Grimaldus nodded. “But it’s my turn.”
“No, it’s not. It’s my turn,” Tychus rumbled as they both dropped into a run.
His brother wasn’t having this. “No, you went last time, it’s my turn!”
They bickered and snapped back and forth the entire way to the arena, arriving with a full-on slapping fight. Their banter was cut short when they heard Uferiel announce a victory not from a side arena, but from the main middle dais: the one with packed bleachers.
“Number nine goes do~o~own!”
Chapter Forty
“Well, this is disappointing.” Artorian heavily sighed, fingers nudging the front of his helmet as if trying to rub at his brows. It didn’t quite work with armor on, so the itch remained. The man hadn’t quite realized he’d said those words out loud. That was supposed to be a quiet thought, so he noticed it as the crowd around him exploded in jeers. Great.
Number nine had been something of a favorite, and what was left could only be described as an artful canvas of handprints. The jump into the top ten ranking had forced the academic to put some actual effort in, but his enemies were all one-hit wonders or one-trick ponies. Abyss, he had even gained a cultivation rank with these bouts. Artorian floated about the precipice of C-rank seven… though the armor was greedily drinking it all in. Perhaps he wasn’t holding back as many of the functions as he should.
Artorian was relying on it a little much, but not being hurt upon impact was just… such a massive boon. Blades were a laugh, but that one bloke with the hammer had put an actual dent into his chest. The harm was repaired as the armor took in Essence from his Aura to mold back into shape; it was good to know it could do that, even if it was a touch costly.
He should have known better, and really should have dodged. Unfortunately, curiosity killed the c’towl. The armor needed testing, even if in hindsight the time and place was a terrible idea. Blunt damage on heavy armor? Definitely felt that one. The force had carried right through and punched him in the gut harder than dwarven fire-brandy on an empty stomach. “Let's maybe not do that again?”
This entirely new way of approaching fights had enraptured the studious Headmaster. If he’d had all affinity channels, would there have been anything he couldn’t absorb away? He really wanted to know; it was nagging at him. Unfortunately, he had to put it out of mind as reality was simply not the case. He tried to break it down for himself as whoever the next opponent was made themselves ready. They all seemed to have coaches and a personal posse of supporters from this point on, so it could take a while.
Body layers were threefold. Vitals, internal, and external. Aura for a base cultivator matched those layers, nice and separated. Your average cultivator — upon grasping Aura — uses mostly the external Aura. That being the part that radiates effects outward, indiscriminately. Power and affected distance depends on invested Essence. Or, going a step further, Essence deemed ‘active’ if your Aura stores a whole bunch of everything like his did. Not an issue for limited-affinity cultivators with only one or two channels.
Separately, adding an effect to one’s Aura in the vital or internal layer caused the effect to only be applied to that region, or those aforementioned parts of the whole. It would be entirely possible for a skilled cultivator, likely in the C-ranks to apply a different effect to each Aura layer. Boost the vitals with refined Essence, empower the internal layer, apply an auric effect on the outer layer. Certainly feasible.
Hammer-brat seemed to have had a grasp of his vital and inner Aura at C-rank two. Yet no more than that, sticking to a straight forward charge and smash strategy, pumping refined Essence to the muscle for temporary empowerment. It had obliterated the prior, tiny dais arena they’d been in. Yet when the lad had stopped concentrating, both his auric defenses went down, and he was so horribly off balance that a small tap turned him into a twisted rag.
Was it really so difficult for ordinary cultivators to keep their head in the game, focus properly, and keep their mental acuity? His students at the Skyspear could have manhandled this entire lineup so far, and it would have been called a sporting exit exam. If the cultivators he faced here were indicative of the average, even with most of them being ex-adventurers, then this was… well, he’d said it before. Disappointing. How were these people trained? Were they trained? They all defaulted to tactics that worked well in cramped places, such as… oooh! Dungeons?
He doubted most of these adventurers had faced people, rather than endless waves of monsters. A person was nothing like a beast in the wild, and he didn’t know enough about what went on in a dungeon to even start a running commentary. “Right, I’m old in comparison to these youngsters.”
Most had risen through the ranks swiftly, brazenly, drunk on their might and blind to the gaping mistakes in their actions. Artorian had spent years picking such details apart in his students. From how to breathe, how to walk, how to let a body simply be. All the way to refined self-defense specifically against other people.
His combat experience was war on the open fields. Maddening fights in blinding environments where all was foe. Falling through cave mouths to see your compatriots turned to… never mind. A spot on his forehead ached. He was sure that these boys and girls were all potent warriors in their own eyes, but they… he might as well have been the sole adult in a room of flailing toddlers.
The crowd shouted out endless demands, jeering between choking on bread and water as they watched the bloody spectacle. “Show us Breaking Mountain style!”
Artorian cocked his head. Again with this ‘fighting style’ nonsense? All those were people thinking their single little trick, or slightly more refined than the other movements were something special. Surely something didn’t get a name each time it became slightly better than an average strike to the schnozz? No… no, he needed to remember what he was dealing with. That was exactly how it worked. It had been the same with the initiates in the Fringe, his first fan club. What had he told them? ‘No’ style? Ha! Actually… there might be something to that.
When number seven, Silvia the Slimy, came to the stage, Artorian broke from his theorizing. There were more ideas to be tested! He glanced her over. Why was she… sticky? No matter. The basics as usual. Artorian was starting to get very good at this, having remembered where to look for affinity channels, rather than trying to read it off someone’s Aura. It took some doing, but that was a matter of practice. Earth and infernal? Oh. Ew. Nonono. There wasn’t going to be any absorbing this Essence. Actually, did he even want to touch her? The identity of ‘caustic acid’ radiated from the slime she was coated with.
Oh! Finally someone with a grasp of Essence identity! Good heavens, he’d been craving something new. He knew it wasn’t usually until someone’s Mage days that identity was considered. Much like Presence, which is something not even end-level C-rankers tended to have access to, if they even knew they could. Merging your three Auras was possible, he’d learned it happened during Ascension, and was part of the basic Mage process. Body and mind somehow became one. Rather, he theorized that all the body layers at that point were made of Mana. No longer distinguished by fleshy, physical requirements, it became just ‘body’. Full and as a whole. The Aura followed suit. He wanted to find out for sure one day.
He extended his Presence as normal before reconsidering. He’d already forgotten Silvia wasn’t an absorb-friendly target. What had he just mentally said about keeping proper focus and acuity? Artorian, you hypocrite! He verbally sorted himself out by starting his count. “Ten seconds.”
His opponent appeared to roll out a whip of sorts at the confirmation they’d started. Inspecting it, the whip seemed to be an essence-made weapon meant to apply her acid coating effect. Perhaps to latch onto an opponent at a speed one could normally not react to?
Silvia screamed out and aggressively slid forward, her movements weaving as if she was skating on ice. Except… well… slime. Her whip cracked once for effect, and her second lash forward was going to melt the arm
or right off this grievance. He’d killed her partner! She was going to extract the bones from his still-living body for this! Silvia discovered a moment later that such an idea was little more than a passing thought. The armored figure had caught the blazing fast snap of her whip, holding the tip between his fingers as her acid effect… faded?
“Children and their tricks…” Air and celestial Essence coated his armored hand, filled with an imbued identity to ‘neutralize’. He could sense the Essence was confused. Especially the air Essence didn’t easily grasp what he wanted from it, even though the celestial’s base identity had no such issue.
When the acid whip was caught, and the opposing Essences interacted with their direct opposites, air understood what the point was. The will directing them wanted to completely counter an effect caused by their opposites. The Essence was almost glad to do so, and Artorian noted that it was the first time he’d gotten anything remotely close to such a visceral reaction. It felt… odd? To gain an understanding that Essence was glad to do something.
The topic of study needed to wait. Wrapping the end of the whip around his hand, he jerked on the taut weapon like it was a rope, harshly tugging Silvia in. Her slippery footing sent her flopping to the ground before being dragged towards her opponent. She wasn’t going to give up just because someone had her wea-!
*Ding*!
Taking a metal-clad punch to the face was unpleasant. Being decked while also moving into the fist? Doubly so. Silvia’s world went starry right after being pulled up by her own weapon like it was a spring cord. Crumbling to the ground with a bloody nose and a fogged-over mind, her rebuttal sputtered out to a snore. Artorian kept a close eye on the fallen opponent. Alright, looked like sleep Aura in close proximity worked on cultivators just fine, but their Aura defenses had to be down, or nonexistent.
He gently slid his foot under the snoozing body, and relieved her presence from the arena. “Yuck!”
Silvia was caught, dropped because she was still slimy, picked back up, then dropped again as the people who touched her suffered severe caustic burns after a few seconds of continued contact. Multiple buckets of water got splashed on her to get the goop off before she could be safely carried away.
Artorian tried to squeeze his beard, but found it inaccessible as he pondered. That slime hadn’t been an auric effect? It was real and physical, but clearly some kind of Essence… construct? This was new. Actually, was it? Wasn’t this roughly how he’d formed a spear when in the forest? The thing Ember had told him never to do again. Granted that was a long list, but it was on there. He considered it, and decided it was different. Artorian had ripped his Aura and… made it something else? Not the best life choice. Silvia had formed a thing using Essence.
That was… well everything was made of Essence and corruption, so that seemed… feasible? How was this something he’d never thought of? He kept a running tally of discoveries, but lost track of his thoughts as he saw two familiar faces. Older, more refined, but familiar. Nobody saw the smile under the helmet. He needed to get their attention somehow.
Artorian was pointing at them before really thinking about it. Nothing easier than a challenge! He wanted his boys in talking range as soon as possible. How was he going to manage to go unheard when they were finally up here? “Hmm. Maybe something with the membrane of my Presence?
“This requires exploring.”
Chapter Forty-One
Tychus blinked at what he was seeing; frankly, he didn’t really believe it. “Brother?”
Grimaldus crossed his arms, observing the conundrum as well. “Yes, brother?”
The massive man set his firm jaw, fingers drumming on his hefty bicep as the gesture was studied from afar. “I think… I think that’s a challenge.”
A nodding motion came from the dark man next to him, the young necromancer in complete agreement as his robes shifted into an ebony hue. “It does appear so, brother. Is it just me, or is that generally regarded as a terrible idea?”
Tychus agreed with the wisdom that had just flowed from his family member’s mouth. “Generally regarded as a terrible idea, indeed! Pointing a finger at the two top contenders, in a series of matches where the results are what we say they are, is commonly regarded as a ‘bad move’.”
Since they were being pointed out, the crowd saw them. The respective fan clubs for the top two ranked arena contestants went wild. Signs with caricatures and poorly-written banners rose up, and the shouting only got louder than the wild ruckus had already been. The brothers groaned as they were surrounded by people wanting handshakes, some to awkwardly hug them without asking, and others to scream in their faces before fainting. Popularity was… a difficult nut to crack.
Tychus didn’t like it one bit, and he felt cramped as claustrophobia crept in. His voice weakened as it mumbled out the discomforted request. “Grim… please do the thing.”
The necromancer flicked his hands upwards, and the bones of the dead littered beneath their feet promptly snapped upright, coated with a layer of dirt. A different sort of screaming pierced the brothers’ ears, as the crowd around them now fled, rather than charge. It was preferable, and Tychus inhaled deeply as the unpleasant cramped tingling faded.
Dozens of skeletons ripped free from their flesh and earthen bonds. Dark green light connecting bones as skeletal forms assembled themselves, standing up to form a protective ring about the both of them. “Still get the creepy-crawlies, Ty?”
The mountain of a man grumbled, nodding unhappily as he wiped his own arms off. Trying to remove a feeling was difficult. “Every abyssal time, too. The way this arena is structured deserves execution. So… points for consistency, I guess.”
Grimaldus had a good-natured laugh. Heavens, he was happy to be out of the pit. You just didn’t meet people with the mental power to put that quality of a sentence together down in the cultivation depths. The Ziggurat region was devoid of intellectualism. At least he was back with his brother and didn’t have to listen to the same droning compliments, copied and parroted by other ingrates because they liked how it sounded. Abyss, he hated that pit. No, he hated the people he was stuck with in the pit. That infernal Essence gathering hole was fine by itself, it would have been even better had he been there alone.
“So what do we do about pointy the poignant over there?”
Tychus snorted, and motioned to where seats were being cleared for them. “We don’t worry about it if that shiny metal can doesn’t make it to us, and spend the day fishing at the lake.”
His brother made the circle of repelling skeletons trudge along, taking seats when he got to the box sections of the bleachers. “The lake would be nice; I’d like the lake. Let's not count our fish before we catch them. Say shiny over there makes it. What’s the plan?”
The mountain shrugged, getting cozy in a shoddy seat that was far too small for his sizable behind. “Same as usual? I do the smashing, you do the Tychus-doesn’t-get-hurt with your adaptive bone armor. It still squicks me out knowing that all the bones you use for that used to be people.”
Grimaldus made one of the skeletons do a little dance, just because he could. “See that? It’s the same idea, just with more bones, and in a different configuration and pattern. It’s just bone, brother. I just move bone in places where you’d normally get hit, and make that take the hit instead of something squishier. Is that Silvia I see getting carted off? Her face is broken.”
Tychus squinted as the cart passed them by. “Bloody nose, sure?”
His brother shook his head to the negative.
“I can tell from the bone hidden behind all that meat blocking your vision. Her skull has several fractures, and all on the front. That shiny boy hits hard. Looks like a single strike too. Good to know. I’m going to have to change the configuration to the armor I’m adapting on you. Also, hand me that carrot.”
Tychus didn’t follow well over half of that, but reached and took one of the vegetables from the bucket before them. Why was it never meat? He missed
the days of dried meat. He missed a lot about the old days. “Here. What do you need a carrot for?”
Grimaldus winked at him and stood. “Hey, Six!”
Sextus Palladia stopped as he looked from left to right, searching for the origin of the call. Palladia was a man in his early forties with full gladiator armor kitted on his muscled frame. His voice was gruff, having spent too much time smoking in the pit. The reply oozed disdain when he saw who he was talking to. “What do you want, One?”
Palladia felt a carrot hit his helmet, only to ding off and harmlessly fall to the ground as the top spot holder sneered back at him. Tychus bent over laughing as he caught the joke. “I’m rooting for you!”
It made Grimaldus sad that nobody in the crowd had been smart enough to grasp the nuance of the joke, but felt his curiosity peak when the armored figure in the arena doubled over with laughter. The man was slapping his knee, holding his midriff with his other arm before pointing at Sextus. “Ha, haha! Rooting? Get it? A carrot is a root vegetable!”
The brothers from the Fringe could tell that had specifically been done to make Sextus angry, and get a rise out of the warrior that had clearly not grasped the joke. Neither did he appreciate becoming the joke. Ice popped and cracked as it solidified across his armor and features, his affinity channel of water in plain view before he ever ascended the dais.
Artorian squinted. Affinities: water and fire. So that’s how he was sapping the heat from the water, and solidifying it into ice. Yet, how was he getting physical structures of it on his body? It was more of this construct stuff, and the C-rank three gladiator had him beat on the skill. That was worth a point of expense at the man’s fragile pride. Really uprooted his confidence there!
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 106