I’d gotten in a small catnap after a few more duels, getting a feel for how strong people were. What tricks I needed to be on the lookout for, what had changed.

Frankly, it was hard to tell. On one hand, the world clearly had more. More skills. More fields. More ways of fighting. There were angles to consider that I’d never dreamed were possible before, which was frankly silly of me. The System allowed anything to be possible.

On the other? I was fighting students. Sure, they were around the same age as me. Sure, they were the ones interested in duels. But no matter how much I reminded myself that the fights were real, and to give it my all, I just couldn’t stop seeing kids across from me in the arena.

Nevermind some of them were older than I was. They just… hadn’t spent their life on the edge, fighting for survival. They hadn’t spent years training to kill. A few of them dabbled in polite dueling now and then - or at least that’s what it seemed like - but there was a difference between occasionally dueling, and spending all day every day working on how to become more lethal.

In a way, I was slightly jealous.

Only a few registered on my “pay attention” scale. Other men and women who’d gone through a lifetime of training to be a warrior, of training to fight and kill for their life. They were the threats.

Iona and I were listening to the rules of the free-for-all getting announced by one of the arena people. Not the elf. Iona was continuing to translate, and I swore if I got admitted to the School the first class I was taking was a language class or five. I was sick and tired of not understanding people.

Actually…

Iona had a blessing…

Didn’t hurt to try, right?

“Selene. Lunaris. Can I please get a blessing to understand people? Languages alone would be nice, but if you could also help me, like, understand people that’d be great as well.”

I heard a distant laugh, and my heart leapt up into my throat.

“No.” A strangely familiar voice whispered in my ear.

Damn. I got the goddesses to personally deny my request. That didn’t happen every day! Maybe being near their [Paladin] helped?

We’d rounded up Artemis, Julius, and Amber, and they were watching from the stands along with Auri. They also had my armor. Hilariously, this was the first time in ages that I believed I could get some actual minor use out of it - except laying low and looking like I wasn’t a threat was the better plan!

I’d made it explicitly clear, almost to the point of being annoying, that I was here to fight for a combat scholarship. I’d bugged and irritated a half-dozen people to that effect, which did me no favors on one hand, but also got me on their radar. I considered that a win, although Iona’s eyebrows kept going up the longer I was at it.

“Welcome, one and all, to the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft’s free-for-all event! Some of you are old hands at this, some of you are brand new! A few of you are using this event as your application to the School. Welcome, welcome! First, I would like to thank Mormerilhawn, the Black Rose, whose skills make this all possible. When we don’t have a [Master of the Arena] giving us a hand, these events are just not possible. Now! Let me explain how this works. There is a large area, about 14 square miles. The boundaries will be clearly marked, and we ask you to not go past them. You will be given a minor beacon, directing you to your starting position. You don’t have to go there, but we encourage you to. No stalking other people! You can team up with your friends though. Once everyone’s roughly in the right spot, we will begin. Prizes are awarded to the final eight contestants, with each of the towers having generously provided one of the rewards! The last wizard standing gets first pick of the prizes, the second one gets the second pick, et cetera. None of this nonsense trying to deliberately get fourth place because that has the best prize. That was a disaster.”

A ripple of chuckles came from the crowd.

“Rules! The shields you all have in place should prevent harm. There are ways to bypass the shields. If you do so, you will be removed from the event, likely expelled, and handed off to the locals. Here. There will be no transportation back to your home. Mormerilhawn has given each and every one of you the speech. You know what causes harm and what won’t. You eliminate another contestant by causing them enough damage that their shield triggers a ‘loss’. Now, for the free-for-all, we’ve got a special little rule. Mormerilhawn, in all his power and glory, will teleport anyone who’s defeated outside of the event.”

Iona broke from her translation.

“Wait, he can do that!?” She exclaimed. “That’s… that’s…”

“That’s not telling me the rest of the rules!!” I poked her in the side, my finger ending up with more damage than Iona.

Iona cursed.

“Right, sorry. I’ve missed some of it, but…”

“... you can work as a team, or by yourself. It makes no difference to us. Just make sure your team has the prizes figured out! We do value people being able to work together, just as much as we all love watching a good backstab.”

That brought another round of chuckles.

“Speaking of WATCHING! We have a few mages here who’ll be displaying the events via dedicated Mirage skills back to the audience! They’ll be doing all sorts of nonsense like getting drunk, gambling, and having a grand old time while you’re in the mud. It is also how the coaches in charge of combat-related admittances will determine if you are good enough to join the School or not! Questions?”

A question was asked.

“No! You can’t rob other students! You can grab their weapons and the like, but at the end of the event, you need to give them their equipment back! Nothing will be done about destroyed weapons, so think carefully about those arrows and one-shot talismans! Next question!”

On it went, a back and forth Q&A. All reasonable things.

“Right! Last thing! Anyone with a teleportation index over 1,000,000 can’t compete! You’re too heavy and vital to get teleported out in the event that you’re eliminated.”

Iona cut off at the end there, even though the announcer kept going. Her eyebrows furrowed in thought as her fingers twitched. The announcer said something else that had everyone start moving towards the front.

Curse my short stature. I couldn’t see what was going on up there.

“I think I’m over.” She admitted.

“How can you tell?”

“I’m heavy with a lot of vitality. Here, let’s go ask one of the organizers for you.” Without waiting for me to answer, she grabbed my hand and started weaving through the crowd of people.

I had a sneaking suspicion that Iona didn’t actually know if she was too heavy or not to compete, and was using my lack of knowledge as a cover for her own.

I didn’t mind, I needed to know anyway. Plus her hand was warm.

We got to the front, where little glowing circles like wafers with an arrow pointed on them were being handed out.

Iona had a quick word with one of the people, then had a fast question for me.

“Yeah. What’s your weight and vitality?”

I told her, she translated, and took one token.

“Ok, yeah, I was right.” She handed it back to me. “I’ve got too many stats for this. You’re in, I’m not, I guess I’ll try the individual tournament.” Her face fell for a moment, then brightened up.

“Oh! I might be able to win for once!”

“You haven’t won a tournament before?” I asked her. She shook her head.

“Nope! My build’s not great for duels. It’s good for long slogs. Anyways, I wish you luck!”

Iona clapped me on the shoulder, then waded back against the crowd.

I looked down at my token with an arrow on it.

Well, this seemed obvious enough.

=================================================

I walked over fields and hills, skirting around a pond, thankful that I wasn’t getting directed into the forest like some of the other contestants.

I was continuing operation Max Deception. I had my [Mantle of the Stars] active and ready… over my heart, front and back, obviously protecting a “weak spot”. It wasn’t actually a weak spot. I only had my still-filthy tunic, a knife, and my Deception Ring, displaying a low level.

My trickery wouldn’t last, nor was I relying on it. However, it’d give me an edge, and I could use every single edge possible. I wanted to show off every trick possible. After all, showing off was how I got to a safer spot, there was no reason to hold back.

Two different audiences. Two different shows.

Some people got into small groups as we scattered over the contest fields. A few came up to me, but I just shrugged and kept repeating that I didn’t understand them. In Creation. A few of the more obvious ones got predatory looks, and I could only hope they tried me.

A few groups gathered up together and hustled off, and I mentally marked them as my first targets. A single person taking out an entire group by herself?

That was exactly the sort of thing that’d get me noticed.

Most of the groups seemed to be a few knights, with a half dozen to a dozen lightly armed men and women-at-arms. Having practically no knowledge of the country, culture, or really anything, I had to go back to some fundamentals, and assume there was a hotshot noble - or just someone really rich and powerful - who had a bunch of hanger-ons, and they were competing here for… admission? The prizes?

Knowing their motives would help me fight them, but it wasn’t critical. I did mentally mark what direction they were going in, planning on heading towards them first. A large group would move slower.

One group was filled with all manner of elvenoids in various brightly colored robes, with long sleeves. They were completely different from the witch-wizard outfit that most members of the School were wearing. It all looked terribly impractical, but they were among the higher leveled groups I’d seen. Who knows, maybe they all had [Impractical Bathrobe Fighter] as a class or something, giving them bonuses when they fought like that, or their class gave them a ton of extra experience for it.

Or something. I wouldn’t underestimate them, the same way I was hoping others would underestimate me.

I made it to my spot, halfway up a small hill, and waited for the signal to begin. As I did, I quickly thought of a few different strategies that other people might go for.

There was beating everyone else up. Somebody had to do it, otherwise the free-for-all would drag out for eternity.

There was turtling up, which I suspected some of the groups might do. Just make themselves a great big fuck-off target that nobody wanted to tackle. If nobody fought them, they’d make it to the end of the event in short order, at which point things got complicated.

There was the ‘hide and hope nobody sees me’ strategy, which would be great for the type of person I was pretending to be. Just hope that everyone else fought like crazy, sneak around the edges of the event, and either backstab or sneak into the top 8 to get prizes.

I doubted that type of strategy would be favorably looked upon by the people making determinations about combat entry, or scholarships. Unless free-for-alls were bigger events, and being a sneaky mouse was valued.

Eh. Not what I was aiming for.

I was going to be the rampaging bull type. Just running around, looking for people and fights, and giving it my all until I was eliminated.

Or hell.

I was a Sentinel.

I was going to win this thing, for my own pride. To prove that the line in my skills, ‘The peak of humanity’, wasn’t just there for show.

Mist started to rise up, thick and heavy, severely limiting visibility. It didn’t care that the sun was up, some Classer was using a skill to make visibility worse. Interestingly, it only stayed thick and heavy near the ground, the open sky still visible.

Weird, but ok.

My token turned green, a great gong reverberated through the area, and the event was clearly on.

While I was on Operation: Complete Dominance, I wasn’t going to be terminally stupid about it. I wasn’t going to go flying through the air, letting everyone on the ground see me, while the mists made it hard for me to see them. That was asking to get turned into a pincushion.

However, not everyone had the same line of thought. A number of people exploded out of the mists at various points. One of the bathrobe people surfing on a sword, another with no hilt and fancy tassels in his hand. A woman grabbed onto Lightning bolts, and used them like monkey bars to swing through the sky. A knight had a pair of shimmering wings - angel-like, not butterfly-like - and had his lance and shield at the ready. A dozen more people jumped into the air in various ways. Wings, platforms, stepping on the air itself, no two people had the same method of flying.

Well. I just had to do something about that. People making themselves into targets all over the place? Please.

I had to say, preparing the attack was weird. It took me a few moments to identify why.

I was taking offensive action against people who weren't a threat to my life. I’d been bound by ‘First, do no harm’ for so long that actions to the contrary just felt wrong. Like my underwear was full of sand or something.

At the same time, it was strangely liberating. For once in my life, the gloves were properly off. I didn’t need to worry about causing others harm. I could let all my training rip.

I conjured a half-dozen [Kaleidoscope] butterflies, then started to run away from them, mentally tracking the closest dozen contenders. When three of them were roughly in range - I would’ve liked to get more, but I’d take what I could get - I gleefully launched my butterflies out on various intercept courses.

They emerged from the mists at high speeds right under their feet. One of them noticed, two of them didn’t. The butterflies swarmed up and around them, detonating a moment later. Bright flashes of Radiance coated the three of them, and I saw one of them fall.

I started running in the direction the guy had fallen - another one of the fancy robe-wearing people, although he’d been directly stepping on air, not flying on a sword - mentally noting that the other two hadn’t emerged from the explosions.

The lack of anything resembling a kill notification was weird. I had to assume they’d been teleported away, but a little voice in the back of my head kept saying they’d thrown up a powerful illusion, and were sneaking around still. That I needed to blast Radiance around me, kill their illusion, and handle them.

Which would make a nice bright spot exactly where I was, and grab the attention of half the fliers. I wanted to be aggressive, not suicidal.

Something to keep in mind.

A whirling storm of blades landed in the spot where I’d launched my butterflies from, and I was glad I’d already been out of the way before I even sent them after the fliers. I probably would’ve gotten caught by that otherwise. Obviously, the people in the air weren’t going to take attacks from the ground lightly.

I made it to where I’d seen the flying warrior fall to, finding him picking himself up off the ground.

[Warrior - 280]

Not a significant threat to me. He drew his sword as I charged him, and my bond-enhanced speed let me quickly figure out the most delightful way to beat him with style.

Normally, I’d call it a stupid plan, and throw out any Ranger Trainee proposing it. However, I needed the style points.

I flowed around his thrust, opening up one arm to slap his face. As my hand came up, I saw dozens, hundreds of potential spots to hit him, ways to win. Sword between the ribs. Radiance beam through the heart, eyes, or mouth. If I wanted to disable him, dozens of joints I could hit. All easier, more practical targets than what I was going for.

Right before my slap connected with his ugly face, I blasted Radiance magic from my palm as powerfully as I could, triggering the shield and the teleport.

To someone watching?

It would look like I slapped him out of the event.