Chapter 3 : New Friends

After reforming, and opening my eyes the first thing I heard was someone say,

"Hey, stop and give me back my sword!" I walked over to where I heard the yell come from and saw someone get shoved back by a big kid.

"Give me a good reason," the big kid taunted. I reached them and grabbed his wrist.

"H-hey, what are you doing twerp?"

"Hand him his sword back or else," I threatened. He took a moment to release the sword and give it to the kid.

"Next round I will take care of you because it's a battle royal and the top two get to go to the big city," he said as he walked away.

"Hey, you good?" I asked the kid.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for that," he replied.

"My name is Ax-Shadowflash," I stuttered.

"Mine is Tempest," he said.

"Cool, so are you a water path or what?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm a water path. Why did you do that? Why put yourself in danger for me?" he questioned me.

"I'm bullied at school so I just feel the need to stand up for others," I told him. I could feel me and him becoming friends.

"So do you want to make a truce this battle? But I just gotta warn you, i'm a bit of a coward" he asked me. I felt too happy to speak so I just nodded.

"Listen up," the announcer said. "This is a battle royal and there are only around fifteen players left. The same rules apply: you are allowed to team up and that's it."

We all teleported again and everyone appeared on the same field. Tempest and I were next to each other and that big kid was across from us. This time a buzzer went singling we could go. Tempest and I attacked the players next to us and killed them both while all the other players were fighting each other.

I hadn't used my path this entire time. I glanced at Tempest and he was just destroying the player he was fighting. While this was going on, the big kid started to walk towards me swinging his sword and occasionally stabbing a player.

As he approached, I yelled out."Would you mind telling me who has the right to kill me?"

"My name is Sunburn and I'm level eight. So you have no chance, assuming you're a low level player who got lucky, just like that low level player named Tempest. He's only a level four," Sunburn laughed. Tempest was only a level four. Well, that was not very surprising.

"Well, shall you try to kill me?" I spoke with confidence I didn't have.

"But first I will finish off that friend that you have," he said with an evil grin. Sunburn launched a path attack but Tempest dodged and spoke."I surrender."

I watched in shock as he backed away from the fight. Turning away and seeing Sunburn run at me with literal flames in his eyes, I sidestepped and took a swipe at him with my sword but he rolled under and kicked me. As I stood up I began to use my path. I did the weird hand gesture and a ball of matter popped into existence which I tossed at Sunburn. He rolled under it and kept charging. The orb hit a tree.

Damn, he was fast. I was not sure I could win. Sunburn rushed aggressively at me and with speed I didn't know I had, I rolled and stuck my hand out to touch him. As my hand made contact with him, the ball of darkness that was in my hand was absorbed into his body. His sword struck at me and landed on my chest, throwing my backwards and almost taking my life. Shortly after that his body exploded into dust. The battle was over. I was teleported back to the plaza and saw Tempest with his jaw open to the max.

"H-how did you beat him? He was level eight!" His voice was laced with awe.

"I'm level six so it's not that big a difference," I said.

"Excuse me. You two are the last alive here so you will be transported to the big city in around two minutes," the announcer said, interrupting our conversation.

"Did you know that if you surrendered and I killed Sunburn that we would be the ones going to the big city?" I asked him after the announcer left.

"Well, no, I did. But I had faith in you that you could kill him," he said the second before we teleported.

When I opened my eyes I noticed that we were in a common room and surrounded by people drinking. And before i could ask him what he meant a man spoke.

"Well look it's that batch from that town to the west of here, took them long enough to get here," a random person appeared and then introduced himself.

"My name is Dave; I will be your personal guide in this city."

"Is there anything we should know about this battle?" I questioned.

"Yes, the maximum level has been increased to level twenty and the minimum level is ten," he responded.

"Oh crap, we need to level up and fast because the start is tomorrow at noon again," Tempest stated.

"Do you know where any good leveling areas are?" I asked our new guide.

"Yes I do. In fact there is a low level dungeon in the forest," Dave stated. After that long walk to the dungeon.

I had ten stat points to spend from the kills that I got. I would be versing level fifteens and above or below so I should have been spending them on speed.

/ NAME: Axel Olson

GENDER: Male

PATH: Darkness

POWER: 10

STRENGTH: 10

SPEED: 20

ENDURANCE: 10

MAGE: 10

STAMINA: 100

MANA: 125

HEALTH: 110

LEVEL: 8 /

I felt the change. I felt faster.

"I just finished spending my stats from the tournament," Tempest stated.

"I think we are ready for this dungeon," I said with confidence. We faced all sorts of monsters some from reality like boars and other totally fictitious. By the end of our little raid I had leveled up ten times and Tempest had leveled up eleven times. I pulled up my stat screen once more.

I decided to use half of my stat points on speed and the other half on strength.

/ NAME: Axel Olson

GENDER: Male

PATH: Darkness

POWER: 10

STRENGTH: 25

SPEED: 35

ENDURANCE: 10

MAGE: 10

STAMINA: 100

MANA: 125

HEALTH: 140

LEVEL: 18 /

Looked good. Right as we were about to exit the dungeon a shriek that caused the walls to shake broke the silence.