Gleam Karma Cultivator Isekai

The two combatants took their places on either end of the arena. Yeo twirled his kusarigama at his side, and Timothy drew an arrow and strung it, keeping the bow pointed at the ground.

“Begin,” the proctor said.

To Chance’s surprise, both Yeo and Timothy bowed to each other. He took a second to look at the other fights, surprised to realize that many of the other students were also exchanging bows before they started.

Bella noticed the same thing and winced. “Oh. Oops.”

“Oops,” Chance agreed, feeling a flash of pity for the boy. That explained Anton’s outburst at the end of the fight.

In the arena, Yeo and Timothy straightened. An arrow shot across the arena, but Yeo bobbed out of the way and it thunked harmlessly into the wood behind him.

“Metal Dragon Art: Twin Heads!” Yeo called, twirling out of the way of another arrow as a second kusarigama joined his dance. Chance and Bella both suppressed a groan. He really needed to stop calling out his abilities.

Yeo flicked both of the sickles through the air in opposite directions. They arced out, whipping past Timothy with blinding speed. The weapons shot past him, completely missing. The boy smirked, nocking another arrow. White energy gathered around its tip and he released it.

Metal clinked and Yeo ducked. The arrow drilled into the barrier behind him with a loud crack and a flash of white light. Before Timothy could nock another, Yeo yanked on the chains of his sickles.

The weapons whipped back toward him through the air from behind the boy, making a wide arc around Timothy in either direction. The chains hit him and the sickles twirled around him, whipping faster with every orbit. In an instant, Timothy’s hands were yanked down to his sides and he was bound in metal.

Yeo yanked on the chains, pulling Timothy off balance, then charged the boy and jumped into the air, turning sideways and driving both of his legs into his chest. Timothy, unable to move, flew back and skidded helplessly across the edge of the arena.

“Yeo wins,” the proctor called as Yeo dropped into a roll and came to his feet, dropping into a bow.

“Great job!” Chance called. Yeo gave him a thumbs up and his weapons unraveled from around Timothy, one returning to his side while the other turned back into metal filings that slipped into his pouch.

“Now the pressure’s really on,” Yeo said when he got back, sitting down beside them. “Both Bella and I have won, so you have to as well.”

Chance groaned. “You realize that only makes this worse, right?”

“Won’t be worse if you win.”

“You are, without a doubt, horrible at motivation,” Bella informed Yeo.

“Oh? You’re better, then?”

Bella opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “No. Not really.”

They watched several more fights go by. Every passing round where he wasn’t called up only made his anxiety grow until, almost mercifully, Drake called his name.

“Chance, Meredith. You’re up.”

“Go get ‘em!” Yeo said, giving him a friendly shove as he rose.

Chance nodded, his heart beating too fast to even look back, and walked up to Drake’s arena. A short girl carrying two daggers walked over as well. She gave him a once over, then gave him a tight grin as they took their positions in the arena.

“Begin!” Drake called.

Recalling Yeo’s movement, Chance bowed. There was a loud thunk from behind him as a dagger thunked into the wood. His movement had just barely been fast enough to keep him from being impaled by the thrown weapon.

Yeo booed from the sidelines, but Chance didn’t have the luxury to pay him any more attention. Meredith dashed at him, drawing another dagger from a hidden holster at her side. He flicked his wrist and the urumi lashed out.

Meredith missed a step and twisted out of the way, unprepared for the weapon. It carved across her side, spraying blood across the ground, and Chance yanked it back.

“Shit, sorry!”

The girl threw a dagger at him and he dove out of the way, barely dodging it. He kept a hold on his urumi and flicked his wrist as he came back up, drawing the weapon back to its resting position with a series of clicks.

“Don’t apologize, idiot!” Yeo yelled. “Get her!”

“No commentary from the sidelines,” Drake drawled.

Meredith glared at Chance. Her hair rippled as the wind picked up around her, turning into whisps of white Essence. Chance channeled his own magic, bringing the golden mist to his fingertips and casting it toward her.

His powers slipped right past the churning white air and sunk into her right as she flung a dagger at him. It blurred through the air, carried by the wind and moving easily twice as fast as her previous attacks, but clanged harmlessly off the flat of Chance’s blade.

Then Chance tripped over his own feet. He dropped into a roll at the last second, coming up as two more daggers thunked into the ground where he’d been. Meredith’s eye twitched.

Chance whipped his urumi toward her, but this time, she was ready. The wind condensed at her side, forming a shield of churning air. The urumi struck it and rebounded into the dirt. Chance yanked the blade back just as Meredith raised her hand to fling another empowered dagger at him.

Her motion put her hand just in front of the urumi’s path for an instant – just long enough for it to score across the back of her hand. She cursed, fumbling the dagger and giving Chance enough time to send the sword-whip flying toward her once more.

Meredith deflected it with a shield of air once more. The blade thunked into one of the wooden barriers with a crunch. Chance pulled on it, but it was stuck. His opponent grinned, lining up another dagger as Chance cursed, giving the blade a harder tug.

It yanked a pole out of the ground and whipped back toward him. Chance ducked and the blade flew harmlessly over his head. The pole, still attached to his urumi, struck Meredith on the back of her head as it slithered back toward him.

She crumpled to the ground in a heap and the pole finally popped off his weapon, which retracted back into his hand, leaving him staring at her, baffled.

Drake hid a snort of laughter and knelt beside Meredith. “I – well, that’s a win for Chance.”

He took a pill out of a vial at his hip and opened the girl’s mouth, pushing it in before rising once more. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up with a gasp, her wounds already sealing shut.

“Get off the arena,” Drake said.

Chance wasn’t going to make him say that twice. He headed back to his team, sitting down on the bench beside them while Yeo did a considerably worse job than Drake at concealing his amusement – and that wasn’t saying much at all.

“That was great,” Yeo said mirthfully. “I’ve never seen someone get taken out with a pole.”

On the field, Drake grabbed the pole in question and trudged over to the dirt where it belonged, thrusting it back into place. He shook his head and walked back into place, calling two more students up.

“Funny or not, you won,” Bella said with an approving nod. “That’s what matters in the end.”

“Thanks,” Chance said. “So… what now? Do we fight more?”

“No clue,” Yeo replied, sounding distracted. “It’s not like we’ve done this before. Just wait, I guess.”

His eyes were locked on one of the other arenas. Chance followed his gaze to see Jake squaring off against another boy. He was covered seamless metal armor that conformed to his flesh like a jumpsuit, and held a large hammer in his hands.

Jake’s lazy swings kept his opponent pedaling backward, but he moved with just enough speed to keep him from fighting back. Whenever the other boy managed to get some space, Jake accelerated, forcing his opponent to retreat once more.

The battle ended when one of Jake’s swings was just a little faster than the other boy. It caught him in the arm, crunching into flesh and bone. Jake blurred, slamming the weapon into the boy’s chest and launching him from the arena.

A proctor rushed over, pushing a healing pill into the injured Shikari’s mouth. Jake walked off the arena after getting the okay from the older man. He glanced in Yeo’s direction, smirking when he caught him watching.

“That’s how a real Metal cultivator should fight,” Jake said as he passed them.

“Bugger off,” Yeo replied. “I don’t care how you fight. I’ve got my own way.”

Jake paused, cocking an eyebrow. “That pathetic little dance you do can hardly be called fighting. I suppose we’ll get to see shortly, won’t we? Better make sure you make it to fight me, or you’re going to look really bad.”

He strode off, chuckling. Yeo’s eyes narrowed, then he let out a forced laugh and leaned back in the bench. “Stuck up prick.”

Chance cleared his throat, electing to say nothing. He was starting to get a general picture of why Yeo didn’t like Jake, and the other boy’s cocky attitude didn’t help at all. With some amusement, Chance realized that Jake was exactly what he’d thought Yeo would be like when they’d first met.

“I saw her fight already,” Bella said, breaking the awkward silence and gesturing to one of the arenas. “I guess it makes sense. I don’t see how they’d get a very good ranking of us without having multiple matches.”

“Good,” Yeo growled. “I’ve still got a lot of energy left.”

Several more matches passed. Yeo was the next of them to be called up, and he won his match without much of the usual flair his style usually employed. It was done in just over a few seconds, and he returned to sit beside them, a pensive look on his face.

Bella was called next, and she won her next fight as easily as the first – although she didn’t forget to bow this time around. Both of them definitely looked like they had more experience than the rest of their competitors, and it was showing.

Chance spotted Jake in his second fight as well. The Metal cultivator won it as easily as his first, making the entire thing look borderline effortless. He looked just as dangerous as Bella and Yeo, if not more.

His own name was called shortly after, but Chance was so preoccupied with Yeo and Jake that the proctor had to repeat it before he snapped back into reality.

“Sorry, coming!” Chance said, jumping to his feet. Drake was his proctor once again, and his second opponent was a large, heavyset boy wearing leather armor.

They took their positions on either side of the arena.

“You all there?” the boy asked. “You look half asleep.”

“Sorry,” Chance said. “I’m a little distracted.”

“Undistract yourself,” the boy suggested. “And, since I’m pretty sure you missed it, I’m Todd.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chance said. “I’m Chance.”

“I know. I was listening.”

“Enough chatter,” Drake said. “Begin!”