"The 8th stage?"

Monk looks back at Maria as he leads us out.

"I'm not sure, I've never seen anyone face it. It's probably better that way."

Each of us nods and doesn't reply after that note. We follow Monk, walking out of the fortress and regaining our mana sense.

Our rings of concealment and alteration activate the moment we step out from the dark tunnel.

Abby and Maria's faces light up as they take their first breaths of both mana and Qi-infused air.

"Feels nice, doesn't it?"

"Sure does..."

The walk back to the arena goes pretty quickly. Although my mind is still racing through possibilities of how to set up a business with Bri, and the potential offer Lith will give me tomorrow morning; once the sounds of the yelling crowds hit my ears, my brain switches gears.

I will have to save up a lot of money for startup costs if I want to do all of this on my own. Farming every single material for crafts may not always be feasible, I'll have to pay a team to farm for me. It may not seem optimized on a small scale when I can do everything myself, but I have to think bigger...

So, the mission right now is to make as much money as possible before my fight, and practice my Qi to its upper limits during my actual time in the ring.

Maria and I put on our black and white masks, while Abby just stays content with her ring of alteration.

"Masks are too stuffy, I don't need an extra layer of disguise just to look cool."

Monk gets a chuckle out of her line.

The four of us walk through the crowds of people in the lobby and make our way behind the registration and down the steps to the training rooms.

The announcer's voice is echoing through the stadium as usual, hyping up some of the last remaining midday fights while the sky above begins to shift from the golden yellow sunset to a black sky with twinkling stars.

Mr. Wright greets us as we make our way down, and his eyes practically light up with joy when he sees yet another fighter appear from nowhere next to the three others that broke record high numbers in the fight arena last night.

"Do we have another future legacy fighter on our hands?"

I nod, grinning under my mask and replying.

"Yeah, it'd be best to put all of us into the later rounds. You're in for another great showing tonight, I believe."

We mark our names, and Abby gets registered last minute without even having to throw her punch on the block upstairs.

"If you're attending with this group, I assume you're more than strong enough to handle yourself, Ms. Emerald Warrior."

Abby smiles and turns away, and Maria does too.

Monk and I follow close behind, we walk over to where the usual legacy fighters are standing by the teleport platform.

He speaks up with his arms crossed.

"I'm curious to see how they perform in the ring today. They seemed to be of a similar strength to you when you first awakened, let's see how they deal with real enemies in front of them."

I cross my arms as well, replying as we come to a halt to look up at the holographic display of the final midday fight taking place.

"That's right, we will see."

As the final match ends, and even more people pile in above us in the arena, Max, Sia, and Ace walk over to greet us.

Max, the shield, looks at all of us together and just smiles and shakes his head.

"More and more of you keep appearing. It's time I stop questioning it and just enjoy the extra eyes you new Elite arena fighters bring to the show. No one other than Monk has ever even made a scratch on that 7th stage until recently."

He laughs, and Sia interjects.

"Hey, we're not complaining, more eyes just mean a bigger prize."

Ace flips a gold coin up in the air with his thumb and catches it.

"Yeah, keep the bidders coming, let's put on another good show."

He smirks, and with perfect timing the announcer upstairs begins to yell again.

Sia turns to the teleport platform and waves us goodbye.

"That's my cue."

The nighttime fights begin right after the midday without much intermission at all. And from the overview shots of the crowd, it looks like equal if not even more people are at the event tonight than yesterday's show.

I immediately bring my wristband up to my eyes and watch the betting odds tick up and down as the matches begin.

All the legacy fighters' matches along with a few familiar newbie faces, and I bet nearly my full balance on every fight. Though, I play it very safe, never betting over stage 5 for any of the matches other than Ace. I take the chance on his stage 6 match and he wins in a flash of blue light.

I turn my 14 Platinum balance into just over 32.

Monk goes next, and his matches go just as usual. I turn my 32 Platinum into 49 betting all in on wins from match 1-7.

Maria is up next.

Monk gives her some last-minute tips, and I describe how I was able to channel Qi into my blood-bonded sword when I concentrated hard enough.

She smiles beneath her white mask and gives a firm nod before turning to enter the teleport circle and entering the arena.

With her sword on her waist, the first stage begins.

A low-level hobgoblin comes running at Maria, and she stands her ground using just her fists to counter.

On impact with the monster, the wave of hot Qi disintegrates it in seconds, but Maria activates her Ice magic the moment after to create an exciting performance for the crowd.

Everyone goes wild in the stands, and the next few rounds go just the same.

She gets used to using her Qi to kill opponents for the next 4 rounds until it's possible for the monsters to actually withstand a hit if it's not in a vital area.

Upon this realization, Maria takes out her sword to practice with one of the Mutant berserker giants that's placed up against her in the 5th Stage. It's the same opponent I had when I first started learning.

The clangs of metal on metal ring through the arena. Maria hardly uses any mana shielding and focuses on her bonded sword after every attack to attempt to channel Qi into it.

I can tell the first few attempts don't go as planned, but once it clicks, I watch her sword slice through the Berserker's weapon like butter, and basically melt the monster in half before our eyes.

She excitedly jumps in the air in the ring, celebrating the fact that she figured it out.

The 6th round goes in a much similar fashion. A Red Ogre King is brought out, a monster Maria is very used to fighting.

Once the match starts, it takes less than 5 seconds for her to replicate the sword motion from the previous match, and channel Qi into her blade.

Surprisingly, it takes a few hits for her, unlike the precision of the blade swings I was able to achieve with my swordsmanship skill. However, it doesn't seem to matter, in 3 clean swings of her sword, the monster's arms are sliced clean off and its head topples to the floor.

All of her movements are masked with an extreme wave of ice magic. The floor is covered in glimmering light blue crystals, and the pieces of fallen monster are frozen solid as well.

The crowd goes nuts again, and the announcer yells with excitement while Maria raises a thumb in the air to move to the next round.

"That's what we like to see! The Ice Empress is moving on to the 7th Stage! She'll be facing the one and only Mutant Ghoul. A level 691 at that."

There are some oohs and ahhs, but most of the crowd remembers her 2-second performance from last night, so they bet as if they already know how the match is going to end.

I do the same, putting all 66 of my platinum on her with a 1.23x payout on the 7th Stage.

The moment it starts, the stadium goes silent in anticipation.

It's fairly hard to pick up what really happened on the big screen without examining it closely with my perception skills, but Maria went head-on against the white-skinned, orange-tinted beast without her buff activated.

However, the instant it touches the creature's orange aura, the red Hydra's buff activates and she blips away from the monster in the middle of the ring.

Her eyes look very focused and she deactivates her buff the second she's out of range of the Ghoul.

She activates her Ice magic on full blast to attempt freezing the monster in place next.

Its orange aura melts through the prison of Ice in an instant, but while distracted she still slips through to force another attack.

The same exact reaction occurs.

Maria plunges through the orange aura but activates her Red Hydra's buff before sinking in too deep.

She jumps back and deactivates her Buff again, filling the arena with Ice and reassessing her options.

It seems as though the same thing is happening to her Qi, like it did mine. Every time she makes contact with its borrowed soul energy, the Qi is being destroyed. She'll need to learn to focus her Qi control much further if she even wants to make a dent in that monster's orange energy.

Even if she does, it'd be a miracle if she actually broke all the way through it without help from the Red Hydra. Without a higher overall capacity, it may just be impossible to beat this monster naturally.

I let out a thin smile beneath my mask and look to my side, speaking up in a low tone only loud enough for Abby to hear.

"Looks like she's really pushing her limits on this one, we should do the same."