“Well…” She bites her lip.
‘Thank you,” I tell her sincerely. Already, whatever bothered me in my sleep is quickly forgotten as I stare into her lovely face. Just knowing she was awake, watching over me, makes my heart skip a beat.
“You’re welcome,” she says lightly. “Now let’s get dressed and go to the obelisk. We need to find another easy opponent.”
41
One day merges into another, then into weeks and months.
There is no sunrise to mark the beginning of a new day, no darkness to signal its end. The sky remains the same dull crimson, unchanging, oppressive. What separates one day from the next is the same loud, obnoxious horn I’ve come to dread.
At first, I try to keep count. Of the number of fights. Of the tokens earned. But just like the days, they blend together until the particular becomes general; until I do what’s expected of me, and I do it well.
We wake up, I fight, we eat, I read my instruction manuals and Moe reads some fiction—she needs some entertainment, tokens be damned.
Somewhere along the way, the numbers begin to blur, and I stop trying to hold onto them. I fight and fight, waiting—hoping—for some type of improvement.
Although my speed and strength are slowly becoming better, I still haven’t reached level one.
I may not be fighting the weakest opponents anymore, but they’re not the strongest either.
I settle into something in between—four points, sometimes five. It’s enough to push myself, and still have confidence in mywin rate. And the more I fight, the more I start to recognize the patterns; the way the warriors at this level fight.
The highest level I’ve faced so far has been a level two. Although there was a stark difference in our levels, what I’ve learned is that even within levels there are distinctions in strength based on domains.
Some can manifest their domain’s abilities, but barely. Some even get stumped by using powers they don’t understand, resulting in their loss.
Since my knowledge about levels and domains has always been surface-level, I’ve taken this opportunity to learn and observe.
The elementals are still the most ubiquitous ones, but they are also the easiest to beat. At a level two, one is lucky if they can conjure up their element for more than thirty seconds to one minute. Afterward, their energy is all but depleted, giving me the much needed opportunity to finish the job.
As my experience accumulates, my movements become cleaner. Where before I wasted effort at first, now I conserve it and wait for my opponent to make the first move—the first mistake. Each one of my strikes is measured. I don’t swing unless I know it will land, and when it does, I follow through without hesitation.
My reactions are sharper as well. The lag that once slowed me down—the moment of uncertainty before a strike—is almost gone. Where in my first match I held too many doubts, now I only have one conviction—I must survive. Moe and Imustsurvive.
Before we know it, almost three months have passed.
We make our way back to the market often enough that the path becomes familiar. The faces, less so. Just as I begin to recognize some, they disappear. New faces appear. The cycle continues, all over again.
If before I would have felt sorry for those people—especially knowing that I also have a hand in their demise—now I’ve become indifferent to it.
The meals stretch further than expected with Moe’s cooking acumen. And what we save on food we splurge on books.
I borrow a new book every four days or so. Moe gets new one every three days—or less, depending on length.
At the end of each day, we have the same routine. Moe lays on the bed, reading her book while I sit cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room. I alternate between reading and putting the knowledge into practice through meditation.
Every fight, I consume a little more soul energy: two or three particles at a time. Not only I can not afford to steal more, but my abilities are still too underdeveloped to do so. Those few particles of energy take a huge amount of concentration, and then even more meditation to absorb them.
One day, after a fight with a level two warrior whose abilities consisted of a strange control over metal—something I haven’t seen before—I decide to finally borrow a book on power domains.
Curious, Moe ditches her current read—a romance book about the ill-fated love story of a Tartareian princess and an Aperite Supreme. She places a fluffy blanket on the ground and joins me.
“This is so thin,” Moe mentions when she sees the little booklet. “You paid a token forthis?”
“It is expensive for what it is,” I agree with a sigh. Most immortals already know all of this. It’s no wonder that the book is brand new. I’m probably the first person to ever check it out. “But I’m curious. Soon, I’ll develop my own domain, too. I want to know about it when the time comes.”
I open the book and note the two sections: one that covers the domains and one that covers the levels.
