Chapter 394

Chapter 394

"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.

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."