Aeldir sprinted toward the stairs, his turn finally arriving. Out of curiosity, I glanced back at a memory from earlier that morning. Before the tournament began, Aeldir had approached the winner of the previous round—a man whose eyes seemed to hold centuries of weariness.
"Can you give me some advice?" Aeldir had asked.
The man replied with a hollow voice, "In life, never chase power, love, or knowledge."
"Then why are you here?" Aeldir pressed.
The man took a deep, exhausted breath that seemed to pull from a depth we couldn't see. "I came to bring an end."
We were momentarily stunned, but Aeldir broke the tension with a slight, nervous laugh. "Apologize me... I wanted advice for the tournament, not for life."
The man blinked, retreating into his own thoughts. "Oh. Sorry. I, too, am driven by emotion. Just believe in yourself." He then disappeared into his room—a cold cell with nothing but a stone bed and a single chest.
In the arena, a purple-blackish spark flickered across the summoning crystal just before Aeldir touched it. He let his raw mana flow into the orb, and the system shrieked. A horde of six Mana-Wild Beasts erupted onto the sands.
Aeldir didn't have a signature spell, so he fought with his mind. He used a sharp Air Burst to scatter the pack, engaging them one by one. His strategy was brilliant, but the beasts were relentless. For every strike he landed, he paid in blood. Claws and teeth tore into his skin, leaving him bleeding and gasping for air.
He realized he couldn't win a war of attrition. He gathered his mana and unleashed a Light Magic flare of such high intensity that the entire Colosseum was momentarily blinded. In the darkness, the sound of mana firing like arrows whistled through the air.
When the light faded, we saw his handiwork: he had used the flash to disorient the beasts, an Air Burst to reposition them, and Mana Bullets to rain down from above while he used Wind Magic to boost his own speed for the final kills.
But he missed one thing. The Alpha of the pack had feigned death.
As Aeldir turned his back, the leader lunged, its Wind Claws carving a deep wound into his spine. Aeldir collapsed but forced himself up. Driven by a sudden, brutal instinct that felt foreign to his soul, he slammed his hands together.
"Barrier!" The Alpha was trapped in a shimmering cage. Without hesitation, Aeldir flooded the interior with Fire Magic. The beast thrashed, burning alive inside the air-tight seal until it dissolved into data for revival. Aeldir had won, not by power, but by dismantling them with his mind.
The rest of our team passed their trials one by one—not easily, but with enough grit to avoid the brink of death. Finally, only Eron was left.
As Eron stepped forward, that same purple-blackish spark danced on the crystal. He unleashed a Mana Wind Clash, a basic spell, but the result was a nightmare: a six-foot Mana Bear from the deadliest forest in the universe.
The beast was a blur of lethal claws. However, the wind seemed to have a mind of its own, pushing Eron back just millimeters before the claws could shred him. He looked different—his reflexes were sharper than we had ever seen.
For twenty minutes, Eron did nothing but dodge. He circled, dipped, and retreated, his eyes locked on the bear's rhythm.
The audience, however, had no patience for his caution.
"Get out of the arena, coward!" a voice screamed from the upper tiers.
"Is this a tournament or a game of tag?" another mocked.
The jeers grew into a deafening roar of frustration. "Stop running and fight! You're wasting our time!" They wanted blood and spectacle; they saw Eron's tactical observation as nothing more than fear.
Eron didn't even blink. He let the insults wash over him, focused only on the slight graze on his cheek where a Wind Claw had finally touched him.
"It's dangerous," Elara whispered, her face pale as she ignored the shouting crowd. "That's a beast from our forest... it shouldn't be here."
Eron had seen enough. He had calculated every strike, every delay, and every breath the beast took. Exhausted but focused, he launched his counter-attack. Using Air Push to shift the bear's weight and simultaneous sword strikes, he lured the beast into a trap.
Suddenly, the "coward" vanished.
Wind Slashes erupted from every direction at once. The bear, which had dominated for twenty minutes while the crowd booed, couldn't stand for even two more. It was dismantled with a precision that bordered on the divine.
The stadium went from a roar of mockery to a dead, suffocating silence. The "runner" they had just insulted had just executed a legendary beast with an efficiency that made their blood run cold.
The first selection part was over.