Another incredible exchange of blows took place between the two. Using a path was exhausting, and the dragon girl only had one or two more breaths of flame left before she was completely exhausted.
Seeing that Kayden wasn’t going to give up, she started to gather another puff but was stopped midway when she received the biggest kick of her life to her belly. Everything she was accumulating was wasted. This kick cost Kayden 60% of all mana under his control. His leg had all its bones cracked by the impact.
Before the girl could compose herself, she saw a katana at her neck. She knew that if Kayden wanted her to, she would be dead now. When her eyes met Kayden’s, she saw endless emptiness and absolute trust.
BOOM! A gigantic blast of lightning landed just a few meters away from them. This was the place Kayden would have pushed her in a few seconds if she hadn’t gotten careless and caught the kick squarely.
"QUICK, HEAL HIM!" The medical team rushed into the arena and, before Kayden could say anything, he began receiving a multitude of healing spells. The healing process took an incredible five minutes as the flame appeared to not have fully extinguished and was still burning Kayden alive.
"I want a rematch," said the girl, along with the medical team at Kayden’s side. Despite doctors’ advice for the boy to accept a knockout so as not to have any more pain, Kayden preferred to remain conscious.
"I can’t use my path again today," was the only response he gave to the dragon girl. And what he got was a pout and a frown.
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"What is your name and path?" His questions were direct and he didn’t even care about Kayden’s condition. In truth, she wasn’t calm enough to notice, because if she had been, she would have been speechless to see Kayden respond to her with this degree of pain.
"I am Kayden Heart, my path is the Monarch of Mana," he said. Many attentive ears heard this and began to spread this gossip, even more so when the teenager’s next question was answered.
"Your path is strong, why are you revealing it ?" Kayden hadn’t even stopped to think about it. He responded naturally, the boy was no longer afraid of being killed by stronger entities.
"If someone wants to pursue it and is better than me at it, that just means that wasn’t my true path, but that’s not going to happen," he said. His sentence dripped with confidence that made people sick. His tone was practically saying that not even a god could match him.
Many thought the boy was disproportionately arrogant, but they soon kept quiet. His sentence had no arrogance, he wasn’t boasting, he was stating a fact.
"We’re done here, try not to kill yourself next time," said the doctor in charge, looking at the craziest patient he’d ever cured.
"Sorry, thanks for the help," Kayden said, thanking him and getting up from the gurney. His next destination was the Faísca concept rooms. Before he could continue, he was interrupted.
"Hey wait, don’t you want to know about my path? Who I am?" Ashley couldn’t understand Kayden’s lack of curiosity.
"No," Kayden said, not turning around again and just continuing walking. But, against his expectations, the girl walked beside him again.
"What if I tell you how to strengthen your path?" Finally, some emotion was seen in Kayden’s eyes.
"Name your price," he said. Nothing was free in this life.
"I want to fight you again," Ashley said. Kayden nodded. That wasn’t even a big ask.
"Do you know why my body is so strong?", asked the girl, expecting a kick or some response from Kayden, but only received silence.
" Okay, I understand that you’re dull. It’s because I learned a concept called Protection and it aligns with my path", she said. His sentence was like lightning hitting Kayden’s head.
He had never thought that he could keep improving his path by adding concepts to it. Kayden always thought he was something immutable and had nothing to do with the concepts he learned.
"Thank you," Kayden finally expressed some genuine emotion and smiled at the girl. The two talked some more and Kayden discovered that the girl was called Ashley. He also changed their phone numbers.
Kayden didn’t waste much time on this and hurried to leave. He still had a lot to train for. This fight was just a test to see where the limit of his strength was and the limit of the generation he was in.
What he didn’t see were two eyes as blue as the sky staring at his conversation with Ashley with the purest hatred. She was invisible in the crowd and left before anyone noticed her presence.
"You know you lost that fight, don’t you?" Bolt spoke as soon as Kayden stepped out of the Coliseum. With a nod from Kayden, the two began discussing all the mistakes the boy had made.
What was clear to him was that, if the girl hadn’t hesitated after using the first breath, Kayden would have lost the fight without being able to fight back. His last attack consumed a lot of his mana and he probably only had one more attack to make. Exhaustion was dangerous and should be avoided.
"I didn’t expect the Top 9 to be this strong," Kayden commented as they flew towards the alchemy tower.
"Those in the Top 5 are already at the mage level. Not only that, but they have their paths and concepts formed," Bolt replied. Kayden was in shock for a few seconds and could only utter one word.
"As?"
"Coincidence of discovering their ways early and then being trained hard by their clans and organizations. None of them have weaker protection than yours," Bolt explained.
In the end, Kayden just had to accept it. Among trillions of people, some could discover their path early and a minority of these would be recognized by large organizations. It was just a game of probabilities and it was rarer than finding a needle on a planet. But still, 5 managed to stand out. Kayden thought he was at the top of his generation.
At that moment, he realized that his feat of fighting a wizard could probably be replicated. He wasn’t special. He was just the only one who received fame. This realization made the boy realize something else.
"I need to come up with four concepts," he thought. A concept would make you mediocre and shorten your future. Two concepts would make him special among the weak and still kill his future. Three concepts, he would become a genius the size of Leonardo, capable of ascending to the highest levels of society and strength in this world.
And in the end, he would be just another genius among countless. His path would make him special, but it still wouldn’t be what he was looking for. Kayden needed four concepts to rise above everyone else.
"I need time," he thought. Kayden decided to cut some classes so he could focus on learning more concepts. First, he would cut out the physical fighting. It would be very useful to him in moments without a weapon, but he didn’t have that time now.