Standing in front of him, Treston Mox clicks his tongue and throws a glance in my direction. “Just do your best,” he tells the man.
With a nod, the man gets back to work, trying to put enough of a shield on the blade to make it entirely useless. Mr. Mox walks over to me, staring down at me as I sit on the bench.
“This gives me a bit of nostalgia,” Mr. Mox says. “Though, can you really be nostalgic for something that happened just yesterday?”
“You’re distracting me,” I tell him, looking down at my hands. With the new underlayer I purchased recently, all of my magical equipment fits better somehow. The coat drapes smoothly, and the nightshade leggings even feel less tight. I should have been wearing something like this underlayer a long time ago. Looking down at myself, I look just like I did when assaulting the termite hives with the 4th; the only difference is that my hands and feet are bare.
Inside my hidden armory, my full regalia of obsidiante armor stands equipped to my avatar there. Well, all aside from the helmet I planned to create. Most of the heavy armor is unenchanted, meaning that my hidden armory only borrows its natural properties, which allows it to not clash with my normal equipment when I wear it in the physical world. I can’t help but snort at the strangeness of the ability; it is by far the most convoluted ability I possess. I wonder if all scions of these divine thrones have such strange abilities.
“You gave my men the slip,” Mr. Mox says, taking my snort as being derision directed his way.
“I went for coffee,” I tell him. “Can’t start the day without it.”
“For a moment there, I thought you might be running out on your part of the bargain,” he says. “For a minute there, I thought that something terribly might happen to your friend.”
It is difficult to keep my composure at his barely veiled threat. “Then, I guess it is a good thing that I am here. Now, if you would kindly leave me alone, I am trying to focus.”
Instead of walking away, the man squats in front of me. “I am about ready to throw this whole thing out. All I need you to do is make it to Senya. Beat the man senseless in front of everyone, humiliate him, and that is it. Your friend said that he could do it, but we both know how that went. If you need to focus for this, to put up a fight against show fighters, it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”
I look away from him, glancing back down at my hands. Usually, I fight with gloves on, enchanted ones at that. “I might break something,” I say, running a finger over the pleasant curves of my nails. I have noticed some dwarven women in the city painting theirs with all sorts of colors. “Do you think I should paint them? Would red be too much red?”
The man’s jaw flexes as he stands and walks away from me. It probably isn’t wise to antagonize him. I should have better control of my tongue.
“Galea,” I say in my head. “Show me my status.”
Charlene Devardem
Human(Level 74)(Rank 2)
Emperor Conflux
Attributes
Vitality: 195(311)
Strength: 149(192)
Magic: 1339(2079)
Defense: 184(896)
Magic Defense: 163(558)
Speed: 741(1005)
Recovery: 1159(1711)
Perception: 138(152)
Free Points: 0
Healing Points: 3105
Mana: 20792
Stamina: 8619
The last few months have only made my love for numbers grow, and I have started to really come around to the Faethian outlook of quantifying everything. There is something about watching the numbers that represent exactly how strong I am increase over time. Just a few hours ago, I threw all of the free points I have accumulated into the magic attribute to prepare for this series of fights ahead.
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The lop-sidedness of my attributes no longer bothers me. At this point, the attributes appear like what anyone might expect to see when looking at a “mage.” However, Recovery still remains my highest stat by a good margin with the incredible boost I have to the attribute from my specialization. With the third threshold overcome, I can feel the flow of my vital energies moving throughout my body more precisely than ever. Without the direct power that the Captain was forcing into me as I attuned to the Throne of War, I don’t know if I can fully regrow limbs and organs as I did beneath Danfalla, but I can probably recover from anything less in seconds.
Magic has taken a great increase, and sitting exactly where it is now, it should just be enough.
However, Defense and Magic Defense are the biggest standouts from the past few months. Sitting in my hidden armory, the obsidiante armor contributes almost six hundred points to my defense attribute and three hundred and forty to magic defense. The change is more drastic than the naked numbers can account for. After putting the armor into the hidden armory, I tried to stab my dagger into the back of my hand with as much strength as I could muster. The tip pushed against my skin like a blunt finger before sliding off and cutting a deep gash into the countertop of the kitchen. Given that I am now strong enough to pick up a horse-drawn wagon with my bare hands–at least the rear axle, I don’t know if I could lift the whole thing over my head–that is quite something. With skin this tough, I wonder just how much I might need to heal from anymore.
In my vault, the obsidinate helmet lies discarded on my bed, the only piece of the armor that I didn’t wear. I hadn’t noticed it until this morning, but for the last few weeks, my defense and magic defense attributes have been growing without my notice. The culprit, the most powerful piece of equipment I possess, one that has subtly changed without me noticing.
War Crown of New Lineage(Mythic):
???
Enhancement: +180 attribute points, able to be distributed at the discretion of the wearer. <+60 Magic><+60 Speed><+60 Recovery><+10% all attributes>
Focus: Sharpens the mind of the bearer, helping to prepare them for the challenges of power
Shield: Call upon the power of the crown to create a magical barrier to protect the bearer
Armory Bonus: 150 Defense, 100 Magic Defense
I only noticed the change to the item when I took it out of my hidden armory a few hours ago, preparing to wear it on my head out into the arena. Galea was the first to clue me in on the difference, pointing out how its name has changed. Galea, or rather my eye, creates its descriptions of items by reading their providence. A change to the name means that there must have been a change to the item’s providence, whatever that means. There is a lot to this item that I don’t understand. A lot that I need to investigate more closely.
As far as practicality goes, it offers me the single largest boost to my hidden armory attributes out of any piece of equipment. The hardness of the metal the crown is made from surpasses even that of obsidianate. There are many materials that do: shardplate, diamond, black coal, and neurometal are a few. I chose obsidinate to make armor from due to its high robustness relative to its cost. Still, for the crown to offer me such an incredible bonus when it only covers a small part of my head, the material must be insane. Neither I or Galea has ever managed to identify exactly what it is made from. It appears to be made of gold, but it is simply too powerful for that to be the case.
I look at the status page once more. “Nine hundred should be enough.”
There is a thud from the end of the ramp ahead of me, and the sound from the platform above grows clearer. I get up and approach the end of the room, listening as the cheers from above grow louder and louder. There is a woman’s voice egging them on above, but I can’t make out her words.
“That is your cue,” Mr. Mox says. “Remember our arrangement.”
I open my palm, tugging on the black sand inside the hilt of my mageblade. It flies from the hands of the dwarven official who lets out a yelp before landing in my palm. “I won’t. Will anything get me removed?”
“Don’t kill anyone,” he says flatly. “Fighters are disqualified for doing that.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes as I slide the blade back into its sheath on my hip. “Well, I am glad you told me that now instead of after the fight.”
“These aren’t death matches, Ms. Devardem. “People come to see blood, but not that much. No one is expecting to die in the arena.”
“People rarely expect it.” Without another word to the man, I begin to walk up the ramp. With each step I take, the voices above grow louder and louder. Just as my head is about to break through the illusory stone at the end of the tunnel, I stop and linger.
I long breath hisses between my lips. This whole situation feels…mannish. Shouldn’t I have a better solution to take care of my problems than beating a bunch of strangers into the ground with my magic? I should be able to figure something out to resolve all of this. Certainly, Lady Talagast had figured out a way to get what she wanted without dirtying her hands. Why couldn’t I do the same?
A smirk comes to me, one that Jor would approve of. Right. I chose this path when I decided to be a monster killer. People are going to want me to do that for them, to put the skills I developed in life-or-death battles against terrible malformations of magic to work for their benefit. Today, I am going to show that won’t work. No one gets to move me against what I want.
Forcing a smile, I leap from the ramp straight into the air, two draconic wings expanding away from me and holding me aloft. The cheers of the crowd die away for a moment as burning dragonfire roils through the air around me. If these people are here for a show, I will give them one.
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