Chapter 133—Starting a Business

Tom once more stood in front of the three doors. The thrill of what they represented was gone. He was in the process of saving up for the divine fruit and so there was no excitement in getting coins. All they did was add to his stash, and it was going to take years before he could use them. Any single fight in the greater scheme of things didn’t matter provided he survived.

He flipped the disk.

It came up heads, so he flipped again and again until the ninth flip revealed it was going to be another live fight. It was an incredible string of coincidences, a one in a thousand occurrence that was happening every third time that he started flipping.

It was best not to think about how unlikely the sequences he was seeing were. The whole thing bent the realms of credibility, but all that mattered was that it worked.

He smiled.

Today, he entered another life and death struggle.

He liked it when it was a real fight if for no other reason, that, when he was destined to lose he almost always ended up getting trounced. Contrasting that when his life was on the line, it was usually an actual proper fight. He knew that fact should have horrified him, but he enjoyed the challenge they represented especially when both fate and precognition were protecting him.

Confidently, he strode through the door and saw that he was going up against what was best described as a virgin MAKROS representative. It had zero kills and incapacitations, and Tom was happy that it would die without killing anyone else.

The arena appeared around him. A flat grassy plain extended for half a kilometre in all directions until you hit the barrier that contained them. There was not a single distinguishing feature even when he searched it for shifts in height or thickness of the blue, purple grass that might indicate pitfalls or weakened ground.

There was nothing.

He moved to the left, then right, and tested the grip he received. The top of the grass brushed against his ankles, which meant while it looked like dense grass cover it wasn’t. It was thin and with each step he could feel the hard dirt underneath it. Tom had no complaints. It felt like a dependable surface which would suit him..

The countdown hit two seconds, and he materialised his special tier three spear and studied the monster that he had been drawn against. This one, unlike the trident with its cute teddy bear features, was clearly a monster. Even though it barely came up to his chest, it was a hulky, horrible looking creature. Scars marred its thick leathery skin, and it had muscles bulging out of everywhere. It was four legged with another four appendages on its back that were kind of like a large elephant ear only armoured and ending in long spikes. It looked like it was designed to kill with its teeth and or by trampling its enemy, but if something got too close to it those ears would flap and Tom suspected by the crackle of energy on their edges that in addition to physical they would also do significant magical damage.

The countdown finished, and he blasted forward. He burnt a burst even as he began to form the lightning javelins, a task that was aided by his soaring attributes as the enemy focused upon him inadvertently bringing itself closer to its death by supplying a welcome speed boost. To Tom’s surprise the increase in speed was not that significant. The enemy was only rank five at most and as a representative of MAKROS, a god that only accepted the strongest, that could only mean one thing.

He went on high alert, looking for the trap.

While intimidating to look at, physically, it was far weaker than it should have been, which meant it possessed another dangerous trick.

Its form wavered as its skin momentarily became fuzzy.

From his vision to his brain, its presence struck like a freight train. It was like a lightning bolt went off in front of his eyes. A blinding dazzle and a deafening thunderclap.

Over half a step, the attack struck him a dozen times.  

It felt as if his head had been caught between the clashing of two cymbals. Giant ones that dwarfed his head. His ears rang, and it felt like his brain had been squashed and then jumped on by an entire herd of pigs and potentially some of it had been eaten.

The pressure was immense, and for a moment, he felt like everything was going to break. Then suddenly it passed, and the pain was only a memory. There wasn’t even a residual headache to worry about. 

The impact on his opponent was far more pronounced.

Its eyes rolled up, and it unceremoniously collapsed.

Tom felt his attributes flee from him but with a burst active he was still fast. He sprinted at it and without hesitation burned another burst when the first one expired. The faster he finished it the better just in case it had an even nastier surprise waiting even if what it had already shown was sufficient to defeat ninety-five percent of the contestants, so it was unlikely to have anything better. Tom still wanted to play it safe. His javelin formed seamlessly, and he immediately launched it.

The projectile created from lightning struck the prone creature and the electricity crackled over it, before sinking into its skin like water on a hungry desert.

A thrill went through him at the same time that disappointment flooded him. This was not a fight it was an execution. Not only did its own reflected mind strike knock it unconscious it was also susceptible to lightning and so could be disabled easily. It was clearly a one trick monster who was easy picking once its main offense the mind strike was countered.

Tom’s sprint finally carried him within range and didn’t hesitate.

His high tiered weapon plunged down, with Power Strike active just in case. He knew it was not necessary as his weapon’s high tier by itself was probably a massive overkill.

His spear tip hit the dead centre of its forehead and penetrated without resistance. It pierced through skull, brain and then deep into the torso. Tom for a moment blinked in disbelief. His weapon was embedded a full meter into the creature despite its armoured skin. Even when he was at his peak with his massive attributes where a punch could shatter rock, that sort of thing had rarely occurred But then he hadn’t been striking monsters with a weapon whose tier was so much more than his opponent’s vitality.

Kicking himself for his momentary inattention, he yanked it backwards and half expected the weapon to get stuck, but it didn’t. He guessed that was another advantage of its high tier. The slight pause didn’t seem to have been a mistake, but he rushed in any case. This was a death match even if his ability had predetermined the outcome. That confidence in the eventual result didn’t mean he could afford to be nonchalant in his actions.

With a burst of energy, precognition mana was released over the creature, and then, while keeping moving he targeted the locations it gathered near. He was hopeful that the effort would eventually develop into some sort of innate spot weakness skill, but as of yet he had not seen any signs of success, imminent or otherwise.

Four times he thrust while his feet shuffled sideways to half circle the creature as he pierced the markers left by his mana. Every blow went at least a foot deep into it and one of the thrusts even skewered not one, but three legs. That was not as wasteful as it might have seemed, as the legs bled more freely than elsewhere. 

The monster sent by MAKROS was leaking dark red blood and was near death, but his watchful eyes caught it when it stirred and blinked dumbly at him.

Instinctively, he lashed out with Spark. The electricity crackled through it, and it spasmed helplessly as he kept thrusting with his weapon.

It died, and a moment later he was back in the common area.

Corrine was next to him.

She was alive, but looked unhappy. She smiled wanly when their eyes met and then, knowing she was safe he searched the room for empty spots or dying victims.

One of the child bracket two participants, who was like an adult sized purple string bean with extra arms was a mass of sap and hanging strips of purple skin. The dog person next to it immediately offered it a potion.

There was the familiar glow signifying automatic acceptance and then the life saving potion was poured over it. Its vegetation, or flesh, or whatever the polite term was, immediately started to pull together.

Mr Cricket appeared next to the hurt person like he had been standing there the entire time. They could all sense the depth and power of the magic he used to examine her.

“Her mind and soul are intact.” Mr Cricket called out eventually and there was a collective sigh of relief. While the potion was expensive, it was another successful day, as there had been no losses. That was their fourth victimless round in a row. It was truly a charmed couple of weeks, but it wouldn’t last. Losses were too regular for the streak to be sustainable.

“I won,” he told his friends.

“I lost.” Corrine said immediately. “Going up a bracket fucking sucks. Everyone is stronger.”

“I won.” Baptiste told them. “But Tom I need one of you coins so I can start earning more than a point per fight.”

“I’m working on it.” He said with a snort.

Mr. Cricket appeared in front of him, making all three of them startle. “Yes, you are. Right this instant, in fact.”

Tom stared doubtfully at the ball of arms. “I don’t need an escort. I wasn’t going to go anywhere.”

“Recent history suggests otherwise. I’ve seen your recent practice trendlines. You’re spending way too much of your time in the real world.”

Tom didn’t respond to the accusation. His obsession with internal mana manipulation was best hidden even if he had progressed to not always blowing up his arm. He doubted anyone would appreciate him being distracted as much as he was. Baby steps, hidden from view was the way forward for now.

“If I may.” Mr. Cricket said.

Tom nodded permission, and a moment later he was in the crafting room. A pile of wooden disks was on one side and an empty space to discard them on the other.

He got to work.

Three hours later, four failed samples were in the reject pile. Two of them completed with slightly too many imperfections and two that had been abandoned barely twenty percent of the way through. Overall, it was a solid practice session.

“Fifth time is the charm.” He joked.

“Focus and you’ll succeed.”

“Doing my best. Sir.”

He focused on transposing the lines from the metal framework into the tiny piece of wood and was soon lost in the flow of it like always. Making precise, microscopic changes to the nature of the wood was fun. The ritual built up and, as he had been taught, he paused at each of the twelve breakpoints to check the quality of the build so far. He thickened the supporting framework because of that test and redid a factual like bit coming out of the ‘communication to the user’ section of the design.

Finally, he finished.

“And how did I go?” he held up the disk that was fundamentally changed but to an external observer looked the same as all the others.

“You’ve still got work to do.” Mr Cricket said.

“No, I don’t. It’s finished.”

“It’s not much use if it’s not charged.”

“Are you serious? You’re not joking are you!” Tom exclaimed in sudden excitement as he processed the hidden meaning of the words. “It passed. It’s sellable.”

“Once it has mana. We’ll see.” Mr. Cricket said neutrally, but it was basically a confirmation.

Excitedly, Tom focused on pushing mana into it. The simple ritual absorbed a surprisingly large amount, and it took him almost thirty minutes to fill it.

“Well done.” Mr Cricket said finally. “I think it’s a good time to talk strategy.”

“I figured I just create as many as possible.”

“That will work,” the multiple arm person said. “But we’ve researched what’s happened previously when one of us had this ability before. The terror species adapt. It takes them a year or two, but they do adapt.”

Tom processed that information. “You want me to wait and not sell until what I have a hundred and twenty-eight of these so we can all use them simultaneously.”

“Four times that to cover all four child brackets. But it’s more than that. We need to make sure that everyone eligible has a disk for every duel for at least twelve months.” Mr Cricket corrected. “If you need coins and have disks to trade, we’ll find people you can sell it to. But we’ll prefer it if you act as the main storage.”

“How long are we talking?”

“We want sufficient stock that all the brackets can use the disks for a full year. At a forty percent win rate we’re looking at effective attrition of a hundred and fifty disks a week. I don’t think you can make that many. So we’ll need a stockpile of the difference.”

“How many?” Tom asked.

“Three to four thousand. On my count that’ll take you about a year to manufacture.”

“But I’ll be out of child one before then.” He pointed out.

“We’re aware. We’ll make sure everyone continuing in the bracket buys the coins from you before you mature out and holds them until we’re already to use them. Once we have a stockpile, we’ll go hard until they bring in a counter. Then you’ll transition to the tier three version and when we have built those reserves, we’ll do another blitz. I’m very excited. This is going to save so many civilisations.”

Tom nodded. The plan made sense. “What happens if I die earlier.”

“If it’s okay with you, we’d prefer that didn’t happen.”

Tom glared at him.

“Joking, joking. We’ll manage that risk by getting you to sell the excess to people who can afford it.” Mr Cricket said finally. “Just to manage the risks, but with your advantages we don’t expect you to fall.”

“Good. I can support that plan.”

A limb was extended out to him. It was ungainly long and ended in a glove that was shaped suspiciously like a human hand. “What’s this?”

“I believe you humans have a custom of shaking hands to seal deals.” Mr cricket told him earnestly.

Reluctantly, Tom shook the offered hand. The fingers under the glove were squishy. It was not pleasant.