Valier POV:
And just like that, a year passed, I'm around 9? Maybe 9 and a half? I'm not sure when my birthday is, so there's that. But anyways, today, I'll finally be released from this place.
The door was opened and I could hear a pair of footsteps making their way towards me. I heard the shackles become undone and my body almost plopped to the ground, but I caught myself with my hands and legs and stood up. If I felt uncomfortable when I first entered this body, I felt even more uncomfortable now. I hadn't been able to move this body over one and a half years. I had thinned considerably due to how little I had been able to eat and due the non existent physical activity I had been able to partake in.
"It's been a while, hasn't it? You look like shit, anyways. I'm interested in how far you can go, but I don't think you'll go very fat with a body like that. So, I'll give you a fairly decent elixir. But, only under the condition that you're able to win your first match, which is tomorrow."
My eye brows raised themselves, the man who had made my life this inconvenient was planning on giving me an Elixir because I had potential? I mean, I'd happily take it, Elixirs are the highest class of potion. An elixir can do a variety of things depending on its class. Some of them enhance your Mana Capacity, others enhance your physical body while others can heal you. The highest class ones are able to do all of the above.
Currently my body was in horrendous shape, they had healed my lungs so I could at least use Demon's Breath, but I'd probably die while using it.
"You're giving me an elixir so long as a I win a match? They're not cheap things, why on earth would you even do this?"
"Well, when you were around 7 or 8 the prowess you showed was impressive. I'd like to see how far you go, and if you manage to get popular enough maybe your sister will hear about how her brothers been reduced to being someone similar to a cage fighter? I can't imagine the look I'll see on her face... the look when I tell her that even when she thought you were able to rest, you were just being put through torture. And that even after that, you were being forced to fight for your life every single day!"
'What a fucking weirdo. I kinda stopped paying attention to what he was saying after I learnt of what I had to do. Take down whatever the fuck I'm fighting tomorrow.'
The man handed me some clothes and took me to a completely different place. In the time I had gone blind, I focused on nothing but my heartbeat and how it was reflected off different surfaces, I then used my skin to aid creating a sort of mental map of where I was. It'd probably have been easier to learn how to do this with my ears and making a clicking sound, but you know, I might go deaf and lose my tongue somehow. But if I end up in a situation where I've been skinned, I highly doubt I'll be able to make it out of that one alive anyways. And you know... I kinda need a heart to survive anyways.
And if it's with skin, the surface areas is larger so its easier to generate the map. I can't really 'see' things like colour. Right now, I'm in a room, it has a toilet, a sink and a mirror.
"You'll be sleeping here for the next few years. There's a gym for all of you unranked and low ranked gladiators. If you win more matches you'll go up the ranks, our high ranked gladiators have been granted private training rooms. This country treats the strong well. Gladiators fight gladiators of similar rank and they rank up. I'll mention this, most of these fights are to the death. Occasionally we'll send in students from our academy, we get them to fight gladiators so they learn what an enemy who wishes to kill them looks like."
I nodded my head.
"Where's the canteen, I only have until tomorrow to prepare right?"
The man told me about where everything was and left, but just before he left he placed some chain less cuffs on me, they restrained my Mana and Cursed Energy flow
This place was structured a lot like a prison, there was a living room, a gym a canteen downstairs on the ground floor and from the first floor up there were thousands of cells.
I headed downstairs to the canteen, it was set out like a buffet. The foods didn't seem to appealing, but they weren't there to taste good, but too efficiently fuel the body of warriors. And that they did accomplish. I took some of everything onto my plate and sat down on a table where there wasn't anyone to bother me and I began feasting.
I ate for hours and hours on end. When it was getting late I decided to turn in for the night. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get any meaningful training in the span of one day so I decided to make sure that I was at least full.
***
A/N: I wanna write about a fight, so that's why Im kinda speedrunning this. We're gonna try have a fight soon. I didn't describe what he ate or anything like that because that can be described at a later date and it isn't integral to the plot either nor do I give a shit abt it.
I woke up at around 11am, my battle was at around 1pm. I used my heartbeat to check my body's condition, you see, instead of focusing on how my heartbeat reflected off of surfaces outside the body, I just focused on how it bounced around in my body. By doing this I can effectively comprehend my body's condition.
It's a convenient technique, with this, I can also figure out my own body's composition which is useless to most. But using it, I can alter Demon's Breath to suit my physique even better. To be honest, I don't think I'll need to use Demon's Breath very often.
After a while, a guard came and picked me up, he stabbed me with 'something' and suddenly everything went dark...
***
When I awoke, I was in a room where many weapons were hung on the wall. Swords, bows, axes and spears were all there. I looked around and picked up a rapier, I didn't have the stamina nor strength to hold a real sword so the rapier would have to suffice. I was also well aware of the weak points in a human body. So, the rapier would be a perfect weapon.
One of the walls dissapeared, or rather it's more accurate to say it dissipated. I walked out of the room after I grabbed the rapier. Outside there was a coliseum. There were people on the stands, the ground was sandy, on the other of the coliseum there was a man. He had a powerful physique, his body was rippling with muscles, in each of hands he wielded large and somewhat blunted battle axes.
"Gladiators... you may begin the bloodbath!"