"We're good here," I said, raising my palms in hopes of avoiding a fight.

The kid on the ground took his opportunity to scurry to his feet and back away from the man with the fleshy, bladed arms.

At least I had accomplished saving him from getting his head stomped in. But a glance at the crowd which still surrounded us and the pissed off man with swords for arms made me wonder if I would regret my choice.

"You interrupted us," he said. "I don't like being interrupted."

Lyria was behind me with the others, but I gave her a gesture to stay back. The man was an Iron, and I didn't want them getting hurt. But I also didn't want to draw attention to our friends. I still didn't know much about the laws and which ones were enforced, but I imagined getting involved in a street fight would bring more scrutiny than we wanted for Thorn, Sylara, and the sekmeti slaves.

"Brynn," Lyria whispered, voice urgent. "Let's get out of here."

"It's alright," I said. "I can probably talk him down."

The man tilted his head. He was tall and lean with long limbs made longer by the unnatural length of his magically transformed arms. He wore an ornate vest and long-sleeved shirt, which had torn as he morphed his arms. His boots, pants, and handsome features made me suspect he was yet another noble, like the people I had run into down in Beastden. On closer inspection, his vest was intricately patterned with leaves and thorny branches. A large pendant around his neck showed a gem-encrusted representation of a thorny branch as well.

Some kind of family sigil, maybe?

"Talk me down?" he asked, voice smooth and buttery. "Nah, nah. When the rats rise up to walk on two feet, somebody needs to make an example of them. Someone needs to do the dirty work and put them back on all fours, where they belong. I'm Kalcus Rathborne, son of Aurelon Rathborne."

"That's great," I said, nodding. "I'm sure I would be really impressed if I knew any of those names. I'm not interested in fighting, though."

"Nah, nah," he said again, repeating the somewhat strange speech pattern. He took a step closer, eyes lit with excitement. "You know I'm not even level 50 and I'm already ranked in the top hundred Irons of the Inner Circles?"

Admittedly, talk of rankings got me a little excited. If he was top hundred, I wondered where that would have put Rake. Would an outlaw murderer like Rake even be ranked, though? Even when a guy with fleshy blade arms looked like he was about to attack, I couldn't help wishing I knew more about it all. Even if my life was on the line, I was a sucker for rankings. And trophies. And pets. And cosmetic rewards, like the embellishments on Adventurer's Guild badges and cloaks.

Alright. I was a sucker for a lot of things, but I could set that all aside for now.

"Top one hundred," I said. "But you're the one they send to… stomp on rats?"

That apparently wasn't the correct answer. Kalcus came closer until he was within reach with those long, sharp arms of his. His voice was low and dangerous. "Are you trying to make a fool of me? That's not a wise path."

"I'm just trying to move on with my day" I said, feeling impatient and annoyed. Honestly, I wanted to claim my goddamn loot. I wanted to do a million things other than draw attention to myself by getting in a scuffle with some puffed-up noble turd. I forced myself to calm slightly. If I really didn't want to fight, I needed to stop prickling his pride. When I spoke again, it was in a less challenging tone. "I'm on my way through. If, by some mistake, that blue shield happened to slip out of me and between your foot and that kid's head, I apologize. I have no idea how that happened."

Kalcus tilted his head again, dark hair dangling as he narrowed his eyes. "You take me for a fool." He stepped back, lips pursed as he nodded, eyes down.

The crowd began to murmur.

Ah, shit. I could already feel mana gathering inside his body. Most of it flooded into his blade arms. Unfortunately for him, the hostile torrent of mana made the blades feel like beacons to my Mana Sense.

I thought I could've closed my eyes and drawn them with how clear the sense of them was. I felt his attack coming before I saw him move.

"Back!" I shouted to Lyria as Kalcus came forward with his right foot.

I heard her stumble backwards, bumping into the crowd of onlookers.

Kalcus feigned a chopping overhand strike with his right hand, then turned his back in a graceful spin, whipping his left sword around toward my neck.

I jerked backward one step, letting the flesh blade pass a few inches in front of my throat. It passed close enough that I felt a small, deadly gust of wind brush my skin.

Shit.

Even when I knew it was coming, this guy was dangerous. And he was only top one hundred?

I hopped back another few steps, summoning an Elemental Spike from Dragon's Tail just in time to whirl and block his next attack. I ducked, holding the glowing, fiery dagger overhead by the hilt with one hand and used my free hand to brace against the flat of the blade to block.

Kalcus' overhead strike still shook my arms down to the shoulders with the weight of its impact, making my fingers tingle and go numb.

Stupid. I should've just used a Mana Shield. But I was still getting used to my new abilities. They weren't as instinctive as they would be with more time to train.

I rolled, nearly dropping my dagger as I dodged the next attack.

My mind was still back in Beastden, and I had to fight the instinct to go for the kill.

I held up my dagger with numb hands, blocking another horizontal slash that hit hard enough to push me back several inches.

I felt Lyria trying to come closer, but I quickly shook my head. "No. I'm fine," I said through my teeth.

"I don't think you are," Kalcus said, smiling as if he was going through some light training exercise and not trying to cut me to ribbons. "You're not bad, though. Not good enough, of course, but I'm surprised I haven't heard of you."

He battered me with another flurry of overhead strikes. I blocked two, but the third knocked my dagger from my hand. I only barely managed to block the follow-up with a Mana Shield, which he slashed straight through. I fell to my knees, rolling away and throwing up another wall of shields to buy myself time.

His flesh blade carved through half of my hastily raised shields with a sound like thin ice crushing beneath a heavy boot. But the shields eventually caught his attack.

For a split second, I saw frustration and surprise on his handsome features.

What the hell was the point of all the guards I saw in this place? Surely they should have heard all this commotion and seen the crowd by now?

I glanced around while Kalcus paused his relentless attack.

I spotted three tomte guards standing just outside the gathered group. Instead of trying to get inside and break up the fight, they were looking up and down the street nervously, almost as if they were acting as look-outs for Kalcus.

Fucking wonderful.

Kalcus used his forearm to push sweaty dark hair out of his face. "So how do you know the kid, anyway? Let me guess… You're in that ridiculous Aspirant's Guild, aren't you? They've been training you for the tourney next month, I wager."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said. I was breathing hard, but catching my breath while he talked.

"They should thank me. Maybe I can have some pieces of you sent to them by courier tonight. Instead of wasting resources training a lost cause, they can move on to someone with more promise."

As much as I wanted to avoid making an even bigger scene, I had to admit I really wanted to put this asshole in his place. Little did he know, I was holding back as much as possible. I didn't want to put my full arsenal of abilities and items on display in front of so many people. I didn't understand his abilities, but I could feel how much mana was in those flesh swords and I had seen how easily his blade broke through my Mana Shield.

By my guess, he was burning mana quickly, enhancing each strike with extra force. If I kept delaying him with nothing but Mana Shields and my Elemental Spike, he would probably run out of mana and get frustrated, saving me from having to make more of a spectacle than necessary.

"I think I'll send them your legs, first," he said, rushing forward and chopping both blades toward me like scissors that were aimed for my thighs.

"Brynn!" Lyria shouted.

I rushed forward, jumping above his blades as I jerked a knee up to slam into his side. His blades clashed together beneath me, but he squeezed me into an iron grip, stopping me from slipping away. He smiled, face close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his light brown eyes. "Ah, well," he said. "You were doing pretty well. I'll give you that much. But now you die."

I felt a rush of mana to his chest, then activated Abyssal Step.

I turned ethereal just as a spike of flesh erupted from his body, long and wicked enough to skewer me like a fish.

I jumped to the side as the crowd gasped. Some of them turned and started to leave, apparently deciding this fight was less of a scuffle and more like attempted murder.

The kid Kalcus had been trying to stomp crouched low and flexed. A vibrating, greenish aura wrapped around him, but was thickest around his fists. He charged in toward the man, rearing back for a punch.

The man spun, one blade turning into a shield as he blocked a punch then slammed a quickly morphing sword into a hammer toward the kid. The kid was faster than I expected, ducking the blow and slipping inside the man's guard to hit him with a flurry of fast punches that sent out small shockwaves of force.

I didn't know what the hell was going on, but silently thanked the kid for the distraction.

I was almost certain I'd get jailed or worse if I hurt or killed Kalcus. Unfortunately for me, that ruled out almost all of my other abilities.

Mana Shield it is…

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I used Mana Shields to protect the kid as much as I could, but it wasn't easy. Kalcus wasn't just fighting with his blades now. He was making spikes erupt out of his flesh, morphing the swords into different weapons of different lengths, and even making shields of flesh erupt out of his skin to block punches. Once, he formed a hole in the center of his body to dodge a punch, then snapped his skin shut around the kid's wrist.

Obnoxious or not, I had to admit Kalcus was strong as hell. But he was distracted, and I had time to form an open box of Mana Shields just behind where he was fighting. I took the time to weave the mana into complex patterns, reinforcing them until they would require significant effort to break.

The kid saw what I was doing, even as I threw the occasional Mana Shield up to block a blow that might have connected. The kid started pushing Kalcus back toward the forming cage of blue.

As soon as Kalcus bumped his back into a shield, I hastily threw a large rectangle of mana in front of him, then broke the smooth panes of mana into smaller pieces. I pushed them inward, closing him in as tightly as I could. The whole process only took moments. When I was done, it looked as if he was encased in sheets of blue glass that flared white where he tried to form spikes, punching outward to break the shields.

Wherever he broke a shield, I patched it before he could escape.

He was saying something, but his voice was muffled from inside as he tried to slam himself in various directions. The shields flared blue-white, but held.

The crowd murmured nervously as the three guards shared a look, then pushed toward us.

Oh, now the guards are going to intervene? Of course.

Lyria moved by my side, speaking quietly. "Do you even know how to avoid trouble for like, two minutes?"

"Apparently not," I muttered, still repairing broken shields as Kalcus raged within the cage. "Was I supposed to just let him stomp the kid's head in?"

The kid—a young man who looked like he might barely be in his teens, jogged over to me once he appeared sure the blade-arm guy wasn't moving.

"Hey," he said breathlessly, "let me do the talking."

I raised my eyebrows, but nodded.

The tomte guards pushed through to the inner circle of the gathered crowd. The leader of them was a towering four feet tall, putting him a few inches above his companions. He had a barrel chest enclosed in shining white plate. All three guards wore tunics showing the sigil of Thrask—a gray gemstone with a yellow spark at the corner. The tallest of the three had gold rings woven into the braids of his beard, and his sword had a gem-encrusted pommel. He was a level 50 Iron, and his companions were level 12 and 22 Irons.

"This was my doing," the kid said, stepping forward before the guards could ask.

The lead tomte raised a thick eyebrow, eyes darting between the shouting noble encased in Mana Shields and the kid.

The guy inside my shield cage couldn't shout loud enough to be heard or turn to face the guards. He was frozen mid-strike as he wriggled and yelled, but none of it was doing him any good. His attempts to break free were growing less fierce, too, as if he had finally run low on mana.

"State your name," the head guard demanded.

The kid looked toward me, licked his lips, and then spoke loud enough that we could all hear. "Tomikus, Rank 80 Aspirant of the Aspirant's Guild of Gloomglow District."

I quirked my head to the side. What a weird ass combination of things to say in a situation like this.

The tomte guard sighed heavily, then grabbed the kid's arm. "Drop the shields on him. Then we're taking you in for questioning."

"Can't," Tomikus said. "You can take me in for questioning, but the shields take time to dissipate. I can't do it myself."

The guards shared another annoyed look. Tomikus caught my eye, then gave a tight shake of his head, as if telling me not to interfere or speak up.

Considering I had no clue about what was going on, I decided to trust the kid.

The guard gave him a rough yank, then pulled him away. The remaining two guards made a shoo motion. "Disperse! Don't you people have jobs?"

To my surprise, nobody in the crowd pointed me out or said I had helped. Instead, they all just wandered away, occasionally stealing looks at the still-trapped noble. Chances were, Kalcus' asshole nature was widely known, and nobody was in a rush to help him.

He had given up trying to break free. He simply stood now, glaring at me from behind blue walls with eyes full of hatred and the promise of retribution.

"What the hell do we do now?" Lyria asked.

"Uh…" I said. "I think I keep those shields active as long as I can, then we walk away and hope this guy can't find us once he's out?"

Thorn was grinning.

"What?" I asked.

"I am just impressed. I don't know if I've ever met somebody with such a knack for making powerful enemies. We've been here for what, ten minutes? Maybe twenty?"

"He grows enemies like a fertile field grows weeds," Ramzi noted.

"And he reaps those weeds like a skilled farmer," Zahra added.

Lyria rolled her eyes. "If he was a more skilled farmer, he wouldn't work so hard to make the weeds grow, maybe?"

"Let's just get to the Arcanery," I said.

We took a wide berth around the trapped man and walked around the circling shape of the third tier. I had accidentally let Pebble unsummon during the fight, so I carefully brought him back to my hand as we walked.

It took several minutes for the adrenaline to dissipate from my system. I couldn't deny part of me deeply enjoyed the fight. Looking back, I even wondered if I had known I was egging him on. I told myself I was trying to diffuse the situation, but had I really been? Or was I more curious to test myself against a man who had declared his rank—tempted to measure myself against him with my hands figuratively tied behind my back?

I didn't think I could have subdued him without tapping into more of my abilities—not without Tomikus distracting him. I had needed the time to reinforce those shields so they didn't immediately break and release him. And if he had started his attempts to escape on the thin shield I had placed over the cage, he could have rushed out and avoided being trapped.

But…

I still thought it was great practice. I was also nearly certain I could've cleaned the floor with him if I had used my full range of skills. And that was all without even equipping my second class corestone. I could have equipped Lyria's old Sword corestone she had given me, but I wasn't sure that was the smartest place to start.

Corestones could be swapped out, of course, even if the practice was highly unusual. When my Heart and Soul classes fused into a single class in Beast Den, it had activated some kind of internal cooldown. I hadn't even been able to equip Lyria's spare Sword stone just out of curiosity.

But it also gave me time to think more carefully about which class I wanted to go with.

The more distance we traveled, the more it strained my concentration to keep the shields active. My idle thoughts faded as I had to give all my focus to maintaining the shields. It was like trying to keep my eyes fixed on a single point as it grew smaller and smaller. I could feel my tether to the spell fraying as I lost concentration.

Finally, it snapped, and I knew the weave I had put into the shields would make them hold for a few more seconds still, even after my concentration was gone.

"There go the shields," I said quietly.

Lyria looked over her shoulder. "I think we're probably far enough."

"Do you have the mana to do that again if he finds us?" Zahra asked.

I checked my core, then grinned. "I've got plenty."

Lyria rolled her eyes. "Now you're just bragging. Why did it look like you were just toying with him? What was that?"

"I assumed I was going to get in trouble if I killed or hurt him. Was I wrong?" I asked.

"No," Thorn said. "Did you see the guards? They were watching for him while he finished playing with you two. Paid off or under the thumb of his family, most likely. You handled yourself wisely."

"Minus the part where you got involved in the first place," Lyria added.

I shrugged. "I don't deserve power if I'm not going to use it to help people. That's not negotiable for me."

She looked like she wanted to argue, but sighed instead.

I jerked my head to the side, motioning for everyone to follow me into a gap between two buildings. Once we were out of the main crush of pedestrians, I felt safer talking openly to Thorn and the others.

"What is it?" Lyria asked.

"That kid mentioned something called the Aspirant's Guild..."

Lyria gave me a knowing look.

"What?" I asked.

"I had a bad feeling you were going to want to know more," Lyria said. "Every time someone talks about a guild, rankings, trophies… any of it, and you get this look in your eyes."

I folded my arms. "I'm only asking. I didn't say I wanted to join."

"Aspirants are the damn fools who try to participate in tourneys," Thorn said. "You'll find a guild of 'em in most major cities."

Ramzi nodded gravely. "For slaves, the tourney is a death sentence. We're fodder. Aspirants are a step above this, but not a large step."

"Technically speaking, there are magical protections for the aspirants and nobility who join the tourney. Injuries are possible, but death shouldn't be. Of course, that doesn't stop the magic from failing for several unlucky aspirants each tourney. If their death will be entertaining, it's often allowed. That's the simple truth of it."

"So why would people join a guild to join this thing if it's so dangerous?" I asked.

"Prizes," Ramzi said simply. "Top contestants can earn riches, fame, and even earn themselves a position among the nobility. Which, you can imagine, is why certain aspirants meet unfortunate accidents if they come too close to winning."

"So it's rigged?"

"In a sense," Thorn said.

"So is the tourney just some sort of death match?"

"Brynn," Lyria warned. "You're not thinking of trying to join, are you?"

"I'm only asking questions.

Yeah. I was definitely thinking about trying to join.

Zahra answered this time, her cat-like eyes glowing in the dimming starlight coming from the huge hole in the ceiling far above. "The tourney takes many forms," she said. "Most cities tend to have a specific style they're known for. Coil has the dungeon dive. Fathom uses complex magic to simulate historical battles, pitting participants against recreations of legendary heroes and beasts. Saltcrest stages naval battles. Viran Peak pits participants against hordes of enemies. And Thrask is known for the war games. Usually, participants are left to form their own alliances, capture territories in the tourney field, and wage war on one another. The team to capture the last castle wins."

"That… sounds terrible," I said carefully. I knew the slaves in our group would have negative feelings about these tourneys. But me? I found myself itching to take part in all of them. I was sure they'd be good experience, but they also sounded incredible. Fighting recreations of legendary heroes? Hordes of enemies? Yeah… I was going to have to find the opportunity to visit this aspirant's guild sooner, rather than later.

"Wait," I said as a thought occurred to me. "How does that work with rankings and levels? Does the highest ranked participant pretty much always win?"

"There are brackets," Thorn said. "Participants will usually be the same rank, though there are some exceptions in cases of hero battles or beasts."

"And what happens if somebody tries to join the tournament without belonging to the nobility or the Aspirant's Guild?"

"Entering the tourney as a willing participant is very expensive," Thorn said. "The guild covers the entry fee for their top ranked members in exchange for a cut of the rewards. Sometimes, the gamble pays off. The Aspirants still get some of the rewards and they get the prestige of winning top spots in the tourney. The nobility thinks of Aspirants as pests, of course."

Ramzi nodded in agreement. "For nobility, losing to an Aspirant or a slave is the highest disgrace. Most Aspirants hope to crack into the top 10 in their bracket."

"Top three get titles or favors," Thorn said. "But everyone in the top 10 gets some coin for their trouble. Quite a bit, too. The guild is usually happy if even one Aspirant makes the top 10. Their share is enough to cover the entry fee and earn them a little more prestige as an organization. Most months, though, the nobility hog up the top spots. It's hard to compete with those who train with the top masters from the time they can walk."

"So..." I said slowly. "You're saying the winners get titles? What kind of titles, exactly?"

Lyria rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh.

"A noble title," Zahra said. "It's the ultimate prize for any slave. It's a ticket straight out of slavery, exclusive noble personal space tokens, and all the privileges that come with being part of the nobility. Any slave who gets close tends to meet an 'accident,' though. Aspirants don't fare much better, though they occasionally earn their way to titles, which is why the nobility hates them. They don't like when the 'vermin' earn a spot in their world."

I wondered for a moment why they would even give the low-born a chance to earn a spot among the nobility, but the answer came easily enough.

Society generally meant some kind of division between people who had things and people who didn't. Hope was a useful tool to keep the people at the bottom from revolting against the system.

Sure, maybe things seem terrible now. Maybe your chances of changing them are slim. But there is a chance. That fragile hope was all it really took to keep most people in line. It gave people something to cling to, and I supposed the tourneys were one form of that here on Eros.

The conversation drifted as the escaped slaves talked about some of the more small-scale tourneys they'd seen in towns during their time in the Sekmet Sands.

My own thoughts went to my excitement to begin training and becoming familiar with my new abilities. With any luck, I'd also be able to start experimenting with dark mana before bed tonight. I hoped to find there was a completely safe amount of dark mana I could use each day. Even if it was a small scrap compared to what I'd used in Beastden, even being able to infuse one spell each day with dark mana would be a huge boon.

Beyond the desire to train and gather my waiting rewards, I didn't have a clear next step for what felt like my first time since arriving here on Eros. For now, I'd use the rare moment of respite to try to do everything I could to get stronger.

Until I knew more about what threat caused me and most of the other gods to prestige, getting stronger was the only logical thing to do.

And who knew? Maybe the tournament would be a worthwhile investment of time if I was still in Thrask when it took place.

"You guys ready to head to the Acanery?" I asked, interrupting the ongoing conversation about tourneys.

"That depends," Zahra said. "Does the horned one plan to attack any more nobility? Maybe you were thinking of heading up to the palace first to thumb your nose at the king himself?"

I grinned. "As long as the king doesn't try to stomp on somebody's head in front of us, he's safe from my wrath."

We started walking again and Lyria came up beside me.

"Please tell me you're not planning to join the Aspirant's Guild?" she asked.

"I never said I was."

"Brynn…"

I cleared my throat. "I might be considering it. But I plan to learn more before I make a decision."

She shook her head ruefully.

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