My System Doesn't Give Power

The moment the match began, Gareth slammed his iron-covered fists together with a grin.

From the spectator area, Marty dug his nails into his palm from frustration.

Gareth sized Shobin up from head to toe. "You’ve either got guts or you’re completely stupid, coming up here without even a weapon."

His grin widened. "I’m gonna squash you like a bug."

Shobin remained perfectly still, but Marty grimaced from the sidelines. "Damn. He’s gonna get squashed into tomato sauce."

"I don’t think that’s going to happen." Daniel’s eyes remained fixed on the stage.

"You’re right. With a body that thin, there probably won’t even be enough left to qualify as tomato sauce."

Daniel slowly turned toward him. "That’s not what I meant."

He pointed toward Shobin. "Look at the way he’s standing. His body isn’t tense, and his legs aren’t shaking. There’s no fear at all."

"Maybe he’s putting on a brave face so he doesn’t embarrass himself?"

"I don’t think so." Zac narrowed his eyes at the stage too. "Look at his eyes. The eyes reflect what’s going on inside. There’s not even a trace of fear in his."

"He looks like he already has the situation under control."

Gareth suddenly lunged. Mana surged around his arms as his brass knuckles tore toward Shobin’s face.

Shobin waited until the fist was almost touching him. Then he shifted his weight, and the punch slipped past his shoulder by inches.

Before Gareth could pull back, Shobin’s palm brushed against his wrist. Mana coated his arm for only an instant as he redirected the force of the punch instead of stopping it outright.

Gareth’s balance pitched forward, and Shobin stepped inside his guard. His fist drove into Gareth’s ribs with one short, compact strike.

But Gareth looked like he barely even flinched.

Shobin withdrew his hand, turned around, and started walking toward the edge of the stage.

Gareth stared after him. "Where are you going? You call that a punch? What, are you giving up?"

Before he could say anything else the words died in his throat. A thin stream of blood slipped from the corner of his mouth.

His grin vanished, and Gareth’s knees buckled. A second later, his massive body crashed onto the stage. Unconscious.

The arena went dead silent.

Shobin calmly stepped off the stage and returned to the seating area, where several open mouths greeted him.

The same question seemed to be running through everyone’s head. "What the hell just happened?"

The strike had looked shallow. Almost harmless. So how had Gareth dropped unconscious from a single blow?

Marty was the first to recover. "Dude, that was dope. What did you even do?"

Kelly leaned forward. "And how did you dodge that first punch at the last second? I didn’t know you could fight like that."

Daniel studied Shobin for another moment. "Are you a martial artist?"

Marty blinked. "Martial arts? What martial arts?"

Shobin gave a small nod. "Not me, but my father was; he taught me a few moves."

Kelly’s eyebrows shot up. "You never mentioned that."

"It never came up."

Marty slowly leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Meanwhile, my father taught me that being five minutes late still counts as being on time."

"He did well." Matilda’s gaze remained on Shobin as he returned from the stage.

Murphy nodded. "He did. Simple as it looked, his martial arts experience let him use mana with impressive precision. Especially that strike to the ribs."

He glanced toward the unconscious Gareth as the medical staff attended to him.

"He reinforced his fist at the exact moment of impact, and judging from the result, that martial art targets beneath the surface rather than relying on external damage. That’s why his opponent looked fine outside while taking the real damage internally."

Murphy turned toward Simon. "What do you think, Sir Simon?"

"A good strategy." Simon folded his arms. "But it only worked that well because his opponent doesn’t fully understand internal coating. If he’d reinforced his internal organs with mana, the damage wouldn’t have been nearly as severe."

Meanwhile, another announcement rang through the arena. "Stage Four! Number twenty-eight against number seventy-four!"

Kelly stiffened. "Oh. That’s me."

Marty immediately gave her a thumbs-up. "Don’t worry. Just imagine your opponent is someone you hate."

"But I don’t hate anyone." Marty’s thumb slowly lowered. "Oh. Right. That doesn’t help at all."

Zac caught her attention before her nerves could spiral any further. "Don’t lose focus. Calm down and clear your head before you do anything."

Daniel nodded beside him. "Exactly. Keep your head clear no matter what happens. Once you panic, you’ll start making mistakes."

Sabrina offered considerably less. "Don’t freeze."

Kelly stared at her. "...Thanks, Snow."

She drew a shaky breath and climbed onto the stage.

Her opponent, Brand Col from Class B, was already waiting with a heavy wooden mace resting over one shoulder.

His eyes swept over Kelly before an arrogant smirk appeared. "A mage, I presume?"

Kelly shifted uneasily. "Yes."

"This is going to be rough for you."

Before she could decide what exactly that was supposed to mean, the referee’s hand dropped.

"Begin!"

Brand charged immediately.

And Kelly flinched. Mana burst from her body as both hands shot forward. A thin but hardened layer formed before her like a shield while another coating wrapped around her body.

The mace crashed into the barrier, and Kelly staggered backward. Before she could regain her footing, the second blow came.

Then a third.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Each strike sent violent ripples through the mana shield.

Kelly poured more mana into it, desperately forcing the trembling barrier to hold together, but Brand never gave her room to breathe.

"Mages really should stay in the back." His mace slammed against the shield again. "What are you even doing up here?"

Cracks of unstable mana spread across its surface as Kelly’s arms began to shake.

Brand grinned, seeing that, "You’re nothing without your skills. No summons. No tricks. No hiding behind the backline."

Another impact drove Kelly lower. "We warriors are the real fighters." Her knees nearly touched the stage.

In the stands, Zac’s eyes narrowed. "She’s panicking, and that thing isn’t going to last much longer."

Brand lifted the mace over his shoulder. "Just surrender already. Why keep embarrassing yourself? You’re only dragging it out."

"Embarrassing...Embarrassing...Embarrassing..."

The word landed harder than the mace had. Kelly’s eyes trembled. A tear gathered at the corner of one eye.

Then something inside her snapped. Her feet slammed firmly against the stage with both hands thrusting forward.

"Don’t talk to me like that!"

Mana flooded toward her palms, compressed into a single point between her hands until the air itself seemed to tighten around it.

Then it erupted.

A concentrated beam of mana blasted across the stage and struck Brand head-on, and his body vanished from the platform.

A heartbeat later, he crashed onto the arena floor well beyond the boundary.

Once again, silence swallowed the entire arena.

Even several students fighting on the other stages had stopped mid-match to stare toward Stage Four.

Slowly, Kelly opened the eyes she’d squeezed shut and stared at her palms. "What... just happened?"

The silence lasted only a few seconds. Then the stands erupted.

"She used a skill!"

"That had to be an awakened ability!"

"She cheated!"

The referee stepped forward and immediately reviewed the recording on his tablet, then lifted his head toward the upper stands.

Simon gave a single shake of his head, and the referee turned back to the arena. "No skill or awakened ability detected. The attack was completely valid."

"Winner, Kelly Carter!"

The whispers exploded all over again.

"She can do that?"

"This tournament is rigged!"

"How can they allow that?"

"Is it because she’s a girl?"

Simon’s expression darkened. He raised the microphone. "That attack was nothing more than a highly condensed release of mana. No skill. No awakened ability."

His gaze swept across the students. "Now be silent and let the tournament continue."

The arena promptly remembered how to shut up. Kelly, however, somehow looked even more confused than everyone else.

Zac stared at the scorched path left across the stage.

"What the hell was that?"

[Apparently, your bunny summoner has discovered the sacred art of cupping both hands together and firing a giant blue beam at people.]

Zac nearly coughed. "Why does that sound oddly familiar?"

[Give her spiky hair, several minutes of screaming, and an unreasonable number of power-ups, and the resemblance might become legally concerning.]

Zac pressed his lips together. "How did she even do that?"

Kelly finally stepped down from the stage and made her way back toward the others.

Marty practically launched himself at her. "Kelly, that was awesome!"

"Was it?" She blinked at him. "I don’t even know how I did it."

"Who cares?" Marty threw both hands forward dramatically. "You were getting bam, bam, bam, and then suddenly you went boom and sent that guy flying out of the arena!"

Daniel studied Kelly’s hands thoughtfully. "Going by Sir Simon’s explanation, I think you compressed a large amount of mana into a single point and released all of it at once in one direction."

Kelly stared at her palms again. "I can do that?"

Shobin nodded. "I’ve read about something similar. I think it’s one of the applications of mana compression."

Marty glanced sideways at him. "Of course you’ve read about it."

The matches that followed were completely lackluster. Before long, most of the students were bored out of their minds.

"Why are we still here?" Marty pushed himself to his feet. "It’s not like we’re getting another match until tomorrow. Let’s just go home."

But before he could take another step, the next announcement rang across the arena. "Number five against number eighty-three!"

What happened next changed the atmosphere completely.

A girl stepped out from the Class B side. Almost immediately, the students around her shifted away.

Within seconds, an unnaturally wide path had opened through the crowd, as though nobody wanted to risk getting anywhere near her.

The girl walked toward the stage alone.

Long black hair spilled over her shoulders. Heavy dark makeup framed her eyes, while her lips were painted the color of midnight, a small ring gleaming against her lower lip.

Multiple piercings lined her ears. Dark tattoos curled along her arms before disappearing beneath the sleeves of her uniform, and every one of her fingernails was painted black.

One thing, however, was undeniable. She was extremely beautiful.

Not in the bright, polished way that made people stare openly, but with something darker and sharper about her. The kind of beauty that made people look twice, then quickly pretend they hadn’t looked at all.

Marty leaned closer to Zac. "Who in the black hell is this gothic hottie?"

Shobin’s expression immediately turned serious. "Ravena Voss. Class B."

"You know her?"

"No. I’ve only heard a few rumors about her."

Kelly’s curiosity immediately kicked in. "What kind of rumors?"

Daniel’s brows drew together. "The Hexed Rose."

Kelly visibly recoiled. "That’s horrible. How can they call a girl something like that?"

Marty scratched his jaw. "I mean... even when people give someone a creepy nickname, they still can’t resist making it romantic. ’The Hexed Rose’ sounds weirdly poetic, doesn’t it?"

He glanced around and saw how everyone was staring at him strangely.

Marty cleared his throat. "Okay. Not important. Moving on." He pointed toward Ravena. "Why do people call her that?"

"Because... she is cursed."

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