And so, we arrived on the opening day of the adventuring tournament.

We once again had a nice private booth for us, and this time it was just for us seven. This one was a gift and I didn’t pay for it, and it was one of the nicest on the entire stadium. Basically on the level they keep for Royal families or Dukes if they want to show up.

HomeBase actually had a second one, one I leased for the tournament. I got it before we heard we’d get a free one, so I left that one for HomeBase employees to use.

And yes, the employees can get here. I feel like I mentioned it already, but I also rented a manor in the city, so that my employees who are responsible for filming stuff can stay in the city. And that building has a teleporter that can take approved users to HomeBase. And naturally HomeBase has one that can bring them back.

Eventually the tournament began with an announcer welcoming everyone. He then asked Unika to the field, to which she responded by standing up in our box and casually walking through the air to get to the arena.

Following that, it was my turn. And since Unika already did the entire flying thing, I just teleported to the arena. But I did add some flare with Prism-Ice Magic and Lightwave Magic. Just a nice lightshow.

We weren’t wearing any special armor, nor did we have weapons on hand. That is because of our plan. And if we did use something, we’d probably have to limit ourselves due to the tournament rules.

Then again, they kind of left this up to Unika, so it would probably be fine even if we didn’t.

On the arena, Unika and I faced each other. But before we began, Unika sent a quick message to Cailie, asking for her help to make her voice carry throughout the stadium. Cailie is a wind spirit, specifically one that specializes in voice related skills, so that was simple for her.

With that in place, Unika told everyone that a new skill was about to be released, and we would show what that skill can do. And with that, we were ready to go.

I began by coating my body with mana, forming a centaur body over my lower half. Meanwhile Unika grew herself a pair of wings, lengthened her arms and formed aggressive claws onto her new lengthened arms.

I took off first, galloping around the arena. While doing so, I coated my fingers and turned them into small squid tentacles, using them to fire off shots of ink with Ink Making.

Unika defended herself with her Manamorphic wing. She can’t actually fly with it, as it is quite challenging to use Winged Flight with a Manamorphic Body wing, but using it for defense was just fine.

Oh, and I was using Ink Making instead of something like Poison Making because this was just a show match. No need to shoot potentially lethal poison when just ink will do.

As soon as my ink shots ended, Unika moved. With her lengthened forearms, she got onto all fours and dashed after me, with the air flickering behind her. A clear sign she was using Flickering Step. Not that she really needs to. Unika has more Strength than I do, so she would catch up to me even without it. But Flickering Step made it faster.

While doing so, Unika exchanged her wings for extra limbs, ones based on the spider leg looking arms Spider-kin have. So while running next to me, she used those to try and stab me.

I defended myself by forming Hardened Silver Scales with Manamorphic Body. They are a combination of Hardened Scales and Silver Hide. While doing so, I also prepared for my next transformation.

Unika flickered to in front of me, raising her claws, ready to attack. Naturally I knew this was coming, so my centaur form had already disappeared, my lower body instead taking on the snake-like appearance of a Lamia. With it, I quickly slithered through Unika’s claws and wrapped my Manamorphed body around her.

Unika responded to this by Manamorphing her body, enlarging it enough that she could use Flickering Step to get out of my bindings. In doing so, she left behind her larger Manamorphed form, which burst in my coils.

It was one of the techniques Unika figured out for this fight. If you discard a body part of body covering made with Manamorphic Body, you can have it burst in a small explosion. It isn’t all that bad, but it is a match to low leveled spells.

Naturally my Manamorphic Body tail took the damage for me, and I let it dissipate.

Unika and I both took a breather since we had taken some distance. We also let the audience take in what had just happened.

We move fast. Extremely fast. Even holding back like we are, those at level 30 or below would have a difficult time following our movements with their eyes.

Maybe because of that, or maybe because they forgot how to breathe, it took a few seconds for the audience to start going crazy.

We let them, as we prepared to show one more thing with Manamorphic Body.

That something was giant mode. … what? You didn’t know that you could make a giant mana body with Manamorphic Body? Well of course you can. Sure it isn’t the easiest, but it is fun. Not that it is combat effective, unless you are holding down a large beast.

So while I made a supersized humanoid Manamorphic Body, Unika made hers to look like Stella. Well, Stella isn’t all that large for an SS-rank, so it was more like a supersized Stella.

She then charged at me and I caught her form, showcasing how this skill could be used to hold down big monsters. If you had the stats to back it up.

And despite my higher skill with the skill, Unika still overpowered me, so I quickly made two more arms, forming claws on one of them before using Rending Claws and rending Unika’s Manamorphic Body. While I did so, Unika bit the head off of my Manamorphic Body, so we both let our mana bodies dissipate, while we slowed our fall to the ground.

This was what we planned for. A good showcase of Manamorphic Body. But that does mean that we are now free to use our secret techniques. Not that we both don’t have an idea of what is coming, since Unika did sweettalk Fantasia into revealing my strategy.

So while the audience was taking in our last showcase of Manamorphic Body, we both began to prepare. Unika did so by detaching all but one of her tails, while I summoned Varuna and Pele from HomeBase.

You may realize what I’m about to do, so I’ll tell you what Unika is doing first. The tails she detached from her body, by using Solar Flare Fox, were all turning into small suns. Each warmed up the area we were in, but more importantly, they supercharged Unika’s Healing of the Sun skill. Because of the nine suns, eight artificial and the actual Sun, Unika was recovering mana much faster than her technique was consuming, while also having all of those suns to use with her Sunshine Light Magic and Solar Flare Fire Magic.

“Stellar System!” Unika called out the name of her technique. She then taunted me. “Go on! Do your double Synchro Union! I can match it!”

“Maybe.” I admitted. “If I couldn’t take it one step further.” I told her.

Truthfully, that was my original secret technique. A simultaneous synchro union with Varuna and Pele. Doing it is quite something, but after a ton of training under Varuna’s crushing Soul, I could manage it. The Reinforcement of the Soul skill also helped a ton, as does using the Body of the Soul race.

But as said, I was going one step further. Or is this two? Probably two.

“Thalassa! Ninatia! Double Spirit Synchro!” I called out to the two spirits I summoned while Unika finalized her technique. The spirits had remained hidden behind Pele and Varuna, as I wanted this part to be a surprise to Unika.

It wasn’t too difficult to get Ninatia to go along with this idea. She likes the passion. But Thalassa… It took me a while, but eventually, thanks to Varuna, I got her to agree.

As the two synchronized with me, we all began to match a song I was playing with my soul. It was the way I managed to make this possible.

As I’ve said, in a spirit synchro, the spirit must match my soul wavelength as well as they can. And the better we resonate, the better the results. And when multiple spirits do so at the same time, they also need to match each other.

So I used Soul Magic to modify my soul wavelength to be that of a song. And the spirits joined my song, as if I was the lead pianist of a band, and now my guitarist and bassist were joining in.

It didn’t feel overwhelming at all. Nothing like doing a double Synchro Union with Pele and Varuna, but then again, it really shouldn’t. As that was coming next.

“Varuna, Pele. Let’s do this.” I told the two souls, and immediately after, their bodies crashed into me.

Pele’s blazing form engulfed my legs, surrounding them in the burning magma she was made of, once again surrounding my legs with a Lamia tail.

Varuna surrounded my top half. The water he was made out of formed two massive water arms that surrounded mine, extending way beyond my normal reach.

And with that, our Soul and Spirit band was complete. And it didn’t feel that bad. Yes the force was trying to crush me, but as long as we all stayed on the same song, we could do this.

“So, what do you think?” I asked Unika, my voice being a mix of mine, Thalassa and Varuna’s. They were a part of the top half, so their voices carried with mine.

“... How long can you hold up?” Unika asked. “Because I can do this all day.”

“I don’t need all day to punch you out.” I said, and then we moved.

Despite our much larger body, I was much faster than I could ever be without all of this. After all, I had the power of two Souls in my body, as well as two superior spirits boosting it even further.

So for anyone who wasn’t one of us seven, what I did next likely seemed like teleportation, but they could see the fact that I slithered over to Unika by the trail of molten earth I left in my wake.

I used my massive watery fists. They grabbed two artificial suns each, while my tail swiped up another three. The suns in my water firsts began to boil the water, but with Thalassa producing more water, Varuna could just let it steam away from us, while the suns slowly died out. Meanwhile the three in my tail were consumed and accumulated into the superheated rock my tail was made of.

I turned back to face Unika, just in time to see her also spinning around. I saw that her eyes followed me during my charge, but she clearly didn’t expect the speed. And she also didn’t expect that I’d just snuff out or consume her suns.

“... Well, that’s barely even fair.” Unika complained.

“Then surrender.” I told her.

“I will.” She agreed. “After I try out one little spell. Can you set up a barrier?”

“To protect the audience?” I confirmed.

“Yes, please.”

I did as Unika asked, using both Space and Time Magics to set up a near impenetrable barrier around us. I then let Unika cast her spell, prepared to take all the damage to the face.

“Blazing Solar Flare!” Unika finished her spell, blowing up her last sun and sending all of the heat from it at me. But honestly speaking, I didn’t care.

The heat from it was intense, enough where it would burn most people. At least anyone who didn’t have Fire Resistance.

But I not only had it, I also had both a Spirit of Flame and Soul of the Mantle Synchrod with me, so I barely felt the heat. Some of our water did evaporate, but Thalassa easily produced more.

And the water did more than just absorb the heat. It also scattered the light, making sure I didn’t take a direct hit from the Light part of that spell. So with all of my defenses, I only took about 500 points of damage from the attack. Damage that I quickly healed.

After seeing the nothing her spell did, Unika surrendered. I undid my synchros and sent the spirits and souls back home.

We then got the System screen that announced the new skill added to the System, Manamorphic Body.