"With the Image Master Achievement reward, which lets you sense images without needing a Skill for it, all of us Patrons have felt the image pulsing off your body constantly. It started almost immediately after I explained how image materialization works, and hasn't gone down since. You're still a ways off the overall record for keeping an image up, at a little over nine hundred fifty-four system days, but it's still impressive that you've kept an image up for so long being so new to the system.

"Are you seriously not consciously doing that?"

Degritone tilted his head to the right and looked at his hands and torso before saying, "No, and I don't feel any different than before. Can you tell what kind of image it is?"

Melena shook her head. "No Skill exists with the function of detecting what effect an image has. All I am able to determine about it is that it's covering your whole body."

Degritone looked inside his mental space and still only saw the one body, presumably a sleeping, damaged Music, and the void before popping back out. "Still just me and sleeping Music in here," Degritone said, tapping his head, "and I'm not actively," pause, "trying to materialize an image. I also don't have any Skills from it, whatever it is."

They sat in thought for a while. "I'm sure you'll figure out what it is before it becomes important. So, why are you going to use your wish on something I want, rather than yourself? Sure, you offered to do so without me even considering it a possibility, but why? You have your own goal you could have used your wish on."

Degritone shrugged. "If it exists, it'll help me with my goal, as it means I can probably figure out how to use it like in the RP. Plus, it's a nice gift to you. If not," Degritone shrugged again, "then oh well. I will accomplish my goal. A wish would just speed it up. A base energy could potentially have me see it done in days."

"You think it would be that impactful?"

Degritone nodded, but did not elaborate. Melena kept looking at Degritone expectantly, but he was already off in his own little world, thinking about what his passive image could be and working on making the young Immortal Troll materializeable.

After a few seconds, Melena shrugged and stood up, went over to Degritone's chair, and tapped it twice. It transformed into a couch. She sat down on it and pulled Degritone's shoulder. He looked slightly confused, but went with her hand. He found himself with his head in her lap, and she began gently rubbing over where his his head hurt from the void in his mental space.

Degritone's mind blanked for multiple minutes. After he was finally to kick start his brain again, he pulled his legs up on the couch and raised one hand, open and palm toward Melena. She grabbed it and they stayed like that in silence for the remainder of the time between rounds.

His next four opponents were still not difficult, but each one was noticeably more difficult than the last, with each one being affected less and less by Vital Presence. As he arrived in the clearing this time, his opponent was a man wearing modern boxing gear.

Round 16 begin!

Time slowed down for Degritone as he activated all of his toggleables. His opponent faltered very slightly, but seemed to immediately shrug it off as they ran in. Degritone cast Omen of Pestilence between him and his opponent, but the ghoul was immediately dispatched in a single hit. After having having stopped just long enough to get a good, solid punch off, his opponent continued toward Degritone.

Degritone kept casting Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine as the man ran at him. Once he was about to reach optimal stabbing length, Degritone sent a thrust right at center mass, but his opponent sidestepped. Before he could get his sword back into position to commit to a cut, his opponent got in range and sent two left jabs into Degritone's face. With a quick Guard before he got hit, he still found his health decreasing by a noticeable amount.

The boxer sent a right straight at Degritone's chest, which gave Degritone just enough time to get his sword into motion for a slightly downward right slash. The straight hit Degritone's armor, almost winding him despite his high DR and armor, and the boxer was able to just duck out of the way of the incoming slash.

Degritone stopped it from over swinging at all, rotated his blade, and brought it straight down onto the boxer's head. Just in case, Degritone also activated Bastion at nearly full power to get him most of his Health back without using his slightly more precious Mana and allowing him to still regenerate while the shield took damage. With an Energize to help regenerate that slightly faster, Degritone pulled the sword back up just in time to get hit with an uppercut straight to his chin.

Even while in slowed time, the boxer's attack was too fast for Degritone to properly react to. With half of his shield now gone and his sword not in position to attack, he kicked the boxer back. The relatively unexpected attack caught the boxer by surprise, sending him back just far enough to once again be in Degritone's sword's sweet spot.

As the boxer got his balance, Degritone struck, catching them in the shoulder as they tried to dodge out of the way of his downward slash, cutting deep and causing their right arm to begin going limp. Degritone continued pulling his sword down, beginning to pull it toward him so even getting the sword out of the boxer's body would cause yet more damage.

Just before Degritone got his sword completely out of the boxer's shoulder, they dashed forward, causing the blade to catch on their clavicle, and tried to deliver a jab to Degritone's jaw, but he sidestepped. Yanking his sword hard, he pulled the boxer off balance and got his sword unstuck before delivering a thrust straight through the boxer's throat, ending the fight.

The next 9 rounds played out similarly: An opponent who shrugged off Degritone's Vital Presence, did enough damage to warrant using Bastion once or twice, but ultimately fell after a few exchanges. Finally, he entered the clearing with a small humanoid clad in mana armor and wielding a sword just like him.

Round 28 begin!

Once more, everything slowed. The two walking balls of Mana clashed, but neither swing seemed to have had any impact. After a few swings of taking no damage, he checked his Stamina while he hit the opponent with an Empowered attack. No Stamina lost. Sighing, Degritone deactivated everything but his sword, armor, and Guard and said, "Hey. Neither of us can hurt each other. My Empower isn't taking Stamina, meaning I'm doing zero damage, and each of your swings is going nothing to me."

A couple swings hit him while he said that, and one, more slow one hit him after he finished. He heard a rough, but mid-pitch, "Huh," come from under the armor's helm. His opponent's helmet disappeared to reveal a red-skinned, horned humanoid face. It was slightly androgynous, but still obviously male after a few seconds of observation. "How do we resolve this?" They asked, looking up at Degritone.

"There's a few competitions I could cheat in," Degritone said, "but I doubt you'd accept them, even if I didn't admit I'd be cheating."

"We could put it to an audience vote," his opponent offered.

"Heck no, my planet literally just got added to the system. No one but- well, ok, I might be able to have my Patron pull a few strings there, but blah. No. Didn't even know you could do that. Could we have the system," short pause, "deal an amount of damage to us, completely ignoring all our DR, and see who lasts the longest? Like, it deals one thousand damage to us each second or something."

"No. That would just come down to whoever has higher regeneration."

"We could play rock paper scissors," Degritone said, knowing full well he could predict the future with Swordsman's Territory.

"What's that?"

Degritone explained rock paper scissors.

"Why can paper beat rock? You can just put the rock on top of the paper and then it won't be able to go anywhere, or just smash through the paper with the rock."

"It's just the rules. I don't know when they got made that way."

"No. I will not play a game originating from your home planet in order to determine if I get to continue on in this tournament."

"Do people with base class Knight get this far, usually?"

"No. We're usually all knocked out by round 18. We're both record holders for how far a Knight has gotten in this bracket of the Architect Tournament. I will not easily give up my spot as number one."

"I will never lose a fight in this year's tournament. I have been ordered to win my bracket, and I will not fail a direct order."

"You plan to win, even when you're already in loser's side?"

"Yes."

"Don't make me laugh, no one who's entered loser's side before the top 16 has ever even reaches the top 16, let alone won."

"I will win," Degritone said, dispersing his helmet and glaring straight into his opponent's eyes.

"Prove it. Prove you have the true desire to win. If you, without any outside help, win a system-sanctioned clash of wills against me five times in a row without losing once, I will forfeit."

"You would lose no matter how many times we clashed in whatever that is. I agree," Degritone said, fully aware his opponent hadn't said Degritone would have to forfeit if he lost.

Adjantha has issued a Clash of Wills. Do you accept?

Degritone mentally approved. He felt a weight press down on his mind. The void headache got significantly worse, but Degritone ignored it. He mentally pushed back on the force, but nothing happened. He tried imagining lifting a blanket off his mind, but the force did not budge. Closing his eyes, he entered his mental space and felt around its outside. Near the top, he found a thread linking his mental space to elsewhere.

Mentally grabbing it, he followed it along until he saw a glowing sphere approaching him. It grew and grew until it was the size of the moon as he stood on it, with the surface seeming to flow toward where the connection was. He punched the sphere once and got an announcement.

You have won your Class of Wills against Adjantha.

"Not bad," his opponent said before popping a brown square into his mouth. "But you won't win the next one."

Adjantha has issued a Clash of Wills. Do you accept?

This time, Degritone immediately found the thread and hurried along it. When he arrived, the sphere was larger than the earth and shrinking fast enough to see, unlike before, where it seemed relatively stable. Shrugging it off, Degritone once again sent a single punch, which won him the second Clash.

After Adjantha ate three squares, they entered into another Clash. Degritone wasn't sure, but his head may have hurt slightly worse than before. It was yet another quick win, though. Concern showed on Adjantha's face as he ate a whole handful of squares going into the fourth Clash.

This time, Degritone was certain the headache was larger than before. It was still nowhere near as bad as when the void appeared, however. One more quick victory for Degritone. "One more until you forfeit," Degritone said.

"Fine. You want to play hard ball?" Adjantha asked before pulling out a small tube and holding it up to their mouth. They pressed a button on its bottom and loud crunching could be heard for almost an entire minute before the final Clash. When the final Clash was accepted, Degritone immediately felt his thoughts slow to a crawl as a massive headache hit him. He could barely think about anything, much less the Clash, and completely froze. He didn't know how long he stood there for.

Win, he heard. He didn't react. WIN, once again, but loud enough to knock his thoughts back into motion, if slowly. What...? He asked. WIN! The connection glowed brightly enough to get Degritone's attention. He made his way over to it, each planck length of movement a Herculean force of will. WIN! He grabbed a hold of the connection and it burned his hand. With the quickest motion he had displayed this Clash, he pulled back his arm.

WIN! He grabbed it again, but did not let go. His chin was forced upward as he heard another, WIN! He grabbed the connection with his other hand, burning it, as well, and began climbing. For what felt like centuries, Degritone climbed. It wasn't too long before a faint glow started to envelope the entirety of the sky above him. WIN! He steeled his face and kept climbing. WIN! His flesh began to stick to the connection as he tried to pull them away, but he kept climbing, leaving chunks of his hands on the connection each time.

WIN! When his hands became unusable, he used his elbows. When those, too, became useless, he used one knee and one armpit. When his arm and bottom half of his leg were completely seared off, he switched to his other ones. Finally, seconds before he lost his other arm and leg, he touched down on the giant, glowing mass. It burned, worse than Degritone had remembered he had ever felt.

WIN! With a lump in his throat and fire in his eyes, Degritone tried to raise his remaining arm, but found it glued to the surface. WIN! With what he thought to be a final force of will, Degritone leaned back and headbutt the glowing mass. A crack formed. WIN! With tears of anger in his eyes, he delivered a second headbutt. The crack widened. WIN! With one final force of will, Degritone brought as much force as he could down on the glowing mass, and he saw it shatter, then everything went black.