Making use of [manipulate shadow], I blocked the spears but could still feel the shockwave. In the distance Fez was running towards me with a shadow sword. At this point, both of us were too exhausted to use [stealth] and [illusion]. We could barely cling ontu our consiousness and inject energy into our limbs hoping they worked as we hope.
Urgh! Using [Shadow step], I shot forward at her as well. Seeing a small patch of darkness in the air, Fez understood that it was my signature skill and swung her blade at the air predicting that my extremely high speed makes me get myself slashed. Argh! My waist still hurts too much for me to twist and dodge! Creating a similar shadow sword, the blades of darkness clashed, escalating into a sword dance. Using whatever I learned from my practice in the caves, I prevailed as much as I could, while Fez moved with practiced footwork that slowly overwhelms me.
Unable to take the stress, my legs started to shiver. Seeing this as her chance, Fez swooped down with all her remaining energy and slid my leg off. That was what I needed! Using [Shadow step]'s gravity effect, I planted my palms into the ground as I fell and shot my whole body upwards and towards Fez. "Foolish!" (Fez)
"I'm finishing this!"
Completing a flip in mid-air, I kicked my leg towards Fez at maximum speed, while activating [Shadow step]. Setting the anti-gravity effect to the maximum on the under side,it pushed Fez to the ground with her sword falling towards her. Her hands shooked violently as she pushed her shadow blade in time to prevent it from stabbing her with the gravity effect.
"Urghhhhhhhh" (Fez) In that disadvantaged position, Fez knew Emily was distracted by her concentration. Emily was heavily concentrated on Fez and wasn't looking anywhere else. With that, Fez sent spears of darkness in a last ditch attempt to escape that disadvantaged scenario.
Using one final [manipulate shadow], a darkness wraps around and crushes Fez before the spears hit their target. Just as Fez was defeated, the match ended and the barrier was deactivated. Unfortunately, they didn't account for the dark spears that were already shot.
Writhing in fatique, I was barely consious. *pah!pah!pah!* A vivid sound resounds in the sparring grounds as spears of darkness impale my torso without the slightest resistance. There was nothing reducing the pain, blood flowed out of my wounds like a leaked tank. Yet, I was still clinging to consiousness.
Hu~hu~hu~, I finally won. Ugh, I can't stay consious at the end huh~. That's fine, I won. My legs shooked violently as I struggled to stand, I punched my fist into the air before dropping abruptly on the ground. Blacking out, cheers resounded from the spectators. This was possibly one of their flashiest tournaments in a few years, due to all 7 great families participating at once and ending with an unexpected winner.
At least I learned that it was possible to get too tired to even punch, I really need to improve myself so such a situation doesn't come up again. Who knew that nobles would go through power-leveling before the tournament. I thought they would all be at level 1! That James guy especially was at level 73 while the rest were only in their 60s. Guess you can't underestimate A-class for nothing, they all had monstrous mana pools for level 60s.
Immediately, a group of priest came over to administer high level healing. My wounds were barely closed but it was going to take a while to reproduce my blood with my [Auto-regeneration]. A long period of darkness passed by as I rested in the school infirmary. The infirmary was at the first floor of the dorms which was quite convenient.
Waking up, there was a familiar grey haired girl resting at the side of my bed. Looking closer, she was actually quite attractice in the face department. Though her hair parted at one side of her face, it flowed outwards smoothly and revealed both of her eyes. Her grey eyelashes stood out and shone under the infirmary light and the hair on her head curved towards her neck on both sides of her face like crescents. The rest of her hair looked as if it had a silky texture, tempting me to pat her sleeping head.
At that moment, her butler entered the room to see me staring at his mistress in a creepy manner with my lips parting a strange grin. Ignoring it, the butler proceeded to wake up Fez while I turned my head to the other side to sort out my face. I didn't particularly smile much in both this life and my previous life, this made it so that smiling for extended periods of time made the corners of my lips sore. Honestly, I wasn't the type to accidentally slip a smile like that. Believe it or not, I was the stoic type in class in both lives.
Turning back around, Fez shaking herself awake. Slowly opening her eyes, she stared blankly at me before remembering where she was. Blushing, she tried to salvage a conversation.
"Awawawa... Y.. You! You've won right? So now you work under my family's group of researchers, and if anything happened, my family will have to share the burden of your crimes. Since you won, you get to decide your working conditions, though it needs a minimum of 2 hours work per work day . Other conditions can be vague and up to your interpretation. But if you pull anything absurd, I'll have to fire you!"(Fez)
Miraculously changing into a proper tone of how people spoke to their subordinates, Fez stares at me for an answer as she folds her arms. Meanwhile, the butler was grinning in the background, was he enjoying that Fez suddenly became mature? Or was he enjoying my shock?
"Alright, that's fine. Then for my conditions, is a salary of 300 gold per month too much?"
"No, it's perfectly fine. The starting pay is actually 150, so 300 is actually in the middle range and isn't too far off. You can still work your way up. The head scientist gets about 600 per month while his assistant gets 450 per month." (Fez)
Great, with that I finally have a secure income. Now I can regularly buy magic gems from the magic association and maybe start dabbling in magic research. Wait, since my position is actually "scientist", some things should be a given right?
"Then the next conditions is that it has to be humane working conditions, I get to skip if I ever get sick or request for a break. Lastly, as a magic researcher, what is the maximum resource access that I can have?"
"Alright humane conditions. Tch, wanted to make you my slave since it never said I couldn't add my own conditions after. As for resource management, there are 4 tiers of access that correspond with the 4 different salaries that are available. So for your salary of 300 gold, your access would normally only be B-rank, but I can make an exception of allowing access to A-rank resources, which is the second highest. "(Fez)
" Tch, I thought I could get everything I wanted, well whatever. I guess that those are the conditions complete. "
" Only the personal weapons of my family are in the S-rank, which sometimes need maintenance or upgrades from the head-scientist. You're not missing much with your A-rank. "(Fez)
" Hmmm... Sure. "
With that, I finally received the backing of the tsumond clan, a decent salary and access to incredibly rare materials. Hehehe~