Alex headed down his basin’s stairs, stepping onto the dark waters of his soul. He glanced over at Berith. The demon sat, as he always did, watching. It didn’t look like the cracks in his white manacles had grown any larger. That was a bit surprising.
He’d cashed in quite a bit of magical energy. He could still feel his body and soul shifting around as they familiarized themselves with their new strength. The amount of magical mist he’d just condensed and pumped into his being would have probably been enough to put him all the way through the Novice stage and then some.
Though I don’t know if it would have managed to do that if I’d also been empowering my Mind Palace. This thing really is a huge damn energy sink, isn’t it? No wonder people don’t always fill it to the brim before they advance. You slow yourself down so badly by strengthening it.
But there was no benefit to rushing ahead and getting stronger now if it meant he would get swatted like a fly when he reached his limits and couldn’t grow any stronger. And it wasn’t like making his Mind Palace didn’t make him stronger. The benefits were just a little more delayed and harder to see at first glance.
He also didn’t miss the fact that the arena seemed to judge ability by one’s stage, not their true strength. It wasn’t actually measuring how strong someone was. That was up to them. And in that case, maxing his Mind Palace out actually gave him the biggest advantage when it came to fighting someone in the arena.
The biggest difference between two people at Adept tier was their Mind Palace. Well, that and their experience, abilities, and everything else that was entirely beyond variables that could be controlled.
Alex nodded to himself. He let his senses drift over his newly increased magical reserves as he made his way up to the new pillars rising in his soul. To his surprise, there were no slots for Aspect Gems within them. They were just plain marble.
“Huh,” Alex said. “Nothing new that I have to go find? No bullshit I have to do to unlock my full Soul Manifestation?”
There was no answer. He hadn’t been expecting one.
Chances are, I just haven’t gotten to the point where I can even start doing the fancy shit to get my Soul Manifestation. I wonder if building up your soul more in early stages makes it so that later ones are even harder to strengthen? Meiderly said it was building a foundation, so I assume that just keeps scaling. Bigger bottom floor means every consecutive floor that follows is going to be larger as well.
He shrugged. It didn’t really matter right now, and he could feel his being finally settling down. His new strength had found its place. There was nothing left for him to do here at the moment. And, given how they’d only had 2 hours before the promised fight against Evelyn, it was probably best not to sit around twiddling his thumbs.
Alex let himself slip out of his Mind Palace. His eyes opened back in the Empty Court as he found himself sitting in the fluffy cloud-chair once again. Somehow, despite his shrimp-adjacent posture, his back didn’t hurt at all.
God, I fucking love clouds. Especially ones that don’t act like real clouds in literally any way whatsoever. Don’t think you can sit on a real cloud. And if you could, it would probably be more wet than comfortable.
Alex pushed himself to his feet, stretching his arms high over his head and yawning. It was a good stretch — one of the stretches that went far enough to pull his shirt up from where it had been tucked into his pants. He spotted Claire watching him at the corner of his vision.
She didn’t even try to glance away.
“How long have you been done?” Alex asked as he pushed his shirt back into place. He didn’t bother bringing up her gaze, which still had yet to lift back to meet his.
“A few minutes,” Claire replied, a faint smile flitting across her lips before her expression grew flat once more. Whether the grin was because of what she’d seen, how Alex had failed to respond, or something else entirely was anyone’s guess. “Evelyn is waiting at the gate. I think we’ve run over our time a bit, but not by too much. She’ll live. But we should probably head over if you’re done.”
“I’m done,” Alex said with a nod. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not going to offer to help me up to my feet?” Claire asked, arching an eyebrow. “Not very gentlemanly.”
“You already got a free show,” Alex said without missing a beat. “The full treatment costs extra.”
Claire smirked. She rose to her feet. “I’m afraid I’m quite destitute at the moment. Credits don’t go very far in the Empty Court… but I’m pretty set on the full treatment. I guess we’re going to have to get ourselves an extra Denarius.”
“I guess so,” Alex said with a small grin. “Let’s go say hi to Evelyn before she starts thinking that we’ve run off on her.”
***
There was a man with Evelyn when Alex and Claire met back up with her at the gate. He wore a loose fitting toga that made him strongly resemble a man that had wandered out of a greek theatre reenactment, leaving his chest bare, save for an absolutely ludicrous mat of hair that may as well have been a shirt sprouting from his chest.
His face matched his chest. Though considerably better trimmed, there was a thick beard framing the man’s soft features. It ran up to his head, sitting in a curly mop above two bright green eyes. The not-so-faint scent of alcohol lingering around him made itself known well before Alex and Claire had gotten anywhere near.
“Ah,” Evelyn said, nodding in greeting as they drew close. “There you are. I was beginning to wonder if you’d run off.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Claire said. She jerked her chin over her shoulder. “The garden area was a bit too comfy. We fell asleep.”
“It’s no matter all,” the hairy man said in what might have been the strongest, sharpest British accent that Alex had ever seen. There wasn’t so much as a hint of intoxication within the man’s voice. If anything, he seemed ready to start narrating a nature documentary. “A little wait does wonders to get the anticipation roaring. It’s tasteful. But now that we’re all here, I am eager to begin.”
Actually, it’s not quite British. There’s something else in there. The way he speaks almost seems… regal? Just very sharp and enunciated, I guess.
“I’m with Henry,” Evelyn said. “Let’s get to it. I only caught the tail end of your last fight, so I’m quite excited to see what you two are capable of at full strength. You’re all rested up, right?”
“More than,” Alex confirmed with a nod. “We’re ready.”
“Rules, then,” Evelyn said, turning toward the gate. “The bet will be one Denarius per team, as discussed. The arena will limit our strength to the Adept tier. Neither of us will — do you have your Soul Manifestations fully unlocked yet?”
“No.” Alex shook his head.
“Then we’ll limit ourselves to Partial Soul Manifestations,” Evelyn said. “You’ve got that, I trust?”
Alex and Claire nodded.
“Good,” Evelyn said. “Partial Soul Manifestations, then. Standard arena. No environmental hazards. Sand base. Positioning will be on opposite ends of the arena, alongside our respective teammates. Team damage will be on.”
“You can turn that off?” Alex asked, blinking.
“You can set pretty much anything,” Evelyn said. “Sometimes, when you get to the higher stages, it gets fun to just let loose and not worry about accidentally blasting your own people in the process. I’ve seen it happen more than once on accident. Some Soul Manifestations are… not conducive to team-play.”
“That Black Sun Flame user, for instance,” Henry said with a chuckle. “I don’t think that fight was fun for anyone in the arena other than him. We all got cooked like scraps of meat forgotten upon a grill. Not one of my favorite memories, but it was certainly an enlightening one. Neither of you use fire, do you?”
Alex and Claire shook their heads.
“Good,” Henry said with a relieved grin. “I’m not much a fan of fighting against people with strong control over flame. It’s really just not a good time for anyone involved. You’d think they would be weaker, given that everyone’s first thought about destructive force tends to be fire. Nothing that popular should be strong. But, as it turns out, there’s a reason for that. It’s blasted annoying.”
“It left quite the impression on you, didn’t it?” Evelyn asked, smiling wryly as they all drew up to the edge of the gate.
“Course it did,” Henry replied. “It was three days ago.”
“Oh,” Evelyn said. “So it was. Well, hopefully this fight will be memorable in different ways. Are there any other restrictions the two of you would like to note? Otherwise, we’ll just be going with the standards, and victory on the death of both opponents.”
The way she spoke about killing each other was oddly unsettling. Even though Alex was more than aware of exactly how the arena worked, just casually talking about trying to kill each other was still a bit odd. He could only wonder just how many times Evelyn and Henry had used it.
Either way, this’ll be good practice.
“That sounds good to me,” Alex said. “Claire?”
“It’s fine with me,” Claire said. “As long as the rules end there and are limited to ones that you said loud enough for us to have heard. I don’t know if the gate is listening when we’re walking in or before the two of us arrived.”
Evelyn snickered. “Paranoid, are we? Nice. Someone must have gotten you with that one already. Those additions are fine with us. We’re all set.”
“Let’s do it,” Alex said. “See you in there.”
Then the four of them stepped through the gate.