Omni-Mastery

Holding back the attack I was going to follow up with, I observed the swordswoman who seemed to have noticed that I was planning to finish the battle within the next few moves, and thus wanted to use her strongest attack in response…

'This…'

Not only did I finally understood the reason why the observers had regarded her as a solo fire swordswoman, but I was also given a good jolt of surprise…

'Isn't this 'Raging Fire'...?!'

The 'Elemental Art' that she was currently using was actually quite similar to the one I bought from the system shop, which she was using to completely strengthen her fire attribute using the wind one, thus giving people the impression that she was only using the fire attribute.

Of course, the obvious difference between me and her was that she was actually using it while having both attributes, unlike me who had only the wind attribute at that point, and so had to use this art to obtain the fire attribute, however, other than that…

'It's almost identical…'

There were only two explanations that came to my mind at this point…

'Could it be…'

Either she was another player that has been training to this point and joined this tournament to get resources…

'No?'

However, upon checking her stats, there was nothing attention worthy other than her high perception stat as she seemed to have a balanced build, as well as the 'Raging Fire' that appeared in the same name in her techniques panel…

she wasn't an 'Otherworlder', which meant that the only way she could be a player would be if she was somehow found a way to hide that part of the status and appear as a normal human, which was pretty unlikely, leaving only one possible explanation…

'She obtained it through other means…'

This basically included all the sub-possibilities that I thought of, like her killing another player who obtained it from the system shop, or finding the dead body of a player and getting that from it, there was also the chance that it was actually her family's Elemental Art, etc…

'Interesting…'

This only left me with more questions, with the main one being…

'Where does the items and techniques in the system shop come from…?'

Of course, this wasn't the appropriate time to try and find an answer to these questions as I still had to finish this match. 

So far, only a few seconds have passed while I was having such thoughts, in which I simply dodged the strike and simply prepared a one of my own.

Using this chance to attack, I decided to use the same method!

Using wind elements to fuel fire ones as well as fuse with it, I applied the 'Wind' concept into my attack and slashed towards her before she managed to catch my intention like she did before.

Still, seemingly due to her extraordinary perception that might have awakened a special ability ability of it own like my 'Sensory Area Perception', she still managed to only receive shallow damage as she backed off before the sword reached her body, albeit at the cost of…

"No.222 wins!"

To avoid the reach of my sword and the fire that only managed to give her some burns, she had to dodge to the back using her wind footwork without any restraints, which resulted in her leaving promptly leaving the ring.

Other than that, I could also easily read another thing that caused her reaction to be this chaotic…

'As expected, that surprised her as well…'

Just like I managed to observe her 'Elemental Art' and reach the conclusion that it was 'Raging Fire', she seemed to have managed to do the same, which wasn't that hard considering how good her perception was…

I did plan for that to happen, which wasn't obviously to have her become confused so that I would win easily, there were more than one way for me to do that without resorting to trickery. It was mainly to grab her attention so that I might be able to receive an answer to the questions I had in mind during the earlier match.

Leaving behind the fire swordswoman who seemed to be deep in thought as she touched her burns that weren't that bad due to her natural fire resistance that came along with her fire attribute, I returned back to the ground watch platform.

'Finally, a not so boring match.'

Being the first match that made me think this far, I felt a bit refreshed and less bored about this whole 'Show Off tournament', while the match against that fire fist guy could also count as somewhat interesting, his fiery attitude made him worth no attention in my opinion as he seemed like the type that would die first, not because he was weak but simply because he was a rash idiot…

Yet, what came alongside that refreshment was another…

'What now…'

Another piercing stare was directed to me now and the source of it was…

'Maybe I shouldn't have done that…'

Obviously the fire swordswoman who I just beat, of course, unlike the social idiot fire fist guy, anyone could tell that her stare was purely out of curiosity as it didn't same to carry any hits of rivalry or resentment from losing the match just now…

'I did want to grab her attention for later, but it seemed like it was too effective…'

Now I had to deal with two stares, a burning rivalry one from the social idiot fire fist guy who didn't stop to this point, as his stare's presence only disappeared when he had a match early today, and the curious stare of the wind & fire swordswoman, albeit a not so piercing one…

"No.223 Vs No.108!"

"No.114 Vs. No.96!"

"No.42 Vs…"

Soon enough another five matches were called on, as I tried to forget about the stares that were concentrated at me by watching the new matches, which were disappointingly…

'Too Boring, when is my last match at…'