Shade stood. But waited for the grinning gladiator master to speak. “Herd you did a number on the lady from the guards, who saw her wheeled into morning

  tea. One in the hall swore she was still twitching!” He burst into raucous laughter.

  “Well this amnesia is a bitch. Makes me wonder what sort of man I would be with skills like these. On that topic, can I ask a question?”

  Eridris’s eyes narrowed. “Depends.”

  Shade held up both hands in a placating manner. “I just wanna know about that force. The one everyone seems to put off.”

  Eridris got a strange look for a moment and then muttered something about amnesia. “It's the gods' approval; the stronger you get, the more you have. And it

  lets people know how they stand. It is also a means of warding off the Deceiver by showing your truth, your strength. It's a bit disconcerting that you seem to

  fly in the face of natural order. It doesn’t affect you at all?”

  Shade shrugged. “I am very aware of it, and I can sense it very clearly; I just don’t feel compelled by it. It is more than just a precise measure of someone’s

  power. I have a concept of weight. But aside from that, it’s just a means of knowing if and when I should be on my best behavior.”

  Eridris nodded and gestured for shade to come along. “Yard and exercise time. Also, it was time to meet the other team members. We've got a bout tomorrow,

  and we are trying to fit you into the lineup. The Marquess was very firm on that point. There is bound to be a fair bit of dick measuring. What’s the strongest

  opponent you think you could take?”

  Shade gave it an honest moment of thought before he said. “Of all the weights of people I came across yesterday, probably the strongest I could take and

  win? Probably the door guards to the tea parlor. All I know is weights, not what those weights mean.”

  Eridris looked surprised. “Those two were halfway through tier 2. Do you really think you can jump two and a half ranks to fight?”

  “Fight? When you said take, I thought you meant incapacitate or kill with little to no damage.

  It took everything I had, but I put down one of those collared Orcs at the fort in the valley.” He hadn’t, but if one were alone and unaided, he was positive he

  could have.

  Eridris sputtered and coughed for a second. “Those brutes are tier 5 Their perception and physical stats have to all be around 20.”

  Shade shook his head. “Physical stats yeah, i don't know about perception though. I was able to hide up a tree with little to no cover, and the only thing that

  gave me away was a bird getting spooked. And then more didnt come out of the fort until the first one bellowed, you do think with twenty perception they would

  be more aware.”

  Eridris shook his head, and a stack of folded clothes appeared in his hand before he slapped them into Shade’s chest. “Put that thing away, it's already done

  enough.”

  Shade took the clothes and put them on. It was a roughspun tunic and a kilt-like waist wrap. After Shade got dressed and followed Eridris out of the cells.

  Outside, the sun was bright, and although the day was moderately warm, a nice, cool breeze blew in from the west. Several other Gladeators trained diligently,

  while some stood in groups, quietly watching the bunkhouse. Benton was with a group that seemed to lack spiritual weight, aside from himself and two older

  men. The two men standing with him were slightly heavier than Benton. They must have been either trainers or friends of a somewhat higher rank. It was clear

  that their sector did not welcome Shade, which made sense. As he represented someone cutting in line and disrupting the natural order.

  Shade ignored them and turned to ask Eridris a question. “Once again, forgive my ignorance, but at what rate does level increase stats?”

  Eridris shrugged at the question. “Seems you'll have no friends here; even the opposing factions don't seem interested in you. But to answer your question,

  levels 1-10 give 1 advancement point. Once you unlock a class at tier 1, which I fear you'll never do with your affinities. Your class options are made available

  after the church filters out any black white or crimson classes, and then, depending on the grade of your class, you'll get a set number of AP, or sometimes a

  class will boost several stats and give no free AP. but enough chit chatting get out there and make some friends.”

  Eridris punctuated his statement by slapping Shade on the back and pushing him into the fenced area. Immediately, several gladiators who were training solo

  or using equipment stood. It seemed like this was a setup from the get-go. Not like Shade believed that Eridris was his friend or on his side even for a second.

  If anything, it seemed like this was likely orchestrated by him to knock Shade's ego down a peg. Several of the approaching gladiators had cloth-wrapped fists

  or thinly padded wooden weapons. Yeah. This was a hazing and a means of breaking him down and putting him in his place. The strongest gladiators present

  were on par with the door guards to the tea room, which is what must have sold Ereidris’s surprise. That was also when Shade realized that Benton and his

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  group were watching in anticipation. And the strongest Galdiator, which had to be on par with the Marquess, stood and watched disapprovingly from where he

  sat on a lat pulldown machine bench.

  Shade flooded his eyes with his time technique, encasing the Gladiarors in a predictive temporal energy cloud. He then poured space affinity into both his

  perception agility and dexterity. This new affect was mentally taxing for a non-superhuman brain, but having 10 in his mental stats buffered the strain. But now,

  not only was he aware of his opponent's immediate next move, his spatial awareness and porperception were keeping him aware of opponents in a fifty foot

  radius sphere, he could also immediately gauge distance. Aided by his first talent, caloric completion, he began a dance with the five gladiators.

  ###

  Eridris stood and watched from the side, he’d been a Doctore for more than a century. The Marquess purchased him from his last master; who was socially

  manuvered into several desasterious matches which put him in crippling dept. Eridris had heard through the grapevine that his old master was now a manor

  slave to one of his previous competitors, and his wife and eldest daughter were added to his new master's Harem. That was how he knew Shade was going to

  be a problem. The man was stone cold and moved and thought like an assassin.

  The key to maintaining any number of slaves was morale control, and the slave's belief that they were inferior. Shade seemed to have none of that. He wasn’t

  rude or crass; he seemed thoughtful and asked intelligent questions. But at no point did he feel like he knew his place. He was just a tourist, unconscerned.

  And the problem with people like that is. They are difficult to cow. You have to push them to act, and once they act, it solidifies their self-confidence. The

  easiest way early on is to break them. And that was the problem. Just from that talk they had on the way to the ambush he had spent the morning setting up

  was convincing Eridris he may have made the problem worse and not better. What he’d hoped foer was to lull him inito a false sense of comfort by letting him

  sleep in after an evening and knight of expending himself with that succubus of a lady. How does someone even get that class. And then burst in kick him

  awake and throw him off balance into the ambush. Instead he found him meditating. Then to compound things he wasnt even trying with Benton and he

  thought himself capable of taking on two trained and free house guard half way to tier 3. And capable of fighting atleast a tier 5.

  Eridris had seen many different calibur of Gladiators blunt sneaky braggadocious reserved. And Shade spoke and moved with confidence as if everythoig was

  under his control. Even when collared and blacklisted by the church. Shade’s skills were another odd issue. Eridris couldn’t stop the acquisition of skills.

  However, as someone with permissions to the collar, he should be able to prevent skill growth. Shade seemed to gain max level in most skills at unlock, and

  even when not maxed out they were all between level 4 and 6. It was like he’d lived another life.

  Eridris shook free of his thoughts and watched as the fight started. With his perception, he missed no movement and could even effectively zoom in and slow

  down time with his perception. The man flitted through the combatants like a phantom. Small movements and micro dodges kept him from being touched, and

  his awareness of the entire battle give him a lot of control. It was because of this fact that the group cohesion was breaking down. He was guiding the weaker

  opponents onto the attack paths of the stronger ones. Two of the initial five opponents were now down, and the gladiators were about to erupt into a brawl,

  and he’d yet to throw a single attack. Eridris added Tactician to his assessment. Eridris gritted his reeth just as the strongest two gladiators turned to ingage in

  a shoving contest that Shade moved. This whole tome he was avoiding attacking so he didnt leave an opening that the two more powerful gladiators could

  close distance and take advantage.

  In a smoothe series of movements from Eridris’s perspective Shade dodged around over extended punch with some light footwork, stepped into the mands

  blind spot and as his arms came around the man’s neck he chopped his windpipe, and when the man stiffened as a natural response Shade leaned back with

  the man and drove his knee up into the mans spine just below the shoulder blades with a crunch and a crack and the man fell limp like a puppet with his

  strings cut accept fr his arms which waved around as he screamed. Eridris could see that Shade did not kill the man but paralized him from the chest down.

  The man’s cry attracted the attention of the other two who tamped down their initial conflict, to rush at Shade.

  The dance began again in earnest. The astoundoing thing was that they were genuinely faster than Shade, but his combat awareness kept him just ahead of

  them. It was apparent that their boosted Constitution was giving spme issues. But he still made them pay for every mistake, bruises began to form on throats

  and around eyesockets. With brief pauses when he got n position for a groin shot, the two men were clearly slowing when the tide finally turned against them.

  Shade took a graze to his ribs that probably fractured atleast two of them. His arm followed te contour of the stronger gladiators arrm up passed his shoulder,

  where the mas face was frozen wide eyed at the strike landing, when shades hand became a crane beak and plucked his right eyeball out, and in a fluid

  continuation of the motion, tossed the eyeball down the throat of the other man who was just inhaling to roar in victory now turned to revulsion at the blow that

  had just been struck. Shade then punched the choking man in the throat, causing it to swell around the obstruction. Just like that, it was over. Shade stood

  victorious, clutching his side. In the now dust clouded yard.

  ###

  Shade dropped his several techniques and stood there clutching his broken ribs. He was trying to figure out how deep of a breath he could take when Eridris

  appeared. “Didn’t kill anyone like you asked,” was all he said before the Doctore spoke.

  “Freeze.” was all he said with a cold, commanding tone.

  Shade felt that energy around his core that the collar imposed track through his nervous system and send a signal to lock up his muscles. However, like the

  fact that his refined energy could permeate the mana use limits imposed by the collar, he felt that his will or spirit could counteract this imposition. However, he

  would let it affect him for now unless it proved a threat to his life.

  ###

  “Habson. Go get that Damnable butler; also get ahold of the house guard. Take this one to solitary confinement. No food or medical aid before tomorrow's

  match.”

  Eridris sighed. This whole situation backfired, and now he was going to catch hell from Ballatro for the potion expenditures necessary to get these five men

  back to fighting fit. At Least two regeneration potions and four moderate healing.

  Ballatro appeared in the yard with four elites surrounding Shade’s frozen form. Four spears hovered centimeters from Shade’s neck. “What happened here?”

  the butler asked in a neutral tone. Nonetheless, he took in the five downed Gladiators. “I was alerted to his collar activating.”

  ‘Fuck’ Eridris thought. He showed up before Habson had found him. “I was conducting an exercise that went out of control.”

  “You mean you were trying to break him. underestimated him, and now you have made the other gladiators fear him and accomplished nothing but expending

  expensive potions. If the Marquesses' honor weren't on the line, perhaps I'd deny them healing and let you suffer her grace's Wrath for your poor judgment

  resulting in her loss. But instead, it’s coming out of your portion of the winnings. Which I dare say won't be much. Hmm, two regeneration potions and 4

  medium heals. I think that you will still owe the estate after the winnings. Do better. Make better choices. I already told you that he could perceive me in

  combat. This is all on you!”

  ###

  After Shade had been transported to solitary confinement and released from his collar’s paralysis. Ballatro prepared a proposal for the Marquess. He would

  propose that after tomorrow's match, if Shade survives, which is questionable since he was going to have to do it injured, that the Marquess have him

  paralyzed and killed quietly under the guise of any of the ways a null was susceptible to death.

  For some reason, this level 1 null set Ballatro’s instincts ablaze. He was over four hundred years old, and he'd been a soldier, general, and holy knight. He

  retired into glorious service of the Marquie that was in power 3 generations ago and has served the family every sense. He watched the current Marquess

  grow into and inherit the position like her father before her, but this Shade made him on guard whenever he was around. It was unsettling. He defied social

  norms and punched above his weight class. Threats like this needed to be put down. If tomorrow’s match wasnt for her hand in marriage to that damn Baron,

  and would be observed by God Biron of the Crafters guild he would push to have him executed this very eve.