I returned to my room. I might have overdone it. I do have 3 free casts though. I don''t know how familiar these people are with [Tsunami] but they will probably be shocked that I won’t have any magic circles for my next 3 skills. They already seemed shocked that I could use [Tsunami]. I really needed to hold back on that one. These people are lucky that I moved the water back to where it came from.


    The next match started. It was Al against a random guy. Go, Al! Oof Al is getting his ass kicked, noo Al! The guy he’s fighting was uhm how was it called? Silent night? He was an assassin-type fighter. Al’s style is quite direct so I could say this is his weakness. He was holding out well but accumulating a lot of damage. Oh, he managed to catch the guy. Whoa, what was that! The announcer who was quite silent during my match said something about a skill called [Share Agony]. I guess it splits the damage evenly so this makes him healthier and makes the random guy take on enough damage to make the playing field even. That is quite a nasty move. It seemed to be arcane so I guess Ted and Gregory would find good use in it. Although it is not a damaging skill but more equalizing damage so I guess arcane is incorrect but more household magic.


    Al buffed his defenses and caught the random guy in a combo. It was quite exciting. The problem with assassin-type fighters is if you get them and you get them good, they will probably lose. Al was going ham with his combo and not letting the random guy escape. Unfortunately, the random guy escaped when it seemed the combo was almost over and turned the tables. Al couldn''t do much for the rest of the fight and unfortunately lost. But it was quite close. After that, there was a match between...


    Oh, it''s Bea and another fire user.


    They just threw fire at each other and it didn''t seem to go anywhere, they also had fire resistance so they didn''t take much damage from each other. It was quite a boring fight and after 15 minutes they got stopped because it didn''t seem to go anywhere. The last match was someone fighting with a bow and arrows against a guy wielding a huge obsidian axe. It looked so cool! I can see how much effort went into making that axe, it certainly isn''t easy to make that. Whoops, I have to observe the match. In theory, the axe guy should win he is throwing a lot of earth magic around but the bow guy seems quite agile and keeps shooting arrows and using wind to curve them in unpredictable ways. They seem to really pack a punch with those arrows. At this rate, he would win if he keeps his distance. But no, he gets up close and goes close combat on the axe guy with his bow, holy shit this guy is crazy. He also managed to win.


    I want to fight this guy! If I would be the person deciding who gets C rank this guy certainly deserves it. Imagine you want to pin this annoying guy down that pew pews you from far away, you finally get close and you think you got him and then he owns you in close combat. I hope Al gets C-rank too but I guess it’s hard to asses him because his whole role is here to take damage. So maybe the fact he held up for so long against his hard counter means maybe he did his job, he almost defeated the assassin guy though which is quite hard to do for someone in his role. I can’t see myself losing or almost losing to someone like Al if I go into assassin mode.


    The next match is me against assassin guy. I’m going to show them how to deal with assassins. The usual thing happens when 2 people enter the arena, names and info appear on the screen, the announcer gets yelled at to do his job and the battle starts. The assassin goes into stealth. This time I started closer to the water. I didn''t cheat and use my Elgards eye but none of the assassins I''ve ever met completely erase their presence. I used the moisture in the air to feel out his presence.


    I pinned down his location and used [Flood]. Of course, everyone was surprised because no magic circle. Because of [Flood] I knew exactly where he was because he was shin-deep in the water and the water was acting like my skin. I rose a large ice pillar out of the water from underneath him launching him up into the air. He was shocked of course and he dropped stealth. I used my last free skill to create a [Water ball] around him and froze it, I launched myself into the air with an ice pillar and used the water around me to form a huge hammer and slammed the Assasin-ball into the ground. The ice cracked and a passed-out assassin got released from the ice ball. This was quite easy. Maybe if he was more skilled, he might have a chance against me when I’m only using water. I guess they didn''t expect water users to fight like this. I did have a slight headache though because using water like this requires a lot of mana control and concentration. It’s a good thing that there will be a break after this round.


    The next round was Tania against Al and Al lost again unfortunately but he held out for quite a long time. Tania seemed quite strong now that she could do her thing. I guess she deserves C-rank too. I guess Al is out of the match now since he lost twice. Next up is the chick Bea was fighting against bowdude.


    Bowdude had quite an easy time defeating this random chick as expected. After that, was Bea against axeguy. It was an interesting fight but axeguy was no match for Bea’s agility. But neither of them could do meaningful damage against each other and after 15 minutes the battle got stopped. What does a draw count as? Bea had 2 draws and axeguy had a loss and a draw? Oh, it seems random chick, axeguy, and Bea are out. So, 5 people are out. I guess I''m not fighting Tania again so it''s probably bowdude.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Bowdude also needs to fight Tania. I guess they would let those without losses fight first and the ones with losses go against each other and I will go against that one in the final. We had half an hour break. I decided to go to the lounge and see what was going on. It seems only Tania was there. Oh shit!


    “Wait!” I sat down and she started to talk again. She talked and talked and talked. I tuned out again and thought about how to deal with bowdude. I think I can be reckless because I have 5 [Frozen skin] stacks so I can take 5 hits before I have to pay attention. I think I have an idea of what I’m going to do.


    “Hey, are you listening?!” Break is over! It seems I have to fight bowdude.


    “That was what I was saying! I won’t allow you to lose to him! I want my rematch!” Guess I should lose then.


    “Don’t you dare!” I ignored her and went into the arena. Bow dude seemed to have taken his spot in the windy part of the arena. I guess he is serious. I walked over to the snowy part. He looked a bit surprised, he probably thought I would go to the sea part. The match started and bowdude started spamming [Wind lances] and shooting arrows at me. I wanted to make my standard 1 km ice pillar but that wouldn''t fit so I made a 50-meter ice pillar with mirrors in various angles attached to it so he couldn''t get me from sneaky angles and I sniped his arrows and wind lances down. It was quite challenging without Elgards eyes but I didn''t let anything through so far. I had the higher ground so he had to put in work to evade my arrows and keep up the pressure.


    But meanwhile, I was slowly shifting the snow, which was only falling on my part of the arena, to his part. He didn''t seem to notice it until it was too late. Snow hit him and ice crystals started to grow on his body. He looked horrified. I guess he has seen this before. He looked up and tried to run away from the snow. It looked quite funny a gown ass man running away from snow. I kept up the pressure by continuing to shoot arrows at him. This guy is amazing even while running for his life he kept the pressure on me. He seems frustrated and I know why. He probably wants to run toward me and not away but it''s also snowing where I am. I guess I will go to him.


    I created a [Steam cannon 2.0] next to the pillar I was standing on. He probably didn''t notice it. I aimed it at him. I bent the light around me with the moisture in the air and left a water clone to continue to shoot at him while I loaded myself in the cannon protected by my multi-layered ice/water barrier. He only noticed the cannon when I shot it off but it was too late. I crashed into him. He managed to somehow partially block it but I jumped out of the barrier, formed a blade out of ice, and held it at his neck. He surrendered. I shook his hand and he thanked me for the fight. What a nice guy, I’m going to complain to Tania if he doesn''t make it to C-rank.


    Next up was Tania against bowdude and this was an important match both had 1 loss. Bowdude opened up very strong he put the hurt on Tania and put a lot of pressure on her. Unfortunately, he was still a bit tired from his match with me so he was a bit slower. This didn''t stop him from almost one-sidedly beating up Tania. She then used her lighting warrior thingy and this swiftly turned the tide. This thing is overpowered holy shit, is this even allowed?! Wait didn''t she use this against me too? In that case, I’m sure bowdude can beat this.


    Aaand, he lost, I guess this thing is way stronger than I thought. Poor bowdude. Another break because Tania was quite messed up, I could probably defeat her with my pinky in this state. I suddenly realized that I didn’t take any damage. Oh no this is drawing a lot of attention, isn''t it? Why can’t I just be a regular person? I thought of maybe taking some damage but between my 5 layers of [Frozen skin], lightning magic hurting quite a lot and it probably being too late to start taking damage I decided to just continue how I do things. I think my first match with her was humiliating enough for her so I will try to finish this as swiftly as possible, I want to eat some sushi. A relaxing 30-minute break and we got back to the arena. I don’t know what the deal was with that medical room but it seems quite potent.


    “I won’t hold back this time!” Me neither. Somehow this seemed to alarm the announcer and Tania’s Daddy. So inconsiderate of them! It’s not like Tania will die, probably. The sign to start rang and Tana summoned 2 lighting warrior things. I opened with [Tsunami]. Tania’s look of confidence turned into despair as the wall of water approached her and she levitated and floated away from it.


    I followed up with [flood] and [Azure sharks] the lightning warriors helped her block the tsunami but it ended up getting one destroyed. I hopped on an [Azure shark] and sent the shiver of sharks at Tania. By the time she realized what happened the [Azure sharks] tore the lightning warrior into shreds, so far for her ultimate skill. She tried to make a big attack but I used [Azure Spear] which dropped from the sky in front of her. This scared the living shit out of her and she surrendered. These combos are brutal.


    And like this, I won this pointless tournament. I wanted to escape and go get some sushi but there were still some things that had to be done. We got some feedback and told us how we did on the various points they were paying attention to. Tania, Al, bowdude and I made it to C-rank. Bea sounded quite pissed but to be honest her fights were lame. After all the formal stuff I got met with my buddies. They weren''t surprised that I made it but with how much ease I made it. I had a short chat with bowdude and we decided to do some quests together at some point. Sally also congratulated me and made it overly clear that she was impressed and that she will make sure to apply what she saw here. 2 hours after my match with Tania finished, I could finally get out and went to my favorite sushi place but it was closed because of the power outage. Noooo! My sushi!