Yin and Teran had to hold Kel back as he watched Micro timidly accepting Thea’s attacks without showing any resistance at all. When Micro finally brought himself to throw a few punches back, it was clear to Kel and everyone watching that his heart wasn’t in them, as if he was scared they might actually injure the powerful archer before him. But Thea had no such reservations as she consistently increased the power of her attacks until she was ready to finish the fight with the most powerful arrow she could summon.

  “Master!” Kel cried out as Micro knelt motionless at the edge of the arena. However, to the surprise of Kel and everyone else in the arena, except for a single Imperial Guard who watched quietly from the corner, roots of energy began to pour out of Micro into the ground, penetrating deep into the earth below as Thea prepared to fire her last arrow. The subsequent surge of energy was followed by a strange attack that swept Thea’s powerful energy arrow away like a wisp of smoke. Thea didn’t even have time to react as the energy began to manifest all around her, entrapping her completely while a collective gasp filled the stadium.

  “The Shell Prison Technique?!” Kel shouted in surprise as he broke free from Yin and Teran, both of whom were also dumbfounded by the scene unfolding on the stage. “But why is it so… square…?”

  “That’s a technique not even the elders of your sect use frequently,” Yin remarked. “The energy required makes it impractical in a regulated duel, but Micro…”

  Micro, who hadn’t put up a fight for the duration of the battle and was only a moment away from a quick death, had suddenly drawn enough energy out of the ground to create solid walls of his own aura around Thea before she had time to escape.

  “What are those roots?!” Teran shouted as she took a step back. “I’ve never seen something like that come out of masters of the Turtle Art, and the Mountain Art is nothing like that! What are they teaching kids at your sect these days?!”

  Kel had no answer to give as the walls around Thea continued to strengthen and the sounds of her struggle grew quieter. Micro slowly rose to his feet, his eyes still closed, and placed one hand against the box he’d created. At that point, Kel used his Appraisal Skill to try and understand the situation. He looked with glowing blue eyes at Micro’s oddly shaped core, and the names of the Core Cards he’d mastered began to flow into his mind.

  “What…?” Kel muttered.

  “What is it?” Teran asked. “What do you see?!”

  “Six…?” Kel mumbled.

  “Six what?” Yin asked, his own eyes glowing intensely beneath his hood as he tried to understand what Kel saw.

  “No, Seven…” Kel continued. “Seven Core Cards? He’s mastered so many Core Cards since last night?!”

  “Impossible!” Teran scoffed, though her doubt wasn’t absolute. She turned to Yin with a frown. “That’s impossible, right?”

  “Kel is likely speaking the truth,” Yin whispered back.

  Everyone was tense as Micro stood still with his hand against the box, increasing its strength beyond anybody’s ability to believe or understand.

  “The Mycelial Art?” Kel mumbled. “How…”

  “Isn’t that a lost art?” Yin asked. “The last sect to practice that art was lost to history generations ago, so how and why would he have it?”

  “Why?” Kel repeated, but then he shook his head and smiled with tired eyes at Yin. “Don’t bother being surprised by him, Yin. It never stops…”

  “I see…” Yin replied, turning his attention back to Micro.

  Micro suddenly looked over to Kel and smiled before turning his attention back to the strange box in front of him.

  “Okay, here…” Micro said as he began to push against the box. However, as it began to slide across the stone surface of the arena, he realized he couldn’t lift his feet off the ground without losing his connection to the energy he was using to manifest the box. Even lifting one foot slightly off the ground for a moment resulted in several cracks appearing on the surface of the ethereal prison in which Thea continued to struggle.

  “You little—” Thea’s muffled voice broke through the prison of energy for a moment, but it was difficult to understand most of what she was shouting.

  “Hmm…” Micro withdrew his hands as he thought for a moment, stabilizing the flow of energy from the ground to his core, and from his core to the box. He tapped his chin repeatedly while considering the options at his disposal. “The hammer wouldn’t work… Spirit taste won’t help… Putting a person in storage might be dangerous…”

  The crowd began to whisper about the surreal situation on the stage, where a novice representative from a famously weak sect had just trapped the heir of a rival sect in a large box using a technique unknown to anybody without the Appraisal Skill. But even those who learned the name of the art he used to draw energy from the ground with endlessly expanding roots were left confused by the simple fact that he possessed that art at all.

  “Ah, that might work!” Micro clapped his hands once, then bent his knees slightly and held his hands in front of him. While maintaining a steady flow of energy to the box he created, he began to gather energy in his hands. At first his hands started to glow, then small sparks of energy flickered around them. He took a deep breath, and the sparks gathered into a single ball of fiercely burning light.

  “You’re kidding me…” Teran mumbled, adding to the shocked and confused noise of the audience.

  “Everybody, shield yourselves!” Lena’s voice suddenly called out from somewhere in the stands, her voice amplified by her powerful aura. “Now!”

  Unwilling to risk ignoring the sudden command, the contestants and most of the audience began to coat themselves in defensive auras, some of them using skills to do so. Kel stood in front of Teran and summoned a large aura shield, still unable to coat himself fully in ethereal armour, and braced himself just in time.

  BOOM

  A deafening, low pitched hum resonated through the stands, as energy from Micro’s attack exploded in every direction. The mundane workers could only take cover while the cultivators endured the attack with their defensive skills. Few people could see anything at first while trying not to be pushed back by the initial blast, but the energy gradually began to flow in one direction. Kel looked through the holes that had formed in his aura shield and saw Micro struggling to aim the destructive beam originating from his hands at the very box he had created.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Why is he trying to break it like that…?” Teran asked from behind Kel.

  “Not break,” Kel thought aloud as he looked closely at the box which had begun to move. “Push!”

  Micro continued to fire the wave of energy that hummed like a jet engine at the box in front of him, adjusting its angle to ensure the box wouldn’t move too quickly or too slowly. The power of the energy beam varied at first, but in time it became a steady source of power that gently nudged the box closer and closer to the edge of the stone platform. He could feel Thea doing her best to free herself from the box, and smiled with knowledge that she was still safe and increasingly energetic.

  The crowd relaxed its defensive measures as they began to trust that Micro’s attack wouldn’t cause any more collateral damage, but nobody was relaxed enough to cheer as the box eventually toppled over the side of the stage with a soft thud. Micro finally lifted his feet from the ground, allowing the roots he’d manifested to dissolve into the energy of the earth beneath him, and walked briskly to the edge of the arena where he could look down at the ground where his box now lay.

  “That might even be safer than my original cab,” he said with a smile, realizing the shape of the box was not very different from the cab of an ordinary truck. “No seatbelt though. I’ll have to think about that…”

  “What the…” As the constant flow of energy through his mycelial roots had disappeared, the box disintegrated quickly, revealing an intensely flustered Thea. She growled as blood dripped from her hands, having failed to claw her way out of the prison. “What just happened?!”

  “Sorry about that last bump!” Micro called down to her. “Are you okay?”

  “I thought you were going to fight me with everything you had,” Thea hissed. “What do you take me for?!”

  “Sorry,” Micro said, but he wore a satisfied grin on his face. “Kel made it look easy, but actually trying to punch you made my soul hurt.”

  “Your what…?” Thea asked with a blank expression.

  “Hitting a young person as nice as you,” Micro continued, bringing his hand to his chest. “It’s just not something a truck does. You didn’t even wander into traffic or anything like that brat on his phone! A polite young woman like you just—”

  “Are you flirting with me right now?!” Thea gasped in horror. “Do you have any sense of—”

  “Flirting with you?” Micro repeated while laughing. “I’m just glad I was able to deliver you safely to your destination.”

  “So I wasn’t even worth fighting…” Thea mumbled, looking into his eyes as shame overcame her. “I thought—”

  “Trucks aren’t for fighting, Thea. They’re for getting you from one place to another,” Micro stated confidently. “I’m glad you’re having fun, but I guess I’m too old to start knocking kids around like it’s nothing. How could I face the old man after picking up a hobby like that?”

  “You…” Thea’s anger waned as the confused whispers of the audience began to quiet down and spectators leaned in to try and hear what they were saying. Even those in the highest rows at the back were desperate to catch their conversation. “We’ll discuss this later.”

  “You’re okay, right?” Micro called out as she walked away.

  “I’m…” Thea mumbled as she looked around at the silent audience, back to the stunned contestants, and then back up at Micro who gave her a concerned look. “I’m fine.”

  “Are we friends now, by the way?” Micro asked, his smile dampening slightly as he braced himself for her answer.

  “What?” Thea replied after a long pause, still unsure what to think of her current situation.

  “We fought, so we’re friends now,” Micro repeated. “Right?”

  “You just—” Thea stammered, but she shook her head and shrugged as she began walking back to the other contestants. Without looking back, she mumbled under her breath. “Yes, Micro. I think we are…”

  ~

  “Micro…?” The announcer eventually remember to speak, his muffled voice still amplified by some sort of skill. “Micro, alleged representative of the Fire Mountain Turtle Sect, seems to be the winner…?”

  There were some cheers here and there among cultivators who had turned a profit on the match, and Micro noticed Tohan among them, laughing loud enough to drown out most of the audience around him. But suspicious glares were the most common expression on the faces of each audience member.

  “The stage will be repaired now,” the announcer continued after several other officials whispered something in his ear. “It will take a while this time. We’ll continue when the sun has set. thank you…”

  Micro waved to the announcer to acknowledge his news, and the announcer bowed awkwardly before stepping away to discuss the event with a few unfamiliar faces. The arena became a busy place again as people stood up to leave and mundane workers got back to work repairing the damaged stone platform. Micro realized for the first time that his roots had loosened the ground beneath the stage to such an extent that they had started to sink unevenly into the ground, and his Spirit Wave attack had made the bumpy stone surface of the stage look more like gravel.

  “Sorry about that…” Micro said to a worker who passed by him while carrying a large stone on his back. He was less surprised this time when the strong but ragged looking man suddenly dropped the stone, startled by Micro’s apology. Micro managed to catch the stone, and returned it to the worker’s back before the worker could respond.

  “No, you shouldn’t feel, I mean…” The man struggled to reply, but his frightened expression was alleviated when he looked up at Micro’s face, then leaned in closer to look into his eyes. “Oh, worry not. Everything is going according to plan. There will be no delays.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” Micro replied happily, encouraged by the worker’s sudden expression of enthusiasm for his task. “I look forward to seeing the results!”

  “As we all do, as is her will,” the man said quietly as he joined the other workers.

  With a fresh sense of optimism after his first victory, and feeling relieved to have officially made a friend, Micro strolled happily back to where Kel had been waiting in silence. Thea had disappeared into the recovery room to have her hands bandaged, but Kel, Teran, Yin, and the young Ki were all waiting patiently for his return, their eyes full of questions and fear.

  “Your advice helped!” Micro sad as he greeted Kel with a wave. “Thanks, Kel!”

  “Master…” Kel replied softly.

  “Yes?” Micro asked, still smiling brightly.

  “What just happened?” Kel asked in return, his eyebrows furrowed.

  “I just realized how jealous the old man would be!” Micro laughed. “He always wanted to go to the Colosseum, but his wife wanted to go somewhere else. Here I am fighting in one just like it! It may be smaller though… It’s hard to tell how big the real thing was just by looking at a poster in the window of a travel agency…”

  “A colo-what?” Kel asked, increasingly baffled by Micro’s words. “What language are you speaking right now, master?”

  “I’d also like to know what that was,” Lena suddenly chimed in. “I thought I told you not to draw unnecessary attention. And if you get yourself killed before bringing me to master Kang, I’ll ask a necromancer to summon you back so I can kill you again. I do know where to find one.”

  “I just did what everybody told me to do,” Micro replied, laughing nervously at Lena’s claims.

  “You were told not to make a scene,” Lena said harshly. “These whiny little children with fresh cores of jade may be too weak to take seriously, but show some restraint while you’re pushing them around.”

  “But the advice everybody gave me…” Micro said, confused by the misunderstanding.

  “And what was that advice, exactly?” Teran asked, her voice having grown smaller since Lena’s arrival.

  “I just did what felt natural,” Micro answered plainly.

  “What part of that was natural?!” Teran half screamed, pointing at the dilapidated arena platform.

  “I did the only thing I was ever really meant to do,” Micro explained, his eyes glowing with nostalgia. “I carried a passenger and their things safely to their destination.”