Kassorith’s eighth fight was strange, but also rather straightforward. His opponent simply stood in the centre of the arena, unarmed and unmoving. A single powerful spell – or even a well-placed slash of Kassorith’s enhanced claws – would have been enough to win Percy and his host the battle, and the whole tournament with it.

At least in theory.

Unfortunately, the burly man they were facing hadn’t made it this far into the competition by being an idiot. Ice mana – like Micky’s, give or take a couple of grades – continuously gushed out of his pores, blending seamlessly with his domain, along with something else: the influence of his insidious bloodline.

This one was called Absolute Zero.

Percy had been shocked to learn about it, because it reminded him of his family’s bloodline in some ways. Its effect was nothing like Clone, but the way it got passed from parent to child along with the ice affinity was something he’d never encountered elsewhere. Not only did this ensure that most of its inheritors ended up with a composite affinity without the need to consume any rare treasures, but it also granted them a very specialized skillset, making them far stronger than their peers.

The bloodline’s effect was simple enough. It merely lowered the temperature of the man’s surroundings. Still, it was extremely potent once combined with its owner’s mana and expertly wielded domain. The air itself seemed to scream in protest, every breath turning into needles of frost that stabbed the throat.

Kassorith poured some of his lightning mana into the enchanted longswords, aiming them at his opponent. Indigo arcs of electricity danced wildly along the steel surface, causing the intricate network of interlocked symbols to flash rhythmically. The silver blades turned red-hot, and then white, vibrating with barely contained power. Then, they shot toward their target, their sharpened tips crying shrilly as they sliced through the frigid air.

Sadly, the swords never found their mark.

It was as if they had stabbed through a sea of honey, every centimetre they travelled through robbing them of both heat and momentum. By the time they approached the ice user – who was just a few dozen metres away – their colour had returned to normal, the lightning mana exhausted. Worse still, the enchantments had all dimmed and the metal had turned brittle after cooling rapidly, shattering before the blades even hit the ground.

Kassorith scowled upon realizing that his weapons had barely crossed two-thirds of the distance. Perhaps, that could be fixed if they moved closer to their opponent before firing the next barrage, but that wasn’t really an option. Even with his elevated resistance to low temperatures, Kassorith shivered with his back against the wall, a wave of lethargic numbness rippling through his bones every time a new breath of cold air filled his shrivelled lungs. Frost had already begun to creep along the walls of the arena, weaving jagged veins across the battleground like a spreading sickness.

The good news was that the ice user hadn’t bothered to chase them, nor had he wasted even a drop of mana to attack them directly. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to finish the fight a second sooner, but that he likely couldn’t lift his concentration off the channelled ability for even a moment. Evidently, he had no choice but to stay put in the middle of the arena, waiting for his frozen kingdom to do his dirty work. This gave Percy and Kassorith a chance to prepare as many attacks as they wanted, though that didn’t seem to be enough.

The two had naturally considered flying out of the stadium to escape the frozen hellscape, but their opponent hadn’t given them that option. As soon as the announcer had declared the start of the battle, the ice user had activated all the aspects of his strange technique at once, instantly forming a thick dome of ice above the battleground. It had sealed everyone inside, blocking every exit as it plunged the arena in near-darkness, Kassorith’s surroundings barely illuminated by faint ripples of mana softly glittering across the crystalline prison. Obviously, they’d already tried breaking out, but the ice appeared to sap the energy of their attacks the moment they drew near, much like their opponent’s body did.

‘Any ideas?’ Kassorith asked, a trace of urgency in his voice.

‘Working on it. At least, he’s giving us all the time in the world to counter him,’ Percy replied with a mental shrug.

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‘I’m sure he gave his previous opponents plenty of time too, but that didn’t help them much,’ Kassorith fired back.

Percy had no retort, knowing that his host was right. He’d already enchanted Kassorith’s constructs as much as possible, going even farther than he had against the metal user with the blessing. Even after applying his domain and Kassorith’s lightning mana onto the weapons, they’d failed to put a scratch on the man.

Thinking back to his previous battles, Percy couldn’t help but notice a pattern. All of the tournament’s participants were elite disciples who’d earned their status due to their powerful affinities, unique bloodlines, or the skilful application of their domains – no surprise there – but the ones standing at the very top of the competition seemed to have something more going for them. People like the female disciple from the Ancestral Lineage Sect that they’d faced in the semi-finals – or their current opponent – had woven their distinct advantages into a cohesive fighting style, leveraging all of their abilities properly.

‘In some ways, they’re like me, aren’t they?’ Percy realized.

The Carnival of the Savage Gods was arguably his strongest spell, as well as the main reason he could defeat enemies multiple grades higher than his own. Percy’s boosting art represented the perfect union of many of his unique advantages – such as his twin cores, the original version of the Dance that Micky’s people had invented, the Vault’s magiscript, Percy’s reinforced mana, the Moirais’ affinity fusion, the mutated eyes he had snatched from Atlantis, and many other things.

Was this the key to obtaining true strength? Building a solid foundation atop a series of thick pillars? Was this why Phoebe had designed such a flexible Decree, encouraging mages to develop all sorts of independent spells, before eventually merging them into something greater than the sum of its parts?

At first glance, Percy’s Status did very little to directly strengthen his spells – in fact, it wouldn’t have affected them much at all, if not for his glowing eyes drawing from the accumulated information in his page. The base Decree merely acknowledged and registered his efforts, providing him with a framework and with ideas on how he could improve his arsenal. Perhaps, that had been its purpose all along – Phoebe’s way of helping Remior eventually give birth to elite disciples. Or maybe, the Status was currently incomplete, the ancient titaness having yet to fully implement all of its intended features.

Either way, watching the ice user dominate the competition through his powerful technique, Percy was reminded once again of something that he honestly already knew: strength didn’t just come from the advantages one was lucky to be born with, but also by the clever ways in which they used them.

‘That’s great, but it won’t solve our current problem,’ he thought, shaking away the distractions.

Naturally, the best way to counter his opponent’s frigid domain would be with a lot of heat. Unfortunately, Kassorith’s lightning mana didn’t excel at warming things up. Working a few heating enchantments into the unit cells and replacing the longswords with new variants better suited for this battle might help, but Percy would still struggle to match the heat produced by an actual fire – or fire-adjacent – affinity. Not to mention that the ice mage had already overcome several opponents like that in the previous rounds.

‘The answer should still lie within my new trait. It’s served me well until now – I’m sure there’s even more I can do with it.’

It wasn’t just optimism speaking. Percy hadn’t had Scribing nearly as long as Weaving or Insomnia, but he’d already found more applications for it than both of his other traits combined. He didn’t think that was an accident either. Scribing allowed him to capitalize on his existing magiscript knowledge – a skill that he’d painstakingly honed through years of rigorous study. It only made sense that he’d been able to dig up so much buried potential in such a short time.

The only question was how it could be leveraged in this situation.

Pulling some metal mana from his host’s core, he forged a new longsword, this one clean. He enchanted it from scratch, sneaking heat runes into the unit cells. Since their opponent had kindly given them so much time to experiment, Percy would be a fool to turn him down. Even so, he understood that their time wasn’t without its limits. Numbness had already permeated his host’s limbs, making even the slightest move a struggle. If their next attack failed, they wouldn’t get another. Piling onto their problems, engraving the heating enchantments into the constructs would help a lot, but it wouldn’t be enough.

‘A single layer of runes will barely bring our lightning affinity on par with fire. I need to go deeper.’

If there was one thing that Percy had learned during this tournament, it was that there were countless ways for him to apply his enchantments – methods that he hadn’t even considered in the past. This was especially the case with his spectral trait taking care of the logistics, requiring nothing from him other than to breathe meaning into the symbols. And Percy already had an idea on how to take his newest spell a step farther.

Would it work?

He hadn’t a clue, having never tried anything like this before. Despite the uncertainty, he was determined to try. Whether he won or not, he would accept the outcome, having already gained more from this trip than he’d ever thought possible. Even so, there was only one way for him to leave Thess’kala with his chin held high – and it was after doing his best.

‘Come on, then. Let’s see if you can stop me from melting your fancy little dome to the ground…’