Congratulations, you have placed 2nd in the 1st event - Survival Domain and you have also reached 1st place in points collected - 441 pts.

You can exchange your points for shards. 1 point = 5 shards.

The reward for placing 2nd overall is 3 thousand shards.

You may, either, receive the shards and choose one of three rewards, or forfeit them to choose from a selection of higher quality rewards.

I close my eyes and lean back in the massive armchair I’ve claimed for myself and moved to the terrace, offering a decent-ish view of the common area and the houses on the grassy hills surrounding it.

So 2nd place it is.

Tsk.

If he hadn’t gotten that goddamn arcane item if he hadn’t absorbed a bit of Lily's [Disintegration]...

And what the heck even is that skill and how long can he store the absorbed skills? I'm pretty sure his skill does something like that after seeing it at work.

So is that asshole storing the tri-colored orbs I shot at him? How much mana does it require to store them? What's the name of the skill? How the heck does he have [Dawn] and the mana stone from Tristan that he gave to Lily?

Did he get chummy with Champion Tristan back on the second floor?

Biscuit! I need emotional support. I'm frustrated!

As if he heard me, the best doggo of all tournament floors comes floating my way to lands in my lap. He also got defeated so he is quiet and just rests on my lap while I boop his nose a few times and then pet him.

“We will get our revenge in the other events,” I whisper to him.

He woofs in agreement and I focus back on the notifications.

Should I try to gain as many shards as possible or try for better rewards? The rewards seem to be personalized so improving them in exchange for a few shards could be well worth it. I can also make shards by selling items in the tournament shop and it's not like a few thousand shards are going to do very much for me.

“Biscuit, shards, or better rewards?”

(Food.) He says cleverly before closing his eyes again, stretching, and continuing to rest.

Cute.

Rewards it is.

You have decided to not receive your shards. Please pick one of the three following rewards:

Epic grade passive skill

Epic grade item

Summon disciple (24h)

Looking at the rewards, the passive and the item, which must at least be mid-grade if not upper grade, to be listed here, but I'm not even thinking of them.

“Give me the last one.”

The window disappears and my slowly souring mood immediately improves. The item is called a disciple summoning, not a minion summoning token but I can live with that.

Grabbing Biscuit and holding him to my chest, I stand up and head towards the living room where the others are. A lively conversation immediately cuts off, leaving me staring down a number of awkward looks.

Are they worried about my mood because I lost… because that asshole cheated and got 1st place?

“I'm fine, like I said, I’ll get that dick in the other events. But more importantly. Tess, get Channeler and see if he can’t find frozen pizza or someone who can cook pizza for us. I'm offering an epic item for that.”

I let the stream of questions pass, already planning.

The 1st day was a free day without an event so now after the second day and first event, 5 full days and 4 events remain. If the events take as much time as 1st, that leaves us with one more free day, probably before the last event to let us rest.

I need to confirm, but if I'm right, that will be the day I introduce my very first minion to group 4.

Flashback Savant - 1st Floor

They fight the small green monsters and I watch as a few of them die, pierced by the primitive weapons.

The wounds caused by their weapons are severe, of the sort that would kill them anyway without access to antibiotics and modern surgery. There are already a few people with high fever and sepsis from earlier attacks.

As they scream and cry, I do not pity them. They left me to die.

It's a reasonable decision, without my prosthesis I can't move as quickly as them and would only slow them down. That much is confirmed even now as three goblins surround me, two grunts and a shaman. All the warriors went after the group.

I watch as a shaman comes closer and even though it’s smaller than me, it smiles in glee, fire flickering in the palm of its hand before forming into a small orb.

It's captivating. I know it's possible thanks to the existence of something called mana, but that doesn't explain much. Is this some kind of technology so advanced that I can only describe it as magic, or is it just a force we don’t understand yet?Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

And why is my group so slow to adapt to its presence?

When the shaman pulls me down by my hair and reaches to push the flame orb into my eye, his guards snicker. The flame is about to touch me and I can feel its heat scorching my skin. I use my skill and absorb it.

Seeing it disappear, the shaman squawks and I move a bit of the mana I got from the system and burrow my middle and index fingers into the shaman's eye as deep as I can. The length of my fingers should be enough to reach the monster's brain, judging from its size.

When the body starts twitching, one of the remaining goblins charges at me. It moves at a speed comparable to other goblins of the same level. It also opens with the same kind of attack, aiming at the middle of my body below the rib cage.

I avoid it and throw my body forward, crashing against the little green monster, both of us falling to the ground. The monster's body feels tougher than I expected and it attacks, biting my neck and scratching at my arms. While it does so, I find the dagger on its belt. It’s still in the same place I saw it before the attack.

As I grab the dagger, I intend to slide the blade in between its ribs and stab it in the heart but change my mind, unsure of the anatomy. Instead, I burrow the dagger into the underside of the monster’s jaw.

The other goblin only seems to have a dagger, so as expected, it moves closer and jumps on my back. They often use their bodies first when they’re enraged by the deaths of their clanmates.

Before the second goblin stabs me, I use my skill and release the flame I absorbed from the shaman, striking the attacking monster in the face.

While it thrashes and screams on the ground, I crawl closer and stab it in the neck a few times with the dagger I stole.

I level up and my skills do as well.

Crawling back to the corpse of the shaman, I take a dagger and burrow it into the monster's leg, cutting, slashing, and tearing through the flesh and tendons until I sever it at the knee.

I invest stat points into mana, then take the severed leg and place it on my stump. The length isn't perfect, but my leg ends somewhere in the middle of the shin, and the shaman's under the knee so it should be comparable to my normal leg.

Then I use my skill and observe as my body absorbs the monster's leg into mine.

It looks awful, a thin green leg connected to my skin, they have smaller feet, with no shoes, or hair. Even as I stand up, it's hard to keep my balance.

But it's better than a stick.

Congratulations, your items have been sold through the tournament shop! You have gained 1120 shards. Ten percent will be taken by the system.

And there it is. Taxes at last, indeed one of life’s certainties.

But even then, the revenue isn't bad. I offered 6 items at an asking price of 150 shards a piece and received closer to 200 for each, that’s what I’d pay for a low tier rare item in the system shop. Did they like my items that much? I’ll have to look into it.

With net profit being around 800 shards, it's not that bad for a few hours, but damn, I miss the ease of looting the Veil Ignition Station.

After crafting five more items, I put them in the shop as well. Two daggers, one small shield, a spear, and a short sword. Each is a rare grade item, but it's hard to say if they’re low or mid grade. All I know is they are ugly as hell and sold by Fuckyouintentbitch. But the effects are nice.

I set the starting prices a bit higher now, 160 for the daggers and shield, and 170 for the spear and sword, and I set the auction’s duration at 3 hours.

Satisfied with that, I stretch, but now that I'm done, an annoying thought about the result of the 1st event comes rushing back. So I try to think about something else for a bit. It's fine, my time will come.

Once outside the facility, I meet Lily in the garden, currently throwing her gray mana at the poor trees.

“Are we fighting the trees?” I ask her.

She doesn’t seem to be amused, “I hate that Savant was able to absorb my skill; it shouldn’t be possible.”

I agree with her. His skill didn't absorb my black mana, but it succeeded with her [Disintegration]. The interesting thing is that the system allowed it even though he put the same [Restriction] on himself as Lily. So his skill must be quite good.

More to think about. I already have plans to properly experiment with the black. My current immortality has given me some amazing opportunities, and after seeing that it really is impossible to die here and that my body and mana will be restored after the event, I can do just that.

“He probably had to use a shitload of mana for his skill to be able to absorb yours. Maybe his skill is just higher level than [Disintegration], or perhaps it has some means of countering yours to some degree,” I tell her.

“Or maybe I’ve just grown overconfident. I kept leveling my other skills and somehow thought [Disintegration] would remain powerful.”

“That’s also an option. But your skill is capable of damaging someone a hundred levels higher, with a high constitution, so it's not just that. But as you said, a bit of leveling won’t hurt.”

“And you? Are you ok?”

[Focus - lvl 48 > Focus - lvl 49]

“It’s okay,” I pinch Lily’s nose. “By the way, I’m going to introduce you to someone important to me in a few days.”

As I say it, Lily seems to start panicking, “Someone important?” she whispers.

“Yes, you’ll like her.”

“H-her?”

“Yup, anyway, I’m going to train on my own for a bit, so later.” Before she can say anything, I teleport to one of my anchors and fly for a while, reaching a clearing in the forest without anyone nearby.

Checking my surroundings once more, I then move my mana to test something I’ve wanted to do since the start of the event.

A pale blue orb forms over my palm, quickly changing its color multiple times until it's pitch black. But unlike the event where I was restricted, I can control the black mana quite comfortably.

I let it seep into my body and use it to power [Focus]. Then, as the world slows around me, I create a bigger one than before, using quite a bit of the mana in my body.

In this state that feels so addictive, I let that black mana permeate me, and this time I feel the pressure. It makes it much more difficult to control as black mana inside of my body reaches a certain amount, but I pay it no mind.

Ignoring the pressure and wounds, I let it all seep in and then use it to power a different skill.

[Mana Domain]

Immediately my domain expands, and then more, and again. The size is unlike any I’ve used before.

Observing it with fascination, I try to understand and learn as much as possible before I lose control. The black mana even inside of my body threatens to slip, and even controlling the mana I used to power my [Focus] has become much more difficult.

Through the domain, I sense the mana of every being within it. It feels like I should be able to do even more, but as I make the attempt, the world blacks out, and I die.

I died…Confused, I look around, still in the same place, though my skills have been deactivated and after checking, a chunk of my mana is missing.

The feeling is extremely disturbing even though I quickly reactivate [Focus], this time powered by normal mana.

It takes a few moments to calm my beating heart as I replay what just happened.

Well, that's a good start. The system didn't let me die, which can only mean one thing.

Let's try it again.

First, to see how black mana reacts with my other skills and then learn how much I can control it. I have a lot of time before the 2nd event starts.