“Huh? Where am I?” Slowly coming to, Hiro opened his eyes to see a ceiling over his head. The last thing he remembered was the open stage and the strange black-cloaked man.

“You’re finally up?” A cold and gruff voice came from beside him.

“Hua!” Hiro jumped in surprise and sat up.

Hiro looked over and saw the same familiar man. The man still had his cloak on and aside from his mouth, which sported a stubble, nothing else could be discern from the man. The man looked a bit taller than Hiro, around 180-190 centimeters tall. After a quick glance around the room, Hiro could tell that he was in a small cottage. In the corner was a small stove and Hiro could see that he was sitting on top of the only bed in the one room house. Sitting on a chair, patiently waiting beside the bed, was the stranger.

“Where am I?” Hiro asked once more, a little wary of the man.

“My house. Isn’t it cozy?” The man smirked as he answered Hiro’s question, “What I want to know is: is it true, that you learned the [Shunpo] skill from Siberus in under 3 months?”

Cautiously looking at the man, Hiro tried lying, “No, I learned it from a passing adventurer.”

“Don’t lie to me boy.” The stranger strictly warned, “Not many know how to use this skill, if they did, I would’ve heard about it.”

Flinching from the quick rejection, Hiro could only admit to the truth.

“Yes… I learned it from Siberus…I don’t know how long it took to learn it though…” Hiro held his head down, not making eye contact with the man.

[Tenga…A little help?] Hiro wanted Tenga’s advice on what to do with the current situation.

[Do not anger that man Hiro, he’s dangerous.], was Tenga’s only reply, before he refused to say anything more.

“Interesting…” The mouth curved up into a grin, “Did you join the tournament in order to become Romulus’ disciple?”

With no other choice, Hiro nodded, “Yes…I have a goal that I want to achieve and in order to do that I need to become strong.”

“Haha! Very interesting! Well then, I can’t keep you here all day now can I?” The man laughed while rubbing his chin. “We better hurry though...It might’ve already been your next match.”

“What?! How long was I out?” Hiro shouted in surprise.

“Not long. Maybe half an hour or so.”

“What?! We have to hurry! I can’t lose because of something like this!” Hiro jumped up.

“Wait.” The stranger grabbed unto Hiro’s arm. As soon as the man touched Hiro, Hiro’s body froze, refusing to obey any of Hiro’s commands. “Before we go, take this.” The man held out a small marble tablet, the size of Hiro’s palm.

“This is?” Hiro asked curiously as he picked up the tablet.

“Hold it to your forehead.”

“Like this?” Hiro placed the tablet to the center of his forehead.

“Since you know how to use [Shunpo], then it means you know how to control the aura correct?”

“…Yes…”

“Infuse the tablet with your aura.”

Listening to the strangers commands, Hiro began to send his aura at the tablet. As soon as the aura made contact, Hiro began to panic. His aura was quickly being drained, which was the same thing as his Astral Body getting drained.

“What…Is…This?!” He said as he felt dizzy from the heavy drainage of his magical energy. After a short time, images began to appear within his brain. It was as if drawings were quickly being flipped through to look like moving pictures. Within the drawings he noticed that a person was dancing wildly while brandishing his blade. After that scene, a huge rush of information invaded Hiro’s brain and he blacked out once more. The last thing he could clearly see were the words: “Dance of Reeds”.

Smiling to himself, the man picked up the unconscious youth and disappeared once more. The strange thing was, this man didn’t use [Shunpo]. Unlike [Shunpo], which moved through space, the skill the man had used was on a whole different tier. He had actually bent space and stepped through, avoiding everything in between point A and point B.

Appearing in a small private room, the man set down the youth and disappeared from the room.

While Hiro was unconscious, the Blood Knight had his match. Up against him was an unlucky adventurer by the name of Alric. If not for his luck, Alric would’ve been the most likely contestant to win the D-Rank Division tournament. However, up against someone so strong Alric could only helplessly whack his sword on the glistening armor. None of his attacks are working, not even when he tried to tackle the Blood Knight. If anything, it looked like the Blood Knight was toying with him; standing still as if challenging Alric to push him back a step.

After 20 minutes of the one-sided match, the Blood Knight walked up to the panting adventurer.

“You monster!” Alric cried out as he fell down and scrambled backwards. He had witnessed Hiro’s match earlier and had admired the youth’s ability, but the person that stood in front of him now was unworldly, as if he wasn’t human. Fear gripped at his heart as sweat dripped down from his forehead.

*Chk Chk*

The sounds of the Blood Knight’s boots echoed around the stage. The crowd had gone silent, as if waiting for execution. Throughout the match, they had slowly died down and sat on the edge of their seats in shock, watching the adventurer named Alric desperately try to do something about the high-class armor.

After a few seconds of scrambling, Alric arrived at the edge of the stage. In front of him was overwhelming strength and behind him was salvation. With the obvious choice in front of him, Alric quickly pushed himself off the stage and fell down face first unto the field. With that, the one-sided match came to an end and it was finally Colin’s turn.

“What do you think about that guy?” Siberus chuckled as he asked Romulus. “With strength like that, wouldn’t it be easy teach him if he became your disciple?”

Romulus could only manage a small smile as he replied, “Aye, but with gear like that, do you think that expert needs me to teach him?” Romulus could tell that the Blood Knight was participating at a level way below his own. He knew that there was no way Colin would be able to win against the knight, Colin’s only chance was to take third place.

On the stage, Colin and a largely built man walked onto the stage. Colin’s opponent, Hazac, was a blacksmith’s apprentice. Originally he only wanted to show off the stores wares by using them within the tournament, but somehow he made it to the quarter-finals. Similar to the Blood Knight, Hazac was clad in full armor, except for his face, his whole body was covered in a black alloy. Black Iron, a metal that is a full grade higher than steel, though it’s not a rare material, it was uncommon. It was because of this higher grade material that none of the other adventurers were able to damage him.

Seeing Colin, dressed in nothing but regular clothes and wielding a large sword on his back, Hazac snorted with disdain, “Hmph! Someone like you have to guts to challenge me?”

“For a person who hides behind his equipment, you sure talk big.” Colin glared back. He was watching Hazac and knew that without the higher grade equipment, Hazac would’ve lost in the first match. Because of this, Colin had decided to go out with nothing but his clothes and weapon, to prove that skill trumps equipment.

“Shut up! A person’s equipment is based on a person’s own strength, would you say that it was unfair, because your enemy had more numbers than you?” Hazac retorted, flustered that Colin had pointed out the truth.

“That is true.” Colin nodded, “However, I’m here to prove that with insufficient skills, the equipment’s true potential would never be able to be fully utilized.”

*Beep!*

The start signal sounded, Hazac and Colin both readied their blades. The amazing sight of Colin holding up a sword longer than his body was an amazing sight. Intimidated by Colin’s strength, Hazac could only remind himself that his gear was one of the best in the tournament. Hazac, who wasn’t used to fighting, but had strength from his apprenticeship, began to lumber towards the calm Colin.

Colin stood still. He was certain that his opponent was a total amateur that relied upon his gear, while he was relying on his skills. His great sword, which had a reach of over 6ft was his trump card, as long as his opponent was anywhere within that range, Colin would be able to attack him.

Confident that his Black Iron gear would protect him, Hazac threw caution to the wind and entered Colin’s range. There was no way that Colin’s steel great sword would be able to break past his armor and hurt him. Swinging his 1 meter long sword, Hazac made a chop at Colin’s flank.

However, right at that moment, before his very eyes, the hilt of Colin’s great sword smashed right into his face. Flinching from the pain and feeling his nose break, Hazac fell back. Not ever moving from his position, Colin had struck the only weakspot on Hazac’s body, the uncovered face. Not only was the strike quick, it was well-aimed. Colin aimed at the man’s nose in order to disorient his opponent and the bleeding would making hard for the man to breath.

“Augh!” Hazac yelled as he felt the blood pouring down from his face.

“You should’ve worn a full-helm and not show your face.” Colin spat out, “Just for vanity you decided to forego defense and worn that helmet. That was your downfall.” Colin began his attack as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Wait!” Hazac shouted as he held out a free hand towards Colin.

Not listening, Colin quickly began to approach Hazac. With no other choice, Hazac decided to entrust himself to his armor’s protection. Ignoring the blood streaming down from his broken nose, Hazac once again recklessly threw himself at Colin; he was out for revenge, for hurting him, he would return the favor two-folds.

Expecting Hazac’s attack, Colin ignored the pitiful man and used his two arms to slash horizontally in front of him.

Seeing Colin’s actions, Hazac only smirked, there was no way Colin could break past his armor. Not even defending, Hazac continued to run at Colin.

*Clang! Bam!*

As soon as the great sword struck Hazac, Hazac began to regret his decision. As if having the force of a raging waterfall, the sword knocked Hazac off his feet and made him fly back 5 meters.

“Ugh…” Hazac slowly got up after having the wind knocked out of him. Glancing at his left side, he could see a large dent in his armor. “What?! How?!” He looked back at Colin, who was slowly approaching.

“What? Can’t you see that your strengths are inferior to my own?” Colin snorted with disdain.

“But…This is Black Iron!”

“So what of it?”

“There’s no way a measly steel grade weapon could damage this…” Hazac breathlessly said as he stared at Colin’s great sword.

“You’re right, but this isn’t a steel sword.” He brought up his great sword, “The core of this sword is made up of volcanic sediment, much denser and heavier than steel and Black Iron. To be honest, this is only used for training.”

“What?! Impossible! Volcanic sediment…” Being a blacksmith’s apprentice, he knew that the material Colin had just revealed was a really heavy material. Not even blacksmiths would use it as a weapon component.

With his blade just centimeters away from Hazac’s chest he asked, “Do you give up? Or shall we continue this?”

With no other choice, since his nose still kept bleeding and the dented armor was making it quite hard to breath, Hazac surrendered. Just like Colin planned, by breaking his opponent’s nose and caving in a portion of the armor, he made it difficult for the opponent to continue fighting. Of course he could’ve just outright defeated his opponent, but it wouldn’t teach Hazac anything. What Colin’s goal was, was to teach Hazac that equipment grade wasn’t what determines the outcome, but the wielder’s own skills and strengths. By using such an unwieldy material weapon as Volcanic Sediment, Colin proved that by his strength alone, he had defeated Hazac, who was dressed in full armor.

[Ladies and Gentlemen! This concludes the quarter-final matches. We’ll be taking a short break before resuming the semi-final matches!]

---

Opening his eyes, Hiro woke up once again. This time on a comfortable couch within a small waiting room. On the screen was Kairn standing up at one side of the stage.

“Ugh…” Hiro held his head, he was still dizzy from the huge influx of information that had invaded his mind earlier. Groggily getting up, he stared in puzzlement at the screen.

[Ladies and Gentlemen! If Hiro doesn’t show up soon, this match would be a forfeit!]

“Huh?!” Hiro jerked up in alarm. What the MC had just announced flashed through his mind.

Without another thought, Hiro jumped off the couch and raced out from his room and into the field.

[Look everone! There he is!]

The crowd, which had been chanting his name over and over again grew into a frenzy. Standing atop the stage, Kairn just kept glaring at the black-clad youth. Not only did Hiro steal his spotlight, Hiro had made him wait, acting as if Kairn was insignificant. Although Kairn was arrogant and had done the same to his earlier opponents, he didn’t like the same thing done to him.

“Looks like you didn’t run away.” Kairn said with contempt.

Noticing Kairn’s contemptuous gaze, Hiro replied, “Ah sorry, I was taking a nap…Did you have your nap today little boy? You seem a little grumpy.” He mocked.

“!!!” Knowing that he was mocked, Kairn fumed silently. He couldn’t wait to unleash his fury on Hiro when the match starts.

*Beep!*

Remembering what Tenga said, Hiro didn’t take out his Bonesteel Blade. Instead, Hiro took out his bow.

“What?!” Kairn’s eyes widened, he hadn’t expect that there would be an archer in a warrior’s tournament. Though the rules didn't forbid archer’s from joining, the reward was aimed at warriors, so why would any archer compete? Kairn silently scolded himself for being so careless. He had only prepared a few ranged weapons for use during the tournament. His only chance was to close the distance, but with Hiro’s [Shunpo] ability, there was no way it was going to happen.

With no other choice, Kairn took out a small dagger. The dagger was tipped with a paralysis poison, after piercing the skin, if the victim doesn’t expel the poison somehow or ingest an antidote, then it would dull the nerves and slow down muscle movement. Kairn soon began to cautiously close in, close enough so that if he threw the dagger, he wouldn’t miss. His only chance was to surprise his opponent.

Hiro was wary, he remembered the time when Seith threw his dagger and had thought the same thing for Kairn. With the small quiver of arrows on his back, Hiro quickly began to nock up an arrow. He only had 20 arrows, though in the open space, there wasn’t any problems. As soon as he took aim, Hiro fired. Aiming for a non-lethal shot, Hiro targeted the flanks and limbs.

Seeing the arrow fly at himself, Kairn quickly dove to the side. Kairn was seething, though he made it that far, his body was only the size of an 8 year old. More ever, he was weaker than an 8 year old. He spent most his time learning the art of medicine, because of that, he rarely trained his body. He was nimble, but he didn’t have enough stamina to constantly move at fast speeds.

Seeing the arrow whizz past the boy’s shoulder, Hiro quickly nocked up another arrow and prepared to fire. The distance was slowly closing between himself and the boy, there was only a distance of 10 meters, at this range it was hard for him to miss. Predicting Kairn’s dodging patterns, Hiro fired off another arrow at Kairn and quickly followed that shot with another.

Cursing to himself, Kairn jumped back as an arrow bounced off the floor in front of his feet. Not seeing the second arrow until it was too late, Kairn couldn’t react fast enough as the second arrow sped past his leg cutting a few centimeters into his thigh.

Already with another arrow up, Hiro silently reviewed his posture. What he had intended was for the arrow to pierce Kairn’s leg and prevent Kairn from getting closer to him. However, because he wasn’t used to firing arrows in quick succession, his aim was a bit off and missed his target, even at such a short range.

“You’ll pay for that!” Kairn yelled. Never in his life was he ever hurt that bad, not even his own father had struck him, seeing his own blood leaking out from the small scratch, Kairn lost it. His rage boiled over and he reached into his pouch. Producing a small brown pill from the pouch, Kairn popped it into his mouth and swallowed.

“What’s he doing?” Hiro wondered as he watched.

Suddenly, before everyone’s eyes, Kairn began to transform. Though I say transform, it was more like he grew. All the muscles on Kairn’s body began to enlarge and a large vein appeared on Kairn’s forehead. His whole complexion had turned bright red and steam began to emit from under his clothes.

*Riiiiip!*

The top half of Kairn’s clothes torn off and the bulging muscles were revealed. Thankfully, the bottom half stayed on. Though now Hiro was more cautious, he quickly fired off another arrow before Kairn was finished with his transformation.

*Pang!*

The arrow bounced off Kairn’s flesh, as if it had struck metal.

“What?!” Hiro yelled, even the crowd grew quiet.

“Hahaha…HAHAHAHAHA!” Kairn began to laugh hysterically at his transformation. “You see this Hiro? This will be your doom!” He shouted and charged at Hiro with an alarming speed.

Kairn had just taken a physical enhancement pill, concocted by his master. The pill will forcibly multiply the user’s strength for a limited time. After the time is up, the user would experience a strong backlash that will confine the user to a bed for a whole month. Kairn had stolen the pill from his master’s workshop and without his master’s permission, entered the tournament. Knowing that he was on a time limit, Kairn had charged at Hiro. Traversing 10 meters in 3 seconds, Kairn’s speed had doubled from earlier.

Seeing the great speed, Hiro quickly got ready to [Shunpo].

“Die!” Kairn yelled as he aimed for Hiro’s neck. Kairn was in a berserk state, seeing his blood spilt, he had forgotten about the tournament and only wanted to see Hiro dead.

Looking into Kairn’s wild eyes, Hiro couldn’t help but compare Kairn to Seith. While Seith was just a tad slower than Kairn, Seith actually had form. Kairn at this moment couldn’t compare at all to his earlier opponent, knowing this Hiro felt some pity for Kairn and used [Shunpo] to get behind Kairn.

*Shup*

Hiro appeared at Kairn’s back and with his blade out, attacked the bare back of the 4 foot tall muscled boy. The sight of the bulging muscles on such a short body grossed Hiro out, now he was silently thanking Mini-Sib for dissuading him from going down that path.

*Thwak!*

Hiro’s eyes widened in surprise as he felt how strong the body he had just hit was. He had expected to cleave into Kairn’s back and leave behind a deep wound. However, what resulted was a red welt from the blade in Hiro’s hand. It seemed, not only did the pill increased Kairn’s strength, it had also toughened his skin.

“Rah!” Kairn spun around with the dagger in a backhand grip, not caring to aim his strike, Kairn struck at the momentarily surprised Hiro.

*Slash!*

“Kuh!” Hiro cough a bit from the pain. At the last moment, before the blade struck, Hiro quickly jumped back, though not quick enough. The blade managed to cut through a thin part of his shoulder pad and nicked him. Knowing that Kairn was a poison user, there was no way the blade did not have any poison on it.

“Kuahahaha! You are dead now!” Kairn laughed wildly and charged at Hiro. Now it was a time battle, who would fall first? Kairn’s enhanced state ending or Hiro succumbing to the paralysis poison?

Seeing the gleeful look in Kairn’s eyes, Hiro couldn’t help but panic a little. He didn’t know what kind of poison was on the dagger, judging by Kairn’s enjoyment, it wasn’t good. Hiro’s heart began to race, spreading the small amount of poison faster.

‘I gotta hurry!’ Hiro thought as he didn’t hold back and began to attack.

Using [Shunpo] to get behind Kairn, Hiro let loose a combination of slashes and thrusts. However, these attacks only resulted in the same outcome as earlier. They only caused small marks to appear on Kairn’s flesh and enraged the boy even more.

“Stay still and die!” Kairn screamed as he lashed out, this time with another dagger in his hands. Though Kairn demanded for Hiro to stay still, secretly he was enjoying the moment. The more Hiro moved, the faster the poison will spread. Though it was only a small amount of poison it would still slow Hiro down.

Hiro could feel his limbs tiring. His breathing had become ragged and choppy. Was this due to the effects of the poison he wondered? Jumping a few meters back, Hiro began to examine his current situation. His body felt heavy and it felt as if thousands of bugs were crawling back and forth within his skin. Just like how someone’s foot would fall asleep, Hiro’s whole body was experiencing that sensation.

Seeing Hiro struggling to move, Kairn finally let out a laugh. “Kuhahaha! Looks like it finally kicked in. How does it feel? It must be hard, watching as I take your life!”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Hiro managed to growl. Hiro was silently hoping that someone would interfere at the last moment, since killing and permanently maiming wasn’t allowed.

“I’ll just say it was an accident. Since you know such a profound skill like Siberus Lucia, I’m sure you could dodge this.” Kairn threw the dagger in his left hand.

*Thwak!*

“Ahh!” Hiro screamed in pain as the cold bite of the dagger bit into his left shoulder, near his heart.

“Oops! I meant to go for the heart. I can’t really control my strength at the moment. Let me adjust myself.” Kairn sneered. He was planning to torture Hiro before killing him. Moving the other dagger to his left hand, Kairn took aim again. Just like a dart thrower, Kairn mercilessly went through the motions of throwing, all the while watching Hiro helplessly try to move.

Noticing something was wrong, Lena began to worry.

“Stop the match!” She yelled at Romulus. Seeing the black-cloaked man from earlier, she desperately pleaded for him to go save Hiro. “Please! Stop the match! Something isn’t right!”

“Be quiet.” The black-cloaked man demanded and went back to look at the match. A grin was present on his face, though no one can see his eyes, his eyes were flashing intelligently as he quietly watched.

With no other choice, Lena went to King Forst and was going to ask him to use his authority to end the match. However, just as she was about to ask, a voice stopped her.

“Don’t believe in the boy.” The person who stopped her was Siberus, he too was grinning as he watched the match.

With no other choice, Lena got ready to interfere like earlier. There was no one that she was afraid of when it came to protecting Hiro. She was ready to obliterate Kairn with the fire tempest spell that she had recently learned.

“O Great spirit of the hearth flame…” She quietly began to mumble.

*Shup!*

The black-cloaked man knocked her out and silently sat her down once more into her seat. He knew that Lena had interfered during the preliminaries and decided to let it go, but now he wanted to witness something. He couldn’t let her interfere this time.

Meanwhile onstage Hiro had slowly gone quiet. Three blades were sticking out from Hiro’s body, one on the left shoulder from earlier and two on his right arm. Kairn paid close attention to Hiro’s right arm, the arm that had wounded him earlier. Taking out his last dagger, Kairn decided to gloat.

“Look here. On this blade is a special poison, distilled from the Golden-Striped Serpent’s venom and mixed with the extract from the Death-Lilac’s petals, this poison would rupture all your blood vessels. It would be a painful and slow death, I didn’t plan to use this here. If master were to find out about this, he would kill me. Consider yourself chosen, for I would end your life with this poison.” Kairn quietly said so that no one else could hear.

Hiro’s heart began to race, he was slowly regaining his motor control, but it would still be difficult to dodge the dagger. What’s more, the poisons on the other daggers were slowly clouding up his mind and destroying his sanity. He didn’t know what those poisons were but one seemed to destroy whatever came into contact with it, while the other was making him see illusions.

Right now, in front of Hiro, wasn’t Kairn, but the Reaper. It has come to reap his soul. He couldn’t help but panic a little at the thought.

In reality, Kairn had pulled back his dagger, ready to throw the blade at Hiro’s heart.

Out in the pavilion, the cloaked man smiled even wider. He had noticed the subtle change as Kairn began to throw the blade towards Hiro’s heart.

Back in Hiro’s mind, Hiro silently watched as the Reaper’s scythe raced towards his heart. He felt a bit of fear, but most of all he was angry. He hated how weak he was, didn’t he vow to take Lena away with him? Didn’t he promise to free Tenga? Another feeling Hiro had was he was worried. Who was going to take care of Lena? What about his Father?

The thoughts sped through his mind as the scythe began was centimeters away from his chest. It was at this moment that time once more began to slow down.