The Competition Begins!

Kael sat close to thirty minutes before finally rising. During that time, he slowly assimilated the information that had opened up in his head.

More information about the world kept pouring in, making him understand the world more. "The world is quite different from before," he thought with a strange smile.

"So the gods are the main rulers of this realm, huh? Does that mean those contenders are under the Pantheon gods? To think they are all interested in the princess, there must be something about her that got them attracted."

Queen Otrera had only spoken about the beginning ranks stating there were more, but he already knew the rest after assimilating all the information. After the SSS rank, there was the transcendence rank, the demi-god rank, the ascendance rank, and the godhood rank common to the races of this world. But they were more, more powerful beings than the gods.

Kael felt his body brimming in excitement, just the thought of breaking past the godhood realm. "I better prepare for the competition rather than get lost in my thoughts," he thought, shaking his head.

"This will be a good place to practise." He thought, activating his void sense just to be sure he was alone. He finally relaxed, sensing no one was around the area. 'That dream, I gained a lot of comprehension just watching that guy use his powers in the battle and the they are the same as mine except the abyssal powers"

Closing his eyes, he opened them seconds later, with them releasing a soft glow. 'The void eyes enable me to sense the energy in the atmosphere and within a body. The void sense makes it possible for me to sense all things within the surroundings.'

'The system just grants me the skills while I have to figure out the rest myself. Ever since I've been using them wrongly. The skills… they are linked together and are stronger when used together.' Taking a lotus position on the ground, he slowly began to go through the space manual technique all over again.

"That's it," he muttered, swiping the system screen away. After a few hours of deeply focusing on the space manual, he gained more enlightenment of the space ability. Closing his eyes, he began connecting the two skills. He could feel little strands like energy from the two skill runes merging but only a fraction.

Although just a fraction had merged, he felt a wave of energy surging within his body. He felt his understanding of the space manipulation ability deepening.

Rising from the ground, his eyelids fluttered open, revealing a dark glow. "Ughhh," Kael groaned, feeling his mind assaulted by a large amount of information from his surroundings. He could not only sense but see everything within a hundred metres radius, which was too much for his mental strength to handle.

Before, he could only see the energy before him, but now, with the void sense, he was able to see the energy within the void sense range.

Also, the void sense just allowed him to sense things without being able to differentiate between living and nonliving, but with the void eyes, he could differentiate them, albeit slowly having yet not mastered this newfound power.

He felt his surroundings spinning, causing him to stagger forward. "Shit! This is so much," he groaned quickly, deactivating both skills. "I feel weak all of a sudden." He leaned on a huge rock to support himself feeling a bit nauseous all of a sudden.

"This power... like I thought earlier, Ive barely scratched the surface of its true potential. I have to be careful and take things slowly. Otherwise, I might end up inflicting permanent damage on myself or worse, even get killed by my recklessness.

One thing was clear, though: he was beginning to get a good grasp on the space manipulation ability. "I better head back and figure out a way of learning this newfound power."

"The competition is also around the corner. It seems I have a lot of preparation to do." He muttered to himself after a long sigh.

———

A day had gone quickly after that day. Kael had not once rested training diligently in mastering his abilities. Slowly, he was able to make use of both the void sense and void eyes together. This he achieved by first learning the energy patterns of his surroundings.

He noticed non-living things gave out a neutral energy, which was different from the living. Carrying out various tests, he was finally able to differentiate between both energies flawlessly.

The large amount of information he tackled by filtering irrelevant information. He also trained his mental strength and focus to avoid untimely mental fatigue.

"Ahh," Kael let out a puff of air after deactivating his skills. This was the last day before the competition started. Both skills can remain active for three hours. But using other skills along will cut it to an hour and some minutes.

Lying on the top of a huge boulder a few metres away from the stream, he stared at the sky, which was lit up by the shining stars. "Ahhh, this is truly amazing," he thought. After a few minutes of silence, he decided to test something. His eyes glowed softly as he activated the void eyes.

Looking at the stars now, he couldn't help but leave his mouth wide open. "This... this... is... beautiful," he thought in awe. With his void eyes, he could see further getting to witness the strands of multicolour of energies flowing peacefully floating about.

He felt a subtle peace just from the sight. His eyes began to close, finally sleeping off.

———

The arena was abuzz with activity as the warriors responsible for setting up the platform in which the match would take place were fully focused on their task. They had placed various energy crystals around the platform which will be used in activating a round barrier to protect the audience from contenders attacks.

Martin, ashamed of his loss, had long travelled back to his kingdom, leaving the remaining twelve participants to prepare fully for the competition.

After everything had been set, they were finally called into the platform.

"Greetings to everyone present." Queen Otrera began her speech. "We've all gathered here for a reason," she said with a pause staring at those present. "To find a man worthy of my youngest daughter, Princess Aretha."

"The rules are quite simple to follow. One can win by beating your opponent to the point he's unable to continue or decide to give up. Killing your opponent isn't allowed as it would only bring problems to your kingdom, which I believe everyone wants to avoid."

"This box here will be used in setting the matches for the first round." Shaking the box, she shook her hands into the open space and slowly brought out the papers in pairs.

Duncan vs. Kendrick

Kael vs. Zerus

Lucius vs. Axios

Kaelos vs. Nikolaos

Icarus vs. Xander

Thorff vs. Luke

"With that, let the competition begin!"