Sixth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  She stuck out her tongue at him, making the others laugh.

  Stephen looked up with a grin on his face, losing the cold scholarly outer appearance.

  “Your next opponent is the sword mage Christoph, he’s not weak!” Emilia said.

  “He should be a good opponent to test the self-enhancement spells,” Stephen nodded.

  “Ever since you learned about this pure line of mana and spells, I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Derrick complained.,

  Stephen shot him a look.

  “Even less than I could understand you before!”

  Time passed quickly and the last match started, the dominating sword mage Christoph against the Storm mage Stephen.

  The two men were standing on the main stage in the highest arena, people from across the city and the Battle Arena were all watching them.

  They stepped up and shook hands, both of them seemed to be normal, looking at them, few people would be able to detect their power.

  “Let's have a good match,” the referee said, the two of them looked at the woman in appreciation, her aura was even more retracted than theirs, and her eyes bore a warning as she stepped back.

  Stephen let out an awkward laugh. The strongest on the stage isn’t the fighters but the referee, the army has grown powerful quickly. Still my place is with the Adventurer’s Guild, having to follow others’ orders day in and day out, yes I would become stronger but I like my freedom.

  The two men went to their corners. Stephen started to circulate his mana in preparation. Christoph rolled his shoulder and did the same as he took out his sword, it was a slightly curved blade with a serrated edge on the back of it.

  Runes and formations lay along the blade exerting the full strength of a high-grade Journeyman level weapon.

  Stephen tucked his shirt in, revealing a bandoleer of crystals along his waist.

  He reached down and grabbed two in his hands, his eyes locked on Christoph.

  “Begin!” The referee called out.

  Christoph waved his sword and charged, using a technique he accelerated rapidly while his sword shot out sword light formed of lightning.

  Stephen channeled Earth, Water, and Fire mana into his own legs, imbuing the mana crystals in his hand with high amounts of Fire with a little Metal and Water as he cast Water and Fire mana into his hands.

  Mana crystal was similar to gems. Gems were concentrations of mana that could be consumed over time. The difference was that mana crystal was devoid of mana and they could absorb mana from different sources. For Tanya and Stephen, they were great research tools as they allowed them to mix different types of mana together at different ratios to see what the effect was.

  The Water and Fire elements in his hands created a blast of air, shooting out of the crystal as if they were bullets. The crystals exploded into blinding light as Stephen’s enhanced legs got him away from Christoph’s attack and his path.

  Christoph recovered from the blinding lights quickly and stomped on the ground. Lightning tore through the ground as Stephen created an explosion under his feet, but the lightning caught him in the air. Striking his hastily created mana barrier as he was throwing mana crystals at Christoph, each of them carrying a different attack as Christoph was forced to deal with them before they reached him.

  Fireballs, curses, and mana limbs appeared around Christoph as his sword blurred. Stephan’ attacks failed to make it through his defense, being split apart.

  Stephan multi-cast spells instantaneously, they exploded off of Christoph’s sword.

  The ground was being torn apart by the deflected attacks as the two men went all out. Their dull expressions gradually turning into grins as they recognized their opponent’s ability.

  Lightning ran up Christoph’s blade, exploding out as it impacted Stephan’s attack.

  Lightning jumped between Stephan’s attacks charging towards him. Stephen’s spells came faster as he threw out water spells, dulling the power of the lightning attack before it struck a mana barrier around his body.

  Through the steam of the water attacks Christoph appeared.

  His body was covered in lightning like some lightning god.

  Stephen channeled mana through his own body, black mana wrapped together, creating blades blue mana covered them, forming ice. Stephan only created one balde as Christoph got into range.

  He waved his hand, sending the blade shooting forward.

  Christoph’s lightning burned through the ice, shattering it while his sword broke the rough blade underneath.

  He dodged back and to the side as a spear of stone pierced where he would have been the next second if he kept charging.

  Stephan sent two more blades at Christoph, forming more. Christoph who had lost his momentum had to fight to regain his footing, retreating to do so.

  Stephan hurled swords at Christoph, his control over their attacks increasing as time went on. The lightning across Christoph’s body sunk into his body as his speed increased trying to press forward.

  They were at a stalemate once agian as Stephan widened his area of attacks. Christoph had to move faster to meet the blades, sending out blasts of lightning to contain Stephan’s blades.

  “Are they both sword mages? The Storm mage knows how to use a blade as well!”

  “What is this? Mages are supposed to be weak in close!”

  “He must be using his mana to be able to fight Christoph.”

  “Do you know the kind of control that takes? I haven’t seen him use one buffing spell, might this be a technique?”

  “It must be, they are using techniques every minute. If they were to lose focus for a second the other would win.”

  The people in the stands were on their feet seeing these two titans clashing with one another.

  Christoph let out a yell as his eyes filled with lightning and the clouds above stirred, his body increased in size as he lashed out with his sword.

  “He’s gone berserk! Is this a bloodline ability?”

  Stephen gritted his teeth, using water spells to slow down the amount of lightning mana that Christoph could use, instead it was simply boiled away as Christoph pushed Stephen back.

  Stephen was just holding on when Christoph’s strength suddenly increased and he struck Stephen, cutting through his blades and shields of mana and striking at him.

  Stephen was pushed back, his mana barrier flashing into existence as it trembled with the impact.

  A lightning bloodline ability to increase his strength, and he reached Body like Iron already, and he‘s well trained in lightning spell magic.

  Stephen sighed as the ambient mana was dispersed from the stage by the referee, canceling the spells.

  “The winner is Christoph the Sword mage!” The referee called out to the cheers in the crowds, through the Battle Arena and Vuzgal.

  I lost, but I did learn a lot. I need to share my notes with Tanya!

  Chapter: More to be done

  Things didn’t start to settle down for some time. Vuzgal was busier than ever with more traders coming to see this mysterious city. Adventurer teams found that the dungeons were no longer the main reason most people went to Vuzgal.

  Most went to train in their different skills, from fighting to crafting. Vuzgal had established itself as a holy land for both groups.

  The forests around the city were overrun with beasts that had been left to populate the area for centuries, while there were only a few slots for people to enter the dungeons, there were plenty of beasts to kill, convoys to protect and gear to be bought.

  Hiao Xen and Elise worked with Domonos and Chonglu to make sure that Vuzgal ran smoothly. The massive city shifted according to their orders. In the last few months they had come to control Vuzgal completely.

  The competition left sects and powerhouses of the Fourth Realm talking to one another and they looked at Vuzgal in a new light. It was a new city, but it was already as powerful in different circles as some of the premier cities in the Fourth Realm.


  If Vuzgal didn’t rise, it would be a shock.

  Underneath Vuzgal, in a complex underneath the castle district, the managers of Vuzgal were gathered, Tan Xue, Elan, Domonos, Elise, Chonglu and Matt were all present. Blaze, as one of the council heads, sat in on the meeting. Hiao Xen was the only person that was not present.

  “With the fighting and activities, we were able to bring in a large harvest, we were able to make a profit of fifty Sky mana stones over the entire period of time. More traders are visiting Vuzgal now as they can hire mercenaries from here with high combat standards, most will do some trading here, while others might not trade here, with them visiting we will get a fee from those coming through the totem. I talked to Matt about speeding up construction.” Matt and her shared a look. “The last residences we sold gathered us ten Sky mana stones.”

  “There’s always something new to build, right now it just comes down to the number of builders I have. I’ve got different teams working in the untouched areas of Vuzgal, just takes time,” Matt said.

  The others nodded and looked to the next person around the table.

  “There were some security issues, they were resolved reasonably, I am investigating two incidents where there might have been a problem on our side. I should have the results of that in a week. We have recently got a large increase in the number of people applying to join the Vuzgal military.” Domonos looked at his father beside him.

  “A number of deals were made with different traders, people seem to like Vuzgal remaining as it is. I am interested by the fact that the Stone Fist Sect sent people down. Not related to what has happened in Vuzgal, but there has been a lot of activity between the Adventurer’s Guild and the Willful Institute, we might need to show our hand in the future, if that comes around we need to be ready if they lead an attack against us,” Elan said.

  “How have things been on that front?” Elise asked, looking between Blaze, Elan and Domonos.

  Blaze cleared his throat.

  “We have been undercutting them, taking contracts, using guerilla tactics to hit their convoys and steal from them; they have probably figured out that it is us. Based on the information that Elan has found, while they are being attacked, few if any of them are willing to tell their higher-ups or others. Looking at their structure, they are all part of the same sect, yes. The key thing is that in these sects people need to compete against one another in order to get resources and to get higher in the association. They don’t trust each other. If a small group is messing with them, they will hide it in order to not look weak in front of the other leaders. They care more about their face.

  “Because they’re not talking to one another, it has allowed us to strike at them more than we previously thought. Jasper is running the operations in the lower realms, the branch heads will be returning to assist him while I set up the guild here, working with the Fighter’s Association.”

  “Working with the Fighter’s Association?” Tan Xue asked.

  “They have offered us slots for our people to join them. They’ll have to compete, but it is a rare opportunity for the outer Guild members that do not want to take the oath to join Alva and receive our training.”

  “Will the army be assisting the guild?” Elise asked.

  Domonos sat forward.

  “We will not at this time. Yui is preparing to clear out the water floor of Alva, once we have that cleared we will have complete control over the entire dungeon. At the same time, they will assist the King’s Hill Outpost in becoming the ruler over the Beast Mountain Range. In six months the Alva Military will reach regiment strength which means that we should have nearly seven thousand trained soldiers. In one month, we will be able to send two fully trained companies to assist the Adventurer’s Guild. We still need time to train up the soldiers into different roles, so until we reach regiment strength we will only have the two combat companies.”

  “That’s a big risk, with all of those people on the line,” Tan Xue said.

  “It might be if we were just fighting in the Fourth Realm and against a proper military. We are fighting a sect across several realms. They have allies, but they also have more enemies, so if we can hit them and weaken them, provide an opening to others they will finish the job,” Elan said.

  The room fell quiet for a bit before Elise cleared her throat.

  “Chonglu, now that the competition is over, how have things been going?”

  “We have plans to make more training rooms and open them. We weren’t able to open them all before, but now with the funds freed up, we can hire plenty of skilled craftsmen to build the training rooms. Competitions will go on every week and month, there are plenty of people still interested. There have been large groups that are asking to rent out the training rooms for extended periods of time. Only the Fighters’ Association has this benefit, all others I told to follow what everyone else does. We sold a number of memberships and based off of the betting alone we are making a hefty profit.”

  “Good, you and your people did well. This was a massive undertaking and you did it with ease and showed the rest of the Fourth Realm our ability,” Elise said.

  Chonglu bowed his head in thanks.

  Elise looked over to Tan Xue.

  “Jia Feng wants to hold an internal competition between the crafters and I agree with her. The competition would allow the different crafters to show off their skill and push themselves, with current planning it looks like it will happen in six months to offset against the fighting competition. In the future we might have outer competitions to draw in crafters to Vuzgal and show off our ability. We have also been able to train up a number of expert crafters and the academy is growing, so everything is heading in the right direction,” Tan Xue said.

  Elise looked around the room.

  “Well, looks like everything didn’t fall apart as we feared,”

  The others smiled and laughed.

  “Also, I would like to ask, are we able to sell the weapons that the Army used?” Elise asked.

  “Delilah passed on her decision. The old repeater weapons that are outdated and do not have formations we can sell to others, but we are to use them to establish alliances. People that get them are not allowed to attack us and we will not attack them. It will be up to the Trader's Guild to create a contract that will satisfy these needs. You’ll need to send it off to Alva for final verification. Firearms and their technology will remain restricted information,” Tan Xue repeated the message given to her before continuing.

  “Weapons will reach a point where it will be hard for anyone without the right equipment to mass-produce them, everyone focuses on making just one piece of gear while we have the factories making all kinds of equipment in large quantities. It might be at a lower ability level, but we can produce a hundred where they can only make one.”

  “I’ll get that contract worked up and ready for her as soon as possible, what about making it in the academy?” Elise asked.

  “We can make a few of them at premium grade though I doubt many of the students will want to mass-produce them. While I can supply the plans and the technical expertise it looks like you will have to start to build factories in Vuzgal. Then you can make them here and sell them to others. Though have you thought about what will happen when you can pick and choose who you sell those weapons to?” Tan Xue asked.

  “Oh, easy, my first customers might appear to be random, but they’re all going to be people that have some kind of grudge or issue with the Willful Institute, that way we can make them stronger and we make sure that the people we’re fighting beside won’t be able to attack us,” Elise grinned.

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Blaze said.

  “We’ve got plenty of work ahead of us, so let’s get to it.” Elise hit her hands on the table as everyone started to disperse.

  ***

  Esther Leblanc looked over Vuzgal from the Sky Reaching Restaurant room. Her eyes found the arena in the distance.

  Seems that
the people from the Fourth Realm are stronger than I thought they would be. The competition wasn’t bad at all. Even in the Seventh Realm, the display would have been interesting.. The top one hundred would have been able to find an academy if it had been hosted in the Fifth Realm.

  She looked over to a kind but plain-looking old man who was making happy noises as he slurped down some noodles. He coughed slightly and blinked, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve.

  “Spicy! But good! Oh, this is delicious, so much better than those potions and the buffs last for longer too,” Old Jia laughed.

  “Were you able to get the information I require?” Esther asked.

  “Nope!” Old Jia laughed, completely content as he kept eating.

  “You weren’t able to get it and you’re sitting there so happy? What is the Marshall going to think?” Esther didn’t fly into a rage, after all of Old Jia’s appearance, he was one of the men who had taught him in her life and he was a master of disguise and getting information out of people.

  “The leaders of Vuzgal are incredibly smart. Well, at least their security and their military are capable!” Old Jia let out an amused snorted and kept eating even as tears started to fall from his eyes.

  “So you weren’t able to get anything?” Esther said.

  “I got a sample!” Old Jia waved his hand and a repeater appeared in his hand and he held it over to Esther.

  She took it, looking it over as Old Jia dug into the food.

  “This is one of their outdated repeater models. The ones that they are no longer using for the army. They have sealed most of the components so that it is hard to see what they have done but it basically looks like a crossbow with a mechanism to pull the string back again and fire it.”

  “Where did crossbows come from?” Old Jia asked with a half-filled mouth.

  Esther felt a shiver run through her body.

  “People used to use just regular bows, this was because based on their abilities and their spells they could get great power from the weapon. The Marshall created crossbows, they wouldn’t augment a person’s strength as well as a bow, but they would mean that a person who is a level one could kill someone that is a level ten. The power of the weapon was the determining factor in how lethal it is. A lot of people in the lower clans use crossbows still. Their popularity has increased, but they are more expensive to make and they take more maintenance to keep working,”