Facing each other, two youths stood ten meters apart, one looking down on the other, wearing a cruel smile.
The other looked up, barely holding up a confident front, wearing a glove with a sickle-like moon on the palm, not unlike the one lying on the table, where now Siana stood alone, staring at the items before her.
The arena was 40 meters in diameter, with the ring's edges marked by a single line and four apparatuses placed at its edges.
Both contenders looked at each other, waiting for the sign to start.
Watching from the side, Noctis took a quick glance at Raef, who would soon announce the start of the friendly spar.
"3"
"2"
"1"
"...Go!"
"Boom," Brutus, the taller man, rushed forward, trying to breach the distance between the two in an instant. Reacting quickly, wasting less than a second to act, the other contender, called Elisa, jumped back, trying to hold the distance they already had.
As Elisa moved, a growing light began to emanate from the palm of his gloved hand, intensifying with every passing second.
Brutus noticed the light forming and broke into a faster sprint, determined not to let Elisa complete whatever he was starting.
When Elisa could no longer retreat, he braced himself and thrust his gloved hand forward in a wide arc. At the same time, Brutus grinned, readying his own strike as he advanced.
Elisa whipped his arm forward, imitating the movements of a whip. A blue line started to form from the base of his palm, creating a sharp line of pure energy flying towards Brutus at a staggering speed.
Brutus' smile widened as the sickle-shaped blue line struck his chest, cutting through his grey shirt and biting into his flesh. Unfazed, he kept running forward and slammed his fist into Elisa's chest with tremendous force. Without stopping, Brutus spun around, using the momentum of his punch to throw Elisa several meters away, in the direction Brutus came from.
"Bang"
"Arghhhh"
Elisa screamed, his ragged cry echoing through the arena, blood splattering from his lips. With trembling arms, he forced himself upright, glaring at Brutus with a muddled mix of rage and terror, his body quaking as pain lanced each breath. His chest sagged inward, ribs clearly broken, every gasp a battle between agony and defiance.
From the sidelines, Noctis recoiled, horror twisting his features as he watched the violence unfold. His gut clenched, a cold dread crawling up his spine.
Isn't this supposed to be a spare? He had originally thought that this would be a simple introduction to Convergers, but this.
Watching the wound left behind by the Sickle, the blood slowly flows out of the flesh wound, a red cut spanning from his shoulder to his stomach.
"You see, it is quite important to have allies?... And to never second-guess those in authority is of even more importance...."
The one talking was Raef, who spoke with a tone of friendly advice, his childlike voice not fitting his cruel words, lending them a sinister edge. Pointing towards the fighters, who were now standing a few meters apart, one gasping for breath while the other, a tall man with a mangled body, stared at him, seemingly waiting for something. Opening his pointed hand, making it look like the two were lying in the palm of his hand. He continued.
"You see, humans need to submit to circumstance; everyone is a small part of a big machine, and the ones who try to break free from such restraints do not have the right to get the benefits of that machine... if one attempts such foolery... "
Closing his open hand, slowly creating a sort of cage from Noctis' point of view. He snapped his finger with his other hand, barely audible for anyone to hear, and yet unbeknownst to Noctis, Burut's ear slightly twitched.
As if on command, he started charging towards Elisa once more, not letting the other charge up his attack.
Lounging at Elisa in a matter of seconds, Elisa tried to strike in a desperate attempt to win some time, clearly not wanting to continue the fight with Brutes.
Ignoring the feeble strikes, Brutus brought up his hands, forming a fist.
"For those that intend to do so,... they will be disregarded and crushed without fail."
As he spoke the latter part, Rowan's fist closed entirely, crushing Elisa, coinciding with the fists of Brutus striking him down with frightening force.
Somehow able to take the hit, Elisa kneeled shakily on his feet, obviously no longer able to continue. Seeing this, Brutus brought up his fists once more and brought them down, without mercy, finally throwing him to the floor.
Elisa curled into a ball, unable to continue. Brutus stooped, grabbed Elisa by the hair without mercy, and stared at the bruised and bloodied face, showing only boredom.
No longer interested, he threw the now bruised and battered Elisa to the side, without giving him a second glance, and started walking up to Noctis and Raef, a smile returning to his face.
He still had a vertical cut spanning from his pelvis to his shoulder, blood dripping from the wound, but from the looks of it, he seemed not to care; less blood flowing out than one would expect.
Witnessing Elisa's brutalization, Noctis staggered, a chill washing over him. What unfolded was no contest, but an execution—a punishment crafted to shatter hope. Why inflict so much pain? Was it to terrify him, or to break a subordinate's spirit? He hugged himself, heart pounding as confusion warred with disgust.
Brutus walked past us, nodding at Raef. In response, Raef gave an approving look, not bothering to speak.
But what chilled Noctis beyond the violence was the apathy around him—the onlookers' blank faces, as if this carnage was just ordinary business. The silence rang louder than any scream.
What could have led them to such a state?
Looking Noctis in the eye, Raef asked. "Have you understood? Have you gotten a better Idea of what way to choose?"
____________________________________________________________
Leaning back, Noctis sat in a remote area, thinking about Raef's words.
A warning, hmmm. Well, it seems he didn't enjoy my decision to extricate myself from that group event, or maybe it was more about the disrespect?
Sighing again, quickly getting over his original shock, Noctis lamented the fact that he basically couldn't glean anything out of the "Practis Match", if one can call it that.
There was a restriction on only using converters, but the one guy obviously didn't give it a second thought. He basically forced it, smashing the other guy's chest in. Noctis didn't think Elisa would have long-term problems, given the advanced medicine used to reattach his finger, but still.
Glancing down towards the scar that was left behind on his middle finger, he thought back to the one use of a Converter he was privy to witness.
It was some kind of wave attack, if I saw right. Charging up and then releasing the energy extracted from the body in the form of a wave.
To say the least, Noctis was impressed with what he saw. From his perspective, he lacked something to attack at the moment, as the strings seemed to have many applications, but attacking wasn't one of them.
Thinking it through logically, he should choose the safest option and try his best to balance out his weaknesses with the Converter.
At this point, Noctis had understood many things about his Symbolism; there definitely was more to be explored, but for now, he only knew a certain amount.
The things he had discovered after a few hours of experimentation were that the properties of his thread would change to a certain extent when willed with different intentions.
For example, if he wanted it to be more durable during production, it would become more durable, yet other aspects would become less pronounced.
The aspects he could customize, to a certain extent, at the moment were durability, flexibility, sharpness, thickness, and stickiness.
Whenever he tried to strengthen a certain aspect, the other categories would then, in exchange, weaken proportionally. At the moment, he could only strengthen one aspect at a time, as manipulating the threads' aspects was a new sensation he would first have to get used to before fully controlling this.
He wasn't used to the unfamiliar feeling of creating silk, which was like gathering spit in one's mouth or peeing, pressing something out of his body, and at the same time, they were different, as he felt a certain connection to the silk, as if it was a part of his body. Adding to that, the new sensation of changing its aspects, which lay in leaning into the feeling of being part of the thread, and willing it to change its consistency, overwhelmed Noctis quite a bit. Maybe it could be compared to having a new limb for the first time, and this new, unfamiliar limb could also change shape and consistency. Making it alien to the person who has neither experience in controlling its base motor functions nor its advanced capabilities.
But one thing Noctis was quite certain of was that he would eventually be able to control them efficiently and change their aspect allocation exactly as he willed.
With such future prospects, he didn't really know what he would lack further down the road, but one thing was certain: now he did not have a way to attack; he did, however, have a way of slowing people down, which made the glove that Elisa used very attractive, as its most prominent flaw seemed to be the long charge up, which he could efficiently compansate with the sticky atrebute of his threads. Didn't spiders specialize in trapping their prey? So this seemed most fitting of all his options. Well, if there was something poisonous, it would be even more fitting for the spider on the sommelier.
Chukeling inwardly, he went back to the topic.
Time waits for no man! Making up his mind, Noctis walked over and looked at the assortment of items. Calling it an assortment seemed a bit of an overexaggeration, considering there were only five Items to pick from, with two having already been taken.
On the left lay the glove, the sickle shape on its palm, to its right, two other items with two more empty places where the already chosen ones had lain.
Starting with reading the plates on which a description of each Converter was engraved, he first read about the ones that had already been chosen.
Barrier: A defensive-oriented Converter that will produce a force field that will slow down everything that reaches a certain speed.
The faster, stronger, and bigger the stopped object is, the more Notium will be used up.
This is a basic necessity for all Authority Wealders, with the drawback of leaving the holder defenseless and easily catchable if Notium conserves run out.
Spick: An offensive-oriented Converter, which creates a long-range projectile that can do small damage.
Looking at the two Converters that had already been chosen, one could glean much information about the other two; however, whatever he could glean was very faulty, as Siana, for example, didn't seem to give the choice much thought, and Riven most likely was advised by Raef.
Looking further, Noctis came across the remaining three Converters; two were offensive-oriented, and the last one was used for movement.
One was the Glove with the moon sickle, and the other was a giant sword. Immediately drawn towards the glove, Noctis decided to at least give the sword a try. To his dismay, he could barely hold it steadily, let alone swing it. Giving up on the fantasy of being a knight in charming armor, he turned his attention to the last of the converters, which was also a glove, but with a different symbol. It was a V-shaped symbol, surrounded by a circle and split into three parts.
This glove was supposedly able to catapult someone through space. This sounded great, but it had a few serious drawbacks: the converter could move someone forward only 5 meters, and it needed to be charged beforehand, giving one only 3 uses in battle. To top it off, there were serious risks implied when using it, as it would strain the body, and if one made a mistake, ending up as part of a wall was a possibility.
Ignoring the risks, Noctis found this very interesting, not because of the use but because it simply seemed to be an interesting experience, the process of traveling through space. This was one of the things he'd strive for to brighten up his monotonous life.
In the end, however, reason won as he decided to go to the glove with the sickle sign on its palm.
Sadly for Noctis, the size seemed a bit too big for him, yet when he tried to activate it, he noticed it tightening slowly, adapting to its wielder's hand. Looking at it with a positive surprise, he clenched his hand repeatedly, a bit astonished at how well it fit. Well, if one ignored its thickness, purely from the feel, it could pass for a second layer of skin.
He thought positively of the glove until pain suddenly pricked the inside of his hand, slowly biting into his flesh. Startled, yet not quite surprised, Noctis suppressed a groan. This was to be expected, as the Converters given to students were predominantly meant for people in the holder stage, which meant that the device needed a way to access the Notium that was trapped inside the holder, and what better way than simply drilling into it.
Lamenting the fact that he would have to feel the pain every time he wore the glove, besides that, there weren't too many negatives. Well, all of the converters given to them were of subpar quality, because they were meant more to learn the basics than to strike down a fellow student, and of course, investing too much money into a bunch of random students seemed rather foolish. It was a surprise that they received this level of funding in the first place.
Of course, it had its flaws, like restricting the wilder's hand movements, because there was a lump on the inside of the palm directly under the moon insignia, which was also the source of the pain. This wasn't too much of a problem, really; one had to just get used to it and accept it.
Eager to test the Converter out, Noctis went to one of the stands, where a training dummy stood, ready to be hit with an attack.
Pressing his Thumb and index finger together, Noctis felt something being siphoned out of his body. At the same time, the insignia on his glove began to glow, its brightness growing over time. Waiting for twenty seconds, Noctis noticed the extraction of his Notium stopping. Guess that it's ready. From a purely emotional standpoint, he would estimate that the glove took a tenth of his total Notium.
Not having a point of comparison, he had no idea if it was much or little, not thinking about it too much. Noctis attempted to imitate Elisa's movement, no longer holding his thumb and index finger together, and the blue energy began streaming outward as he moved his arm, mimicking a throwing motion, swiftly lifting it. A blue line flying straight forward for a few meters, then losing momentum, and then colliding with the floor, leaving a small scratch upon it, reaching a meter before the dummy who stood there, not a care in the world.
Looking at the scene with a blank look, Noctis sighed. "Repetition is the mother of learning. And I'll have to repeat this a bunch of times if I ever want to effectively use it."
Inwardly lamenting his lack of talent, Noctis decided to dedicate an hour every day to train this awful ability.