“The Grand Mage wins!”

  A man clad in crimson-stained robes falls backwards to the ground as the crowd goes wild. His right arm lies severed in the centre of the arena, with his left hand right beside him, having just been cut off. Next to him on the floor is the unconscious body of his foe, in a small pool of blood. If he had any energy left to speak, he would remark how absurdly close the fight was.

  In the final few seconds of the fight, the Grand Mage, as he calls himself, managed to infuse a final packet of exhaustive energy into his enemy. This was just enough to make him fall unconscious, moments before the mage would have lost his leg to the opponent's greatsword.

  Unfortunately, he is currently unable to walk, so he is carried by a man in the uniform of the arena to the recovery area. As he leaves, people in similar outfits take his former foe elsewhere.

  Vis awakens with a groan, sitting up in the bed he finds himself in. He takes a moment to think, frowning as he recalls his loss. Even though he was far stronger, he still lost the battle. He shakes his head to dismiss such thoughts and looks around.

  The room he is in is relatively small, without much of note. A sign he is unable to read, as he is illiterate, hangs on the wall above a wooden desk. He doesn't care much to look around, so he exits through the door. Entering a long corridor, doors akin to the one he entered through line the walls. A single one is open, so he walks through it.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It leads to a much larger, fancier room than the one he was in before. He walks to the centre, searching for anyone he can query about his circumstances, but finds nobody- until, from just behind him, a voice cries, “Vis!”

  With bestial instincts, he rotates and throws out his elbow. His eyes widen as he sees his Teacher, who manages to catch his fist by forming a thin barrier of metal in front of his hand.

  “You’re that happy to see me, huh?” he comments, smiling. Vis steps back.

  “Teacher. Where are we?”

  “We are somewhere private. You, even if just barely, lost in the semi-finals of the tournament and so are now out. Instead of wasting time recovering normally, I brought you here in preparation for the next step I want you to take. Training is good, and you will have a few days to do just that, but you need experience to go with it. That way, you can adjust to different, non-physical fighting styles like that of The Grand Mage. That man has a terrible naming sense, by the way. As the great scholar Athanasia said, ‘Strength without experience is blind.’”

  Vis thinks for a second before nodding and replying, “I understand.”

  The man continues after the confirmation.

  “Now, go back and finalise your recovery before you get back to training. Whenever you need anything, go into the hallway and shout what you need. I'll open a door to where you need to go.”

  Vis does as commanded. He focuses solely on training his usage of mana, which he failed to properly utilise in his previous fight. Over the next few days, his precision heightens. Three times a day, Vis finds his way to a kitchen, where he cooks himself meals with surprising skill. Outside of that, all he does is train.

  On the fourth day, he opens his room’s door, the same one he woke up in, and a black-haired man falls into him. The man seemingly knocks himself over, and Vis speaks, surprised.

  “What the- you picking a fight with me?”