Emperors War

As the feeling of embarra.s.sment was running through his mind, he noticed the doctors face. Suddenly the doctor"s eyes opened as large as a walnut as he was staring down at him. Aker couldn"t help but lower his head when he saw the doctor"s eyes go wide. In his entire life he had never seen anyone whose expression was more obvious; this was probably due to the contrast of the emotionless doctor. It stood out like a candle flickering in the moonless night, even a little flame could be seen for thousands of meters.

Aker hadn"t had much experience with this doctor but even someone as young as him could tell this doctor was someone who didn"t share his emotions.

Aker had to put his head down so that they wouldn"t see his shame. He didn"t want to tear up but it was the most painful experience of his whole life. It was even more painful than getting stabbed and cut in The Pits while fighting the Kulga. At least that pain was only for a short moment, the scrubbing the doctor was doing was non-stop and felt like it was going to last for an eternity.

Even after everything Aker had gone through since being kidnapped this was by far and away the most painful and scariest. As the doctor was scrubbing his skin it felt like every bit of him was in a grinder and his skin was slowly being shredded a little at a time.

In order to stop himself from screaming out and showing everyone in the cage his embarra.s.sing face he found himself clinching his fist and biting his lower lip. When the doctor moved from scrubbing his skin to cutting his hair, he thought he was going to die.

As the scissors struggled with each hair he was certain handfuls of hair were being ripped from his head. When everything was done and he looked up and saw the doctor and guard staring down at him he couldn"t hold back all of his tears any longer. His lip was quivering and tears streamed down his face and he wanted to disappear.

It wasn"t just the doctor but the guard as well that was disappointed in him. It was clear by their wide eyes that they had never seen anyone crying in the cage before and didn"t know how to react.

After a second of thought Aker decided all he could do was hold his head up and, in the future, get tough enough that something as simple as wiping away blood didn"t bring him to tears again.

As Aker was staring at the doctor and guard the guard and doctor were staring down at Aker. This stalemate lasted for a few seconds before the doctor focused on closely examining Akers wounds.

As the doctor was scrubbing the blood off he could make out areas where Aker had sustained injuries but he wasn"t examining for them and as such didn"t have a clear picture of the extent of how bad it was.

Doctor Life & Death started at the fingertips of Akers right hand. The first thing he noticed was a small mark that extended completely around the boy"s ring finger.

Doctor Life & Death took the rag he used to wipe away the blood previously and wiped at the mark. After scrubbing for a few seconds, he noticed that it was not having any impact.

Doctor Life & Death brought Akers hand up to his face and stared closely at the mark. At this point he noticed that it was not something that could be casually wiped away. It appeared to be subterranean in nature and was slightly under the skin.

Would a small child have a tattoo? Who would do something like that? Perhaps it"s a birth mark? As far as the doctor could tell it wouldn"t have any bearing on his health so he put down his questions and moved on.

After closely examining the boy he was confused. It was obvious that this boy had suffered at the hands of a beast. As far as he knew the boy had only started fighting yesterday. He hadn"t had the chance to examine him yesterday but he had heard that the boy had been injured in yesterday"s fights. He particularly heard about the injury to his leg as he was told that the boy took a claw.

In looking the boy over there was certainly remnants of battle, especially across his leg and hand. Based on the scarring the injuries would have been more than just minor. However, the only thing the doctor could see were healed scar marks. It looked like the injuries were sustained over a week ago and not something sustained just yesterday. While the cuts were enough to cause bleeding there were no injuries the boy suffered yesterday that would have been significant. Well, that is to say significant to a normal pit fighter. For someone of Akers size it was probably a considerable wound.

In fact, there wasn"t a single open cut. This wasn"t particularly unrealistic as there are medicines that could close up all of his injuries in just a few minutes. The problem was those medicines tended to be fairly expensive as it required a herbal alchemist to concoct the ointment.

Using some of the laws of nature along with the laws of botany an alchemist could concoct a mult.i.tude of pills and ointments that could take care of these simple injuries. Due to the nature of The Pits it is highly irregular for prisoners and fighters to get medicines that could cure them. It has been known to happen, especially with fighters who were proving to be very profitable for The Pit, but why would someone get them for the boy?

At this point the doctor looked over to the guard and thought back to the concern and panic he had in his voice as he was speaking to him earlier and decided that the guard must have arranged for and got the boy an ointment to cure him.

Those ointments were fairly expensive and it would be somewhat of a miracle for a guard to be able to afford it. He couldn"t imagine how a guard could ever save up enough to do something like that even if he was corrupt. However, he managed to get that ointment it made sense that he would be so frantic earlier. With the kind of investment one of those ointments would have cost, the guard would suffer huge losses if anything happened to the boy.

Understanding that the guard was responsible for the injuries recovering and after checking over the child he couldn"t find any issues. Granted the boy was beat, bruised and malnourished but his job was not to recover the fighters back to full health. His job has been and will always be to get them off of the butchers chair alive and in to the next fight.

"Everything checks out, you can take him away."

Just as lifelessly as when Aker showed up Doctor Life & Death dismissed him.

With that Aker hopped down off of the table. At this point everyone can now see a small child standing in the middle of the cage. Standing there the boy looked as if though he had climbed out of the Abyss in Lantar. His exuded a red hue as if though he had been formed from a ruby from being cleaned up. The boy who had a full head of hair before entering The Pits now resembled a hedgehog, what little hair he had was pointing in the air mercilessly.

At the time that Doctor Life & Death was examining the boy the guard noticed that Akers clothes had been destroyed.

To be honest the guard had never seen clothes like the ones that the child was wearing.

There were many different people and cultures through the universe. There were as many different clothing colors and fabrics as there were habitable planets. Despite all of their differences they all had one commonality. All cultures through the millions of years had developed their clothing to be combat efficient. The clothes were designed to be lose fitting to allow for maximum speed and movement. They were designed to contain bleeding and injuries. Clothing was designed to be quickly changeable as clothing was often destroyed.

Nothing of the kids clothing conformed to the universe"s standard. It"s as if though where the kid came from wasn"t ruled by the universal law. The law of the jungle. The law of strength. The law of dominance.

The guard had grabbed a black robe made for small race fighters such as dwarves and tossed it over to Aker.

Aker caught the robe and put it on in one smooth motion.

The robe was slightly long and Akers feet couldn"t be seen. On the ground the robe dragged as it was roughly 5cm to long.
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Aker took a step and the robe moved under his feet due to the length. Seeing that it was too long Aker slowly walked over to the armory table and picked up a knife. He reached down and cut it up about 7cm showing from his ankle down after the quick modification.

Taking a step forward and backward Aker seemed to be happy with his quick alteration and set the knife back down.

Overall the robe was still too large on Aker as the shoulders and waist didn"t move fluently with his body.

"Can I have a piece of rope?"

Aker called out to Mavis as he reached for it. Mavis didn"t answer verbal and only shook his head up and down indicating it wouldn"t be an issue.

Aker took the rope and tied it around his waist a couple of times and then tied it off. At this point the robe while not fitting any better did move with him much better due to being tied down.

"What now?" Aker called out to the guard as he looked at him.

"Now that the doctor has cleared you, we head back to your cell."

After hearing the guard Aker didn"t hesitate and began walking down the corridor towards his cell.

Upon reaching his cell Aker turned to the guard and with a gentle smile on his face "Thank you for all of your help today."

Aker really was grateful to the guard. Despite the fact that today was incredibly painful and he had a life and death fight the guard had gone out of his way to help him. Aker also heard the concern in the guard"s voice earlier when the doctor was so ashamed of him and the guard was calling out to him.

"Hahahahaa...hahahaha...that is truly the first time I"ve ever been thanked for sending someone to fight for their life. Aafter surviving I sent you to that doctor who was kind enough to torture you. I can"t wait to see how you thank me when I get you dinner. Perhaps you would change your name from Aker to Vance to match my own?"

Aker could only smile wryly after hearing the guard. Did he say his name was Vance? Also did he hear something about dinner?

"Does that mean you"re going to give me food?" Aker asked in an excited voice. He hadn"t really thought about it or noticed until Vance just brought it up a second ago but it had been over a day since he had last had anything to eat.

"Go into your cell now. Someone should be by in the next couple of hours with food and water. Until then focus on recovering. Based on what I know they plan on putting you back in The Pit tomorrow."

Hearing that he was going to get to eat Akers face instantly lit up. It was rough that he would have to wait a couple of hours but it had already been a day so waiting 1-2 more hours shouldn"t be overly rough. Hearing that he would have to fight again tomorrow the excitement in Akers face instantly turned into a frown.

Aker watched as the guard walked away and he was left to sit in his cell by himself once again. Looking around quickly Aker found the spot he had pa.s.sed out in earlier was covered in blood. He swiped his foot over it and confirmed that it was all dry. Since the cell was so small and the blood was dry, he decided to take a seat in the same spot on top of the blood.

Aker sat down and leaned his back against the wall. The wall on his back was cold but where he was sitting on the ground didn"t have the same cold feeling. After giving it a moment"s thought, it occurred to him that the blood was keeping him warm whereas the stone was directly transferring the cold to him.

As he was thinking about how cold the stone was on his back the HUD that had appeared yesterday once again popped up in his vision.

As soon as the HUD showed, Aker was immediately concentrating on everything he was seeing. Yesterday because of his injuries he wasn"t able to figure out anything before he pa.s.sed out. After he woke up the HUD was gone and he was really doubting whether he had actually seen anything at all. At the time he had just finished a life and death fight and was heavily injured. It was more than feasible that he was hallucinating everything he saw.

The only reason he wasn"t 100% convinced that it was a hallucination yesterday was that he had seen a word that he didn"t recognize. If he was hallucinating could he just make up words?

Suddenly the Level 2 number of 111 began climbing....130...150...170...200...after going past 200 there was no change. The number continued past 200...220...240...260...280...300...320...As the number crossed 320 the bar then changed from yellow to green.

340...360...380...400...

Once the points under Level 2 reached 400 the level changed from 2 to 3. Upon changing to 3 the counter then reset and the bar was once again red.

20...40...60...

As the number under level 3 began counting up from 0 once again the P0 next to SKILLS changed to P3. The greyed-out Vitality 1, Comprehension 1, and Agility 1 turned white. The Strength 0 and Mana 0 stayed greyed out.

...320...340...360...380...400...420...As the number crossed 400 the bar turned from red to yellow and continued counting up.

500.. 550..600...650...After crossing 650 the bar turned from yellow to green and continued counting.

700...750...800...After reaching 800 the Level 3 then changed from 3-4 and the P3 next to SKILLS changes to P7.

The bar then went red and began counting 50...100...150...200...250...300...350...400...450...500...550...600...650...700...750...800...After crossing 800 the bar changed from red to yellow. At this point the numbers stopped moving.

Aker was paying close attention as all of this happened. He watched as the bar turned red, yellow, and then green. He watched as the level went up and started over again. When the level went up, he noticed that he received the corresponding number to his P number next to skills.

The previous P0 next to SKILLS had first become P3 and then ended at P7.

While he was technically awake when his level was going up yesterday, he wasn"t paying close enough attention to notice how many points it took to advance for each level.

What he noticed today however was that at one point he needed 400 points to move from level 2-3 but to move from level 3-4 he needed 800. When his count finished on level 4 he was already at 800 but the bar simply changed from red to yellow. If he understood properly yellow represented that he was halfway to the next level. Does that mean he would need 1,600 points to advance to level 5?

Right now, moving from one level to the next didn"t seem to take many points. He wasn"t sure how he got the points but he had guessed that it had something to do with his fighting. Based on the fact that he needed 400 and then 800 he could also cut the numbers in half to determine how many points were needed yesterday for level up.

Half of 400 was 200 which would have gotten him to level 2. Half of 200 is 100 which would have gotten him to level 1. He had 111 when he started his count today while he was in level 2. If his guess was right then yesterday, he earned a total of 411 points.

Today he earned around 1100 points which is significantly higher than yesterday. The difference between yesterday and today is that he fought two Kulga and yesterday only 1. Could fighting result in gaining points?

After thinking that through for a minute Aker turned his attention to the P7 under SKILL. What was the purpose of these points?

Under SKILL he examined the Vitality, Comprehension, Agility, Strength, and Mana words.

Akers vision stopped on Mana for a second. He had never heard of this word before. It was listed under skill but he had to wonder what kind of skill Mana could be?

All of the other words could reference traits that Aker was familiar with. Vitality would make someone more alive and it would be harder to get sick or hurt. In essence it would be harder to get sick and injured but if they did, they would recover faster and better.

Comprehension would be the ability to understand. It may not affect the ability to memorize but it would allow someone to take information and learn and understand faster and better.

Agility was the ability to move. Agility didn"t just make a person faster it made them react faster and not just in a linear manner. It would obviously allow someone to move in a straight line faster but in theory it should reference all mobility.

Strength was the power that that could be exerted. While all of the other skills were amazing strength was the most amazing, with strength came security. With strength came dominance an conquering.

All of that made sense to Aker. But what is Mana?

He vaguely remembers calling out vitality, comprehension and agility as he was reading them just before pa.s.sing out yesterday. He had also noticed that before his level increased from 2 to 4 his SKILL had P0. When he leveled from 2-3 his SKILL P0 changed to SKILL P3. Then when he leveled from 3-4 his SKILL P3 changed to SKILL P4.

a.s.suming that his understanding held true then yesterday when he reached level 1 he would have received 1 point and when he reached level 2 he would have received two points for a total of 3.

If he counts the 1"s under his SKILL it equals 3, 1 point each to Vitality, Comprehension, and Agility.

As he is looking at it, he sees it clearly:

SKILLS P7

Vitality 1

Comprehension 1

Agility 1

Strength

Mana

Those skills with numbers next to them are the ones that he had called out. Perhaps if he called out the skill while focusing on it the number would change?

Focused on the word Mana he whispered out loud "Mana."

As soon as he whispered out the greyed-out Mana turned white and the number one appeared next to the word.

Suddenly Aker could see small shinning particles floating in the air all around him. It would be extremely exaggerated to say that they were dense in fact they were just barely visible if he strained his eyes and focused he could barely make them out.

Taking his hand he swung it in front of him to try and brush some of the particles away. Swinging his hand some of the particles made contact with him but instead of brushing away the particle attached to him and then disappeared.

More and more of these particles. .h.i.t Akers skin but it didn"t seem dangerous so Aker stopped paying attention to it and focused on the other skills.

"Strength" Aker called out...and just like Mana the Strength went from greyed out to white and the number changed from 0 to 1. After his level changed to 4 he had a count of P7 next to SKILL. As of now the SKILL column had a number of P5.

What was the purpose of this? Aker couldn"t help but ask himself.