(14 Days Later)
It's been fourteen days since Alex started his training, and as planned, he trained his Mana sense and Mana step skills and took an Elemental Cure bath before leaving for the nearby arena to battle for his remaining time of the day.
After returning from the arena, Alex would take a ninety minutes Medicinal Bath similar to the Elemental Cure to recover his body and repeat the same cycle the following day.
Alex had also completed his promise and joined the StormBearer faction despite receiving incredible offers from other Thunder Knight factions.
In the first four days, Alex made great progress as his Mana Sense mastery progressed to the Advance stage while his Mana step mastery progressed to the perfection stage.
After attaining these results, Alex gained the confidence that he would reach his set goal a lot quicker than he first thought, and after ten days of gruesome training, he was at the cusp of learning his new skill.
Alex stood calmly with his eyes closed as tens of tiny blood arrows approached him from his left and right at a lightning-fast pace, and an instant later, the arrows passed right through his body, leaving it with countless holes.
"I finally did It," Alex said out loud as he appeared out of thin air just a few feet in front of his previous location.
[System Notification]
[Phantom Walk] (Learned)
Alex stood with a smile as he heard the system notification he had been waiting to hear for the last fourteen days, and turning around, he saw the mirage of himself vanishing into thin air.
The Phantom Walk was a very challenging skill to learn because it required Alex to use his mana to bend the lights around his body so precisely that when he moved, he would vanish like a ghost for an instant while leaving behind a perfect mirage at his location.
'Let's try it once more.' Alex thought and stepped forward, vanishing and appearing a few feet in the distance.
'I need more practice.' Alex thought, seeing no mirage behind him, just some distorted air with twisted colors.
Alex had grasped the technique to become invisible and vanish like a ghost, but this was the first time he had created a perfect mirage and executed the skill without any error.
"You have grasped the basics, and now all you need to do is refine and perfect them, so let's get back to training, as we still have seven hours left for today." Elder Darrien said with a rare smile.
Alex walked back to the center of the room, emptied his mind of all the thoughts, and closed his eyes, and without any delay, twenty blood arrows zipped through the air from his front and back.
Alex currently trained with the room gravity set at 35G while both the left and right walls of the room were covered in blood vail and shot twenty blood arrows combined at him with four arrows increasing every minute.
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[3 Days Later]
Alex was lying in the tub filled with a chilling blue elemental concoction enjoying his time because he had made significant progress in the Phantom Walk skill.
It took him three days of constant effort, but now he could flawlessly execute the skill seven out of ten times, and within one more day, he believed he could perfect it.
[System Notification]
[Lesser Ice Resistance Advanced to Intermediate Stage]
'My Ice resistance is growing much faster compared to the fire resistance.' Alex thought, hearing the notification.
Alex was developing his Ice resistance because his Fire resistance had already advanced to the Superior Fire Resistance beginner stage, and developing it anymore was unnecessary and a waste of time.
After spending ninety minutes in the elemental cure, Alex equipped his armor and prepared to leave for the gladiator arena.
"Domain Ruler, I think It's about time you start participating in the Death Games." Elder Darrien said, appearing next to Alex.
"I want to participate in the Death Games, but if I die, as a penalty, I will be restricted from entering this world for seven days, and with the minimum strength of participants being fourth Rank, there is a chance that I could die," Alex replied, a little surprised.
The Gladiator Area had two categories of entertainment, the first being the regular battles in the Colosseums, where no one outside the death battle dies.
The second category was the Death Games, which had different formats and were not restricted to just plain duels, and in most of those game formats, there was a high chance of a participant dying because of the rules.
All Death Games formats were multiparticipant, with the minimum number of participants being ten and the highest being 100, and in each format, the participant had a goal to achieve to win the game.
The Death Games only allowed Gladiators with the strength of fourth or Higher Rank to participate because they could be saved even if they died in the game.
A Fourth Rank warrior had the vitality to stay alive for a few minutes even if his heart exploded, and this short window was used to save the gladiator by high ranking healer on standby.
The players didn't need to be fourth Rank warriors to participate in the Death Games, but because the death games gave very high-value rewards with many formats not requiring strength to win.
AI Zero had placed harsh penalties on players to not exploit the death games for free rewards with their immortality, and the death penalty for a player was the loss of all levels in a Rank and an entry ban for seven days.
The penalties were very harsh, but if a player could win a game, he would not only receive the rewards from the game Organizer but would also gain rewards from AI Zero.
"I believe you have the skill to survive against even peak fourth Rank warriors, but if you did find yourself at Death's door, then you can use Ruler Pride skill to save your life." Elder Darrien said and vanished back into thin air.
'If I can use the Ruler Pride skill, then even if I don't win the game, I am at least not dying, and with this safeguard in place, I can go unrestrained and test my improvements against some real warriors.' Alex thought with a broad smile.
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(Twenty Minutes Later)
"Sir Aeon, These are the available Death games in the next two days, with the strength limit of middle stage Fourth Rank." A female with great beauty wearing revealing clothes said as she handed a few papers to Alex.
'This one fits my criteria but is marked as an extreme danger game.' Alex thought, checking the description of the game.
???????????
Name: Treasure Hunt
Type: Death Game
Category: Gladiator vs Gladiator vs Environment.
Grade: Extreme Danger
Time: 2 days.
Goal: Collect the Diamond key.
Participants: [58/60]
Strength Allowed: Middle Stage Fourth Rank
Items Allowed: Teleportation Scroll (3), Equipped Items.
Reward: ???+???
???????????
The game grades were divided into (Normal, Changeling, Danger, and Extreme Danger, and while in the normal grade, there was a very low chance of permanent death, in the extreme danger, there was an overly high chance of permanent death.
There were measures to save gladiators from dying, but that didn't mean that there were no deaths, and in games graded at Extreme Danger, the death rate was high.
"Sir Aeon, I recommend you not consider this game as forty of the fifty-eight participants are middle stage Fourth Rank, and the remaining are at the early stage, and every participant is a veteran with rich experience, which also includes few famous names." The lady said, seeing Alex showing interest in the Red paper.
'Select this game,' Alex heard the telepathic voice of Elder Darrien.
?????????????????
I have taken Death Games concept from one of my favorite Novels [Supremacy Game], with minor changes.
I want to ask you guys if I should just make it a one-time event and be done with it or expand on it in the future and make it a small part of the story.
I would appreciate any feedback, so please let me know in the comments.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m