Ooh Shiny!

Carson sat in his room in pain. He had been transferred to a more civilized section of the prison that was reserved for gladiators. Nobody in the unblessed rankings had a good quality room, but his was better than nothing. It resembled a shitty hotel, but at least it didn't have bed bugs crawling through every inch of it like he expected.

"Fuuuuuuuuck." The young man swore as he felt his body ache even worse as he flopped onto the straw bed. He wasn't fully healed, but was much better off than he had been minutes ago. Not long after the guards had brought him to his new room, a couple of young women were sent in with healing supplies and an actual set of armor. They seemed timid at first, he assumed from the abuse of other gladiators, but after they realized he could barely move, they started. They poured a slimy blue liquid over his wounds and forced it into any cut big enough to.

The process was excruciating, he felt the cells in his body speed up in their division with the application of the blue goo. The burning pain, and unending itch that soon followed, however, were a thousandfold worse. Just before he felt he would finally go insane, the pain gradually receded. There was still some remnant itchiness, but nothing that he wouldn't be able to deal with. Carson dressed himself with the armor, since he didn't have any other clothes besides his raggedy loincloth, and saw the women out.

The armor was quite similar to that of the gladiator he had faced, except for a few key changes. Where the cloth was white, it was red on his piece, and it was much more angular in areas, almost like interwoven plates designed to maximize movement and minimize unprotected area. Surprisingly it was relatively light, and had a quite breathable fit. And now that he was alone he finally could turn to the thing that he had been waiting for. He could finally uncover his first Knowledge of the Ancients.

He took the small booklet from his bag and looked at the rune-covered cover. Before he could begin to question how he would read it, he felt the meanings of the runed burn into his mind.

It was simultaneously more gruesome than the feeling of the healing goop, and quite pleasant at the same time. When he was finally able to make out the cover, he read out loud with a over-encumbered sigh.

"The Art of Making Things Shiny" He shook his head with false hope thinking that maybe he could still glean some useful info from it. The young man flopped back down to his cot, surprisingly unimpeded by his armored frame. "They couldn't even bother to make the name sound cool. This is total bulls-!" He stopped, realizing that he was yelling and didn't want to have the guards called on him.

Carson opened the small, unornamented, paper book to its first page, and felt the same burn as before. "The art of making things shine may sound quite useless - yeah it really does - but can actually have some profound effects. Hmm, yeah and it doesn't mention any cause they don't exist." Carson sighed in his reading, skimming over it quickly to gain the main idea of the text.

"Okay, lets try this..." He grabbed a piece of hay out of his cot and held it up in front of him. He felt he could now identify a lot of its chemical structure just by looking at it. The young man walked around his room, inspecting things, and rubbing the piece of hay on them, seemingly at random. He was greeted by a slightly glowing, slightly reflective piece of hay a moment later. He couldn't help but feel his laugh bubbling up. "Ooh Shiny!"

"Its a cool party trick, but useless considering I wont be going to any parties, likely for the foresee-able future" He snorted in self derision, hoping that maybe he would be able to find an echo or something useful by the time he would challenge the blessed ranks, which now that he thought about it was only a fight away.

He got up from his bed - or rather cot - and began to swing his imaginary staff. His body had been enhanced a degree by the crystal shard thingamajig that saved his life, but that didn't automatically make him good at fighting.

He created a perfect replica of himself in his mind, the only opponent he could think of that could be matched with him evenly. The young man circled around his room, jumping and weaving imaginary strikes as the sound of rebounding metal on metal filled his ears.

Carson ducked an attack from his copy, feeling the black hair on his head whip into his face with the force of the strike. He saw an opening in his own style, quite a few actually, and made sure to close all of them upon his next strike. He moved around the room to a corner, and swung with all of his might at the image in front of him, it collided on target, but didn't do much to the thigh that it hit due to the powerful muscle padding the area. He felt the imaginary staff hit him in counterattack, a direct hit to his liver, and doubled down in shock and pain.

The young man never lost sight of his opponent however, upon seeing the incoming attack next in sequence, he rolled his prone form out of the way. The floor cracked under the hit, leaving a large hole beneath it. Carson swung around to the side opposite the hole, fighting for dominance over the superior terrain of his tiny room. A few exchanges of blocked attacks, and counterattacks worked the young man to his limit as he landed another blow on his double.

However, when he finally gained the ground he needed to secure his victory, something unexpected happened. His double pulled a booklet into its hand, and it rubbed the paper to its staff. Carson tried to stop him, but was half blinded by the booklet turning into a makeshift flashbang.

He stumbled forward, purply-yellow marks of color lodged themselves on the center of his sight. The glow ended quickly as the copy of himself mis-stepped, its foot got caught in the hole that it had blasted in the ground earlier.

In a last ditch effort swung its staff around in a tornado above its now grounded self, it hit the walls and ceiling creating more and more small breaks in the wall. Not wanting his roof to fall down and crush him, Carson rushed forwards and swung a harsh downwards strike weaving it in the small gap between the staff spins. 

The young mans metal rod ploughed through his copies body, cutting its head in half, and exposing the cross-section of his brain. The swing didn't stop there however, it pushed its way through the abdominal cavity, spilling the organs of the now very dead copy over the surrounding ground. 

Just before Carson's staff hit the floor of his room he stopped. He slumped back onto the floor and wiped the sweat off of his face. He admired the space of his small room, the walls that had seemed like they would cave in just moments ago were returned to their former condition, which although not good, it was still better than what his double had caused. The only sign that a battle had ever been fought here was the scuff marks where his armored feet had dragged along the floor.

He admired that practice, he had used it many times before in his life when practicing martial arts. "Oh the power of the mind." He thought back over all of the stance changes he would have to make due to potential openings. The young man postured himself, going through the motions of his routine a couple times before siting down and taking another break.

Food and water came at that time, the guard gave him the good olé "shut the fuck up" speech about how he was being too noisy, he replied to that sentiment with his usual "Go fuck yourself."

The food was disgusting, and the water was full of dirt, but he knew that it would be worse for him if he just skipped eating all-together.

Carson sat down in meditation, focusing on all of the battles he had fought, analyzing them, why he won, why he lost. He put special attention on the battle against himself, he looked at each exchange and felt any small way he could improve.

The time flew as Carson spent the next 3 days in his cell repeating the same routine of fighting meditating and practicing. He had gotten quite good with the staff, enough so where he was confident fighting the champ of the unblessed.

'I have a lot to look forwards to tomorrow' The warrior thought, just before letting his thoughts drift back to training.