CH 6 Just a Stroll in the Arena

"Shoo" "Woosh" "UH-"

In a forested area near the waterfall, a kid with the height of a teenager could be seen punching while making movement that were almost impossible for the human body. There were sounds of air breaking as Jock practiced punching while using Paper Arts.

"Huff" "Woo"

Jock breathed out as he wiped his sweat away from his morning practice. He then frowned. Practice wasn't going well. Although it looked like he had the basic mastery of Paper Arts, it was not even close to being able to use it effectively in high-speed combat. There was a main problem.

'It's hard to figure out a martial art from scratch.' Jock was troubled. After all, he had only seen the martial art a few times, and not even in real life, but in an anime..

'I really need someone to teach me the basics. Maybe Greg or someone on the squad will be kind enough?' Jock pondered.

Jock also worked on Mantra, progressing smoothly, and getting close to White Pebble rank. Although, Jock was a bit confused. It wasn't strengthening his body as much as he thought, the improvement of bodily strength was only obviously apparent at the start. Not to mention, cultivating in the waterfall is becoming ineffective.

'I need to get some weights to train my strength with.' Jock certainly wanted to take advantage of his seemingly inexhaustible self-healing prowess, maximizing his strength gain.

'Another problem is with this stupid Mantra infusion.' Jock scowled. He wasn't having any 'luck' with using the Mantra coating/infusion smoothly to boost his strength and speed.

'I need to fight.' Jock decided. These problems can be helped when tempered on a higher stage. It's kind of do-or-die to train faster. Although Jock isn't sure that would work, he doesn't have many better ideas. Well, there is one better one.

Fight dojos. Why not? I could get life and death tempering by offending a young-master type character anyway right?

Jock felt like he had the solution, fighting was the way. That being said, he was going to go about this smartly. As in, why not fight in an arena for money? There had to be a legit or underground one somewhere in town. As for how to find it, who knows! There may or may not be one, but Jock figured there's a pretty strong chance of their being one due to the mysterious mine.

Jock cleaned his ragged clothes with the water nearby and put them back on.

'Maybe I should get new clothes while I'm at it too.' With that thought, Jock made his way towards the marketplace, eager to find an underground arena.

It didn't take long for Jock to realize that there is no 'underground arena' taking away a mysterious element. There was an arena that is publicly available for registration through, so Jock wasn't complaining. Not to mention, fighting rates weren't bad. It was 80 copper coins +. That's some big money right there. That is only regular fighting. There were deathmatch options as well.

As Jock approached the roman-like colosseum, he could see the joy on everyone's faces as the hurried to see the latest deathmatch in the arena. It was an orc against an elf. Quite a rare match up, but very hype due to the history between both races.

As Jock entered the colosseum he expected to be charged to sit in the crowd, but apparently entering and watching this match was free. Jock was pleasantly surprised, until he noticed all the people going around the seats selling different foods and drinks. Jock finally realized why he wasn't charged for entrance, they wanted to milk people's wallet through food!

Jock felt like he had underestimated this world way too much, as this practice was quite sophisticated, and almost felt like a free-to-play game introducing heavily pay-win mechanics. In the end, they will earn more money from the masses this way, compared to a subscription fee or a one-time fee for purchasing the game.

Jock focused on the fight. It was a girl-elf against a huge male orc with a club. Figures, no wonder why there were so many men in this arena, is this live porn? Shortly though, Jock learned that wasn't the case. The fight was extremely brutal.

The elf immediately summoned a huge wind blade to launch at the orc once the fight started. The orc, at a speed faster than one would expect from its size, avoided the wind blade, and smashed the ground. The ground rumbled, as earth spikes shot out from the ground aiming straight for the elf.

The elf coated herself with Mantra, avoiding the earth spikes, and quickly approaching the orc for melee combat.

The orc wasn't cocky or confident despite being higher in stature and strength than the elf and took a defensive posture as she attacked him with a blade formed of wind. Their collision caused the ground to shake, and the earth to crack. Jock was surprised at the power of the blow launched by the elf.

As the elf and orc exchanged moves, Jock was surprised. Is this the use of Mantra? The wind blade that the elf launched at the orc and used as a range attack. The orc's use of shooting earth pillars out of the ground, and his 'defensive' walls. Jock watched with interest as the orc used 'defensive walls' at strange angles to limit the movement of the elf. Clearly, she was avoiding touching the earth walls for an unknown reason.

Jock could only speculate that the orc had a way to further use the walls if she touched them. In the end, even after they went back and forth, there was no winner. Jock was not surprised either. It was a show match after all. Apparently the orc and the elf even knew each other quite well Jock heard from the nearby audience.

After seeing this fight though, Jock's blood was pumping. He also wanted to experience a trial-by-fire. It sounded wonderful. With this thought in mind Jock went to go sign up.