Eo held out his dagger. It was his eighth or so match, and if he won one more time, he'd have five wins in total. His previous matchups didn't have any bloodthirsty murderers like Kaldai, so when Eo "lost", they spared him. He spared his defeated opponents in return. Eo still restrained himself from using anything too advantageous.
He had been working on close quarters combat, and he was honestly still terrible. However, he got the basic gist of it down, so Eo felt he was ready to obtain his fifth win. According to the "Rewards Chart", after five wins he would be able to explore more of the underground complex.
Since the arena, he wasn't able to see Reya or anyone else he already knew. His primary reason to explore more of the underground complex was to meet her and try to escape. Of course, Reya probably still hated him, so he wouldn't be too surprised if she turned him down.
It had been about two and a half weeks since Eo tried circulating all of his essence into his arms, and since then Eo had learned to just slowly trickle it into his muscles. Even though his body felt a constant dull pain, Eo forced himself to get used to it.
Because of the essence, Eo's strength and maneuverability had increased significantly. Eo was going to pair that with his self-taught martial arts techniques, which was still a very work-in-progress thing. His opponent in this match was Effris, a buff slave who had been captured and forced into sparring weaker opponents.
Effris clenched both fists and posed in a defensive stance. Eo did the same.
Effris lunged towards Eo. Eo sidestepped, and then slammed his palm against Effris. Effris flew into the wall, surprised. Eo had, after all, just pushed a much larger opponent away from him with what seemed like no effort.
Eo had also gained some new insights into balancing his power input and output. If he wanted to exert a certain amount of force onto an object, he had to inject the perfect amount of essence to minimize the rebound effect. For larger objects, the margin of error was larger, but so was the rebound of effect. Putting in an incorrect amount of essence to punch a 1kg object would harm Eo less than if he did the same to, say, a 100kg object.
For Eo to already push away a larger man like Effris meant that he had estimated Effris' weight, which was about 90 kilograms. Eo had observed his opponents in previous matches and found a fast way to estimate their mass by their movements and their effects on the environment (such as sounds or vibrations). It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely helpful.
Effris pushed himself away from the wall and glared at Eo. Eo just held up his dagger again and motioned a "come here" with his hand.
Effris slammed his fist into the ground. A crater formed, and cracks raced out of the impact point.
Eo jumped just as the arena floor under him burst into tiles and dust. He settled back on uneven footing and assessed the move. Effris (and most others Eo had witnessed) didn't know how to guide the essence into certain body parts, so they just estimated their own strength by measuring their total energy score. Effris' punch was mostly physical, but the power was enhanced by the latent essence in his arm.
They circled around each other for an awkward minute before Effris attacked again. Eo ducked and nearly avoided his head getting punched off his neck, and then rolled to avoid getting smashed right after. Effris was now in range.
Eo threw daggers, synthesizing more after each throw. Effris crossed both of his arms on his chest to block the majority of the attacks. His bulky arms actually got stabbed by the first few daggers, but dirt started spilling out of his body afterwards, absorbing the rest of the damage.
Eo circulated a little bit of essence into his legs and lightly jumped off the wall. He soared straight over Effris' head.
When Eo was right above him, he formed a chopping hand and struck the back of Effris' neck. Eo landed, and Effris collapsed right after.
Ten seconds later, Eo had his fifth win.