Healing System

Michael waved to the crowd, and together with Chloe, went back toward the Barracks. It seemed like they had been separated earlier so they would not talk before the match, but now that she had lost, it was fine.

However, his mind was elsewhere. He sat down right next to Kevin, while Chloe went ahead and sat beside Elizabeth; it seemed like they had become a bit closer than before.

'Want to address what happened there?' he asked the system, referring to the incident where the world froze for a few moments upon touching the shard.

Yeah, basically... I don't know.

'You sound pretty unconvincing.' He replied sarcastically.

Look, she has the space affinity, you have the light affinity. If your powers are on the same wavelength, you do some special stuff. That is all I am planning on telling you for now. If you want to find out more, get stronger and figure it out yourself.

'I interacted with a piece of her mana, and I literally stopped time. You think that's not important to know right now?' Michael asked with a hint of frustration. It was very difficult to believe that such an occurrence could be waved off just like that.

Michael, leave it be.

The moment the system spoke, a headache began assaulting his head. It only lasted for a moment, but nonetheless, it was enough for him to realize that it had done that on purpose.

'Are you really going to be like this?' he asked while silently casting a heal on himself, making sure no one around noticed. Even though the pain had gone away, he still felt fatigued from those couple of words.

While his heal normally couldn't deal with fatigue, fatigue inflicted from pure pressure seemed to be exempt.

You can know some stuff about a few special skills; however, not all things are within limits. If you proceed to ask that again, I will knock you out until you come to your senses and back off. When it is time, you will know. My decision is final.

Michael grumbled and took a quick glance at Chloe. He could stop time when their abilities came into contact with each other, but since he merely infused his inner mana into her outer mana, didn't that mean that the essence of her affinity had something related to time?

However, before he was about to make any more bizarre theories, the system's voice once again resounded, this time without the added pressure.

It's not that. Hers is space, and yours is light. That has not changed. My first and only hint: I won't be giving you more, so don't count on it.

"Next round of participants, come up. Lora Fray and Jax Everheart."

Before he knew it, the arena had been fixed, and the two people stepped up on the stage. Surprisingly, one of them was the other mana core he had felt; apparently, his name was Jax.

However, as Michael took sight of his appearance, he couldn't help but widen his eyes.

Long, pure white hair and silver-looking eyes that could be mistaken for white in the right lighting. If he didn't know any better, he would assume Jax was a part of the Evangelist.

But aside from his appearance, his mana was pretty stable. It did not seem like he was hiding his identity either; there were no thin layers of mana around his body.

Michael had practiced detecting it on Rebecca whenever she had changed her appearance and had pretty much managed to narrow it down to how it worked.

It was nothing special, just mostly using the inner mana directly from the mana core to distort the appearance around yourself, hence why it got affected whenever they came into contact with something space-related.

But nonetheless, that was not the case for Jax, though he looked forward to seeing what kind of abilities he had.

The announcer signaled for the match to start, and immediately, Jax began moving forward. Albeit he was not running; instead, he slowly walked toward his opponent.

Michael raised a brow at this behavior, but before he could question any further, the man crouched down for a moment, and in the next, the girl was sent flying backward, right into the stands where the people were.

The people cheered—well, at least the ones who had not been the targets of this attack. Someone seemed to catch the girl midair. He was unsure of who it was, but that person likely had a mana core as well.

But aside from that, it all happened so fast. Obviously, he saw what had occurred, but most of the others—including Kevin—were completely in awe.

But despite that, Michael tried his best to hold back his laugh.

This idiot punched with full force and crouched down... Now that is something else. He used mana to keep his expression steady and to not laugh.

While he was sure the girl would not win, he expected to see at least a bit of a matchup. But that was the difference between those who had a mana core and those who did not.

Strength. Pure strength. And the further you went, the more the gap increased. Even Michael was but a weakling in the grand scheme of things.

However, as he tried his best to not laugh, he noticed Jax looking directly at him, pointing at him, and doing some weird gestures with his hands.

'...Is he trying to taunt me or ask me out?' A shiver went down Michael's spine as he could not understand what Jax had tried doing just now, but nonetheless, considered it a challenge.

Even if it would end the same way as it did with Chloe, he would make sure to provide the crowd with a challenge.

"Jax Everheart wins! Moving on to the finals. Up next is Saint Michael and... Jax Everheart!" The announcer suddenly spoke into his microphone, announcing the next match.

It was a bit unexpected. He assumed that his next opponent would be Elizabeth, but still, it worked out perfectly.

Without wasting any more time, Michael stepped up onto the arena to meet Jax, who had already been standing there. The arena was in perfect condition, unlike his fight with Chloe; therefore, no repairs were necessary.

And due to Jax saying he was fine, the fight happened immediately.

Michael stared right at him. His features sort of pissed him off. He was not sure if it was the white hair or what, but he could tell something was off.

I wonder what?

He was a bit confused at the system's comment, but since it did not want to tell him, he did not bother to find out further.

"Are you two ready?" the announcer asked once again.

"I am," Michael said like previously. However, he did not expect the next words that would come out of Jax's mouth.

"I hope you are ready, pigeon," he said before turning his gaze toward the announcer, who had a confused look on his face. "I am ready. Start already."

'Is he...?' Michael asked the system.

Hmm... if only there was a skill that could see through someone's mana...

'...'

It was a bit expected, he kind of regretted turning the map off; otherwise, he would have spotted him quite a long time ago and perhaps dealt with him.

Michael glanced at Jax with his Eyes of The Healer, and to no one's surprise, there was a small amount of demonic mana gathering in a certain part of his body before moving elsewhere. It was clearly a demon disguised as a human.

'You could have told me earlier.'

You could have used your eyes, no?n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Michael couldn't help but berrate himself inwardly. Had he been more aware, he could have dealt with the demon before it had managed to get in the middle of so many people.

If it used the same skill the other demon used against him, a lot of people would die. He was unsure if he could stop it without his Sanctuary skill either—it was still on cooldown.

'Fuck... This just got a lot more troublesome.'