Discarding her thoughts about her newfound family member, Sofia finally took some time to observe the place she was in, it was a square room with yellowish walls and no windows. Some natural light filtered in from under the rusty iron door keeping the room sealed. Sofia’s mana senses stopped at the door, although she could still faintly hear Love’s voice outside.

“Well, ready?” she asked Pareth, who was currently at the minimal size he could be with his abomination skeleton.

Pareth gave a confident nod.

“Great. I wonder if we’ll have to fight Tartaros again. Can anyone even beat him aside from us? Saria maybe? Yeah I feel like she would probably manage… Maybe.”

Pareth shrugged, then pointed at Bookie’s book form, latched to Sofia’s waist

“Prepare for the worst case scenario and preemptively summon Pestle?”

Pareth nodded again.

“There are only a handful of people we have to worry about, and the chances to get one of them in the first round are low… But, true, we cannot afford to be complacent now.”

Bookie and Pestle were summoned, further crowding the tiny room.

“Sofia!” Bookie said, looking up at her and grabbing her shirt, “Can I fight by myself if we don’t know the opponent?”

“By yourself? You want to try using your fusions again? It has been a while.”

“Yes!” bookie confirmed. “I trained a lot when you were leveling up, I want to fight too!”

Hmm… If someone can’t get past Bookie alone they would be of no help to awaken my mana heart, so…

“You did?Training in secret, huh? Alright, sure, should Pareth support you with the sanctified ground at least?”

“No! – M- Maybe… If I struggle. Is that fine?”

Pareth gave a gentle pat to Bookie’s skull, and Sofia just nodded with a gentle smile. “We’ll be watching you, then.”

“Pesle watch!” the fairy added, flying up to Sofia’s head and sitting in between her horns.

“Should you not start with a fusion or two while we still have preparation time?” Sofia asked Bookie, who shook his skull in response.

“I trained to make the first fusion very fast!” Bookie bragged, “Don’t need time!”

“Alright, if you say so. Well, I already have my runes up, so really all my preparations are done. We should still have more than twenty minutes… A game of cards?” Sofia asked, bringing out a deck of bone cards.

As only five minutes remained until the start of the first round, a timer appeared near the door/ Slowly, Love’s voice started to become slightly clearer, but the group still had to stay silent if they wanted to understand what was being said.

“Aaaaaannnd it’s already over! The poor beastman died in a single strike! That was it for the last worthwhile imprint match of this first round. Unsurprisingly, all of the top contenders are still in!”

After a long pause, they heard Love again.

“Next up is the first real round, and not the least, it’s what you’ve all been waiting for! That’s right, I don’t think I need to present them anymore, but we are starting the festivities with out twin ruleset duo: Pareth the mute Hero and Saintomancer Sofia!”

“The mute hero,” Sofia repeated, eyeing Pareth, “like it?”

Pareth’s skull wobbled, he seemed to be unconvinced by the title, and after reflexion, pointed with a finger at Sofia’s dagger.

“You like the dagger’s titles better? Some of them are nice, I guess. Would be better if it accepted to update during the trial instead of throwing errors, though. I’m sure we got to have unlocked at least one or two juicy ones already. Oh well, Olympian is hard to beat as long as I have Victory’s crown anyway.”

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Pareth nodded.

“Oh, actually, speaking of your mutism, I’m a bit excited to get through the filter. It’s been improving so maybe this time your restrictions will lift enough to allow you to write?”

“Prett no need speak,” Pestle chimed in, “Pesle very understand Prett already!”

“You think so?” Sofia asked looking up as if she could see Pestle still perched on top of her head.

“I think so too!” Bookie said, “But it would still be nice if brother Pareth could speak…”

“Not even speak,” Sofia said, “I’d just be happy if he could share his feelings and ideas a bit more openly… Ah, looks like it’s about time.”

The timer on the door approached zero. Bone armors enveloped each member the groups as they all stood up. They all looked at Bookie, who seemed to be getting cold feet, shuffling in place.

Sofia gently pushed him toward the door, “After you, my valiant knight.”

Bookie strode toward the door with renewed confidence.

When the timer hit zero, Bookie pushed open the rusty door, allowing sunlight to poor into the room. Walking up a few steps carved in stone, he walked out.

There were small podiums with around a thousand seats surrounding a square arena about fifty meters wide. The arena itself was nothing special, just raw stone slabs, with the different colors of stone drawing the image of some kind of elongated drake flying in a circle in the center. The sun shone brightly overhead, and not much else could be seen from there, except for the top of a few rustic-looking houses and trees beyond the podium.

A few people cheered in the audience as Sofia’s group appeared, but the general mood was actually quite heavy. This was a regroupment of many of the planet’s most powerful people, here for a myriad of different reasons. There was everything, from fairies, demons, gods, recessed, dragons in humanoid form, miniaturized kleptras, liches, oracles, saints, heroes, even a few angels, to Sofia’s friends here and there, some of them looking frankly out of place. The sheer level of power represented in the audience would be enough to make anyone’s head spin, and one thing was certain, they were all here to watch.

Sofia tried to ignore the pressure of all those unknown figures of unfathomable power, and focused on the people she knew. She only briefly had time to wave to her sister and throw a glance at her opponent for the first round, a female elf she had no recollection of, as Love, who was hovering above the middle of the arena, started commenting again.

“Here we are! The bets are off, literally, since you all voted for the same side! And I wouldn’t blame you. Since this is the first round, let me clarify a few rules for our contestants!”

she announced, flying back and turning toward Sofia and the elf. “As you can see, there are quite a few spectators. Feel free to completely ignore them! The arena is just for show, you can move around as much as you want, but fleeing just to flee won’t get you far! When I announce the start of the duel, you will have three seconds to do whatever you want, during which a separation in the middle of the arena will prevent you from interacting or crossing to the other side. After that, no rules! Are both sides ready?!”

“Ready!” Bookie answered first.

On the other side, the elf with greenish-blonde hair and a mithril armor seemed so nervous she was about to throw up.

She must be cursing her rotten luck. I know it’s not a real person… But I still feel a bit sorry.

The elf closed her eyes, and drew a long breath. Grabbing a gnarly wooden wand from her belt, she finally answered. “Ready.”

“Great! Please cheer for these three contestants first round! Sofia and Pareth against Spring Leaf, begin!”

A giant 3 written in system’s usual font appeared in the air in the middle of the arena. The elf Quickly glanced back, seemingly considering flying away, but instead she kneeled, and as her magic spread, green grass and strong trees started growing around her at a tremendous pace, spreading in every direction and only stopping where the barrier at the center of the arena cut it off.

It’s going through the podiums. The spectators are illusory then. Oh! That’s Velania’s armor, too shy to show your face? Hi!

Sofia silently waved in Velania’s direction, completely ignoring the elf, it was Bookie’s job, after all.

Bookie used his three seconds wisely, seeing the elf summoning plants, he immediately fused with the flower mage, green moss starting to grow on his bone armor, then with the war horse and the firebird, becoming a verdant fiery-winged centaur.

The toughness of the war-horse and fire against the plants. Not bad. I should work on getting more single-skeleton pages, he doesn’t have too many options right now.

The fight started and immediately Bookie charged forth, burning a blazing trail through the elf’s plants. Some plants were explosive, and others released poison clouds, so the battlefield was immediately messy. The elf attacked Bookie a few times, avoiding his own plant and fire spells, but seeing that she failed to inflict any damage, she quickly changed strategy and tried to get past him to attack Sofia instead.

The poor elf’s mana was quickly depleted as she attacked one target while avoiding another, and Sofia did not really have to do anything aside from cancelling a few spells aimed her way. Without mana to escape from Bookie, it became a physical battle between the elf mage and a fiery centaur skeleton immune to damage. She did not last long.

“I’m sorry!” Bookie apologized as he crushed the elf’s skull under his hoof.

[ROUND 1/13 - WIN]