I was starting to see the signs of mana sickness from the sweat dripping down Rachel's forehead. I took the initiative to disable the gravity since the dial was within arm's reach. A shuddering of a machine ebbed as gravity returned to normal in the room.
“Are you okay?” I leaned over once near her to check in and make eye contact to see if she was doing okay.
“Yes, but I may have overdone it today.” Her panting gradually calmed into soothing breaths. It was apparent to see that her little stunt had taken more out of her than the sparring match against me.
“Take it easy.” She nodded her head to agree and leaned back into a full stretch to loosen up.
Thinking about the point she brought to my attention. Ki seemed to work differently compared to mana. It looked like ki was more efficient in strengthening your entire body. The downside of using your mana to supplement your foundation was the lack of anything leftover to activate your magic with. It ended up working out for Eris due to her massive mana reserves but for anyone else, it was a last-ditch effort in an actual fight.
The other thing to note was mana didn’t enhance speed. I never saw Eris run super fast unless it was flying with the aid of her forcefields. It was the ki channeled throughout my body that created a baseline for my physical condition. I could last longer in higher gravity than Rachel but my speed wasn't any different from our fight in normal gravity. To Rachel, it probably looked like I was able to suppress my mana from the unwanted detection of others.
“You can continue to watch but no more interruptions.” I wanted to work up a good sweat and practice the ki blast some more before tonight's fight. It also saved me from having to answer her questions if I kept pushing them off.
“I’ll wait by the door then, feel free to ask for anything from me.” She didn’t mind me telling her to be on standby and made her way back to the outside of the room, waiting on the other side of the glass door. I was enjoying the speed at which she was able to drop things that held her curiosity.
I spent the next forty minutes repeating the same steps for the external ki practice though this time applying the technique to each limb. I treated my body as a weapon trying to finetune the amount of time required to blast a target.
The move wasn’t in any shape to be applicable in actual combat but it was slowly evolving into a readied state. I hoped it would be useful by the time I had the monster royale match after Eris’s event tomorrow night.
The battle against the Death Spider was prepared to take place in Arena-C, one of the four secondary event stages surrounding the main centermost one. The layout was something akin to a flower or a four-leaf clover.
The size of the crowd caught me by surprise with seats filling up every second that passed. It was like they all had nothing better to attend to for the evening. If this was the size of the crowd on such short notice, I couldn’t begin to fathom our upcoming higher-ranked events.
We decided to have a free for all when it came to dinner with the only agreement of meeting up at this location prior to my fight. The meeting spot was the waiting room provided to fighters. Jade was the first to enter followed by her guide, then the same for Eris not too long after. By the time we caught up with each other's outings, the event’s introduction was on display for the viewers. A large holographic show projected into the center of the arena showing the crowd, previous attempts at fighting the Death Spider.
“Master, I’ve placed the winning bet on you. The odds are in favor of the spider, so the payout should be decent.” Jade finished her task, and like we discussed I was to put on an act for each event, all to trick people into betting against me for appearing incapable of coming out as the victor.
I wasn’t sure if it was legal but it wouldn’t hurt to try it out a few times. “Good work, leave the rest to me.” I gave her a solid thumbs up and saw Eris approaching with something on her mind.
“You got stronger.” Her simple stare was able to read me like a book.
“I finally learned that thing you were trying to teach me.” I was excited to let her know the good news.
“You can use magic now?” I nodded side to side and gave her another chance. “You reached the next level of ki condensing?” Both of her guesses were whispered quieter than the next. She was wrong on all accounts and her second guess was a sore spot for me. The fact that she surpassed me by six levels while I’ve been struggling my entire life to reach level five was infuriating to the extreme.
“No..., I learned how to externally control my ki. I’ll be able to use a ranged attack soon enough.” I tried to remain upbeat about my achievement and received a lackluster response that she attempted to mask with a belated smile.
“That’s great!” That was the extent of her amazement and all I could do was shake my head in defeat.
“Enough, no need to force it...” I sighed attempting to sound as sarcastic as possible to dampen the blow. “I’d like to have you as a training partner after our matches tomorrow. I need practical combat and you’re the only one that can provide a challenge.”
“Sure, I won’t go easy on you though.” She started to sound like I did with others when it came to their sparring sessions.
“Don’t go stealing my line!” I acted worked up but used it as a means to hide away the unsettling feeling. She’s never had to say that in any fight she’s been in, and made me wonder if she held back against me intentionally on our previous scuttle. The thought of going all out against Eris turned into more excitement than all of my upcoming events combined, the wait was too much to handle.
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