The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 810: The Grand Opening Celebration Week 6 (500 Words Added)

[The Island of New Dawn, Sanctuary land, Damian’s POV.]

The clash of blades was swallowed by a roaring sea of shouts, cheers, taunts, and name-calling. The competitive environment was at its peak.

Damian and the rest of the VIP guests were seated in the best seats available for the enormous stone colosseum. This wasn’t his idea. It was something Sam and Einar wanted to do; the building of the colosseum to have the competition in was his own idea, though.

40 thousand people had come for the challenge. Through the process of battle royals and group competitions running the whole night, finally, they had 156 men remaining. A total of 78 matches were going to be fought throughout the day. Surprisingly, even some mundanes had managed to survive till now using his potions and simple runic tools sold by the Sanctum shop.

He wasn’t expecting it, but it was a good thing. It would be a thing of pride for the mundane students applying for the battle classes.

They were into the fifth match under an hour. A pugilist was pummelling an armored spellsword. The second-ranker knights were acting as referees. They had to limit the competition to only first rankers and mundanes; otherwise, it would have been too much to handle for their staff.

Referees needed to be fast enough to prevent fatalities. If the second-rankers were included, only a few could act as referees, making it difficult to control the massive crowd. There were ways to do it if only the competition was their primary focus, but they had to prepare for various events, and this was just a secondary concern.

It was fun for the mass crowd, but to the eyes of warriors and high-ranking individuals, it was just a sport that they had become numb to by now. Damian himself was feeling bored; the Faerunians had left after just 20 minutes, and only Alex had remained behind. The emperor’s wife and son were absent as well, and so was Vidalia.

Half the Sanctuary heads were also using the free time to rest or do other things they had lined up. Only in the beginning were they all together when Sam and Einar gave a little speech and started the matches.

Einar and Sam were still present, but Lucian, Souldealer, and Evrin were not.

“I know we already discussed it before, but is it really wise to let everyone enter the challenge? The first-place prize is something many guilds and other groups will be doing their best to win.” Alex asked.

Damian removed his eyes from the beating the spellsword was taking from the pugilist and replied,

“As long as the rules are not broken, it doesn’t matter who wins. The runic mold is made of steel and will only work for 2-3 spells.”

“Still, anyone who has it will be able to inscribe it on a better metal and use it for a long time.” The emperor commented.

“No metal other than Sacrium can hold the waygate spell for more than three times. I had to make a special alloy mixing different metals to create an alloy able to hold the waygate points installed everywhere.” Damian replied.

“How long would that work?” Ilvanya asked.

“A month and a half, the way we use it, two if used less.”

“You will keep replacing them regularly?” Voidshaper asked.

“If only used, will they degrade. If I make enough and store it in spatial storage, my people can use it for a long time.”

“So you are saying your people have access to our countries, and even that with hundreds of waygates. An army can pass through any day, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything?” The sharp question came from Alex.

“I thought you all VIP people knew about it by now. I never kept it a secret.” Damian replied.

“You have all the advantages in the world, your strength is unmatched – even more so with all your ridiculous runic machines. Is it truly as simple as my daughter thinks? You do not wish to conquer because you just don’t want to?” Ilvanya asked, and all heads in the VIP sections turned towards him.

“Why should I put my everything into conquering this one small piece of land when there are thousands of worlds available to us? It’s not my caring heart that led me to make a peace treaty. I just have my aim placed somewhere else, and for that, I need to create in peace. If I can gain access to dungeon civilizations and the worlds beyond our sky – these all countries, continents, even our world will be too small a thing to make my claim on.”

Damian’s gaze had returned to the fight; his words were spoken unhurriedly and calmly.

However, the faces of all those seated around him had lost their humour by now and had become increasingly serious. This was probably the first time Damian had spoken about his thoughts so clearly. Every noble and man of power always tried to figure out what his grand plan was or what was going on in his head – he wanted peace, yet no one was able to swallow that simple fact.

With this, at least his stance on maintaining peace wouldn’t be challenged every time they talked. Peace was needed, as long as he could gain absolute strength and make everyone realize how ridiculous it was to go against the Sanctuary.

This whole world will become Sanctuary one day.

The match between a mage and an armoured runic warrior ended in a surprising outcome in favor of the runic warrior. The guy had pretty good swordsmanship skills, and the potions of strength and wormhole were used cleverly. The mage also had potions, but the lady was not used to fighting long battles.

Pretty solid victory for the runic warrior.

Damian was about to look at the faces of people beside him, since they had gone so quiet suddenly, but a name announced by the host, Ghislain, brought his attention back to the fighting stage placed in the middle of the colosseum.

“To face the incredible pugilist Wildfist, here comes the mysterious mage, Theren Emberwrit.”

—

Damian didn’t know the manaless guy was participating in the tournament. His instructions to his agents were to inform him if anything suspicious came up; the guy must not have shown anything unusual.

’He knows his every action is being watched.’ Damian concluded.

A first ranker wouldn’t be able to sense the second ranker agents proficient in lowering their mana signatures. That guy has to be above in rank than Light Walker. Even if he didn’t do anything suspicious, that alone makes him unqualified for the tournament.

Still, Damian decided to wait and watch. Theren had appeared on the stage for the first time. How would the guy fight without using mana? The pugilist named Wildfist was a peak-level Light Walker.

The fight started.

Wildfist, true to his name, started throwing punches right from the start. Creating air pressure that probably wouldn’t do much against a second ranker and above, but for a first ranker, it would indeed be enough to injure. But they were easily dodged by the man, Theren, dressed in a light leather armor and a long, knee-length red coat. Googl search NoveI~Fire.net

He was quick on his feet. Much more than anyone might expect from such a thin and average-looking guy. There were no muscles on the guy, just layers of clothes, making him look bigger than he really was.

Wildfist changed his strategy and rushed straight towards the slippery Theren. It was clearly a move made in haste. But for a guy built like a tank, that was probably the smartest move. Theren Emberwrit, the man Damian had known as an author of cooking spells, suddenly started chanting.

But.. no runic circle was visible.

Damian leaned in, Theren seemed to finish his chanting, and when he did, a purple cloud came out of Theren’s cuffs and wrapped around his fist. The skinny fists had now transformed into a purple giant fist. He, too, rushed straight towards the pugilist.

Both fists clashed in the middle, leaving behind a minor sonic boom that was just wind displacement, but was still a highlight of the event. But the strength displayed here by both people was touching, very close to the second ranker level, which was pretty impressive.

’Has to be some Esper.’ Damian thought.

But he still was not satisfied. Even espers had some signs, like a strange mana signature or odd, unnatural feelings when using a mana sense on them. This guy was just empty – and clearly that was not the truth. He had powers, pretty weird ones at that. From what the agents reported, Damian was convinced that this was not the guy who had written the campfire spell book.

The exchange of raw power from both contenders shook the whole stage. If it were just another pugilist, the battle would be expected, but the guy facing a peak-level pugilist was an esper registered as a mage.

At last, the battle ended. The pugilist lay unconscious on the stone stage as Theren stood towering over him, sweating and breathing hard. The fight was not easily won at all.