Dante wasn't so sure. For the first time since the tournament began, he was uncertain about his innate talent and his calculating abilities. Normally, if his thoughts couldn't keep up, he would simply adapt and wait for them to catch up. But this time was different. He couldn't keep up at all—not even his eyes could track it. All he could rely on now was his ability to read intent, the Mindstep. But not long ago, that ability had proven to be insufficient against high-speed opponents like Kaela.
At this point, Dante could only hope for a miracle.
A moment later, his fears came true. Kaela suddenly charged at him from his blind spot. Dante heard the sound of her foot hitting the ground to pivot, and he tried to turn in time to block the attack. But even though he pushed himself to the limit, he wasn't sure he could make it in time. Her speed had become absurd after several rounds of acceleration.
Dante was startled, desperately trying to twist his body to defend against the blow from behind. If he were hit at that speed, the impact would be enough to break his back—or worse—even with his Shield component.
At that exact moment, the match timer reached zero, and the whistle blew to signal the end of their battle. Each match had a time limit set by the organizers to allow many matches to take place and to ensure viewers could follow along comfortably. Every match lasted only ten minutes, and points could be scored through hits, disarming the opponent, or other criteria.
Kaela, however, was still charging at him and struck him with enough force to send him flying. Fortunately, Dante activated his Shield component just in time, so he only ended up with a few broken ribs from the blow. He crashed face-first onto the ground, groaning in pain as he rolled over and looked at Kaela.
Right after that moment, the match officially ended, and the referee announced Dante as the winner because he had landed more hits and even disarmed her, even though everyone knew who had really "won" in terms of sheer dominance. Still, it was a victory in the books for him.
In the stands, the audience erupted in applause for the spectacular match. Many of them gaped at the result and began chattering excitedly about it.
"Truly impressive skill on his part."
"If she had done that earlier, she would've won."
"Ahh, such a shame. But that Dante kid did really well—clearly slower, yet he held his own against such an opponent. Didn't even get hit once!"
Dante, still in pain, couldn't say a word. He just sat there staring into space, his gaze locked on his opponent. His emotions were complicated, even though he had technically won.
Kaela smiled and nodded at him."That was a great fight, Dante. See you next time."With that, she walked over, picked up her katana, and left the arena, leaving Dante staring at her back.
Dante looked up, watching her silhouette slowly disappear behind the exit door. He winced in pain, unable to speak, and remained frozen like that until medical staff came to take him away.
'Damn it, it hurt so much, my back is broke...'Dante's face went pale before he passed out from the pain. After that, he remembered nothing.
The next day, when he woke up in the medical bay, his injuries had almost completely healed thanks to the hospital's advanced healing capabilities.
He lay there for a while, trying to process the final moments of the match. After staring at the ceiling for a good while, Dante finally came to his senses and sighed.
'Good thing the timer ran out just in time. Otherwise, I would've lost that match... She's really strong.'
Dante couldn't deny the truth—Kaela was far stronger than him. None of his previous opponents in the tournament could compare to her in terms of combat capability.
'Pretty sure she let me win... I'm not certain, but it must've been that.' In any case, he felt like he owed her a thank-you.
As he rested, his mind began to wander until he suddenly came up with an idea for upgrading himself before the next match. There had to be a way to counter Kaela's speed. Although Kaela had lost the match, she still had a chance to come back through the loser's bracket. There was a decent possibility that he would face her again.
With that thought in mind, he left the recovery room and returned to his dormitory, fired up his Spellbox, and started searching through it internal storage.
While doing that, he recalled the moment she pulled her katana out of thin air. He now realized that the weapon must've been stored in the Sea of Threads through the server. After some digging, he found the instructions.
"Let's see... In order to place an item into the Sea of Threads and use secure access via the Server, you need both a Downloader component and an Uploader component. Total size: 600 megabytes. You'll also need space for the item's substitute data, which reduces retrieval time. A pebble has a substitute size of 1MB, a sword takes up 100MB, and so on."
Dante shook his head in dismay.It looked like he wouldn't be able to use a function like Kaela's.
A Roomborn could install a router to connect to the Spellnet and equip both Downloader and Uploader components to access data from the server. Kaela had likely allocated most of her space to those two components along with her katana. Through the server, one could place an item in the Sea of Threads and retrieve it—something rare among Roomborns due to the massive memory cost.
Dante was given a day off due to his injuries. Today, instead of fighting, he would go to the arena to watch Kaela's next match and observe other matches according to the schedule. Technically, he had lost to her. But he was still content to have lasted long enough to win, or maybe it was because she held back and didn't go all out from the beginning.
Dante planned to install a new component—String Controller. But before that, he needed to increase his memory by at least 100MB. Since his talent didn't lean toward psychics (those who manipulate objects telekinetically), he'd need more memory than average for a String controller component. Still, he believed the string might synergize well with his calculation and prediction abilities.
He was deeply curious whether he could use the String Controller as well as others had. He once saw someone use it in the arena and had been deeply impressed. He wondered if he could ever match that level. String components required strong telekinetic abilities typically associated with psychics—but Dante didn't have that. His talent belonged to the calculation type, with no real object manipulation abilities like a true psychic.