.
The dragon let out another gargantuan bellow and stamped its feet. A wave of intimidation spread across us and I watched three faces grow even paler.
As for myself, I had already set up the same spiritual bubble that I had used against Áne’s magic. Against a spirit technique that sought to suppress the opponent’s ability to think, it wouldn’t be effective, except I backed it up with a ton of energy, leaving my real thoughts safely in its shadow. That way, it served as an excellent passive shield, as well as a preventative measure against any mental attacks the beast might know.
“Okay, really quick. The ground rules are simple,” I told my companions. “Our victory condition is to force our opponent, the ancient dragon Gugrenar, to take to the air. Flying above the flagpoles disqualifies a competitor, and he’s so big, just leaving the ground would put him out of bounds. So, Dilorè, stay low if you fly.”
My cousin nodded, looking like she was ready to collapse already. The pressure even when the dragon wasn’t roaring remained heavy.
“We may only concede once we lose half our numbers, and if someone flees, we reset immediately, so don’t flee. His victory condition is to eliminate us.”
“Eliminate…” Ryuu retorted, but chopped off his response when the dragon stamped and roared again, interrupting him with another wave of spiritual pressure. This time, Gugrenar spread wings that were wider than a jetliner’s, raising them as an enormous visual display like a peacock from Hell.
“Either get used to the pressure, or learn how to defend against it,” I told him with a grin. Not that I was going to teach him just yet.
“‘Eliminate us’ how?” Chiara demanded, then shuddered as Gugrenar let out another bellow and another impulse of pressure.
“Death or incapacitation,” I answered. “Try not to die; it really sucks.”
“Die?” Dilorè echoed, her voice rising.
“Don’t worry. You won’t die permanently,” I said lightly. “But you’ll experience dying. And you will be stuck laying there, motionless, until the stage ends. Oh, here he comes.”
Gugrenar had grown tired of flexing, it appeared. He began striding forward while lowering his head like a wolf, giving us a death glare with his glowing golden eyes.
The trio arrayed themselves to face him, with Chiara dropping behind into a normal support position while Ryuu and Dilorè held their weapons in guard position.
Ryuu demanded over his shoulder, “What will you be doing?”
“Coaching,” I said. “For example, if he opens that mouth wider than when he roars, it’s a breath attack incoming. Ancient Dragons are magical beasts, so a lot of mana will manifest before the attack. Dilorè, read it and warn them what kind of attack is incoming.”
“Isn’t it Fire?” Chiara yelped.
“Usually, but… ” the dragon’s maw opened wide and I continued, “… yup, it’s a Light attack, this time.”
Unlike demonic dragons, ancient dragons possessed attacks other than fire and poison gas. A ball of Light mana blossomed in his maw as a panicked Chiara shrieked “[Water Mirror]!”, sweeping her open fan from left to right in front of her in a wide arc..
I could feel the spell form and the mana flow, as she drew a great draught of Water mana through my pathways. It was fortunate I could supply it from my core. This arena replicated an actual gladiatorial stadium that stood in the deserts of the Southern Continent, about twelve thousand years ago. Water mana was precious here.
A huge [Water Mirror] formed in front of the trio just in time for the incoming Light ball.
My spell-greedy Elder mind locked onto the spell form as it operated. I now had the location of its form in my Servant’s memory exactly identified. Being a first level magic, I should be able to master the spell in just a few tries.
It wasn’t ideal against Light, which has a negative influence on Water. She probably queued up the spell expecting a Fire attack. But it worked well enough for the single time it needed to hold. The ball of Light struck and shattered the mirror, and half of it bounced backward at the beast, while none reached us.
But the dragon charged as the Water mana evaporated, his eyes locked onto the mage who just cast the shield. I felt her drawing Wind and prepping some new magic form that I didn’t recognize. If it were me, it would be a movement spell, though.
“[Spirit Shot]!” Ryuu yelled as he swung his blade in a mighty arc. At the same moment, Dilorè ran at the beast. As she closed, her spear flared in my fairy sight with Aether mana. It didn’t look as dense as she should be able to manage. Was she rushed, or was she intimidated?
I grew my wings and flew backward, out of the way. The three who would fight had all shown themselves now, putting me officially out of the fight.
I had a reason to sit out; we couldn’t gain any advantage in the next round if we fought in a group of more than three. We couldn’t even clear the stage, although that was moot for this first attempt. Most importantly, if anyone else ended up being the one left over after the first trio was wiped out, they wouldn’t know how to concede and would definitely die.
Oh, sure, I could have explained the rules in advance. But I wanted all three of them to get a taste of this stage with no preconceptions, the first time out.
This was an Ancient Dragon. Although he couldn’t cast mortal- or fairy-style magic spells, he had intelligence, and a range of species-specific magic skills. In this case, he sent a wave of Wind mana outward from his wings, that coalesced into a moving [Wind Wall]. It plowed through Ryuu’s strike, which shattered it on his side, but continued spreading outward toward Chiara and Dilorè. Chiara dodged sideways into the safety behind Ryuu as she swept her fan again, casting a [Wind Wall] to protect Dilorè.
Ryuu’s time with Allia had not been wasted. His strike had stopped the dragon’s magic, even though Dilorè’s [Aether Javelin] only slightly penetrated, and the wave proceeded to destroy Chiara’s hastily cast shield and bat my cousin backward through the air.
Ryuu began yelling “[Spirit…” as the ancient dragon turned to chase after Dilorè, but chopped off as the beast’s mighty tail came swinging through his position, catching first him and then Chiara.
When Ryuu’s strike shattered that first Wind attack, I thought they might just have a chance. That thought now died as I watched two lifeless bodies tumbling across the paving stones.
In the opposite direction, Dilorè was still alive, although not moving, but the other two glowed with the white death aura of the simulation.
I raised my free hand and began to say, “We con…”
The dragon let out another massive below and intimidation wave, probably hoping to block my voice and kill me off before I could say it. He followed by charging at me.
Before, I wasn’t a target, but now that all three were out of action, it was my turn at bat.
I had anticipated this, and already had my spiritual energy on tap. In one move, I converted my mind bubble into spiritual pressure and poured extra power into it, firing for effect with Gugrenar in my sights.
His charge instantly halted. He rocked backward, pulling back his head and folding his wings as his foreclaws came up into a defensive posture.
“You listen to me, you overgrown lizard!” I told him, continuing to pour out the pressure. “When I’m talking, you hush!”
My attack wasn’t only affecting the dragon. The roaring crowd had fallen silent. I raised my hand again.
“We concede.”
The imagery around me seemed to blur, as the colors ran like wet paint in a rain shower, then my vision faded to black.
When you move from a fighting stage without death or loss of consciousness, you don’t experience a loss of awareness. Instead, you simply experience a dark moment somewhat like the gap between the show and the commercials.
My new surroundings looked a bit like a morgue for a moment. At least, there were three tables with motionless people on them. But my companions were breathing, although still unconscious.
The room was a recreation of the waiting rooms for the gladiators who once fought in that ancient place, twelve thousand years past. The walls were made of the same hewn stone as the arena stands, and if we left this place, we would find that we were actually in a massive basement below those stands.
Although made of the same stone, the ‘tables’ were actually beds of a sort. The rolled up blankets and cushions intended for our use sat in a large square lidded wicker basket in the corner of the room. I have no idea why the scenario deposited the non-survivors on the hard surfaces without the available cushions.
I shook my head with a smile at my three trainees, then headed over to where chairs and a couple benches holding food and drinks waited.
Until we exited the introductory stage, we couldn’t leave this stadium, but the entire city and the surrounding desert were available in later stages of the tutorial. It would depend upon these three whether we would go out there and address those later stages, or head out on a different training path.
I remembered it to be a spectacular landscape. A couple hundred years before my death, we had recreated a mighty mercantile city in its heyday. The original had grown up at a critical junction of caravan routes, much like the histories of Petra and Timbuktu, but had outgrown them, becoming a grand capital of a wide-spread empire.
In their last renovation of our training facilities, my Servants had chosen it as an ideal model for the land dwellers’ version of our basic training program. By that time, it was a location close to two thousand years in the past, perfect for not favoring the natives of any particular homeland.
I sat, poured myself a glass of chilled water from an ornate pitcher into one of the provided glasses, then glanced over at the observer sphere that had been floating quietly nearby.
“Instructor call,” I stated. “Active observation mode. Request moderator chat.”
A thin, silvery chime rang out, and the sphere turned from nearly transparent to a perfectly reflective surface.
“Chat initializing. Only in-scenario moderation available. Does the instructor wish to re-sync with small world time to contact outside moderation?”
I blinked. “What is the current time compression?”
“Versus small world, one hundred to one. Multiplying by small world time compression versus greater world, seven thousand to one.”
That caught me by surprise. Little Jia and Curator had made considerable improvements to the facilities. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me, considering they’d had ten thousand years to work on it, but seven thousand to one sounded pretty amazing to me.
“How much time has passed in the greater world since we entered the initial stage?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Slightly under one tenth of a second.”
A brief laugh escaped me. If one of the fairies that Little Jia was currently standing off outside the mountain had blinked at the moment we appeared in the arena, her eyes might still be closed.
“New information,” the reasoning construct running ‘in-scenario moderation’ reported. “An outside moderator is currently available and requesting to temporarily take over the chat. Does the instructor authorize the adjustment?”
I nodded, expecting that Curator or Little Jia had been monitoring us and decided to join in. “Go ahead.”
The observer sphere shimmered, then a wisp like a spirit or one of Diur’s outriders streamed out of it, growing and condensing into the image of an Elder with her wings grown. Her raiment had the form of a thin dress of some celestial fabric, a material with the lightness and essence of cumulus clouds. It was pulled in at the waist with a delicate belt of gold.
As I gaped, caught off-guard, she bowed deeply and stated, in perfect Xa-Ne child speech, “Greetings, Commander. It has been a very long time.”
My surprise had a very good reason. Neither spirit beasts nor Servants would ever pretend to be Elders or dress up like them. But I could already tell this was neither spirit nor Servant. She very definitely possessed the same nature as one of Diur’s proxies.
And she had the exact likeness and the exact voice of Senhion.
