It didn't take them long to heal me. I was allowed to leave after that. They gave me an escort back to my room. I wouldn't be allowed out of here after that. I guess they wanted to prevent any ability juicing.
Preventing juicers from getting to top slot. I didn't know why they would create drugs that temporarily boosted abilities if the side effects were so severe. I didn't know what the side effects were, but it didn't make much of a difference to a mage like me. If those damn ability boosters were so illegal than why make them in the first place. They probably wouldn't let Ethan in here anymore.
Savannah might have to figure out a different sleeping arrangement for the night. I snorted as I locked the door. Throwing off my clothes, and switching forms before turning on the hollo screen to watch the rest of the matches. There was something new to the left side of the screen. It showed a list ranking the competitors for the top sixteen.
Only the bottom three slots were filled in. When the forth match ended the two people at the bottom of the list were moved up as the person that just lost was placed second to last. The top twelve placements still showered nothing but question marks. The longer it took for someone to lose the better they placed. I wondered how the next round would go.
Ethan, and one other person would have to fight twice tomorrow. I planned to lose. I didn't need to keep fighting anymore. I was guaranteed eighth place even if I gave up right away. That was as far as I needed to go to repay Goliath's favor.
All the top placers were probably getting escorted back to their rooms. I splayed myself out on the floor slowly. I would be stuck in my human form for a good long while tomorrow so I would have to be careful. I hoped me giving up right away would give me enough time to get back to my room before I got backlashed by my own spell.
I watched the last two matches quietly. Part of me was worried someone was outside, and would try to come in while I was sleeping. Another part knew they wouldn't do something that stupid. If I didn't get out of bed then I'd be disqualified, and all my hard work would go to waste just like that. I would not be late.
I was tense until I fell asleep a few hours later. I woke up to the alarm again. I was already tired of having that god damned alarm ruling my mornings. I stood up, and stretched my body leisurely before picking up my clothes. I switched forms, and pulled on my clothes quickly.
There was someone waiting outside of the door just as I suspected there would be. I was escorted back down to the arena. They hadn't told me what round I'd be participating in today so that worried me a bit, but I was pretty sure they just wanted to wait until they had all the names before letting us know. I was sat down in a prep room by myself. I played games on my watch for a while.
I debated on what I would do if I got close to my time limit. I kept playing games for a while. It wasn't like I had anything else to do. I stayed like that for about four hours before I was called out for my match. I walked out into the arena, and came face to face with someone else I didn't know.
As soon as the start sound went off my opponent tensed, and got ready to strike. I raised my hand in a relaxed kind of way.
"I yield," I shouted.
My opponent looked stunned, and confused. The entire audience went completely silent for a few seconds, and then there was hundreds of angry cries. Calling me a coward. Asking for a real fight. If I was just going to give up then why did I bother entering.
"Are you sure about this kid?" the referee asked from his floating platform.
"I've already accomplished what I came here to do," I smirked at him.
The ref nodded, and announced my opponent as the winner of this round. Both of us walked out of the arena unscathed. I went back to my room without an escort, and relaxed in my true form for a while. I figured I could go back to watch Ethan in person. The round before Ethan was supposed to go ended, and they decided to take a three hour break.
I was glad they were going to give Ethan a break since he'd already fought this morning. It kind of sucked that it helped his opponent as well, but it couldn't be helped. I watched the commentary, and listened to them bash me for giving up. Apparently it upset the people who'd been hoping for me to make it to the final rounds. Everyone loves the underdog until he fails to meet their expectations.
I got tired of listening to them whine about me giving up the fight so I switched the hollo screen to simple arcade style games. There weren't many left after the collapse, but there wasn't much left of anything from before the collapse. Our culture lost hundreds of movies, and thousands of rare artifacts. The great depression paled in comparison to the collapse. When all money become nothing but worthless paper, and bits of metal.
Wars broke out, and people stopped counting the days because they didn't know if they'd have more days to live, but that was a few thousand years ago. No one really cared about that anymore. That's why we didn't count the years anymore. No one knew what year it even was. I could think about that kind of stuff later.
"It's probably a good thing that this controller is holographic," I snorted as I tapped my claws along without worrying about breaking the control.