Mystery Box 2

Clicking on the mystery box category the same way as he had before, Mars purchased one and hoped for the best.

Before he could even turn back to look, the mystery box was on his bed and he approached it with an eager grin on his face, "Come on, give me something good."

He lifted the lid off of the box and was shocked to see what he assumed was a very rare occurrence. The mystery box had two items inside of it rather than just one.

One of these items was a glowing white orb like the one he had received before, which was incredibly lucky by itself, and the other item was a book that had the words 'Aura Manual' written on the front, which Mars knew couldn't be a bad thing.

First of all, he swallowed the skill orb and went to check what the description of it was.

Battles: 10

Win Rate: 100%

Loss Rate: 0%

Rank: Lowest (0)

Overall Wins: 10

Possessed Wins: 0

Skills:

Insane Reflexes (heightens your reflexes immensely)

Cleanse (any substance that enters the body that may have unfavourable effects will be disposed of)

Seeing that the skill he had gained would be helpful against any potential poisons, or diseases, Mars was glad to have received it. Not only would it be helpful inside The Arena, but also outside when he was released as he would never get ill.

As well as this, he had a hypothesis that the skill may have cleansed anything in his body that would be counted as impure and could hinder his training, like bad genetics, and had made them perfect as he already felt stronger than before.

Once he knew what his skill was, he walked back over to the bed and picked up the 'Aura Manual' and opened it to the first page. The book was very complex, and detailed the way to train and utilise an energy inside of humans called 'Aura' which could be used effectively in a fight.

The information in the book was much too complex for Mars to understand, especially as it was a topic he had never even heard of before, and there was nobody to teach him it.

Luckily, he had seen a feature on the machine in the corner of the room that he realised would be of great assistance.

There was a gap in the machine that something could be inserted into, specifically a book, and it looked as though it had a button to boot it up. Mars pressed the button and the gap began to glow, and a screen beneath it showed an image of a book blinking and the symbol of a brain next to it which told Mars that his assumption was correct.

He put the book inside of the machine, and it flashed green before a hole in the wall opened and a robotic arm put a helmet on Mars' head, and despite it not being very fast, he didn't try and move away or resist.

Within a few seconds of the helmet being on his head, it was already off, and an influx of information flooded Mars' brain. This information was obviously all of the details in the manual, and despite a slight headache when it was removed, Mars could only see the positive effects of the machine.

He sat on the floor in the middle of the room and immediately tried to use his new information, as he began to meditate.

He could feel an energy within his stomach begin to move around and warm up, and with a good level of concentration, Mars was able to start circulating it through his body. As he needed to sleep, and this meditation was actually quite comfortable, Mars decided he would sleep while circulating the Aura inside of his body, before testing it out on an enemy when he woke up.

After a few hours of sleeping, Mars opened his eyes to a body that felt entirely new. Every aspect of his external and internal body had been improved, and the Aura within his body felt significantly purer before, and Mars guessed that this was due to his new skill Cleanse.

Rather than testing his new power out on his own, Mars pressed the red button on the desk and went through the hatch in the corner. Finding himself in the same blank room as every other time, Mars couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity and comfort being there.

The enemy across from him was his first encounter with a ranged weapon, as the average looking woman on the other side of the room had a bow in her hands, and a quiver of arrows on her back.

She began to draw an arrow quickly, but it seemed as though it was in slow motion to Mars, as he watched every movement closely. He began to move forward, and immediately he could feel the difference in his speed than before, as he almost flew forward due to not being used to the new speed of his own body.

By the time he reached he woman, she had only just put the arrow in the bow, not even looking up properly to aim her weapon, and without even using his knives, the woman was dead before she even knew it was happening. Mars had easily, as if through butter, put his hand through the woman's stomach, and come out of the other side before pulling his arm back through, grabbing whatever organs he could feel, and ripping them out.

'Mars is the winner. One win has been added to his record. If the victor wishes to continue battling against another opponent, press the red button which will appear now.'

Obviously this had won him the battle, and Mars pressed the button to fight another one of the, minimum, ten enemies he was planning on defeating to rank up in a single day. He had already defeated one, so there were only nine more to go, and he wanted to test out the ways of utilising Aura that he had learned about via the machine.

The enemy that stood on the other side of the room to him this time was an animalistic looking man who was hunched over and was grunting to himself. He began to charge like an animal at Mars, but he did not move as he had a plan. He wanted to test out the materialisation element of Aura, which would allow him to materialise and form the Aura into different shapes.

Once the man got close enough, five claws made of Aura that were coating Mars' left hand came down on his back and lifted him up. On his right hand, Mars materialised a thick and sharp blade that, while still holding the man up in the air to restrain him, was plunged through his skull, slicing it in two.

He was happy to see that the weapons he created from Aura were stronger than those he already had in his possession, but this was not to say that he wouldn't encounter a weapon later on that surpassed his Aura in terms of combat power, so he would not write off all weapons he encountered in the future, whether it be from enemies or from loot boxes.

'Mars is the winner. One win has been added to his record. If the victor wishes to continue battling against another opponent, press the red button which will appear now.'

Eight more enemies to beat, and Mars would be able to rank up. The speed at which he was gathering wins at was quite unnatural, although not something that had never been seen before, and he did not plan to slow down any time soon.

He pressed the button once more, and found himself facing his next opponent.