60 Fighting a rank 2

"Mom, when will I get to see my baby sister."

Ryan vision cleared up as he see Jason mom sitting on the couch.

"You will see her when she get bigger, right now she still growing in mommy stomach."

Noticing Jason bookbag and coat on the couch, Ryan could guess he just got back from school.

(This will be another uneventful dream, probably going to be watching TV most of the day.)

And he was right.

Ryan woke up from his sleep feeling well rested. He had bumped into the family downstairs in the inn. They had ate breakfast together and left to go train while Ryan went shopping for the things Tom told him to get yesterday.

Since he still had time before he have to head to the arena, after shopping a little he stopped at a artifact store to look around. He knows artifact are not allowed to be used in the arena, but he was just curious on the prices of the artifacts.

He was shocked to see the cheapest artifact was 300 LG mana stones and it was a sharp dagger. Apparently the dagger was only sharper than normal. He tried to ask questions about what make an artifact an artifact, but they just ignored him entirely.

So he left and went to the arena to fight. A week went pass pretty fast and Ryan became the rank one champion within the week. He didn't have any fights that he had to struggle to win but he never got a chance to bet on himself. There was very little gains if he did.

Ryan had earned 135 LG mana stones in this week and he already had 22 LG mana stones before that. He still need close to 50 more mana stones, but as a Champion there are different rules.

He lost the ability to challenged any rank1, and have to wait to get challenged. They gave him a badge that will notify him when he is challenged and the day of the challenged.

He will receive 50 LG mana stones every month he remains as the champion and each fight he win he will receive 20 LG mana stones.

Ryan been debating on what choices to make, and even asked Tom for advice. He could just remain as champion and he will definitely earn enough for the entry test or he could challenge people above his rank.

The reason why he debating is he could obtain way more mana stones if he fight rank 2 fighters. You will only get rewarded extra mana stones once for winning consecutive matches in each rank. If Ryan chose to fight a rank 2 opponent and lose it will be harder to earn enough mana stones fighting only rank1 fighters. Each fight is only 1 mana stone.

After completing for a few days and not receiving a challenged Ryan decided to just take Tom advice.

Tom told him he should fight rank 2 fighters, and try to earn more. He need to start cultivating with mana stones, and rank up sooner. Even if Ryan did lose he could always sell the fruit and go back to fighting rank1 fighters. He will be willing to even loan Ryan a few mana stone if needed.

Ryan realizing the benefits out weigh the loss and decided to challenge a rank 2 for his next fight.

A day pass and he was scheduled to fight rank 2 opponents today. They had him in a different room under the rank 2 stage. Now he understood why there was multiple doors leading up the the staircase.

The attended and him was the only one in the room. The room had the same layout, but smaller than the last room he was in.

The fights started and it actually took a while before he heard his name getting called.

"The rank 2 stage first fighter is the rank 1 champion, Unrivalled In my rank, number 187. He fought 21 matches in total and won all 21 fights. Can he overcome the rank gap and remain undefeated." The announcer yelled with enthusiasm.

Ryan made his way up the stairs when he heard the announcer. As he walked up the stairs he couldn't help but to think about the bet he just place. He had bet all but 5 of his mana stones.

He figured he will have a higher chance of losing the more he fight and a higher chance of winning when no one really understands his fighting ability. Fighting a rank 2 won't be a easy fight so he may have to show everything he have to win.

Ryan had to go to the oath stone first before fighting, so he stood there waiting for the announcer to yell for his opponent.

"The second fighter for the rank 2 stage is The Bandit. He fought 28 matches in total, 25 wins and 3 losses. He is on his 6 consecutive win." The announcer yelled to the audience.

Ryan had no idea who this guy was or his element. The bandit came in front of the stone and everyone put there hand on it to accept the oath. Just like every other time, when the light had enter his body his mana core had absorbed it.

Ryan had stop caring about it, he had asked Brian what had happened when he took the oath. He said the strange light surrounded his mana core like a chain and disappeared when he woke up the next day.

Of course Ryan told him the same thing happened to him but now he believes the oath have no effects on him if he were to go against it. He don't know why its happening, but its a good thing so he not to worried about it.

Everyone went to there stage and prepared themselves to fight. Ryan drew his sword that was at his waist and got into a sword stance.

The bandit had some generic adventures clothes on and he pulled out a dagger. Ryan could tell why he call himself bandit because he definitely giving off a bandit vibe.

"FIGHT."

Ryan didn't try to charge in carelessly like he normally do. He understood that a rank 2 is not like rank 1 where all he need to do is get close to them to suppress them. If he not careful enough there a chance he may end up in a trap.

The bandit didn't charge in either, but he had smiled out of nowhere. Making Ryan feel uneasy and just as he tried to move he realized he couldn't.

Ryan quickly looked down and his own shadow was wrapping around his legs like a snake as it made it's way up. Ryan stab the ground where the shadow was at in hopes to stop it some how.

It didn't work and Ryan wasn't surprised, he didn't really believe it would work either. Ryan look back towards the bandit and he frowned. The bandit had a ball of darkness in his hand and it was expanding.

Ryan try to think of a way out of the shadow that was restricting him more and more. It was already wrapping around his arms, making it more difficult to move. He could guess what's going to happen next if he don't get out.

Ryan tried to physically break out but it was no use. The bandit finished his spell and threw the darkness ball at him.

It expanded even more the closer it got, so Ryan put up his best defense. At this point all Ryan could do was try to push off the shadow binds with his aura. With the rank advantage Ryan was at a big disadvantage when it comes to the power of a spell.

His aura alone will never be strong enough to break the spell at most he could resist and make it use more mana to restrict him.

As he got hit with the mass of Darkness, everything turned pitch black for him. He couldn't see anything, but he senes throwing knives flying at him.

Using his lightning to reple attacks was another way Ryan learned to use his element. It cost to much mana to reple it backwards. But if it just to reple the knives at a angle in order to change the path enough to miss him, than it's more than doable.

Swoosh,

Swoosh,

Swoosh

Swoosh,

All the knives had miss and went passed him. Even though he couldn't see, but he can senes things around him in a certain radius. By using his aura and his lightning element he could make a mental picture of what's there.

Everyone can do this to a certain extent with just aura but it won't be accurate. It's like being in the water with your eyes closed, you can only tell if something there when its moving through your aura [aura=water]. And it's vague, at most you will only get a direction of where it coming from.

Ryan still resisting to the best of his abilities, trying to get free of the shadow before the guy attacks again.

It didn't take long for the bandit to notice he missed because he could see through his own spell. He just scrunch his forehead at the results, and decided he will have to get close to Ryan to attack.

Knowing having both his spells active drain alot of mana, he checked to make sure Ryan arms was restrain, and ran towards Ryan to finish the fight as soon as possible.

Ryan sensing the bandit getting closer made the surroundings 20 times heavier. It will cost alot of mana but he have no choice at this point.

The Bandit feeling himself get heavier as he got close to Ryan, showed a flicker of fear for a brief moment. He had used his aura to fight off Ryan pressure but it still slowed him down enough to not run.

The Bandit tried throwing more knives at Ryan because he really didn't want to get any closer. Sadly for him they all miss, the surroundings was heavy not just for the guy. So the throwing knives he threw went towards the ground, with the help of his lightning too.

he had no choice but to hurry up and attack, he was below 40% of his mana already. He close the space between the two of them as fast as he could. When the bandit got 5 feet away from Ryan, Ryan reple the sword from his hand.

It had shot towards the bandit and the bandit barely had any time to react to it. The sword shot into the side of his stomach causeing him to lose concentration of the spell he cast.

The spells deactivated, and as soon as he gain the ability to move again he used flash steps to attack.

BOOM!

A loud thunder clap sound echo around the stage and Ryan threw a full power punch at the bandit face.

Surprisingly this guy was more calm and experienced than Ryan expected. As soon as he got stab he didn't panic, and he didn't panic when he had loss control of his spells. He had guess Ryan was going to attack soon after. He dropped and rolled backwards, while pulling out the sword from his stomach.

Swoosh,

Ryan punch flew through the air, and right over the bandit head.

(Ahh, I forgot to keep him weighed down. I subconsciously stopped once I got free from his shadows to use flash steps. I need to practice more on my multitasking.)

It was just a quick thought in Ryan head, and it did not slow down his next attack. He had noticed the bandit pulling out his sword as he dodge the attack. Before the sword could hit the ground he charged the sword and had it reple off the ground at a angle and shot towards the bandit.

The sword look like it was surfing on the ground. The lighting arcs was consently crackling, and connecting underneath the sword to the ground as it traveled across.

Swoosh,

The bandit rolled again in a different direction to dodge the sword.

BOOM!

Another loud thunder clap sound echo around the stage. Ryan used flash steps again, he didn't want to give this guy any time to breathe. he was pretty mad about being trapped as soon as the fight had started.

Ryan sent a kick at the bandit that was still on the ground and this time he didn't have time to dodge but he was able to put his arms up to block. He was sent a good distance away.

It may sound like the process of events took a long time, but only a second or 2 had pass since Ryan had stabbed his sword in the guy stomach. Ryan attacks was one right after another.

Just as he was about to charge at him again, the bandit incase himself in some dark, smoke like stuff.

Ryan doesn't know this, but the bandit shadow element give him the ability to change his aura into a shadowy color. It doesn't do anything else but making his aura change color.

Of course Ryan had hesitated to run in the dark smoke that came out of nowhere, but he was quick to throw his throwing knives instead. He used his element to make it as light as possible and his lightning element to reple them from his hands to give it more speed and power.

Swoosh,

Swoosh,

Swoosh,

He threw 3 throwing knives at the same time randomly in the dark smoke.

To Ryan surprise the smoke didn't keep expanding. It actually started to slowly fade away.

As it faded away everything became cleared to why the smoke had stopped expanding. There was a throwing knife in the bandit head. He was laying on his back, eyes wide open, with visible shock still present in them. A small trail of blood sliding down his forehead from the knife wound.

Ryan was shocked by the site, he didn't know how he should feel. Happy he won or sad that he killed someone. He never really thought it would actually bother him to kill a person but he feels regretful for doing it. Maybe its because he never had the intention to actually kill him, he didn't get to make the choice.

"The winner is Unrivalled In my rank, winning his twenty-second fight. He still remains undefeated." The announcer yelled with more enthusiasm than before, he almost sounds genuinely excited.