First "blood"

Using his mana for something other than summoning his magic circle was harder than he expected, much harder. If you give someone some tools and leave them in a forest with the order to build a house that person will not know where to start, the materials and tools without the knowledge of how to use them are practically useless.

Luka spent days training every morning without much success, the only thing he managed was to cool down the atmosphere a bit. It was on the fifth day that he managed to summon some ice, a fragile piece of ice that broke into pieces as soon as it fell to the ground.

Five days of hard training, spending hours and hours practicing, and that was the result. For most people that would be disheartening, they would get frustrated and angry and then throw in the towel. But not Luka. Luka was an Olympic athlete in his past life, he knows that success is not achieved overnight, he knows that behind each medal there are hundreds and hundreds of hours of hard practice.

Once when she was twelve Elysia had been practicing for months for a ice skating tournament, just the week before the tournament she sprained her ankle and had to alter the choreography to exclude the jumps and more arduous parts. She won the third place, and after the awards ceremony, a friend of hers asked her:

"Why aren't you mad? You've been practicing for this tournament for months! And your original choreography was much better than the girls who won first and second place!"

Elysia just smirked and said:

"If you see the moon as a success, then failures are like all the stars around it. But, I think that's just how things have to be, you know? If we don't fail, then the night sky would be rather boring."

Luka uses each failure as another step towards success, he studies them and learns from them. That philosophy of his always paid off, and in the second week Luka Artois created his first spell!

Currently Luka is in another abandoned building, one in another city since Luka knows that if he stays in one place for too long he will end up attracting attention. It is only a matter of time before people notice the lonely child and notify the authorities, to avoid that the young mage decided to travel constantly. After a week in Mannheim, the city in which he woke up, he sneaked on a train to Stuttgart, where he is now.

The pinkhead closes his eyes and extends both hands forward.

`Focus on your mana, guide it in the right direction while visualizing the end result and use your willpower to forge the magic circle.`

Opening his eyes, Luka sees his magic circle floating in front of him.

"Ice-Make: Nail!"

A nail made of ice approximately five centimeters long and two centimeters thick comes out of the magic circle.

`Good, now push it forward!`

A bead of sweat drops down Luka's forehead as he concentrates on propelling the ice nail forward.

"Ice-Make: Shooting Nail!"

After a few seconds the ice nail is propelled forward, crashes into a concrete wall and shatters into pieces.

"Phew." Luka wipes the sweat from his forehead and looks at the watch on his wrist. "4 seconds less than yesterday. Between creating the ice nail and propelling it towards my target it takes me 1 minute and 40 seconds, the first time I used this spell it took me almost five minutes. I'm making progress!"

Ice-Make isn't the only thing he focused on in the last few weeks, Luka also trained his body in both mundane and magical ways.

He discovered that he can use mana to strengthen his body actively and passively. The active way is to focus mana into his body to strengthen it, while focusing mana he can become faster or stronger, but when he cuts off the flow of mana his physical abilities revert to those of an ordinary child. The passive form is a secondary effect of the active form, by using mana to strengthen his body little by little it "evolves": becoming faster, stronger, etc.

("That's why Fairy Tail civilians aren't that different in terms of physical power from real humans, while mages can smash rocks with one punch! That's without using specific magic to increase physical power!")

""Ice-Make: Nail!" Luka summons the ice nail and grabs it in one hand. "Summoning just the ice nail takes me 40 seconds." He reverses his grip and throws it against the wall. "It would be faster for me to throw the ice nail manually but my magic circle has a higher casting force than my body. Well, worst case scenario I can use the ice nail to stab my foes."

***

The days come and go,as time passes Luka improves his spells more and more. In the third week since he woke up in this world, he can use Ice-Make: Nail in 10 seconds and Ice-Make: Shooting Nail in 28 seconds.

He also learned how to harden the ice and make it sharper.

"I think I'm ready to challenge the [Battle Arena]!"

The floating words appeared in front of him as soon as he said [Battle Arena]..

[Battle Arena: A sub dimensional space where you can challenge different beings in a deathly combat. By defeating enemies in the Battle Arena you win System Points, the amount earned depends on the strength of the enemy.

Modes:

-Duel Mode (1 VS 1)

-Battle Royal Mode (1 VS many enemies)

Difficulty settings:

-SSS (5000/50 000p)

-SS (1000/10 000p)

-S (400/4000p)

-A (160/1600p)

-B (80/800p)

-C (40/400p)

-D (20/200p)

-E (10/100p)

-F (5/50p)

-G (1/10p)

NOTES***]

Luka takes a deep breath and psyches himself up for what he is about to do.

`I have been in this world for almost a month, until now I have been lucky and I did not stumble across any monster or dangerous being. But my luck will run out one day, I have to gather more information and since the libraries didn't help me find out much about the threat levels of this world the Battle Arena will. By learning what power level is considered the weakest I can roughly calculate how dangerous high level threats are.`

Luka Artois has been preparing for this for a week. He not only upgraded his two spells to a level where he can use them in combat effectively, he also trained his body and gathered weapons.

He has a baseball bat that he stole from a school and an army knife, which he stole from someone in a mall. Stealing is something he's gotten pretty good at in the last few weeks, and he's not at all embarrassed by it.

If it is to survive there is no shame in it, that is his philosophy.

"Mode: Duel. Difficulty Setting: G"

As soon as he says those words the world distorts around him, all color disappears and he is in a dark space. As soon as he blinks a new world is built around him and Luka is now in the center of an Arena.

"Wow." He looks around in amazement.

Surrounding the Arena are gigantic golden walls and a translucent dome can be seen in the sky.

[Duel will begin in 30 seconds!]

After seeing the notification, Luka swallows nervously.

"This is it. I trained, I am ready." He tells himself. "I hope I am ready."

Luka concentrates on his mana and prepares his spells.

[0 seconds!

Generating G-rank enemy!]

A few meters away from him, a humanoid being begins to materialize.

`Zombie!` Luka looks terrified at the creature only five meters away from him. The pinkhead's heart sounded like drums in his ears and his entire body froze, he could only stare in fear and disgust at the putrid thing before him.

The zombie has grayish skin that shone like an oily substance, he is tall and if he were alive he could be considered athletic but currently he has pieces of skin and flesh torn off leaving visible muscle fiber in some parts of his body and bones in others.

His eyes are milky but they have a terrifying gleam in them, a wild, mad gleam. Those crazy, diseased eyes terrified Luka and when the zombie looked at him, the mage flinched.

He opened his mouth to let out an inhuman growl and Luka saw his teeth, they were blackened and were like a line of broken tombstones.

After growling the zombie began to run towards Luka.

`Zombies are not supposed to run!` A drop of sweat fell on Luka's forehead and he forgets all the strategies he prepared beforehand, the most primitive and basic instincts of his body took control and Luka began to run in the opposite direction of the zombie.

"I am not ready for this!" He yells as he pushes his body to run faster, he is afraid to look back as he fears he will trip and fall to the ground. "Mana!" He remembers he can use mana to run faster and after trying to concentrate his mana several times without success, as fear clouded his mind and his heart, he almost thought about giving up and leaving the Battle Arena.

Almost.

Luka remembers his last moments as Elysia, he remembers the pain and helplessness. A very familiar feeling of impotence washes over him and he can only grit his teeth.

"No! I won't be so powerless again! Never again!" He yells furious with himself.

The terrified glint in his eyes is replaced by determination and courage.

Luka concentrates his mana and speeds up, turns his head and sees that the zombie is a bit far away.

`He can run but he is not faster than an ordinary human, maybe even a bit slower, while with mana I can run at the speed of Usain Bolt.`

The mage stops running, his legs sliding across the ground as he turns his body to face the zombie that keeps running towards him.

He raises his hand and a magic circle forms in front of him.

The seconds go by and the zombie is getting closer, Luka swallows and focuses on the spell.

When the zombie is only three meters away the spell is ready.

"Ice-Make: Shooting Nail!"

The ice nail shoots towards the zombie and plunges into his chest, piercing the rotting flesh with ease.

The blow slowed down the zombie a bit but he didn't stop running.

"Shit." Luka jumped to the side and dodged the zombie just as he was going to launch towards him.

The zombie can run but he is not very agile and when trying to change direction to chase Luka he tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground.

Seeing his enemy rolling on the ground, the mage saw an opportunity and ran towards him with the bat raised.

Focusing his mana to increase his strength and speed, Luka leaped towards his fallen foe and brought down the bat with all his might. The bat struck the zombie's head and crushed his skull with a sickening crack.

Blood and parts of the zombie's brain splatter Luka and he jumps away from the corpse with revulsion.

"Ewww!" Luka quickly drops the bat and takes off his shirt, using the clean part to wipe his face. "I need to bathe in holy water!"

[Congratulations! You have won the duel!

+1 System Point!

Teleporting out of [Battle Arena] in 30 seconds!]

"I hate zombies!"

***

NOTE: There are advanced chapter in my p@ tre on if you are interested.

p a t r e o n. com /EdenofKovir

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