1 Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

----- A CERTAIN DAY... ------

In a certain kingdom, where many races dwell in, inside a certain city, where the majority of it's inhabitants are beastkins, there is a certain colosseum that it's known for its grandiose. The colosseum itself was circular and had a height of almost 30m, and a space of 25m counting with the space for the audience.

Usually, the colosseum was a touristic point for many to gaze upon the construction that was built a long years ago, but in this occasion, every year, the colosseum was the place where many would gather, not just to pass by to look around it, but to hold a contest, a contest of fitness, fast thinking and prowess.

As for the contestants for this annual event, the majority of them were beastkins while there were some humans, elfs, dwarfs and many other races, at a glance you could see that they weren't that much.

This event itself was more for the beastkins as they had a better body strenght and speed compared to many other races but did have low magic power, that never did impede those who wanted to test themselves to see how far they could go since almost all of them was able to use magic at their will since it's magic capacity was way higher than the beastkin.

As the waiting time for the event was nearing, all of the contestants started to gather around the middle of the field and merge into a huge mob, squeezing themselves with each other, it was truly a mess.

When it was the time for the event to begin, a female voice echoed through the colosseum.

"Ladiiieeees and gentlemeeeensss!!! Welcome to the annual Ability contest, where we see how far and how much our regular contestants improved and how well do the new challengers fare!" said the woman with high tensions.

The woman herself was the announcer, a young woman of the rabbitkin beastman species, she had brown hair with her ears being brown as well, black eyes and somewhat a petite figure that did match with her energetic voice.

"This year it's something that we can confirm that it's the most participants that we ever had! It's something that we are looking forward to since every year they do surprise us with new skills or with a huge improvement!

Since every year we get many different people who watch this espectacle, I will be stating the rules and what are the stages of this contest!

FIRST!

In any kind of competition where there is any means of combat, incapacitating your opponent it's a victory. Killing it's strictly forbidden.

SECOND! You are only able to use any props that are scattered around the colosseum's ground. No gadget or tools from outside of it are allowed.

AND LAST! THE MOST IMPORTANT! Have fun and give us a nice show!

"The stages consist in

1- A complex race with obstacles course through the ENTIRE field! Battle is allowed and the scenario that will be used for the stage will be selected randomly from the list provided for this year. The field itself will be cast under a powerful space spell so the size of the actual field it's different from the size of the colosseum;

2- A stage where you will need to show your combat power or be clever enough to avoid conflict and reach the top of the hill and grab one of the 30 flags.

3- A team based exploration in a labirynt where those teams that do reach the exit the fastest wins!"

As the announcer explained, the contestants that were familiar with the rules didn't place so much attention as they were stretching their bodies, aside from the stages that they would be challenging this year, since it always changed.

"So, everyone! Please head to the marked location so that we can start the first stage!"

The crowd moved to conform the instructions and readied themselves for the start. The tension between them was high, you could feel the pressure from far away and the nervousness from them. Mere seconds felt like minutes, the time seemed to stop waiting for the signal to be released. The crowd was in anticipation, looking hard at the judge who was pointing a wand to the sky, the judge itself was tense since he had almost all the attention in the colosseum at him. As the time passed by, the judge cleaned his throat and said in a loud voice as he released a magical signal to the sky.

"START!!!"

*boom*

A flameball was shot to the air, exploding after reaching its max altitude.

At the same time the explosion happened, many roars were herds from the contestants as a huge crowd started to run towards the field.

Before any of them could enter the first sector, the field started to change, trees from many sizes, bushes, rocks and boulders and some old and destroyed buildings and even skyscrapers started to surge and rise through the field.

Caught in a surprise, many trumbled a bit after witnessing such drastic changes in the field, it was rare to gaze upon a powerful large scale field magic occurring in front of it's eyes. However, that only applied to the new challengers, those who were familiar with it just continued fearless of the changes and sprinted along, avoiding obstacles such as rocks, trees and vines.

In the lead you could see many beastkins whose speed was their forte like rabbits, jaguar, cheetahs, and many flying beastmans as well. Many of them were their every year favorites for the win. After sometime most of the contestants were already way ahead running through the artificial forest, clearing it's way toward the second section.

"Oooh look at that! As always our favorites for the title are leading the way of the race! As usual, in the first place, we have our last year champion, Rose Lavinas! In the second place, not lagging so much behind, Levi Janos! And in the third place, Houri Jasper! Will Rose be able to secure her second title? Or her opponents will be able to dethrone her?"

Rose Lavinas, a cheetah beastwoman, the title holder of the last year contest, first daughter of the Lavinas household, whose father it's the Prime Minister. She showed a great performance with her high speed and quite the unusual magic capacity, being a slightly above the normal, but not that much.

A body that was well built, toned muscles that just emphasized her form. She had a long blond hair that was tied in a ponytail and fierce brown eyes that emanates bravery and strong willpower.

Levi Janos, a lion beastman, first son of the Janos household, famous for their heritage of Military family, as often their members being appointed to important ranks within the military, even though he didn't win the last year contest, he was victorious for 2 years in a row before losing to Rose by a fine margin. He had fiery red hair that was cut short and green eyes who was seeking the lead in the race.

Houri Jasper, a zebra beastman, the third son of a farmer household, labeled as the "Eternal Third" because for some reason, no matter where, he always got the third place. He has black hair with some white stripes at his bangs, somewhat gentle black eyes.

As the three of them ran almost together through the forest, far behind them, somewhere in the middle of the crowd, a certain young beastman was running almost like a shadow around the mob.

White hair, red eyes with lazy-like vibes, circular mouse ears that were moving and twitching every time, catching all kinds of sounds and processing them to be aware of its surroundings. Dodging the obstacles nimbly, running through the contestants, avoiding make-haste traps, an almost perfect performance, if he wasn't trying his best to stay in the middle of the large crowd that was between the middle-esque place in rank.

The beastman in question, it's Sieg Pathfinder, a mousekin beastman. Sieg himself was from a famous family line where they acted as a Guide and Counselors for high nobility, and also, he himself was famous or infamous for his so-so abilities even though he do show great skills and talents that could rival those on the top, also it's known as an individual with the largest amount of mana ever found in a beastman, even inside the long history of the Pathfinder household. In short, he lacked the drive to strive for the top.

Although many saw that as a bad thing, Sieg and some close friends of his saw that he just didn't want to stand out more than he always has been, since his appearance and his large amount of mana did for him.

While Sieg was maintaining a low profile, or trying to, as many could see his pristine white hair almost shining in the dark of the forest and his red eyes constantly looking at his surroundings, was planning a way to be certain of arriving in the middle ranks without much problem.

Some group of contestants did choose to just ignore him since he wasn't causing trouble for them, while others were trying to get rid of him since he did look weak.

Imagining the trajectory of the patch inside his head, Sieg saw that they were going to leave the dense forest soon and reach the urban area. Sensing another attack from behind him, he quickly shot himself forward to avoid the danger. Seeing that his attack failed again, the burly man with a shaved head clicked his tongue in anger.

"What the... this little rat it's so fast. I can't hit him even once."

"We can just keep trying to hit him from various angles, we will be able to hit him once for sure!"

Said another man, who looked a little bit less burly than the first one.

"Yeah, since he looks weak, he may have only speed in his favour, but sure he will tire himself out in no time!"

Completed another burly man.

"Hm, then let's keep throwing spells at him. This competition doesn't need weak looking guys!"

As they kept running through the forest, the three men continued to launch spells, projectiles of many sorts like stones, arrows and even throwing weapons.

Sensing those attacks intentionally aimed at him, Sieg couldn't help to sigh and take a quick glance behind him, where he saw those 3 hooligans actively trying to bring him down. He didn't even get surprised by it since his enhanced hearing got every insult and complaints from them. With his special trait from the Pathfinder family's unique blood, he tried to foresee an easy way out from their reach and annoying acts. What he got from the forecast it's that he could simply just run ahead and leave them behind, but he also saw that doing that would not be able to stop them from attacking him in the other stages of the competition.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he used his foresight again, focusing on making them stop once for all, and what he did get this time, was to confront them directly and eliminate them.

Exasperated, Sieg sighs one more time and takes a deep breath, quickly turning around, he stretches his arms and points towards the group and says calmly.

"Gather around, little spirits of earth, show your might in this little display of power."

As he says, in front of his palm a stone ball of around 30cm starts to take a form.

Surprised by the sudden action of their prey, the 3 mens raise their guards but right away look in disbelief as the magic itself was quite lame in their eyes.

"Look at that boss! He's so weak that it's only able to form a pebble to hurt us!"

"HAHAHA! True, truly pitiful."

As Sieg was hearing them mocking him, he still stayed composed and finished gathering mana in his magic.

"Shattering Stone."

As he said the magic's name, the stone was hurled towards the group at high speed.

As the stone approached, the bald man, who was leading the assault laughed at the attack, imagining that it was just a simple stone ball thrown at them.

"I can take care of this pebble, just look!"

As he ran towards the ball, ready to smash it in pieces, suddenly the ball exploded in front of him, raining many pebbles at high speed towards him and his group.

"What the hell is that! It hurts!"

Shouted the man as he took most of the damage since he was right before the stone ball before it exploded. He was only able to react a little bit after he took some damage but managed to protect his vitals and face.

This attack left him with many bruises and scratches around the entire body, and he looked behind him to see if any of his companions got taken out.

Unfortunately for him, the 3rd men, was taken down since he reacted so late and some of the pebbles hit him straight in the middle of his forehead, knocking him out of consciousness right away. As for the other one, he was still in good shape, he just had some scratches here and there.

Looking ahead of him again, locking his eyes on Sieg, he shouted as he increased his running speed.

"You little rat! You're going down now! Don't expect that begging for forgiveness will make us hurt you just a little bit!"

With all the bloodlust directed towards him, SIeg sighed once again, fed up by the cliche line he read in many books and lamented using so little power thinking that it would be enough for them.

The foresight his family had was accurate for the final results but most of the time, if not every time, did not show how to or exactly what they needed to do to achieve the goal. It was blurry or simply didn't show at all. So interpretation based on what they saw before seeing the end was necessary, but hard to achieve.

And as it happened, Sieg was unable to see how to, but just the end results, and as he judged wrongly, he wasn't able to finish in one move and ended up just putting oil into the fire, catching the attention of the screen that shows every battle around the stage.

"Oooh! Look at it! Contestant Sieg just did something very unusual! He resolved to retaliate instead of just shaking them off. I wonder why?"

Said the Announcer as the screen showing his action replayed for the public to see what happened.

"For what we can see, it looks like 3 mens were trying to attack Sieg non-stop to bring him down. Maybe that's because he looked weak and was faster than them? I need to say that it's quite the hurdle they choose. They should have studied the regular contestants since their information it's very accessible."

As she said, the regular contestants had most of their info exposed since they did participate every year. Be it their physical prowess, magic, look and even for some people, weakness and habits.

Sieg wasn't an exception to the rule but those who did their homework knew that Sieg's data was mainly what others did see from him, not his true potential since, as far as it was recorded, Sieg never did show as much of his abilities and prowess. The only thing that was in his power data was that he was fast, his strength was average, his magic power and capacity was high and the elements he used till now were Earth based.

So the hooligan's move was something that many who did watch was apprehensive to, since it was very rare to see Sieg resulting in using power to suppress someone instead of just speeding through without much conflict. So to the audience, this was another opportunity to see what the unique member of the Pathfinder could do in terms of battle.

Hearing the announcer narrating his battle and the crowd cheering for more action, Sieg just wanted to finish it as soon as possible without showing much and continue the race in the shadow without getting much screen.

Sensing another straightforward attack from the duo, Sieg dodged an arrow aimed at his right shoulder and deflected a fireball with a weak and simple stoneball, dissipating both of them..

Determined to finish this show as soon as possible, Sieg pointed towards the men in the back with the arrow and chanted.

"Oh mother earth, lend me a fraction of your power and defeat those who dare to oppose me."

With a surge of mana around the vicinity of Sieg, the earth started to tremble and the ground split and surge upwards.

"Earth's Fury"

Multiple spikes surged from the ground across the field, but most of them appeared around the archer, landing a clear hit at him in many points, incapacitating him in a few seconds.

As for the remaining 1, the leader of the hooligans, since he was not the direct target, was able to escape without any damage since he was able to dodge those few that aimed for him.

Locking his eyes on the remaining one, Sieg chanted another magic right away.

"Gather around, oh proud spirits of earth, bring justice towards our enemies."

Particles of earth and dirt started to take form around Sieg as many lances took shape, all of them pointed towards the men.

Intimidated by the amount of lances, the men started to chant as many fireballs he could towards Sieg in hope that he could offset some of all of the lances that were taking form around Sieg.

After some explosion from the contact of the fireballs and the lances, the men saw that Sieg didn't even have any kind of damage, just continued to run backwards without even flinching or tumbling with the obstacles, as if he had eyes behind his head. Not even showing a single hint of being tired.

"Shit! Why does such a weak looking guy have this much power!"

As for him, he was starting to get fatigued by constant running and spellcasting. His movements were starting to get sluggish and his spells didn't have that much of a punch anymore, his mana reserves as well as depleting very quickly due to constant attack and maintaining his body enhancements.

While he was pondering if he was going to be able to land even a hit at Sieg, the latter decided to launch his magic.

"Earth Lance."

Around 20 lances hurled towards the man without any mercy, hitting him in every spot possible, injuring him to the point that the man wasn't able to stand up at the end of the exchange.

As the man silhouette was becoming far away and small, Sieg just turned around and sped towards the next area that was around 5min away if he maintained the current speed.

Everything that Sieg could hear from the surrounding was the cheers and the announcer finished narrating his short and quick battle.