Three days wasn't nearly as long as it sounded. Each of the days was its own project, and exhausting in its own right. The first day I finished granting Rime's wishes, and got Jessie her last twenty five Vitality worth of elixirs. She also got another eight Might, bringing her Might to ninety five, her Vitality to three twenty eight, and her total points to five hundred and eleven.

The same day I also managed to upgrade my Cloud Step to Ripple Running by synergizing it with my Minor Swimming Mastery Skill. One step became ten, and combined with State of Grace, I became a much more mobile and dangerous combatant.

Day two saw me going back to working with Benny. He traded me five triple strength density shifted attacks for twenty points of Focus, bringing himself up to two hundred and three. I also managed to upgrade Kidney Blow to Heavy Hands, my first passive subskill. By using my Minor Boxing Mastery as a sacrifice to add armor penetration to every single one of my blows (albeit not very much of it).

On the third day Benny paid five triple strength tranq blows for twenty points of Might, bringing it up to two hundred and nine and his total up to five hundred forty three. My final skill was created by merging Boiling Cloud (a skill I barely ever even used) with Minor Archery Mastery (another Skill I almost never touched) to create Steam Arrow. Which would give me a usable ranged attack among my options, something I was sorely lacking up to this point, leaving me only my divination skills and Sucking Mud to go before I could rank up the skill to intermediate.

Training with these new abilities took up the rest of my time over my three days off, and by the time the morning of the ninth match came along, I'd officially gotten as far as possible, even scheduling in some downtime the night before to allow myself to enter the match at my absolute best.

Jessie drove me to the arena again, though it was strange going without Callie. Rime tagged along, as she would when Callie had her own match (we were in different rounds). As I entered the waiting room under the new arena, I couldn't help but stop and take stock of what was happening.

It felt...weird, being here alone. Knowing I had an opponent coming up who I would have to deal with all on my own, and that said opponent would be a member of a team that made it just as far as we did. When they called me out onto the sand, I stepped out of the tunnel and groaned aloud at the person I found there.

Of course my first round would be someone I knew, who was strong as hell. Wren grinned wryly at me, offering me a cheerful wave as his giant bone spear sat over one shoulder. "Morning Solomon. Lovely day we're having, don't you think?" My friend's amber eyes were twinkling with amusement, but they were also twinkling with something else. Eagerness.

I felt my pulse pick up. I'd wanted this rematch as bad as he did, and I'd put in a lot of work in my training. I'd beaten him last time, but that was with Callie, and I hadn't forced him to use his ability. "Seems like it." I replied cheerfully. "You must be pretty confident. You know what I can do."

He waggled his free hand. "Yes and no. Logically I know you're much less of a threat without your partner, but you have a habit of doing the impossible. I'm not stupid enough to go into this underestimating you." He started to spin his spear slowly, passing it back and forth hand over hand, letting the metal coated tooth atop it drag in the sand. As he did, I could see water start to gather from the air around him, coating his palms and flowing down the bone haft of the spear.

"Fair enough." I said casually. "I won't hold back either." The water thing wasn't ideal. It meant even if I was willing to expose my Moonlit Night skill the option was off the table. That said, I'd made plenty of other preparations. I triggered Ripple Running and State of Grace, then knelt down to coat my arms in toxic magma. I half expected him to come at me while I prepared, but he didn't, he just kept spinning up his spear.

As he passed it back and forth, the water accumulated along the spear, turning it from a wet stick to a pillar of liquid. I could sense some extreme power from that thing, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing what it could do. Knowing any more talking would be pointless, I used Double Trouble, appearing behind Wren and triggering Flurry of Blows, increasing the rate of my already massively enhanced movement speed as I unleashed a flurry of sharp punches at his back.

The spear, which was still being passed slowly, sped up, the water shifting around it, and suddenly I was faced with a fucking shark made of water bearing down on me, it's gaping jaws surrounding the head of the spear as it chopped down on my arm. I used a triple strength density shift on my left arm without thinking, massively enhancing the density and power of the magma.

There was a loud clang and I bounced backwards, skipping off the air like a rock across a pond, using the mobility of State of Grace to enhance the speed and distance I was able to travel with Ripple Running so I could withdraw nearly instantly.

I sucked my teeth, shaking out my left arm, which hadn't been cut, but had been smashed pretty heavily by the damn spear. My armor was probably the only thing that had saved me from being disarmed in a much more literal sense than when I lost my cane.

"Impressive. You're faster than I remember." Said Wren as he went back to spinning. The longer that went on the more water was condensed. I was pretty sure that shark would get bigger and nastier as it did. Which meant I needed to break that buildup. The burden of initiative was on me, not on him. Joy.

I shrugged, trying not to let him see me sweat. "I'll be honest, I thought I'd have to earn that ability. I'm honored I impressed you enough to pull out all the stops."

His smile was predatory. "Did you think you were the only one who went to see a friend's match? I've seen what you can do Shane. I came here to win, and I'm not holding back. Seems like you're not either. I'm curious though. Exactly how many tricks do you have up your sleeves? Are they enough to make up for not having your partner? Your teammates? You're a scary guy, but I'm not exactly a pushover myself."

Reaching into myself, I unleashed a series of techniques. Double Trouble, a shadow clone, and a stored Stealth attack from Callie. I stepped back and vanished as a doppleganger took my place and a dark copy appeared behind Wren. As I did, I bounced off the air with Ripple running and circled around to the side as Wren seemed to detect the clone. I wasn't sure how he was doing that, but it was something I'd counted on.

I triggered Double Trouble again on myself, and I saw Wren's shoulder stiffen as the shark spear tore apart the clone, dispersing it into darkness as I appeared behind him. Before he could attack me directly, I triggered my new Steam Arrow skill, spitting a boiling steaming jet of water right at his face. His eyes widened and he stumbled back, bringing up his spear defensively to deflect the attack.

With all the water concentrated in one place, I triggered Afterburner to massively increase my power. Then Mercy Kill, then a gravity attack to slow him down before finally releasing a fire attack combined with a Balam empowered punch right at the water around the spear.

A massive roaring cloud of toxic fire enveloped my punch and when it hit the water steam exploded out, but I kept up the attacks, using up both of the other fire attacks the same way to take advantage of Afterburner. Seven attacks left, I grabbed the spear in both hands and channeled a gravity attack directly into it, combined with e density shift as I jerked it out of his grip and sent to spinning away.

Continuing that whirling motion I lashed out with a series of punches all six of them imbued with triple strength tranq attacks. Wren grimaced, arms coming up to tank the punches, and winced as my magma coated arms imbued with tranquilizing poison, smashed into his forearms as he did his best to tank the attacks.

Which he did, unfortunately. Even with all the tricks his Might was much higher than mine, and I was forced to rely on Ripple Running again to disengage, two more steps ending the skill and forcing me to recast it. I was about twenty feet from him now, and I was panting as Afterburner faded, sapping my strength. My head was pounding from the massive repeated skill and attack usage, but I wasn't the only one who was unsteady.

Wren was wearing a hauberk from what I could see but he hadn't been protecting his arms, probably to prevent anything from slowing down his spear. His arms were coated in poisonous cracks as the toxic fire burned away at him imbuing the tranquilizer into his system even faster. He was barely standing, eyes starting to flutter, but I saw him haul back and slap himself hard across the face, which seemed to temporarily stave off the effects.

We were both weakened by that last flurry of attacks, and as he spat his blood on the sand he gave me a wide grin. "That...was sneaky. A double decoy. And you'll have to tell me how the hell you disarmed me after this is over." He shot a glance at his spear, but I'd tossed it across the arena pretty hard. He wouldn't be able to reach it before I could reach him. The water had been boiled away, and though I saw him try to condense some more, the droplets wouldn't stick for some reason. Maybe the lack of concentration.

I didn't respond, waiting for any sign of weakness. His eyes fluttered again, and when they were closed for a second I triggered Double Trouble, then blitzed him with another barrage of punches from behind. He spun, somehow detecting me again, and put his arms up, but I dipped back, allowing the punches to peter out as I put a bit of distance between us, and kicked a cloud of sand right up into his face.

Unlike the Steam Arrow, there was no way to clock a cloud of sand. He panicked and inhaled, sending himself into a coughing fit, and as he dissolved into hacks and wheezes I dove forward and ducked under his flailing arms, smashing a right cross into his jaw and sending him stumbling back before I followed it up with a stomping kick to the face, finally laying him out flat on his back as the damage combined with the tranqs to knock him out cold.

I doubled over, panting, head blazing with pain, but I grinned down at my friend as I let the skills fade. Leaning down, I put a hand on him and triggered a heal burst before turning to stagger out of the arena. No way I would be able to carry him in my condition. Besides. I wanted to look cool after my first victory. I couldn't be more pleased with how it went down. I couldn't wait to see who I'd be fighting next.