Progression of a Magic Fighter Ch. 6

Ch. 6: The Arena Contest

“Alright, let’s do this,” Jor sighed, standing in the deepest part of the river he could find. It reached up to his knees.

He bent down and scooped water with both hands. The water glistened with magic and didn’t fall away, sticking to his grasp. Jor clenched his jaw, smacked his abdomen, and blasted himself with water.

He grunted in pain and buckled, coughing up some blood. His abdomen bruised up fast. He might have broken a rib and caused some internal bleeding.

Jor checked for <Aura of Struggle>, pushing past the pain of self-harm. That was critical enough, right?

The attribute didn’t respond to his prompting. He hadn’t damaged himself enough. He had more life, and his own sorcery would naturally want to avoid self-harm. He was doing mental gymnastics in his head to turn his own power against him, a difficult and painful process.

“Here we go again,” Jor grunted, performing the same maneuver. He squeezed his eyes shut as he rode through the pain. He was about to crumple, falling into a daze, but then something new and powerful surged from within.

Suddenly, his body felt stronger. His magic leaked out and caused the water to glisten brightly around him. And as the cherry on top, the aura formed as a mini watery cyclone with him in the middle, his dreadlocks whipping from the current.

The pain didn’t go away. And being down to half of his life was scary. But the power enthralled Jor as he staggered around. Things improved even more when water droplets gathered around his hurt abdomen and started shining.

Jor gasped, feeling the touch of healing. I’m healing myself because of the pain. I have enough magic to make it reactionary.

It felt soothing. Amazing, really. And his life stopped feeling threatened. Jor stayed put and enjoyed the healing.

Unfortunately, <Aura of Struggle> cutoff before the healing magic made significant headway. That dropped his healing right away, and left Jor in this awkward spot of being damaged without extra power.

“Oh, great.” Jor sighed. “This is gonna be brutal on me to figure out.”

For days, Jor trained, teetering on the brink of madness in his struggle with the aura attribute. His threshold for pain rose thanks to his focus, even if barely. He figured out ways to keep moving regardless of being below half of his life.

He tried his best to maintain <Aura of Struggle> while using <Water Sorcery> to heal. It almost felt impossible. Jor made the most out of things.

Eventually, Jor reached a point where more training failed to help. It was time to face the arena contest on a new morning.

“Alright, I’m off to win this.” Jor watched the slow and shallow river babble in response to his words of confidence.

Maybe the river knew Jor was as nervous as when he first heard the apes hollered. The silence of the path forward was ominous, even while under another wonderful morning.

The river gave a sense of serenity and calmness, never changing and always offering fresh fish to catch and eat. Jor almost felt bad to leave it behind. Yet, he turned his back on the river and checked his Gamer profile.

<>

Gamer: Jormungandr Sainte-Joyce

Rank: Mundane

Experience: Level 5

Life: 18

Body: 18

Magic: 19

Focus: 26

Attributes: <Karmic Rebirth>, <Blood of War and Peace>, <Battle Sense>, <Water Sorcery>, <Aura of Struggle>.

Summons: <Scarf of Momentum>.

<>

Jor nodded to himself, reconfirming he was as ready as he was going to be. With a fist raised above his shoulder, he bid the river farewell. Then Jor started jogging toward the trail to begin the next arc of this challenge.

Down the trail and back into the forest, Jay moved with his scarf fluttering behind him. The path grew darker despite the bright morning. More gnarled roots appeared under his feet. Thorny brambles closed in from both sides, and the trees hung down crookedly. The branches looked like they wanted to snatch Jor up.

He pushed further, and the path darkened further, the treetops thickening. After ten minutes, a fog appeared, growing ever thicker the further Jor went. And worse yet, it was quiet. Too quiet. The silence was so awful, Jor only had his hammering heart to keep him company.

Jor reached out with his palm and thought hard about his limited sorcery. The fog in his way parted slightly, granting Jor another thrilled rush from the wonder and mysticism of having control over an element.

The fog wasn’t exactly water in the thematic sense, but it had water involved in the particles. Jor had to work harder to push the fog aside a couple feet in front of him, but he considered it good training in a watery area, benefiting his sorcery.

If it wasn’t for his sorcery, he might’ve fallen off the cliff waiting for him a few steps away.

Jor’s eyes widened, his heart jumped into his throat, and his instincts went into overdrive as he jerked back before completing another step. The buff from his scarf empowered his body to divert his direction.

He still fell, though, hitting his back hard on the roots. His feet dangled above the gaping fall, but that was it.

Jor let out a long single-word cuss. He waited on his back, letting his emotions settle so he could get back in control of himself.

Once composed, he scrambled back and sat up. A few moments of scruinting at the fall revealed the fog was deadlier to him than he’d first thought. Is there no way forward?

Jor neared the dropoff carefully. Random rock in hand, he dropped it and listened for an impact. None came for half a minute, and by then, the rock’s fall to the bottom was almost dismissable if it wasn’t for his focus.

Jor grimaced, looked ahead, and tried to pierce the heavy fog with his gaze. He stretched his hand out and moved some of the fog out of his way. He barely got a few extra feet of clear vision.

Taking some time to think, he juggled some rocks around before tossing them forward. An idea came to him regarding the rocks, so Jor grabbed up a bunch of them and started pitching them forward into the fog.

On the third pitch, a rock struck something that sounded closeby. He tossed another rock in the same direction, reconfirming there was something solid beyond his vision into the fog.

He tested the way forward some more and had a general idea that the next part of the path was narrow or small. Could be the last remnants of a bridge. Or a pillar. It sounded like rock on rock.

“So there’s something there. I can try to jump through the fog and land on it.”

But Jor questioned what he would do from there: jump from hidden foggy pillar to hidden foggy pillar?

Jor shook his head and searched for another option. His eyes gazed down at the many roots crawling along the floor and over the edge.

Half an hour later, Jor reached the bottom of the drop. He’d long ran out of roots to climb down and settled for cracks and ledges in the rock.

He took a moment to sit back, thanking himself for coming out short and light. It was a nerve-wracking journey down without clear sight, the fog existing from the top to the bottom. It was a bit easier to see down here despite it being dark, however.

Jor stayed put just in case there was something monstrous down here. It could be another surprise from the Game. But nothing sprung an ambush.

He moved forward carefully and set his hand on what he had found throwing rocks way above. A ridiculously tall pillar of stone. It was roughed up and slightly moist. There were more pillars ahead of him, too.

They were all outside of the edge of the average long jump of a mundane person. Jor would need to jump with all his strength, plus the buff from his scarf, and maybe some sorcery blasting from his feet. It almost felt purposefully stretched out that way, and as Jor journeyed further across the gray-rock floor, he saw that the pillars remained perfectly spaced apart just the same.

“Are there people who would’ve tried jumping across?” Jor asked himself. Though, was there a need to ask? I would’ve jumped across if I didn’t hesitate and think about it further.

Was the Game saying that doubt could be helpful?

Jor shook his head, not believing that. It was more likely there were multiple options for traversing forward.

When Jor reached the end of the equally spaced pillars, he saw for himself they were lowering down gradually, too. At the end was a stone staircase with no railings, the pillars supporting the way up and down.

I could’ve walked the rest of the way if I succeeded on the jump.

But he had no idea. The fog was too thick. It would require a leap of faith.

Jor placed his foot on the first step, contemplating whether he wanted to go back and see if the pathway to the trail was complete except for that one gap. But then he shook his head, dreadlocks swishing, and readjusted his scarf around his lower face.

Onward, Jor pressed, journeying through the gray stone landscape. All alone with a thick fog mostly above his head. It was dark down here, but not too dark where Jor was blinded. He had just enough light to see ahead, and barely much more than that.

The silence. The barrenness. The sense of being all alone. It felt magnified here.

It made Jor wonder if this was a place for one to find peace and shelter? Or was it a place of darkness and malevolence?

The answer appeared on Jor’s journey, filling him with trepidation and unease. A big ape skull. It was a macabre decoration of an unchanging environment.

Jor examined the skull without touching it. He didn’t see a skeleton anywhere nearby. Focusing his attention on his surroundings, Jor kept his mind empty and his body ready for action.

He moved forward at a slower pace and soon found another skull. A few steps later, another skull appeared with a fourth skull not too far behind it. Eventually, Jor’s adventure led to more and more skulls until he was walking on a bleached carpet of skulls. The ape skull floor rose and dipped but remained a floor.

Nothing disturbed the scenery for a while, forcing Jor to be more mindful of his footing. The unsettling macabre lost its luster eventually, so nothing piqued his interest until Jor came across a light in the distance.

He picked up speed and reached a tall black obelisk. Runes were carved into the stone, shining a myriad colors that pushed back the darkness. The colors felt especially bright to Jor’s eyes, pulsating with magical intensity that seemed to heighten the closer Jor came.

“I shouldn’t touch strange things,” Jor said, reaching out to the obelisk. “But here we go, anyway.”

He rested his hand on the colorful runes. The obelisk emitted a great and big hum in response. Unfathomable power flowed up Jor’s arm, over his body, and further beyond. The scenery around him changed in the blink of an eye, making Jor hold his breath as hundreds of thousands of skulls clicked together into a complex structure with walls, a roof, and support beams. All made of ape skulls. The darkness deepened even further except for the light coming from the obelisk. Then the light started to dim.

Jor watched as it faded rune by rune, letting the darkness get closer and closer. It took all of Jor’s willpower to not shout in fear and cry for the light, holding himself by a high standard despite the creep factor pushing through the roof.

To his surprise and glee, a single rune remained lit. From it, an orb of light hovered from the rune to a spot above Jor’s head. Then the Game finally spoke its ominous words in front of Jor’s eyes and inside of his mind.

<A long time ago, human mages sought to deepen their magic. They caught, experimented, and darkened the souls of many creatures, especially those you’ve encountered here, Gamer. The consequences of those experimentations persist after countless generations. The darkened monsters wish for retribution against humans.>

“What do you want me to do, ask for forgiveness?” Jor looked around the section he was in, a big hallway that curved down each length. “Is this your way of amending the wrongs done by the mages?”

<Regardless of your origins, your blood and flesh is sought by the darkened monsters. Kill them or be killed in this inescapable arena of death, a contest as old as life.>

Ah, so there are no amending old wounds, only brutality. Jor shook his head and slapped his cheeks lightly. If that’s the case, then stay focused, Jormungandr!

He wanted to get ahead of the fear and beat it to the punch. There was no denying this was absolute nightmare fuel, a terminology he could vaguely remember from his past life. All he had was the little multi-colored orb glowing above his head and the cryptic words of the Game.

All of that painted him as a target.

He reached up to touch the light orb, but his hand phased through it. He could block the light with his hands, but then he stopped seeing what was in his vicinity.

They’re called darkened apes for a reason, right? I’m in their environment for sure.

Just as Jor thought that, he heard spine-chilling scrapes across the barren stone floor. Breaking up the scraping sounds were rhythmic thumps of something heavy, almost like the footfalls of big, big creatures.

The sounds came from both directions. Jor put his back to the obelisk, looking left and right. He saw nothing around the bends of the vast tunnel in both directions. But the sounds grew closer and louder.

He had to make a choice, pushing his focus to the max. Jor chose the left side and ran.

In no time, he faced his first enemy in the arena contest. It was another ape, but not of the Tier 4 variety. It was much too big for that, easily over twice Jor’s height.

The arms were outrageously long, scraping the floor with the back of its claws like an evil orangutan with dirty black fur. The void-like eyes and hairiness was the same, but the devilish grin on its face was different. And it made no hollering sound, preferring to smile and bare fangs glistening with saliva that dripped down the corners of its big mouth.

Somehow, its grin grew even wider, impossibly so, upon seeing the little human. Thus, the moment to observe each other winked away. The monster jerked forward with a powerful lunge and swung its long arm at Jor’s head, its claws flashing out and seeking human flesh.