There was something I’d been wanting to try, but I wasn’t exactly excited about putting myself in a vulnerable position. Since it was only an opening move and I’d already blocked half of it, I decided it was as good a time as any. The entirety of my skin began to change at once. Just like the Dark version of Incubus Form I’d learned from Zorik, mana began to bond with my skin and compressed into a solid state. Unlike Incubus Form, instead of turning pitch black, my skin took on a warm purple tone. It would have been cheaper to cast Incubus Form itself, but that wouldn’t help my Dark Magic advance. My form cost approximately 30,000 mana per minute with Impenetrable Skin and stat bonuses included, but just creating my own version through Dark Magic cost closer to 90,000 MPM without those bonuses.
What was left of his attack clawed into my palm and chewed up my arm to dig into my chest. It stung along the path his lightning took. Looking down, I saw the attack had burned through my bone armor but left my skin undamaged. It wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t mind walking around as a purple person all day to help advance my Dark Magic and enhance my defense.
Seeing his attack thwarted, the Dark Mage didn’t betray any reaction, and began to cast again.
A giant Dark Magic hand began to take form over his head. It grew in size and slowly lost its ethereal appearance. It was like a living shadow with a purple glow. Once it was as large as he was, the hand curled into a fist and punched toward me. It had hundreds of feet to travel but was nearly as fast as his Dark Lightning.
I summoned an Alpha Bomb and channeled as much mana into it as I could the moment before his attack arrived. I was pushing my luck, but I let it go when his attack was no more than fifty feet away.
My Alpha Bomb was much smaller, but it contained more force.
I had to jump to the side as my Alpha Bomb exploded on contact. Mana swept out in all directions, but it was less intense than remaining where I was, so I moved.
I leaned forward, easily weathering the explosion with my strength.
Two of his attacks had been defeated. There were three to go.
Soon, I was met with surprise. My Alpha Bomb had blown the giant hand back and even destroyed a large chunk of its knuckles, but they quickly reformed, and it flew toward me once again.
There was a form that came to mind that I hadn’t used often, but it had an ability that seemed appropriate. I didn’t fully transform into my Rock Giant Form and restricted it to my right arm.
Boulder Throw was an ability that was just as it sounded. It took little mana to summon a literal rock boulder that I then placed in front of me.
The Dark Magic fist pounded into it. At first, the rock shook and was pushed toward me, but cracks began to show before it burst into pieces. There was nothing special about this rock itself, so it only had its natural hardness and durability.
I had already jumped away and wound up, readying to throw a second boulder.
The Dark Mage saw my new location but before he could adjust his aim I’d already let loose.
Catch!
The boulder flew toward the magic mitt, smashing into it from the side. It easily knocked it back but didn’t do much damage. It had little more than its weight going for it.
Since my competitor was relying on line of sight to direct his magic fist, I quickly set up a wall of boulders so that he couldn’t see me.
He didn’t hesitate to send the fist flying up to hover momentarily above the first boulder before smashing down. It easily turned the rock to rubble, but it gave me enough time to prepare.
Had I defended against five attacks yet? His fist was bashing three of my boulders one after another, so it was close enough.
I pinpointed the Dark Mage and his second magic hand that was positioned in front of him. Forming another boulder, I channeled a bit of mana into it before sending it flying. Immediately after, another Alpha Bomb began taking shape. I spent a few seconds flooding it with excess mana. Watching the trajectory of my boulder, I continued channeling until it began to fall toward my opponent. Alpha soared.
My opponent didn’t seem worried. Instead of summoning additional defense, the fist that had been crushing the boulders I’d placed between us opened up. There was a quick surge of power in its palm and five fingertips. Dark Lightning shot out in my direction from the six points of concentrated power.
I readied to move, but then stopped myself. Skeleton Titan’s Defense swelled in thickness. As the bolts of Dark Lightning neared, Dark Mana rushed out of me and fully saturated my bone armor. An aura of mana appeared as the bolts of lightning tore into me. They ripped through my aura but met resistance as they reached my armor. Much of the lightning snaked over my armor’s surface, spreading out and losing much of its force. There was too much of it to fully be defused. Two of the bolts missed entirely, but the four that hit me jabbed into my armor like crooked knives. My body shook, but my hardened skin held up.
A man-sized boulder smacked into the vampire’s defensive magic hand and was stopped in its tracks. It cracked into three or four large pieces. An instant later, my Alpha Bomb collided with the rubble and purple light filled the arena.
While he was dealing with the explosion, I turned toward his magic hand that was on my side of the arena. It had stopped moving as he reacted to my attack. It wasn’t the fist itself I was interested in, but the mana streaming through the air behind it that was funneling mana into it and carrying the Dark Mage’s will.
Taking a few quick strides to its flank, I sent a channel of flames billowing out to intercept the mana. It wasn’t visible, or solid like the hand itself, but I was easily able to see it with Mana Sight. Even my Vampire Form’s Night Vision made the stream of Dark Mana visible. I’d grown biased toward my Blue Magic sight enhancement though, so I used it ninety-nine percent of the time.
It was not easy to cut the hand off from its mana source, but by turning up Flamethrower I was soon overwhelming the Dark Mana flow and the magic hand began to lose substance.
I wasn’t so focused on my little experiment that I missed the Dark Mage reappearing from behind the explosion of rock and force. His defensive hand had been ripped to shreds and some shrapnel had left some dings and gaps in his armor, but he was still standing.
His gaze darkened when he saw I was cutting him off from his spell.
My tail plunged into the fading hand and I cast Succubi’s Caress. The remaining Dark Mana was sucked up and absorbed, giving me a good deal of excess mana to play with.
The vampire had his hand up in the air as if he were about to cast again but dropped it a moment later.
“I yield,” he announced.
There were a few gasps from the stands, but mostly it wasn’t a big surprise to see him give up.
I gave him a slight nod to thank him for the fight, then left for the stands.
“You’ve now earned a total of 55 Victory Tokens,” Shamash said as I took a seat next to him. “Besides the prizes won in the preliminary tournament, I was able to confirm that the Victory Tokens you’ll gain for each fight will be earned at a much higher rate.”
Nodding that I understood, I took the mana tablet the mission office had given me after my first win out of my inventory. It was a catalog that listed the items you could exchange Victory Tokens, or VT, for. Unlike the shop the lich had taken me to, this catalog wasn’t limited to vampire specialty items. There were precious minerals for dwarf victors for example. Of course, to get the best items, it would take thousands of points. You could even exchange points for things like expensive hotels, massages, and Alignment-sensitive socks.
What I was most interested in were the rare blood types, but even a body of only uncommon blood started at 100 VT. The best ones neared 1,000 and vampire blood ranged from 1,500 all the way up to 10,000 for a single body of Trueblood. If it weren’t for my ability to create orbs, it would take years, perhaps decades, to save up enough points.
Without backing of some kind, if I had to rely on my winnings to survive, it cost a minimum of 1 VT for a
low end place to stay. It was 10 VT a night to stay in a place that was safe enough that I wouldn’t feel that I was having to watch my back the entire time. Just room and board could cost 100 VT a night for the higher end establishments.
At 10 VT a night, it would be difficult for a competitor, even one that fought daily, to earn more than what it cost for a place to stay. The reason was because of how competitors were ranked and VT was awarded. Generally, there were four ranks: Amateur, Warrior, Master, and Grandmaster. Each of these rankings were also broken up into three classes: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Your ranking was decided based on your level and record. Everyone’s initial ranking was given based on their level alone. Amateur was given to those between level 5,000 and 10,000. Warrior between 10,001 and 30,000. Master between 30,001 and 60,000. Finally, Grandmasters began at 60,001 and had no cap.
These were broken down even more based on the class within ranks. For my first fight I was given the rank of Warrior Bronze. Also, I was only awarded 5 VT for my victory since it was considered a trial. Of course, after I defeated my Warrior Silver opponent, I was ranked up to Warrior Silver and now received 10 VT for each of my fights. So all I needed was 1,000 fights and I could get a body of Trueblood. If it was only that simple.
I was already having problems finding people willing to fight me and a lot of the higher class fights were put on hold until after the tournament. A few of the competitors were considered Warrior Gold though because of their fighting records, like Eshana the dark elf that fought here all the time. Defeating her would earn me 20 VT in a normal fight, but during the competition it would be more. We still didn’t know how much the rewards would go up, though.
Fighting those in the Master rank was also asking for trouble. Those that were Master Bronze only had 100,000 in a single stat. Silver could have 100,000 in two of them, and Gold could have it in three. Because vampires could gain extra stats from draining blood, there were some old monsters that had stayed Master Gold for centuries to keep the upper hand on their competition. For each victory they gained 100 VT, so why not? Many of these three stat monsters had agreements not to fight each other. Why would they?
“That was your last fight before the competition begins,” the lich reminded me. “Take some time to get your mind right, watch some fights, relax, or whatever you need to do. You’ve made a lot of progress in meeting magic with magic. For the preliminaries, I want you to defend against two attacks, before attacking yourself. Same rules, but if you feel the spells they’re channeling are becoming dangerous, then do whatever you need to do to win. Also, Shapeshifting is no longer off limits.”
“Are we going to make any more purchases before the tournament?” I replied.
“I don’t think that would be wise. Another shopping spree after the competition will be a good excuse to make another set of large purchases. There will be more eyes on you if you win, but some of those will be people that wish to earn your favor. Unless something happens, it should increase your safety for a time.”
Chapter 13 – Opening Ceremony
If I’d thought the Hallow Coliseum had been crowded before, I’d been dead wrong. It was as if the tide had come in and with the rising water level came thousands upon thousands of people to fill in the gaps in the sky. Every seat was filled in the smaller arenas and over half the seats were filled in the outer one. As one of the competitors, I was in the first row in the central arena at the peak of the pyramid of arenas. The opening ceremony was happening here. There were many familiar faces including some of the competitors Shamash had warned me about as well as some of the opponents I’d already faced.
My seat had been assigned and the lich sat directly behind me. Only competitors were in the front row. There were hundreds. I was undefeated, so I was on the outskirts of those vampires with higher levels of Trueblood. Not all of them were undefeated, but because of their relations, they still were allowed to sit close to the heart of the vampire assembly. At the heart was the vampire nobility. Manu Shah and Parth Gul were among the central figures, if not the central figures of the younger generation.
I tried to ignore the obvious segregation of seating based on perceived worth, but it was grating. It was like a bunch of really petty junior high psychopaths were broken up into their own cliques. Seated next to the vampire congregation was a much smaller group of dark elves with Eshana Dara as its only competitor. There was a smaller number of people in her group, but many of them would be at least Master Ranked fighters if they decided to participate outside of the preliminaries.
Almost twice the number of orcs sat next to them, and the dwarves had an even larger group next in line. Then came a number of other races with only a few people to represent them. I recognized the minotaurs and a few others. It was one of the first times I got a good look at the dragonkin. There was a single competitor with his master sitting behind him. He had the head of a lizard with the snout of a crocodile and the muscular body of an orc. The intelligence behind their eyes spoke to them being much more than simple creatures.
After a few hours of waiting, a tall and nobly dressed vampire that looked much like a professor in his well-fitted suit jacket and polished shoes walked out toward the middle of the arena. He looked out of place walking across the cement-colored packed dirt. Stopping, he faced the core group of vampires and gave a nod a little deeper than the normal greeting. Then he slowly spun and took in the rest of the competitors and raised his voice. “Welcome, combatants!”
A pillar of mana shot up from him as he spoke. To cause such a pillar took an immense amount of mana. A massive phantom image of the man’s head was projected above so that the spectators in the stands of the lower level arenas could see. It was similar to the projection of Khun above his mana orb pedestal in Sanctuary except this projection was the size of a battleship.
This announcer was not normal. When I tried Creature Observation, the information it gave me was all scrambled, so somehow he was hiding his true power.
He was sure to spend an equal amount of time acknowledging all parties that had come as he spun to face them. Even if the spectators were segregated, he seemed to emphasize that in the arena, things were different.
As he spoke again, his voice boomed from the giant phantom so that everyone in and above the coliseum could hear. “Holding the preliminaries for the Festival of Parmida has become a tradition for the Hallow Amphitheater where we get the chance to see the promise of the younger generation. It is our honor to prepare such a stage to help propel the winners to future glory!
“The Festival of Parmida is held once every decade, and the Hallow Amphitheater has produced many champions in the last thousand years. But, despite many top ten finishes, it has been over a century since a champion has risen from the ranks of our fair city. Therefore, to encourage you to greatness, the rewards for the preliminary have been enhanced. The top ten finishers will not only win spots in the main tournament, but also Victory Tokens based on the place that you finish. For those that place sixth through tenth, a minimum of 1,000 tokens will be awarded to you. If you place in the top five, the higher your placement is, the higher your reward.”
The speaker paused before continuing at a slower pace. “Fifth place will receive 2,000 tokens. Fourth place will receive 3,000. Third will receive 5,000. Second will receive 7,000, and the champion will receive the coveted 10,000.” He’d stopped spinning to face the core of the vampire crowd.
There was no question as to why. The coveted prize for all young vampires was to get their hands on as much Trueblood as possible. With 10,000 VT one could purchase a full body of the stuff. It was something that wasn’t even available in the normal market. For a vampire’s bloodline to move up a minor rank wasn’t a large jump in power, but a body of Trueblood would allow a vampire to jump up many minor ranks giving them a massive boost. It wasn’t enough to become a Trueblood, but to become half-blooded wouldn’t be abnormal. If one already had a few bloodline ranks, then it would go even higher.
Th
e only vampires this prize wouldn’t appeal to were those that were already Trueblooded vampires. But because the prize was given in VT, it would still be an enormous boon to them. They could buy dozens of bodies of blood from rare creatures they’d never drained before. Such an opportunity would also grant them a large boost in power.
The explanation continued. “Not only will the top ten receive such prizes, but the tokens earned for each round will increase. There are 453 participants, so there will be eight rounds. For the first round, all tokens won will be doubled for every victory. 10 additional tokens will be added to the reward for a victory in each round following that and the finals will award 100 tokens. In addition to the top ten bonus rewards, there are a maximum of 450 tokens ready for the taking if you remain undefeated.”
I heard Shamash’s voice sound in my head. “This is perfect for you. If you win, you’ll be able to obtain Trueblood without participating in the main tournament. We’ll have to be extra careful when we leave, but that’s something we can manage.”
I responded in the affirmative, but how could I not also seriously consider the main festival’s championship prize of Trueblood as well? With both prizes together, my goal of raising my Vampire Form’s bloodline to Trueblood would almost be guaranteed. The purer the blood source was, the more impact it would have.
The announcer’s speech continued for another fifteen minutes detailing the rules of the competition. Chief of all was that killing your opponent purposely was forbidden, but accidents were bound to happen.
The first round was held in the outer and middle arenas only. The competitors with the best records had fights held in the middle level of the great pyramid of arenas. The outer arena was for newcomers and the unknown.
Underworld - Scorching Sun: A LitRPG Series Page 10