Watching Spartacus’ walk away in defeat, Zane felt unsatisfied. The battle ended too quickly and he barely had time to experience using his body as a weapon. It wasn’t the end of the world though. Zane could still gain more understanding through meditation and battles with other people. Plus, he managed to get his Basic Unarmed Combat Mastery skill to level fifty.

Skill: Basic Unarmed Combat Mastery

Level: 50, MAX%

Tier: 0

Effect: Increases physical attack damage and physical defense while unarmed in combat. Damage and Defense 25 + Str/15 + Dex/15 + End/15

Special effect (1): More Stamina

Special effect (2): Sturdy Physique

Cost: None

It was an unexpected, but welcomed surprise when Zane saw the increase in his skill. It would usually take some time and effort to get a skill to level fifty, but Zane was able to do it with a few attacks. This showed that treating his body as a weapon wasn’t a ridiculous idea.

“Congratulations Zane. You made it to first place.” Sophie mentally contacted him as he stared at his skill.

“Are you going to have another match?” Jason asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be upgrading your class today?” Zane asked. “I thought you would have left by now.”

“Leave? No way. I still haven’t prepared myself yet.”

“How are you preparing by watching me fight?”

“I’m letting myself relax before I begin my upgrade. Both my body and mind need to be at their best state. Right now, I’m eating one of the meals we got from home to relax my body and I’m watching you beat up random people to relax my mind.”

“I’m glad my performance is so helpful to you.”

“I’m glad that you’re glad. Now, when’s your next match?”

“I actually want to practice something right now and I can’t be sure my next opponent will be able to help me do that.” After a short pause Zane spoke. “Hey Shane, you up for a spar?” The only response Zane received was silence.

“I think he’s in a match,” Sophie answered, “Shane said watching your matches caused his fighting spirit to surge. He opened up a private room and started issuing challenges.”

“Brad did the same,” Frank added. “The system doesn’t let us speak to them when they’re in the middle of a match.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Zane said. “Anyone else wants to spar with me?”

“No way,” Britney said. “We all decided to take the day off. We’ve been training hard the past few days and now it’s time to relax.”

“But if you really need a sparring partner we can help,” Sophie added.

“No need,” Zane replied. “I’m going to get a private room to train. Let me now if anything interesting happens.”

Zane exited the black sand and started walking to a private room. While he was walking through the hallway he paused as he felt a message come from his ranking orb. Taking it out of his space bag he saw that a person called Valin challenged him. Zane accepted while contacting the others mentally.

“Someone just sent me a challenge,” Zane said.

“Great! Looks like we get to see another fight. Hopefully your opponent will put up a decent fight this time.”

“Who are you fighting?” Sophie asked.

“Someone named Valin,” Zane answered. “I’m supposed to head to his private room. If you want to watch the fight, then all of you will have to spend some points.”

Zane smiled as he listened to the group mentally groan and complain. The warrior training ground offered observation orbs which were capable of observing the rankings and matches. The orbs only cost 300 village points and everyone in the group got them when they found out about them.

The private rooms were located on a lower floor. It didn’t take long for Zane to walk through the door to the stairway. Zane went down the steps, but he would have arrived at the seating if he went up.

Once Zane reached the lower floor it didn’t take long for him to find the private room because he came to the lower floors before. Zane paid village points to an expert to learn two new skills on the first day. At that time, he had to come downstairs to learn in a private room. The hallways and doors were made of the same materials as those on the upper floor, but Zane had to spend some time navigating the multiple four-way intersections.

After learning two skills from an expert on the first day Zane never came back. He was interested in learning new skills, but he wanted to focus on the skills that were the most important to him. However, that wasn’t the crucial factor that affected his decision not to return. The crucial factor was the cost. The price to learn new skills increased from 10,000 village points to 500,000 village points. It was a reasonable price considering how valuable his first two skills were, but it would be considered a waste of money if Zane didn’t pick the right skill.

Shaking his head, Zane tried not to think about the experts that could teach him a new skill. He already made the decision not to look for an expert to teach skills him unless he found a skill that was difficult to learn and very important to his future. As Zane went through his thoughts he quickly arrived at the private room of his challenger. The moment Zane walked through the door his eyes narrowed and his mouth morphed into a frown.

In front of him was an elven seated on the ground in meditation. Specifically, the elven who tried to kill Jason when they first arrived. Zane could still remember the fear and panic he felt when he thought Jason was about to be killed. He also remembered the intense desire to kill that immediately came after. As that desire started to rise up within him again, he saw Valin’s eyes fly open.

Valin immediately stood up once they made eye contact. Zane could see that Valin’s eyes contained the hatred from before and he gladly returned it with his own eyes. They stared at each other in silence, neither of them hiding their desire to kill the other. Finally, the elven spoke.

“I expected to fight a filthy human, but I didn’t know it would be you.”

“I also expected to fight a human, but instead I have to face a wild dog that likes to bark and bite at anything he sees.”

Valin sneered when he heard Zane’s words. “As expected, all humans are the same. It doesn’t matter what world they come from. All of you like to spew out ridiculous and meaningless words.”

“I would consider my words accurate instead of ridiculous. What’s actually ridiculous was you attacking my brother for no reason other than him being a human. But you might be right. A dog will always know it’s a dog, it’s meaningless to tell it what it already knows.”

Once Zane finished speaking, he felt a wave of energy surge forth from Valin. It was the energy of a tier one expert. Zane kept his expression neutral as he did his best gather information from his opponent. He could sense that his source field was at the basic level at best and used identify to look at his level.

Elven Lvl 31

Using identify was better than analyze. Analyze would have alerted his opponent and the skill hadn’t reached a level that would allow him to obtain detailed information about his opponent. As he tried to sense Valin’s strength, he felt an invasive gaze from his opponent and knew he was trying to do the same. To protect himself, Zane projected his mana and internal energy outward while using Warrior Courage.

Skill: Warrior Courage

Level: 23, 67%

Tier: 0

Effect: Increases defense against outside mental forces based on willpower.

Cost: Mana based on the strength of the outside mental force

Feeling his mana start to drain, Zane prepared to attack Valin. He didn’t want to give him any more time to prepare or gather information. However, Zane stopped when he saw Valin raise his hand and he felt the loss of mana stop.

“Before we begin let set the rules.”

“Rules?” Zane questioned.

“Yes, this is my room. I don’t only get points when people watch our matches, but I also can set the rules for how our matches will be fought. The first rule I would like to propose is that we can both suffer real physical injuries. Do you agree?”

“I agree.” Zane immediately agreed after seeing his challenging look. He wasn’t afraid of injuries and he didn’t think the system would allow death.

“Hmph, the next rule is about betting. The reason I challenge you was because you made it to the top of the challenger rankings. You should have earned at least a million points by now and that will be the amount we both bet on our fight. Do you agree?”

Zane spent some time thinking over this rule before agreeing. He had a lot more than a million points and he considered increasing the bet. However, he didn’t want the elven to know how much village points he had, so he decided not to change the bet.

“Finally, I will change the landscape of our private room.” Valin waved his hand and Zane saw that he was now in a forest with trees smaller than the ones in the forest outside. “The looser will have to pay for the change in the landscape. If you don’t have the money the system will band you from entering the training ground until you do. Do you agree?”

Once Valin asked the question Zane saw a message appear in front of him. It detailed all of the things Valin talked about and asked him if he accepted. Also, it informed him that he didn’t have to accept and could argue for different rules. If an agreement couldn’t be reached it would not negatively affect his Champion ranking. Zane didn’t have a problem and accepted the system message. After he accepted Zane saw Valin smile and take out two knives.

“Since you have agreed, there’s no further need to speak. Prepare to suffer human.”