8 One Year Later

Within Atem's Soul

October 1795

With wide eyes, Atem ducks under a sword swing before rolling under the attacking arm to end up behind the attacker. Without wasting a second, he turns around and slashes the golem's knees with one of the khopeshes in his hands, severing its legs and making it fall on the ground.

"Ha-di" chants Atem with a booming voice as he faces the golem, destroying it completely with only small pieces of rubble remaining of magical construct.

"Acceptable work." compliments Aknadin, causing Atem to proudly smile back at him.

"Surely that was more than acceptable. I dispatched three golems without receiving a single injury." responds Atem as Bastet runs towards him before jumping on his head with a single leap where she comfortably lays herself.

"While that may be true, the golems are nothing special and can be destroyed by any competent mundane warrior. As a Pharaoh it should not even take you a second to get rid of them." rebukes Akanadin as he watches Atem pet the two cubs as if they were simple kittens.

"For a five year old, I believe that I did well." replies Atem with a hoarse voice as smoke comes out of his mouth.

"If you were a normal five year old I would agree, however you are a Pharaoh." firmly reminds Akanadin. "At your age, Atem could destroy twice the amount of golems at half the time, while Ramasses II could destroy ten golems during the time it took you to destroy three." informs the teacher, causing Atem to slightly frown. "Not only could they do better in terms of how many golems they destroyed during the same time, but neither of them had the limit of using five divine words per day." points out Aknadin as he notices the smoke coming from Atem's mouth along with the hoarse nature of his voice.

"Yes, well excuse me for not being able to easily master the magic of the gods." sarcastically replies the boy. "It's almost as if I want nothing to do with them."

"As a Pharaoh, you are a direct descendant of Ra himself. As such, divine words should be the easiest form of magic for you to master." says Aknadin.

"Direct descendant of Ra?" says Atem disdainfully as he spits out Ra's name. "If that's the case, then where was he when I prayed to him. The least he could do is answer me to tell me that he will not help me."

"Enough!" commands Aknadin with a frown. "It will be time for your gladiatorial battle, so you should leave here soon. Today also marks a year since you were subjected to the ritual, so expect to go through the first procedure sometime soon, if not today." informs Aknadin.

"Five more years." says Atem with a smirk full of anticipation as he refers to how much longer he will suffer under Basilius.

"Yes. In five years, you should be powerful enough to deal with Basilius on your own and the procedures should also be finished by then." confirms Aknadin with a slight smile of his own.

Without saying anything else, Atem pets the cubs with a fond smile on his face before disappearing from the desert.

"Honestly, only he and Ramasses II would have the audacity to treat the divine sphinxes as kittens." says Aknadin with a fond smile as he watches the two cubs fight one another. "Two vicious divine beasts capable of killing most dragons and other divine beasts with ease are reduced to being pets whenever they are around those two." says the sorcerer with a shake of his head.

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Saint-Domingue, Cayes-Jacmel

Fort Quintus

October 17, 1795

As Atem comes to within the physical world, he gets up from his bed and proceeds to put on his uniform, the same white clothes as when he first arrived but in a bigger size. The past year had seen him grow in height along with an increase of scars on his body from his battles in the arena. Although, other than the scar running through his left eye none of the others are quite as serious.

After his first battle, Atem had not faced any more unskilled children but had instead been forced to face veterans of the arena who had already fought many battles. Some had only been a few years older than him while others had been in their teenage years. While he had to kill many of them, some he had been ordered to spare for reasons unknown to him. When not fighting in the arena, Atem spends time in his room where he would enter his inner world and receive lessons from Aknadin. While his lessons mainly focus on magic that can be used in combat and weaponry, Aknadin also makes time to teach him the basics of math, language, and history. Despite the variety of his lessons however, there is one particular topic that Aknadin places more focus on over everything else. It is a single magic spell that will allow him to even the field once he faces Basilius in combat. A spell that will allow him to materialise his soul into the real world in the form of a domain, a reality marble.

While the fact that it is a single spell can lead one to believe that it should be easier to master as opposed to multiple spells, the truth of the matter is that the majority of magic users never even come close to actualise their reality marbles, and those who do come close almost never completely summon it onto the physical world. Despite the difficulty of it however, Atem finds that working on his reality marble is somewhat easier than working on his mastery of divine words. As of now he can already summon Bastet or Sekhmet onto the physical world for a few minutes. Unfortunately however, it is nowhere near close enough to what he will need to defeat Basilius. Still, Aknadenin theories that it will take him around five years for him to be passably good enough to face Basilius, which is also how long it will take for him to go through all of the procedures that will make his body powerful enough for Basilius to consider it ready for repossession.

As he finishes putting on his clothes, Atem picks up his two daggers from his bed, one from the boy he first killed and the second being the one first issued to him upon his arrival. With ease born from experience, Atem unsheathes the daggers and proceeds to expertly twirl them in his hands while waiting for the guard to come and guide him to the arena.

He does not have to wait long however as a few minutes after he finished clothing himself the door to his room opens and the armored guard beckons him over. Like his first time, he makes his way out of the room and follows the guard through the maze-like hallways towards the arena. Unlike the first time however, he has the pathway completely memorised and could make his way there with his single working eye closed. Not only has he memorised the path to the arena, but he has also memorised the path to Basilius' lab due to being frequently guided there for check ups. Apparently Basilius doesn't want to take any chances of him being crippled or having his injuries infected. No doubt he wants his body to be in perfect working order for when he attempts to steal it.

As they turn the final corner, Atem shakes those thoughts from his head. Thinking about it won't help his current situation. What he needs to do now is survive the battles and procedures while mastering his magic before Basilius takes over his body.

"So the underdog returns." comments one of the guards as his colleague opens the door to the arena. "Give 'em hell kiddo." he comments as Atem makes his way into the arena.

Without answering, Atem follows the guard into the tunnel before continuing on into the middle of the arena while the guard stands back in the tunnel. Unlike what he expected, Atem was not met with an opponent in the form of a teenage or child slave, but instead a grown man of around twenty years old.

The man stands at around five feet nine inches tall with a well built physique full of muscles. Covering his strong physique is the normal outfit of an overseer that consists of white pants, boots, a beige short sleeve shirt, and a whip hanging on his hips. He has blue eyes and brown hair with a few bangs that fall on his forehead, stopping just a few inches short of covering his eyebrows. His eyebrows are set in a scowl and a sneer can be seen on his already rough face, making him look much more intimidating.

"So my opponent is another one of you monkeys. I was hoping for a challenge, but a kid like you can't even be considered warm up." he mocks with a curl of his lips as he takes the whip from his hip and cracks it on the ground, sending dust and dirt flying while also leaving an indent where it struck the ground.

'That is no ordinary whip, nor is he a mundane foe.' comments Akandin within Atem's mind. 'Analize, now.' commands the soul remnant.

'He is most likely a mage that specialises in using magical items to aid him in physical combat. His skills regarding any form of magic beyond the basics should be quite low. As for the whip, it's most likely an elemental one, fire or lightning, judging by the wild nature of the magical energy that I sense from it' analyses Atem.

"Are you ignoring me, you nigger?" questions the man with a growl as he swipes his whip towards Atem despite the weapon being too short to reach him.

Just as Atem believes that the whip will fall significantly short of hitting him however, the weapon stretches long enough to cover the distance. With wide eyes, Atem ducks under the swipe before launching himself at the man with a speed that should not be possible for any child, much less one as young as him. Shocked by the boy's speed, Atem's foe freezes for a second before quickly shortening his whip and slashing it towards Atem's legs. Without slowing down, Atem vaults over the attack while also launching himself forward towards the man's face. At the peak of his jump, Atem slashes one of his daggers towards the man's neck, only to miss when he takes a step back and slashes towards Atem's face with his whip.

Seemingly unbothered by his opponent's maneuver, Atem blocks the whip with his second dagger just as the normal whip turns into a flaming whip. Believing that Atem is now unable to defend himself, the overseer launches a kick towards Atem as he falls from his jump. With no change in his facial expression, Atem stabs his unoccupied dagger into the man's knee, stopping his kick, before quickly pulling it out and impaling it in his throat with a simple throw that he's practiced countless times within his soul.

Unprepared for the attack and with a reaction too slow to react, the man can do nothing but feel as the dagger stabs through his throat and he falls to the ground in shock. Landing next to the overseer's fallen body, Atem removes the dagger from his throat and watches with an expressionless face as the man bleeds to death from the wound. With a flick of his wrist, Atem cleans the dagger of the majority of the blood before walking back towards the tunnel where the guard awaits.

While Atem makes his way out of the arena, Basilius and Augustus quietly observe the boy.

"I see why the boy interests you so much, but I still don't know what you plan to do with him." says Augustus as he takes a sip of wine from a chalice. "Tell me, do you plan on taking over his body or grooming him to be the perfect servant?" asks the head of House Quintus.

"I will be taking over his body after putting it through the procedures." stoically replies Basilius from his position next to his brother.

"The procedures? Do you mean the ones where you inscribe a set of runnic arrays onto his bones to increase the body's physical parameters?" questions Augustus with a raised eyebrow, earning a nod from his brother. "No one has ever survived them." he comments.

"Which is why I will be doing one procedure a year in order for him to recover. Besides, the reason none have survived so far is because of their body's inability to channel the sheer amount of magical energy needed for the runes to work. The boy, however, can safely output five times more magical energy than the two of us combined. He should survive at least four out of the five procedures." reassures Basillius.

"Hmmm, do whatever you want." carelessly dismisses Augustus before turning his eyes back to the arena where two more slaves have entered.

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AN: Here's the chapter, as usual tell me what you think and comment on your theories, I love reading them.

Also, if you can please support me on my Pat re on which is (pat re on .com / servantambrosius). I will begin to post more chapters there before posting here. And follow my writing account on instagram at servant_ambrosius