As the two finished speaking a massive screen materialized over the platform. On it was two lists of ten names a piece, combined in pairs to denote who was to fight against who in the first round. One list was the Core Realm competitors and the other the Spirit Realm.

  As fate would have it, Will’s name was on the list as one of the first to have to fight.

  Alea looked over at Will. He had a big grin on his face and was visibly excited. His eyes were shining, the blue in them almost seeming to glow. The air felt almost electrified around him. She could feel the hair on her arms and head begin to stand on end from the charge he was subconsciously emitting into the air.

  This was one area that they shared a lot in common. They both loved the thrill of the fight, and they both loved pitting themselves against others. It wasn’t in a desire to dominate. At least not for her, and she didn’t believe for him either.

  It was the challenge. It was seeing your hard work pay off as you found yourself stronger, faster, and more skilled than before. It was almost like an addiction.

  She knew she had to start tempering that addiction soon, the incident with the spider proved that, but in this setting she felt like she could let herself indulge.

  Well, she could. Will is going to be forced to hinder himself a little by restricting the use of his lightning. She doesn’t think he minds though. For him, this may just be a way to up the challenge of it all.

  “Well that’s me.” Will said. “Wish me luck. It would be embarrassing if I got knocked out the first round.” He laughed as he rubbed the back of his head.

  She shook her head at him. “You? Think of the embarrassment I would have to endure if that happened! Imagine having to be seen out in public with someone who lost in the very first round.”

  He laughed loudly at her teasing. “You’re right.” He said with a big smile on his face. “I’ll try to remember what’s really important when I’m up there so you don’t have to lose face.”

  She nodded firmly. “See that you do.”

  He chuckled as he turned and left their little observation box.

  Alea frowns to herself as Will leaves. She feels such a jumble of emotions and she’s having a hard time not only getting them under control, but even figuring out exactly what she’s feeling. Frustration and an aimless anger are the first she feels and they’re the most confusing. What is she even angry at? And then there’s this anxiety. It’s an emotion she experienced a lot when she was younger, but now she’s more used to the anger. But when she looks at Will walking toward the set of fighting rings, all she mostly feels is a weirdly strong sense of anxiety. Or is that nervousness?

  Ugh I hate this! I just want to blow something up. That always helps me feel better.

  She almost does just that, but it would feel wrong to walk away when Will is about to fight, and besides, she feels unable to look away from him as he walks towards his designated ring. The nervousness! Why is it so strong?

  It’s not till then that she realizes that she’s gripping the edge of her seat so strongly that her knuckles are white. She forces herself to let go and breathe deeply.

  He’s going to be fine. He will not die here.

  The thought caught her off guard. Die? Why would she be so scared of that?

  She shakes her head and dismisses every thought and emotion. It’s too much to deal with right now let alone sort out. All that matters is Will’s fight.

  Thinking about it logically, there should be no reason for her to be too worried. Even without his lightning Will is a competent fighter. Without using her fire she hasn’t been able to beat him a single time. He’ll be fine.

  She refocuses on Will as she see’s he’s finally stepped into his ring, his opponent already standing across from him.

  The man was huge. He seemed to be about 6’2 and had the muscle mass to go along with his height. His massive crossed arms seemed to be the same size as one of her thighs.

  He stared ominously at Will, a derisive sneer on his face. The contempt she saw there was plain. This man views Will as an easy win. Barely worth his time. If she had to guess, she would say he’ll probably attack strong and fast to finish it quickly.

  Alea scoffed. She’s had a lot of experience with arrogant men like this. While annoying, they were predictable in their pride and their actions. It made them easy to handle for her.

  She wasn’t sure how Will would handle this. For one, she didn’t think he had a lot of experience dealing with giant idiots trying to kill him.

  She hasn’t known him long, but she doesn’t think he’s an arrogant person. Sometimes men hide their true natures until they get comfortable around you. If that’s the case, then Will might try to face this guy head on in some weird pissing match. But if he’s the kind of man she thinks he is, then he’ll play this smart and use his opponents bad personality against him.

  The ref talks to both of them at the same time, presumably reestablishing the rules. Once he was done they both nod and the ref jumps out of the ring and signals for the fight to start.

  The big man rushes Will. A massive fist leading the way. Alea can see the man putting most of his weight behind the hit, trying to do a finishing move as his opener.

  The force behind the blow is impressive, but it’s…slow.

  Alea can read the incredulity in Will’s body language, and she can understand why. Even without his lightning, Will is fast.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He dodges the fist and lands a hit on the man’s left kidney. It doesn’t matter strong you are, the vital spots will still impair you.

  The man hunches slightly over the injured kidney, and flowing from that punch Will spins around him and lands a kick to the back of the man’s knee.

  He goes down hard to one knee and Will does a tight turn, fully rotates his hips and lands an elbow, full of momentum and power, right into the man’s temple.

  In typical Will fashion, he flows together a seamless combination of moves, blending one move smoothly into another so there’s virtually no cessation of motion.

  To effectively combat against Will you either need to be insanely fast or predict his moves. Either option isn’t great.

  The big man, who never even had a chance to utilize his element, slams sideways into the dirt from the force of Will’s blow, completely out cold.

  Will looks over at the ref with a raised eyebrow, waiting for the ref to call the match.

  The ref is just standing there, a slightly stunned look on his face. He gathers himself quickly however and walks over and raises Will’s arm into the air, declaring him the winner.

  He then goes over to the loser, grabs him by the arm, and the two appear to disappear.

  Alea releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She knew he would be fine.

  …

  I won…

  Will couldn’t believe it. He knew he was at least somewhat decent at fighting. But the only people he had fought were Amos and Alea. The first had obviously handled him with frustrating ease, and the latter beat him every time.

  Will has had almost no real opponents to gauge his own skill against. He has no idea where he falls in terms of relative power in this world.

  So when he saw the almost comically large man was his opponent he almost freaked out. Once he reminded himself that this was just another training exercise he calmed down, and then he began to feel excited for the challenge again.

  But for a second there he felt real fear that he would fail. That he was as weak in this world as he was in his old one.

  And then the ref signaled the beginning of the fight and he decided to not worry about something he couldn’t control in that moment, and decided to just have fun. And it had been.

  Will walks back to the booth Alea and him were sharing, his knuckles and elbow sore and a big smile on his face. It had been more than fun, it had been amazing to fight and finally test his power against a proper opponent. The man had been slow in his physical movements, but he had also almost immediately started coating his vital spots in a thin, extremely dense layer of rock when the ref had started the fight. If Will had been any slower, he might not have had such a simple way of taking the man down. All the same it had definitely been fun. He couldn’t wait for his next one.

  As he walked into the booth he found Alea smirking at him.

  “Well done.”

  “Is that praise I hear? We should have developed a code word so I could confirm that someone has abducted my friend and replaced her with a nice person with a pleasant personality.”

  Alea’s eyebrows came down and her mouth tightened. She raises her hand, creates tension on her middle finger with her thumb…and flicks a small flame at him.

  “Hey that’s hot! I was kidding, I was kidding!!”

  Alea rolls her eyes at him.

  “Anyway.” She huffs at him. “You did do a good job at taking out the trash. However, you made it look too easy.”

  “It may have looked that way, but excluding using my lightning, I put everything I had into those three hits. I was barely able to put him down.” He explained to her how the man had already began to use his element during those first few seconds of the fight.

  “Makes sense why you had to put the power you had to into that last blow then. There’s something to be said about struggling with every opponent to make your competitors underestimate you, but with a fighter like that, it was better to put him down fast like you did.”

  “I thought the same. Although I gotta be honest, it never occurred to me to pretend to struggle so other people would underestimate me. I don’t think I could sell it though.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Will’s eyebrow twitched, but he chose not to respond to that comment.

  For the rest of the time the matches lasted, which ended up being three and a quarter hours, Will and Alea sat and observed his possible competition.

  Some used their fists, but most used weapons. True to their word, every time Will saw a fighter take the beginnings of a life threatening injury, the competitor seemed to disappear as a ref, moving faster then either of them could track, whisked the person away to be healed.

  The use of elements seemed to be a mix bag. Some seemed to be very skilled at using theirs. Others seemed to either lack control or imagination because they only used them in the most simplest of ways.

  Not all used their element though. Whether they were trying to hide their abilities for future fights, were trying to challenge themselves, or simply didn’t need to resort to using it due to facing a weaker opponent, he wasn’t sure. But it made trying to scope out his competition an issue.

  Will experienced a moment of shock when, during the last set of fights, he saw that same silver haired elf that he accidentally stared at for to long standing opposite another fighter.

  The elf stood there with his hands calmly at his side, while his opponent, an equally skinny but much shorter man, was in an athletic position waiting for the round to start.

  When the ref signaled the start the shorter man immediately sent out a jet of flame at the elf. The flame was only red, the first tier of strength for flame users, but it looked very condensed.

  Right when Will thought the elf was just going to let the flame hit him, sand bursts from two clay looking gourds that are sitting on each of his hips.

  Amazingly the sand was able to block and divert the blast. The elf threw his hands forward and the sand formed into spikes and got sent towards the flame user at blistering speeds.

  The man avoided it by using a small jet of flame from his feet as an added form of propulsion and speed.

  Will heard Alea scoff next to him as she must of been watching the same fight as Will was. Will guessed she wasn’t impressed by the unrefined technique of the flame user. Will thought he wasn’t that bad, but even his untrained eyes could see that he wasn’t nearly as skilled as Alea was in his flame manipulation.

  He sent another blast of flame but the skinny elf must not of been that impressed because a snide sneer formed on his face as he casually waved his arm toward the blast and another shield of sand came up and swatted the blast aside.

  It looked like the elf was tiring of dealing with his opponent because in an extremely quick movement the elf formed an extension of sand over his arms and condensed the sand to form what looked like blades over his arms. In the same motion he crouched down and blitzes the flame user.

  In the stretch of a breath, the elf formed the sand, crouched, sprung at and slashed the other man with his sand. Either the straight forward move or the speed of the elf surprised the man. Perhaps both. Both the speed, power, and technique of the attack was impressive. Either way, the attack was extremely effective.

  After the completion of the move, the elf dances back in a graceful motion, while the man takes one step forward and then collapses.

  The wound must of been very deep.

  The next second the injured man vanishes. A couple seconds later the ref reappears and declares the elf the winner.

  Will stares at the ring for several seconds after the elf walks away. He notices an indifferent expression on the elf’s face.

  He tries to think of a solid strategy he could use to neutralize the sand user.

  “He’s fast.” Alea remarks. “Probably the closest I’ve seen to your speed in your division. Wouldn’t have expected that of a sand user.” Despite the praise, Alea still doesn’t sound impressed. “Still won’t be an issue for you.”

  “He’ll definitely be a challenge to take on without using my element.” Will felt his excitement rise at the thought of facing the elf in the ring.