the bokken and smacked first her right wrist then her left wrist. Both the woman’s hands went numb and her daggers fell to the ground. Kai turned his body a little further and dropped his shoulder to charge the woman. He used Heavy Blow for the shoulder charge and launched her about six feet through the air. As she landed her head smacked the ground and she was knocked unconscious. Kai had just won. He couldn’t believe it.

The other fighters couldn’t believe it either. He heard mutterings of, “She got sloppy...let her guard down against the kid...she shouldn’t have lost that.” Bullshit. Was all he could think. I won that fair and square and I deserve it. He stepped out of the ring and pulled a mana potion from his ring. He looked to Alric to make sure it wasn’t against the rules and Alric nodded at him. He chugged it down.

The spearman and the axe fighter stepped into the ring. The winner of this match would be Kai’s next opponent. The two men nodded to each other and then Alric asked if they were ready. Both men nodded and Alric shouted, “Begin!” The spearman leaped forward crossing the distance in what appeared to be two steps. The axeman was ready with his shield forward. The tip of the spear hit the shield and slid off the to the top from the angle the axeman used. The axe swung low at the spearman’s feet but he seemed to just dance around the axehead. The spearman was within the axeman’s guard. He used the spear as a staff planted his hands about a foot apart from each other in the middle of the spear and smashed it right in the axeman’s face. Blood fountained from the axeman’s nose. The spearman spun around the back of the axeman and brought his spear low to sweep his opponent’s legs. As he went down the axeman brought his shield up and began to turtle under it. The spearman jumped back and began to attack the exposed areas. A moment later Alric called a halt and declared the spearman the winner.