And Then There Were Fifty

After all the competitors made it back, all the placement scores for the round were displayed on a big floating magical screen in front of everyone. Sasha and I got first place. Obviously, Jane Tear and Chris Flame got second, and the rest are pretty irrelevant. What I mean is you really don't know about the other competitors yet, they are background characters after all.

Although the twenty-fifth place is kind of funny. The two people are John and Tom Doe. Pfft, talk about average. Right in the middle of the people who passed too. Well, their skills obviously aren't average though, saying that they are doing so well in the competition.

"The next part of this competition is the obstacle course! Competitors will fight to make it to the end of the obstacle course, and be within the first twenty-five to make it to the end! If by any chance you fall victim to traps that would normally put you in danger, like pit falls, you will be teleported to the beginning of the course."

"Also, due to obvious reasons, any spell that makes you fly or something similar is outlawed. That also goes for flying with wings for the races such as Bird-kin and such."

That's a pretty fair rule, but there goes my plan. I was planning to just float over all the obstacles! Whatever, time to win this!

Now, you may be wondering how I'll be able to win without flying, and the answer is simple, we aren't allowed to fly, but jumping is just fine... if I just make myself lighter and jump, then I can travel insane distances without just floating everywhere.

I will have to be careful not to float out of habit though, wouldn't want to get disqualified over something silly like that.

"Excuse me sir, can I possibly hover just a short distance, I can't move without it after all."

Who's that small person? His skin looks almost metallic, but below his waist, his legs are missing. He seems to be a golem who specializes in Magnet magic. He probably floats off of the world's natural magnetic field.

"As long as it is not above half a meter off the ground, it should be fine."

"Thank you sir."

Makes sense, as long as falling into the traps is possible, it's not going to be unfair, but I know someone will get mad in 3, 2, 1...

"That's unfair, what about the rest of us? This guy gets to hover, but the rest of us can't?"

"Since he won't hover more than half a meter, he can still fall into traps, plus the only way he can move is through magic."

"Just get him a wheelchair or something!"

"If we do that, how will he do the obstacle course!"

"I don't care, the point is that if he can fly, so can the rest of us!"

"And I'm saying he's not flying, he's barely off the ground!"

This is getting ridiculous, I'm just gonna have to wait for someone to do something, it's not my place to get involved after all.

"Are none of the rest of you bothered by this, they are limiting our ability to fly, while letting this guy do it because he's disabled!"

"Dude, calm down, he's barely going to be off the ground, it's not a big deal." His partner tries to calm him down, but it's all for naught, this guy is angry and he's not going to change his mind.

Eventually, the argument is settled, well by settled I mean that he agreed to let the other guy hover to move with a little persuasion, aka the guy without legs had rich parents, figure the rest out.

The obstacle race begins, and honestly, the whole first part looks like a Ninja W*rrior course. Jeez, I mean I understand the no-flying rule now, this would be too easy if I could float.

The first obstacle is simple, just jumping from one platform to the other, as the platforms are progressively smaller the further you go. I make myself lighter with Gravity magic and start hopping from one platform to the other.

Sasha transforms into a cat and hops on my shoulder. We make it to the next obstacle which is a tightrope that we need to cross. Sasha doesn't struggle because she's a cat. Seriously, I've seen cats balance on much worse than a rope. On the other hand, I just jump the whole thing with my Gravity magic.

That part wasn't that difficult, but the next obstacle is much harder. It's platform jumps, but there is only enough room for one foot. On top of that there are fences to jump over in between each platform. Even then, the platforms are floating on water on top of that, so they won't even stay still! Why is the difficulty jumping so much!!!

The bobbing of the platforms isn't much of a problem for me because I can make myself barely weigh anything, and Sasha is light enough in her cat form it isn't impossible, but it's still super hard!

Whatever, eventually we get past that part and onto a wide field. I thought it was weird, and Sasha left first.

"I'll go see if there are any traps!"

She just starts waltzing into the field and all seems fine until... *BOOM*

Suddenly she's right next to me. Did she get teleported back to the beginning? I wonder how much the technology they used to do that spent to make? That is actually crazy, how much are they spending on this competition, I guess they make a lot from the admission tickets and broadcasting though.

Well, it's pretty obvious how to get past this. My guess is that the mines go off in one of two ways; one, they sense weight when you step on them, the solution of which being making myself so light I don't trigger them.

However, if they sense movement, then I have another solution. I will go with option two just in case. I don't want to blow up after all, that would suck. Also, they probably aren't weight-based because of the guy who was allowed to hover earlier.

I take out 'Singularity', well only one of them, and absorb a path across the field with it. Now there is a trench leading to the end of the field. I then make 'Singularity' go back into my body.

After all that Sasha and I walk across the trench to the next part of the obstacle course, but only after I release all the dirt and mines stored in 'Singularity' back into the trench I created. Don't want to leave a path for others after all!

On to the next part!!!