n

n

nThe more Eldrian fought in the individual matches, the more he came to learn how lackluster his skills seemed. While he didn't lose all that many matches, it was often not easy for him to win. Sure it was better than when he fought Vivian, but Eldrian really hadn't thought there would be so many talented spearmen.

nHe also came to realize that stats seemed to be equalized in these matches, he had never found himself faster or stronger than another. Nor had the opposite happened to him. It was truly just a match of skill, which made them all the more fun, and difficult. His bonus 15 attributes across, from his hidden class not helping at all.

n

"Oh, what type of elf are you?

" Asked his current opponent, a female moon elf. Her hair a light silver like the light of the moon, and her clothing matching it too. Silky robes flowing down her figure. She did not seem dressed for combat, but Eldrain ignored this to the best of his ability.

n

"High elf,

" Eldrian replied as he pulled Aoidos from his inventory. Not wishing to talk too much, almost everyone having chat before fighting. Eldrian had become tired of these chats as most of the time they were just simple banter or small talk.

n

"What an interesting spear. How did you get it?

" She asked upon glancing at the fully wooden spear Eldrian had taken out. Her accent peculiar and Eldrian unsure if she was speaking English or if the system was translating her voice for him.

nThis was something else he had come to discover the system capable of. While he had known it was possible in-game, the system also doing this with live speech had shocked him. One of his opponents had asked where he was from and what language he spoke, which had led to this discovery.

nThis again had made Eldrian wonder just why this technology was not out in the world. Such a flawless and effortless translator would certainly gain instant focus and sell like hotcakes.

n

"A gift,

" Eldrian replied after a bit of thought. He turned to look at the double-headed wooden spear. It made little sense that this would be able to hold itself against metal, yet time and time again it did. Through these matches, Eldrian had also learned that their equipment would not lose durability. Nor did he have access to its skills and passive.

nTheir team had actually learned the bit about durability from Judith, when the sword she had broken had reappeared in her inventory on the next match. A rule to keep people at their strength when they signed up, it seemed.

n

"Wow, that so cool.

" The girl said, taking out her own spear. It was but a normal spear, wooden shaft, metal spearhead, no runes or engravings.

"I am still stuck with this... Do you want to trade?

" She asked with hope shining in her eyes.

n

"No thanks...

" Eldrian replied as he looked at her eagerness,

"Aren't we going to fight?

" He asked, quickly determining that her's was indeed not a magical weapon. Though this mattered little in these matches, while the damage would be less, with Eldrian not wearing armor it really didn't matter. A hit would still eat his HP, not matter what.

n

"Oh, ummm.... Okay.

" She replied quickly getting into a stance and measuring Eldrian up and down as he too got into his stance.

nRushing forward Eldrian started with a simple thrust, the girl blocking it with her shaft and sweeping at his legs with the back of her spear as she did. Jumping back Eldrian dodged the simple counter-attack and attacked again.

nThis time with a swing, which she again blocked and then leveraged her spear to move with his momentum. This threw him off balance while her spearhead appeared where he was inclined to fall. Rushing to recovered Eldrian threw a wild swing she was forced to dodge.

nEldrian continued trying to attack, finally jumping back and taking the defensive as he kept failing. While she had yet to hit him in return, he felt like she was just trying to tire him out. She was fully focused on defense and making use of his own strength against him.

n

"Ah, no fair. You need to keep attacking and become upset at not succeeding.

" She teased as she saw Eldrian taking a defensive stance. Seeing him not respond she sighed,

"Fine, it's my loss.

"

n

"What?

" Eldrian countered only to receive the system notification that he had won and gained two points. For these matches, Eldrian had learned the thing that counted wasn't actually their Tier. With all stats equalized and magic forbidden, it would make little sense for that to be the case.

nIt wasn't like the free fights, these matches were truly just a test of skill. As such, what determined the point gain and loss was instead their rank with their weapon. Having gotten two points, Eldrian knew it meant she was also Rank 2 with a spear. Shocking him as he truly thought she would be Rank 3.

nReturning to his virtual home Eldrian couldn't help but think of this last fight. Certain that this girl must practice martial arts with a spear IRL. Much like his first his opponent, Zylric, with his unique and strange style. Though Zylric might have truly learned his through constant fights from being in Inglas.

nMost of the other fights had been close simply because he lacked the edge of speed he was so used to. But those two stood out clearly. Unlike him, they truly had a unique style of spearmanship without magic.

nWith that match, Eldrian also felt it was time to call it a day, having earned a total of 23 points, and having lost 6. So he logged out and did some stuff IRL, a routine of team matches in the morning and individual ones in the afternoon quickly forming.

nEvery day they would aim for at least 20 points, some days that would take twenty matches, others they might gain it in three to four. On those days they would always decide to fight some more, seeing as almost no time had been spent.

nWhen they did lose, they would generally only lose one point, which always relieved them greatly. In most of these cases, they suspected that their opponents had been a full Tier 3 team. Often either Eldrian being caught unprepared, or him being the last standing, the cause of their defeat.

nFinally, a week passed and the rankings came out, the first 5 separated by 20 points each. The latter five by 50, and the last having no cap and the announcement declaring all in the last rank qualified for the true tournament.

nThe first five ranks were wood, copper, tin, bronze, iron. The next five instead being novice, graduate, expert, master, grandmaster. With the final one being legend.

nWith their team having gained just under 130 points, they landed in the novice rank. On the forum, the rankings could directly be searched by anyone. Out of curiosity they had looked and found that the highest point score was 211, by a team called Pure Warriors.

nInterestingly the forum ranking also gave a team's total Tier score, this team's being 24. Hence a team of just Tier 3's. Their team instead only had a Tier score of 17.

n

"Didn't we fight them?

" Nikki asked as she read their team name. She recalled that they had faced a team of three knights, three warriors, and two fighters. Having come up with the naming convention between themselves throughout the week.

nKnights would be people in full armor who forgo a shield. Generally, these guys were the trickiest as they almost always had two or more focused weapons. Some of them also mixed spells into their fighting style, a thing which had completely shocked Ilmadia when she first saw them executing it flawlessly.

nWarriors instead were what one would think of as tanks in a game. Their armor while also full plate, was generally much heavier. Therdul was a perfect example of someone in this made-up class, going into the game he wanted to eat the damage for his team. Many players had had these same thoughts going in. They still hoped to actually be capable of doing so, the lack of a taunt skill being their biggest drawback.

nFighters were just melee-focused players who didn't wish to be bogged down by armor. According to their agreements, Eldrian, Nikki, and Judith would be classified as this. Though everyone had felt Judith was too extreme and thus just threw her her own style name of berserker. With her little care for harm and blindness in a fight everyone, even Judith, felt it suited her well. Though even she felt she needed to work on her tunnel vision, especially when she kept dying because of it.

n

"Can't be too sure, the style names we came up with aren't in the list, naturally. I mean the team's players' names aren't even shared. Just the team name.

" Zyviss replied as he looked at the ranking. They were not placed too bad, though there were over a thousand teams who had managed to gain over a hundred points.

n

"Hopefully from here on we won't be getting just one point for a victory,

" Judith said, not at all happy when their opponents were too easy to defeat.

n

"That is likely the case, I mean we are surrounded by 18 and 19 Tier scores. So that's something.

" Ilmadia replied, having through this week improved massively. She was almost as accurate with her spells while moving as Zyviss was with his arrows.

nSomething Zyviss was really disappointed about, as his usefulness dropped sharply as Ilmadia started helping. Sure he wasn't actually disappointed, more sad. He felt more and more like trying to be a ranger was just too damn hard. He had to continually practice, and while he couldn't discount that Ilmadia did that too, it felt like he was being surpassed with little effort.

n