Heart of Akasha

A/N: Thank you for your review, merendinoemiliano.

Alright, after the unexpected departure from the track last chapter, here's the real fillery journey.

Chapter 8: Tournament (True)

Now they had, once again, two and a half until they reached the other world. As Ji-Han currently didn't feel like studying, he decided to check out the training room instead to do something physical. Additionally, he had decided to spend some of his points. He had originally planned to keep them back until he actually needed them, but then he had noticed that with all their time in Traverse Town, his MP had only gone back up to 100, enough for 2 times Night Eye, meaning 26 seconds. If he needed to get into any places where it was dark, that was way too short. So he started looking through his status window, tipping on every word to see if there wasn't a way to increase his MP-Regeneration.

And there was: WIS. Not only was WIS the stat that showed one's defense from mental attacks, it also increased his MP-Regeneration. On that note, he had also found out that VIT increased his Max-HP and INT his Max-MP, but those weren't that important at the moment. Especially since he could grind those. But he couldn't grind WIS. And so he had less qualms about using up his points to bring WIS up to speed with his other stats – and then above them once he realized that for every 5 points of WIS, his MP-Regeneration would increase by 1.

So, after using up half of his points to bring his WIS to 25, higher than even his STR with the effects of [Muscle-Headed Keyblade-Fighter], he now had an MP-Regeneration of 5 per minute. That was more than twice before he had decided to put in his points. It still wasn't at the level where he could spam abilities in combat without running out of MP, but for leveling them up it was definitively an improvement.

That finished, he went to go training. Naofumi was already there and together with Shua they tried out the survival-mode: Holding out 15 minutes against ten respawning [Holographic Drone]s.

Things went pretty well and even if they got hit, they never got any actual HP-damage. That had actually been one of his concerns, that his ability would treat the simulated attacks like real ones. It was, after all, a video game. But luckily his ability accounted for that and gave them something like a simulated HP that appeared below his regular one in his [Status Window]:

{Name: Han, Ji-Han
Class: The Gamer
Title: none
Level: Lv9
Status: Unaffected

HP: 500/500
SP: 100/100
MP: 18/250

STR: 20 (19+1) ← (+0) →
VIT: 18 ← (+0) →
DEX: 16 ← (+0) →
INT: 16 (18-2) ← (+0) →
WIS: 25 ← (+0) →
LUK: 13 ← (+0) →

Points: 12
Munny: 390 517}

Using [Observe] on the holographic enemies also gave an interesting description:

{Holographic Drone Lv15
Status: Simulated
HP: $100/100
MP: $1000/1000
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: Data
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its laser attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $10 VIT: $20 DEX: $40
INT: $25 WIS: $25 LUK: $0}

If Ji-Han had to guess, he would say the Dollar-Symbol was supposed to represent the fake, "simulated" stats it had. Yet like the description said, it was treated real for the training, reducing his simulated HP, the SP. On that note, the SP wasn't exactly a health bar. It was more like a point display where reaching {0} would automatically end the simulation. Though they could actually raise the amount, just like he could increase or decrease the simulated stats of the holographs.

Not that they needed it considering they managed to get through the whole training without losing all of their current SP, even if it was a close-call. Because they had gone all at once they had underestimated the strength of the holographs, resulting in Naofumi having to work overtime to protect them.

Still, near the end of the simulation something incredible happened: His Keyblade Mastery had leveled up, followed shortly by Blunt Weapon Mastery afterwards. And as his Keyblade Mastery had reached level 24, which meant that another skill was inbound. Unfortunately the skill for that level had been Observe, one of the first spells he ever got, so he only got two levels for that skill out of it. Seriously, not saying that Observe wasn't extremely useful, but did his ability really thought he wouldn't get that skill at some point earlier? Though to be fair, those two levels weren't useless as he was now able to see the value of items and elemental resistances of monsters. As in, things like Heartless and the Imitations. Shua didn't count for some reason.

But more importantly, as his Keyblade Mastery leveled up within the training room, it meant that as long as he was fighting against enemies, he could grind the skill there! Even if there was only one enemy. So, like he did with the Heartless in Traverse Town, he could go running with a holographic enemy on his tail, and level up his VIT, STR, Keyblade Mastery and Blunt Weapon Mastery at the same time!

The downside of this idea was, that it blocked the training room for the duration of his timing, which did not sit well with Naofumi, who didn't have anything else to do besides fighting. So besides the one time Naofumi went for a 15-minute "meal" break, they instead decided to try out the different modes. Besides "Survival", there was "Escort", which, as the name suggested, dealt with protecting a target that was standing in place or moving around the room, as well as "Combat", which was just straight out fighting until no enemies were left. There was also "Practice", which just set up some stationary targets to try new skills on.

But the last and most interesting mode had been "Tournament". In this one you would fight against groups of enemies one after another and had to start from the beginning if you lost even once. There was option of making your own tournament like some kind of video game editor, but they were rather interested in the already stored tournaments. So far only the "Armor Cup" was available but in the manual it said that they could unlock a new one after beating the previous one. Which made Naofumi wonder, if the spaceship remembered which person had already finished which tournament, or if that was something that had been never used before, maybe even added by Zelretch himself.

Nevertheless, what got things really rolling was, when Ji-Han got a quest for it:

{Quest Alert

Optional Tournament: Armor Cup

You think you are strong? Time to test it!

Win the Armor Cup tournament of the training program of the FO Vimana.

Completion Award: EXP 35 000 shared equally over all party members.
You gain the title [Combat Novice].

Completion Failure:
No consequences.}

As they already had tried, defeating an enemy in the simulation did not give them any amount of EXP. However, this quest did. And not only would Ji-Han get some EXP, his party members would as well. That had been so far reserved for saving a world. Then he would also get a title, something he had yet to receive. Add into the fact that there was literally no penalty for failure and that they had nothing to do for over two more days? Why wouldn't they try to finish the Armor Cup?!

"Ready?" Ji-Han asked his comrades and, after their confirmation, activated the [Armor Cup].

In the middle of the room in a burst of data six figures, Soldier-Heartless appeared and above them letters appeared:

{Armor Cup
Round 9}

"I would say the possibility of the last boss being the Guard Armor just increased", noted Naofumi and Ji-Han had to agree. It was called Armor Cup, after all. Still, it was definitively different fighting against Heartless than the laser-shooting spheres that were the standard enemy of the training room. Those little orbs had faster ranged attacks than any of the Heartless Ji-Han had met so far, flew and were smaller, making them more difficult to hit. But at last got "destroyed" with one strike. Which couldn't be said for the annoying Air Soldiers. But normal Soldiers? No problem!

The letters disappeared and they ran forward, meeting the charge of the Heartless with their own. Ji-Han was strong enough that he could take down a Soldier-Heartless with two consecutive hits and Shua needed either a bunch, if he used a normal Scratch or one, if he went all out and used his copy of Power Strike. The latter of course used up MP, so it wasn't advisable to use it in the first round of the tournament. But that was what Naofumi was for, taking the hits for them while they whittled down the enemy.

So they managed to take them down quickly enough. The second round, or {Round 8} if you went by the description, was even easier, as their enemies turned out to be 6 Bizarre Archers. Without any other type of Heartless to keep up the pressure, Ji-Han could just wait behind Naofumi until they shot their arrows and then run towards the most outwards one to defeat that one in a single strike. Meanwhile Naofumi would step in between him and the rest of the archers protecting him from the retaliation of them. Rinse and repeat and they methodically managed to take down all of them easily. When two of them were too close to each other to deal with like that, Ji-Han still had his partner Shua to take down the second Bizarre Archer.

{Round 7} was a lot more annoying. Understandable, considering it consisted of 6 Air Soldiers whose high VIT always made them a pain to deal with. And, to make matters worse, their ranged attacker Akari wasn't with them anymore. Luckily they had already gotten some experience in dealing with many Air Soldiers in their fight against the Guard Armor. Which consisted of getting near a wall so that they could only come from one direction and block their attacks, while the others attacked them when they were on the ground.

The "wall" in this case was Naofumi who turned his back towards Ji-Han and activated his dog-head shield to give them at last a bit of damage if they attacked him, while Shua placed himself behind Ji-Han's feet to attack the Air Soldiers that fell to the ground thanks to Ji-Han's [Guard].

With this formation they managed to defeat the Heartless without taking any damage themselves, but it was a long and tedious process. But on the bright side, his Blunt Weapon Mastery leveled during that.

For {Round 6} the creator had decided to throw all of them together, making it three Soldiers on the ground and three Bizarre Archers carried by three Air Soldiers. Naofumi's first reaction had been to use an [Air Strike Shield] to throw down one Air Soldier-Bizarre Archer-Combo and then, once Ji-Han and Shua had reached the grounded foes, use a [Shield Prison] to confine all four into the same space. It had been a bit tight but both Air Soldier and Bizarre Archer were really unsuited for these kind of situations and could not to much more than scratch them while they wailed on them. And thanks to their instincts that the creator of the training area had included, which told them to attack the person that was attacking them, the Heartless did not vanish only to reappear outside of the Shield Prison.

Unfortunately, the reverse wasn't true and even though they managed to deal with those two sure enough, suddenly a Soldier-Heartless appeared within their little space. And that guy was a lot better at close quarter combat, attacking the surprised Ji-Han with a swipe of his claws. {-9}

Ji-Han quickly retaliated with his Keyblade and took it down at the same time the Shield Prison vanished. Near them was already Naofumi who was defending their spot from the other two Soldiers. Which mean that Ji-Han quickly used [Dodge Roll] to the side as he expected the archers to attack their current position. Which they did.

Shua, being weighted down by his armor, did not manage to get out in time but it was that same armor that made the arrows rebound from his large head without doing any damage. He only needed to worry if they used the powered-up-versions. And Ji-Han wouldn't give them that time.

He jumped up, allowing him to reach one of the airborne Archers and eliminated it in one strike. Once back on the ground, he turned around and made a beeline for the other one, taking out all their ranged options. Shua meanwhile helped Naofumi deal with the Soldiers. Which was pretty easy thanks to the fact that they had gotten quite a lot of damage going against Naofumi's biting dog shield. From then on taking care of the two Air Soldiers was just routine at this point.

In the next round, things got really interesting. It looked like their enemies were two Air Soldiers and three Soldiers, if you ignored the fact that all Soldiers has a green bodysuit instead of a blue one, their claws were white instead of red and their helmets black instead of silver. And before Ji-Han could use Observe on them, the battle started and they began running incredibly fast. In any direction. They didn't even bother attacking them, they just ran around the room like they were panicking. Ji-Han would have liked to get a better look at them but he first had to deal with the Air Soldiers.

"What's their deal?" Naofumi exclaimed confused, cautiously waiting for an attack that never came.

"Wait until we've got rid of the Air Soldiers and I'll tell you", Ji-Han told the shield hero, trusting him to watch his back while he made good on his word.

"Okay, now that that's finished, [Observe]!"

{Deserter Imitation Lv15
Status: Simulated
HP: $58/58
MP: $88/88
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: None, Fight
Elemental Resistances: Ice (0.75), Wood (0.25)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $20 VIT: $14 DEX: $54
INT: $5 WIS: $5 LUK: $2}

Ah, right, he had forgotten that those were just imitations and so he wouldn't get any information on the Heartless itself. At last he could tell them the stats and elements.

"That are rather low stats for a Soldier-Variant I haven't seen or heard about", noted Naofumi. "They have probably some annoying feature. I suppose it is a good thing we met them in training first."

"Right", acknowledged Ji-Han. This was just training. Nothing bad would happen if he messed up. He could just attack without worry.

PING!

{[Keyblade Mastery]'s Level has risen by 1.}

Oh, good, that was always a welcome sight. Wait, since those guys didn't attack so far, wouldn't it made them perfect for grinding his two Mastery skills while doing other stuff? Things to try out later.

Ji-Han ran towards one of the Deserters and attacked it, only for it to run tail and run into the other direction, avoiding his attack in the process.

"Come back here!" Ji-Han shouted and gave chase but it was futile. The Heartless was just too fast and its movements too erratic for him to follow. Whenever Ji-Han thought he had it, it abruptly changed its direction to run somewhere else. And Shua had no luck either. All in all, it was a pretty ridiculous sight until Naofumi had enough and used [Air Strike Shield] to block the way of one of them. The Heartless, not expecting the sudden green shield of air, ran right into it like a figure out of a cartoon with all its limbs sprawled out over its surface.

"Thanks", Ji-Han told Naofumi and used this opportunity to get rid of the Heartless in a single stroke. Now change came onto the other two Deserters. They stopped running around aimlessly and went now straight towards Ji-Han, taking the Gamer by surprise.

"[Shield Prison]!"

Luckily Naofumi had already expected something to happen and so was not taken off-guard with their new behavior. He instantly confined Ji-Han within the sphere of shields, making the kicks of the Heartless rebound harmlessly off its surface.

"Thanks", exclaimed Ji-Han. "I guess now we know what their special feature is…"

"Watch out!" Naofumi suddenly interrupted him and right afterwards two orbs of darkness appeared within the confinement, revealing two Deserters.

The sudden invasion of his personal space made Ji-Han stab-happy which served him well in this situation, as it allowed him to instantly kill one of the two. The other was unfortunately on his back and thus, Ji-Han could not stop it from attacking him with a series of kicks that send him flying against the walls of the prison. {-11} {-11} {-10} {Critical!} {-57}

That was when the Shield Prison vanished and Ji-Han sprawled on the ground. The Deserter was still going after him, but now Shua appeared and attacked it with a Keyblade-imitation, instantly evaporating it.

"Thanks, Shua", Ji-Han addressed the Pokémon. If he hadn't had so much HP, this could have turned out to be a lot more dangerous…

{Armor Cup
Round 4}

Wha-? Already?! At last let him stand up before… Oh, my god! What's with that double-sized Soldier in black with yellow claws and a metal helmet that has a golden tint to it?!

"[Observe]"!

{Sergeant Imitation Lv25
Status: Simulated
HP: $185/185
MP: $300/300
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: Fight
Elemental Resistances: Fight (0.75), Fire (0.75)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $25 VIT: $35 DEX: $25
INT: $25 WIS: $25 LUK: $15}

Damn it, another Heartless with high VIT. And he had a Fight-resistance and was accompanied by four normal Soldiers.

"Naofumi, keep the big one occupied while we deal with the smaller ones", Ji-Han told the shield hero. "Shua, to me!"

He let the shield hero get in front of him to block the massive swipe-attack of the Sergeant while he and Shua moved backwards to have more room to fight. Two of the Soldiers went after them, while the other two joined their big cousin in attacking Naofumi. Which was pretty stupid of the Heartless, considering the shield hero's high defense but suited them just as well, letting them take down the first two Soldiers without any problem.

"Don't go after the others", Ji-Han stopped Shua from doing just that as he took out a pebble from his inventory. Getting near the last two Soldiers meant getting near Naofumi, which meant getting near the Sergeant, which was exactly what they wanted to avoid for now.

So he instead threw the pebble after the Soldiers, hoping to aggro them to him instead. Unfortunately, his Throwing Mastery was still level 1, which meant his aim wasn't the best and he hit Naofumi's head instead.

"Sorry", he apologized quickly as he took out another pebble, only for the Hero of the Shield to ask suspiciously "For what?"

"Ah… nothing", Ji-Han responded in a hurry, but then he realized that Naofumi wouldn't mind getting hit by stones he literally didn't notice as long as the guy who threw them had been aiming for the enemy. Like he had told Akari when she hesitated to fire arrows at enemies near him.

Ji-Han suppressed a wince as he thought about the girl and instead just told Naofumi why he had apologized.

"You really need to learn to aim", the Hero of the Shield reprimanded Ji-Han. "You don't have an unlimited amount of stones in your inventory, do you?"

Ji-Han agreed and threw the next pebble, again missing a Soldier because that guy had moved out of the way. Damn it! He only had twelve left! He knew that was a rather low number for something that could be found on the side of the road, but that was also the reason he had so few of them. He had had constantly higher priorities than picking up stones from the ground.

It took Ji-Han five more tries until he hit a Soldier and the Heartless was changing targets towards him. Within moments, that guy was also dead, leaving one Soldier but considering how Ji-Han had used up exactly half of his stones to get the other one to come to them, he didn't like his odds. He really didn't want to tell Naofumi to please draw the Sergeant away so that he could pick up the stones.

Luckily he didn't need to as he managed to hit the last Soldier with the third pebble. One small skirmish later and they could direct their attention to the big guy.

"25, 35, 25, a Fight-Element and resistant towards Fight and Fire", Ji-Han listed the important stats. "I know my Keyblade does not have an element but maybe Power Strike has Fight. And its high VIT might make normal attacks too weak."

"Try it out", Naofumi told Ji-Han and the Gamer followed his advice. He ran around the Sergeant and attacked it from behind. {$HP: 238/250} So, 12 damage. And now the Heartless turned around to attack him. But Ji-Han could not yet disengage. He wanted to try what happened when he used…

"[Power Strike]!"

{$HP: 229/250}

What the- the Power Strike did actually less damage than a normal attack?! It had to be the resistance! Damn, that would make fighting against that thing a lot more difficult.

"[Air Strike Shield]", Naofumi activated, blocking the claws of the Sergeant that had been going after Ji-Han. Meanwhile Shua used his own version of the Power Strike with a "Smear", also doing 9 damage. And Ji-Han had no illusion that Shua's scratching attack would do more than scratch damage. He just didn't have the bonus from Ji-Han's Blunt Weapon Mastery.

So he hacked on the Heartless as fast as he could, mindful of the sharp claws, only for the Sergeant to suddenly kick him in the stomach. {-69}

Ji-Han didn't actually feel any impact, yet he was suddenly flung away as if the feet actually did have physical substance behind it. Right, didn't that happen with the Deserters earlier, too? Whoever designed this training room was a genius!

Ji-Han picked himself up and saw how Naofumi was protecting Shua from the retaliation of the Heartless who was down to nearly half HP.

"Huh", mused Naofumi as the kick hit his stomach. "That actually took one HP. It's been a while since that happened."

"Smeargle", exclaimed Shua impressed and Ji-Han had to agree. An attack that sent him flying yet was nothing more than a curiosity when it hit Naofumi dead-center? His VIT really was impressive.

Ji-Han ran back into the fight and attacked the Sergeant. This time he did so with small stabs followed by instant retreat, mindful of the powerful kick.

"Don't use up all of your MP", Naofumi suddenly reprimanded Shua. "You have to keep some in reserve for a Guard Armor!"

Ji-Han realized that she shield hero was right. They only really managed to deal with the Guard Armor in Traverse Town because of Power Strike. Which probably meant that those Heartless had a Fight-weakness now that he thought about it. Still, that meant that Shua shouldn't waste up all of his MP when fighting against this guy, especially since Ji-Han had used up most of his MP for Night Eye before the start of the simulation. Maybe not the best idea in hindsight but that was why they were training.

More importantly, however, was that Naofumi's chastising distracted Shua from attacking and allowed the Sergeant to get in one attack of his own. An attack, which not only threw the Pokémon back, but also did whooping 141 simulated damage. The heck?

"[Observe]!"

{Name: Shua
Class: none
Title: none
Level: Lv5 (75.57%)
Gender: male
Age: 2
Status: Unaffected

HP: 600/600
SP: 459/600
MP: 90/150
STR: 17 VIT: 9 (+30) DEX: 19
INT: 8 WIS: 4 LUK: 5}

So he was right. Thanks to the Guard Armor Shua now had higher VIT than him, which should have made the attack do less damage. Instead he suddenly got more?! What, did he had a Fight-weakness, too?!

…he did, didn't he? Shua was a Pokémon, the franchise that made the "super-effective" memes.

"Shua, do you have a Fight-weakness?" Ji-Han asked the Smeargle who responded in affirmation with a sad "Smear."

"And do you have any other weaknesses?"

This time Shua shook his head. Good, at last he had only one weakness, if one that was rather common.

"Prioritize protection Shua over protecting me", Ji-Han told Naofumi. "At last when we're up against enemies like that."

"Sure", replied Naofumi as he once again blocked the swipe of the Sergeant and gave Ji-Han the opportunity to attack, before retreating back behind the body of the shield hero. Now that Shua wasn't using his Power Strike anymore, the damage would be too insignificant to get the Sergeants attention. Meaning they couldn't just attack from both sides while the back was turned towards them.

Instead, Ji-Han had to carefully strike from behind Naofumi's guard. Which wasn't easy as the Heartless was still fixated on Ji-Han who had done the most damage to it and the shield hero was in its eyes nothing more than an obstacle. An obstacle that had the annoying habit of moving in-between itself and its target. So when it attacked Naofumi, it was more like trying to get rid of a tree in the way. And it didn't do so by ramming Naofumi, but by kicking and swiping with its claws.

Which made it difficult for Ji-Han to actually hit any of its body parts while he was hiding behind Naofumi. But difficult wasn't impossible. It just meant that it took longer. He still wished he had a longer weapon, though.

Nevertheless, after enough time passed, they had finally managed to whittle down its HP to 0. Which was when Ji-Han remembered that they still had three more rounds to go as a {Round 3} appeared in the air above them. And the enemies in that round? Seven Deserter. Seriously, seven of them! Whoever designed this tournament was a sadist.

"Any idea on how we can take out the Deserters without having the one to kill one getting swarmed by them?" Ji-Han asked the shield hero while the Deserter ran around them like headless chickens.

"Not really", admitted Naofumi. "As Shield Prison doesn't work, there is no way to stop them from reaching their target. If I could just kill one of them, the rest would automatically die from my counters. But unless I have already killed one, they won't come at me and my STR is too small for that. Just go and get ready to defend against the rest of them. I'll use Air Strike Shield to make a wall at your back… wait. I want to know if they change targets if a second one dies to another person. Can you, after killing the first one, just guard while Shua attacks them from behind?"

"Smeargle?"

"They are using kicks", mused Ji-Han. "If I use Guard, I might not just be able to protect myself, but also make them fall down. But what about Shua? If they really change targets after the second death, wouldn't that be too dangerous for him? They are using Fight, after all."

"That's why we are doing it now in training", Naofumi reminded him. "But do get ready in case Shua gets attacked. If the attacks are too much, no matter, we'll just have to try something different the next time. But there is no reason for us not to try to get through this on our first try."

"Right", acknowledged Ji-Han. "Shua, are you ready?"

"S…Smear!"

"Alright. Here we go!"

Ji-Han ran after a Deserter, trying to corner him. He couldn't depend on the Air Strike Shield this time, as they needed that one to protect him afterwards. So he had to do without. He had to anticipate, which way the Deserter might ran to and move in the way, slowing pushing the Heartless towards the wall. And all that with their high DEX. On his own, Ji-Han was sure he would not have made it. But luckily he had teammates and even Naofumi, who couldn't use his Air Strike Shield, was still able to direct the Heartless as a second obstacle just with his body. Even better than the little Shua.

After a minute or so, they finally managed to corner their target. Ji-Han noticed that they were already near a wall and Naofumi agreed with his observation that they wouldn't need the Air Strike Shield in this case, at last not right off the bat. So, in one lunge, Ji-Han jumped forwards, impaling the first Deserter and quickly turned around to welcome the six other ones.

"[Guard]!" shouted Ji-Han, nearly missing the timing because they were just so fast. But he managed it in time and made the first one fly on his back. But now the others were upon him. And they did not attack the same place.

Ji-Han was completely overwhelmed. No matter how many times he moved his Keyblade into the way of one attack, another came and hit him from a different direction. Even with Naofumi summoning an Air Strike Shield at his side, they still managed to make their hits land.

{-10} {-10} {-11}

{By using [Guard] without using the skill,
[Guard]'s level has risen by 1.}

But on the bright side, if he actually managed to get his Keyblade in the way of the attack, it counted as using [Guard] without using the skill in combat, making it level up like crazy.

{-10} {-11} {-12} {-11}

{By using [Guard] without using the skill,
[Guard]'s level has risen by 1.}

{-12} {-11} {-12}

Even if it would have been better for his HP if he attacked them instead of defending.

{By using [Guard] without using the skill,
[Guard]'s level has risen by 1.}

{-11} {-11}

{By using [Guard] without using the skill,
[Guard]'s level has risen by 1.}

That was when suddenly all the Deserters ignored him and instead went after Shua, who had finally managed to take one of them down. Unfortunately, Ji-Han had been so preoccupied with defense, he missed the timing and now Shua was being bombarded with attacks by the five Heartless. Naofumi quickly got into the way but only managed to stall one of them, the others skipping around and over the Hero of the Shield to get to the Smeargle. And even the one that got bitten by the dog shield, did not continue to attack Naofumi and instead went around him after the first block.

As soon as Ji-Han realized what was happening, he hurried forwards, past the Hero of the Shield and at the horde of Heartless. With one swing he took down two of them at once, making the last three go after him again. And, proving that in this case attacking was better than defending, managed to bring down the rest with only getting hit once. {-11}

"Are you alright, Shua?" Ji-Han asked the Pokémon who gave him a reaffirming "Smear", only to suddenly fall into a panic.

"Smeargle, gle, gle, smeargle! Gle! Gle! Gle!"

"Shua?!" Shouted Ji-Han, now also panicking. "What's wrong?!" Why wasn't he moving?!

{Armor Cup
Round 2}

"Not now!" Ji-Han shouted at the message angrily. They had something more important to do right now!

"[Pause]." Naofumi called out, making all the Heartless stop in their tracks.

"Ah, thanks Naofumi-Hyung", Ji-Han told the Hero of the Shield before turning back to Shua. "[Observe]!"

{Name: Shua
Class: none
Title: none
Level: Lv5 (75.57%)
Gender: male
Age: 2
Status: $Tired

HP: 600/600
SP: 222/600
MP: 90/150
STR: 17 VIT: 9 (+30) DEX: 19
INT: 8 WIS: 4 LUK: 5}

There was only one thing that was different.

"His status is {Tired}", he read. "A simulated version. Does that mean the Heartless inflicted a status on him with that attack?"

"Maybe", conceded Naofumi, "but if it is just simulated, everything should be fine right now while we are pausing."

"Smeargle?!" Shua voiced surprised and stood up. Seeing as he could move again, Shua ran around, making happy Smeargle noises.

"So they simulated tiredness, but with Shua not actually being effected, it looked to him like his body wasn't listening to him anymore", Ji-Han reasoned.

"So, no reason to be scared", Naofumi told the Pokémon. "It's just a simulation. If it's too much for you, we can stop. But since real Heartless will not let us leave if we ask nicely, I suggest we should still try to win this. Even if we have to repeat it to finish the quest because we paused the tournament, we would still get some combat experience."

Ji-Han looked over the enemies of the current round: One Sergeant Lv25, two Deserter Lv20 and then one of the three standard types, Soldier, Air Soldier and Bizarre Archer Lv12. With Shua out of commission, it really seemed like that would be quite tough to win. But Naofumi was right. There was no reason for them not to try to win this. If they only wanted to win as fast as possible, that would have been different. But while the tournament was a quest, it was also training.

"Shua, are you still able to go on?" Ji-Han asked the Smeargle. "Even if you can't move for at last a time?"

"Smeargle… Smear!" Shua was at first hesitating, but soon accepted. He probably didn't want to be the one to hold them back.

"Alright", acknowledged Naofumi. "[Unpause]." And with that the Heartless rushed into motion while Shua fell onto the ground and the Hero of the Shield ran over to him to shield him from the attacks. The Deserters did their thing, the Air Soldier picked up the Bizarre Archer and the Sergeant and Soldier were engaging Ji-Han.

The Gamer made a point to ignore the big one for now and ran past him, towards the slower Soldier. Ji-Han hit it twice before it could react, but for some reason that wasn't enough and he was forced to escape with a [Dodge Roll] less he got hit with an arrow shrouded in black fog, shot towards him by the Bizarre Archer. And he had to continue to run away, because now the Sergeant was gunning for him. The Sergeant with a DEX of 25. 9 higher than his current DEX.

Ji-Han spun around and used [Guard] to block the claws of the Sergeant who had already gained on him. Then he quickly stepped back to dislodge his weapon and hit the Heartless with a three normal attacks in a row. Only three and not more, because he didn't trust any of the Heartless not do try something. So, after the triple attack, he quickly used [Dodge Roll] to get away. Which turned out to be the right decision as the Sergeant countered with his massive kick at the same time that the Soldier had reached them.

Which made Ji-Han witness to the first case of friendly-fire that he had seen with the Heartless as the kick of the Sergeant obliterated the Soldier.

"[Shield Prison]!"

But before Ji-Han could bask in that little victory, Naofumi's voice ripped him out of his thoughts.

The Hero of the Shield had captured the Air Soldier and Bizarre Archer-combo, right as they fired another arrow. After all, while the Heartless showed time and time again that they could teleport out of it, they still had to realize that they were captured in the first place. And that took a moment. A moment, which Ji-Han could use completely devoted to the Sergeant.

Three attacks and then using [Dodge Roll] to evade its kick seemed to be the best way to deal with them, especially if there were no other enemies he had to be careful of.

"[Air Strike Shield]!"

Like the Air Soldier who Naofumi had swatted out of the air as soon as he reappeared. Though the Bizarre Archer still seemed to be inside the Shield Prison as it hadn't shown up with the other one.

Nevertheless, while Ji-Han would have liked to run over to the grounded Air Soldier, he couldn't really show his back to the Sergeant.

"Smear!"

Fortunately for him, the status effect on Shua had worn off and the Pokémon was ready to jump on top of the Air Soldier and use claw-attacks in rapid-fire. The Heartless tried to retaliate, but its attacks couldn't do anything against Shua's armor.

And when the Bizarre Archer appeared, too, Naofumi, who had observed the battlefield closely just so that it wouldn't be able to shot one of his team mates in the back while they were otherwise preoccupied, activated his centipede shield's ability:

"[Thousand Feet Charge]!"

Now, with his DEX multiplied by 5, he surged forward, in-between the Bizarre Archer and its target: Shua.

The arrow of blackened energy bounced off harmlessly of Naofumi's body as if it was made out of Styrofoam and the Hero of the Shield changed directions, now running directly at the archer, even if at normal speed.

He did so just like Shua, who had already finished the Air Soldier with a {Critical!}. The Heartless tried to stop them but its arrows were just too weak and so it was soon finished, too. That left the Sergeant, who Ji-Han dealt with in a pattern, as well as the two Deserters. There were only two of them, but they were stronger than the other ones. Still, what made them really dangerous was their ability to dogpile their enemies, something that wouldn't happen with just two of them. So, the Hero of the Shield waited patiently for Ji-Han to defeat the Sergeant.

"Since they only attack once one of them has been defeated, you in practice only need to fight against one of them", Naofumi explained after Ji-Han had finally finished the oversized Soldier. "After you took care of the first, I'll stall the second with a Shield Prison which should give you the opportunity to easily guard against its attack."

Ji-Han nodded.

"Right, let's do this!"

Their plan went off without a hitch. In fact, the only real difficult part was once again actually cornering the Deserter. Something, that was even more tedious than usual because the Deserter was able to survive one of Ji-Han's attacks. Which meant they had to do it twice. But after that blocking the one attack and killing the second Deserter while it was down was easy. Which lead them to…

{Armor Cup
Round 1}

{Guard Armor Imitation Lv30
Status: Simulated
HP: $830/830
MP: $450/450
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: Fight, Sound, None
Elemental Resistances: Water (0.5), Void (0.5)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $35 VIT: $60 DEX: $35
INT: $15 WIS: $20 LUK: $13}

"60 VIT", read Ji-Han out loud astonished. That bastard had way too much defense. And over 800 HP? This was going to suck.

"Here we go!"

"[Air Strike Shield]!" Activated Naofumi to block a double-punch of the right gauntlet. Meanwhile Ji-Han went past the shield and slashed at the limb with a "[Power strike]".

Ji-Han looked at the health points of the gauntlet and his eyes widened in surprise.

{HP: $103/112}

9 Damage?! His most powerful attack that was of an element that the Guard Armor was weak against, dealt a total of 9 Damage?! If they didn't get any critical hits, they would have to hit him nearly a hundred times?!

"[Pause]!" Naofumi spoke, freezing the Guard Armor in its tracks.

"You are stopping?" Ji-Han asked surprised and the Hero of the Shield nodded.

"We already have defeat the Guard Armor once", he explained. "There is no reason for us to try and defeat it through paper cuts when we will have to fight it once more regardless."

Right. The only reason why they had gone through the last round was because of the combat-experience. Since they had already duked it out once with a Guard Armor, the experience there would be low. And he, too, preferred to get that one without having to attack hundreds of times.

"Right", he agreed with Naofumi out loud. "Let's break it off here and come back after I've grinded a bit."

"[Cancel]", the Hero of the Shield spoke and the Guard Armor vanished.

"In exchange", he continued. "I would like to see if we can't do better against seven Deserters."

"Me, too", agreed Ji-Han. "Last time only offense worked pretty well after they had attacked Shua and I want to see if that works with all seven, too!"

"Sure", Naofumi exclaimed and, after tipping some moments on a holographic interface, a group of seven Deserters appeared, as well as some letter:

{Mode: Combat}

The letters vanished and the Deserters started moving.

"[Shield Prison]", Naofumi activated, capturing one of the Deserters near a wall. "Note if and how long it takes until the Deserter escapes…" But even while he was saying that, the Deserter reappeared next to the Shield Prison and joined its brethren in running around like a headless chicken.

"Looks like we'll have to do it the hard way", he concluded and began moving to herd another Deserter against the wall. For now Naofumi had decided to put the Deserters at Lv15, just like Round 3 of the tournament. Which meant that once they actually managed to corner it, one of Ji-Han's attacks was enough to take it down. Then he turned around to face the oncoming frenzy, ready to strike.

After all the Deserters were defeated, he had been hit three times, a far cry from the dozen ones before.

"Attacking really does seem like the better solution compared to defending", Ji-Han mused. "Even if it is a good way to grind Guard."

"Good", declared Naofumi. "Now try to fight against them without a wall on your back."

"Wha- why?!" Ji-Han exclaimed surprised, to which Naofumi instantly responded with:

"Because cornering one of them takes forever. If possible, I want us to be able to defeat them faster."

"It does take way too long", Ji-Han agreed and Naofumi activated another training program. "You are going to help this time?"

"You wouldn't be able to get one away from a wall without my help in the first place", he explained. "I might as well go all the way."

"Right", Ji-Han acknowledged and went after a random Deserter.

"[Air Strike Shield]!"

Slamming against the transparent wall, the Heartless was easy pray for Ji-Han's Keyblade. Now the others ran towards and Ji-Han welcomed them, destroying the first one with a swipe of his weapon.

"[Guard]!"

He then quickly brought his Keyblade up into a defensive position, blocking a second one and sending him sprawling on the ground. He ignored that one for now though and instead eliminated a third one, coming closer to him.

"[Thousand Feet Charge]!"

Meanwhile Naofumi rushed over to him, "ramming" into the first Deserter on his way, which happened to be near Ji-Han's back. And while Naofumi's STR was pitiful, the charge still managed to send it flying, even if not outright dealing damage. But considering how Ji-Han was able to take down one with one hit and his biggest problem right now were the enemies coming to him all at once, sending the Heartless flying was a lot more helpful than any small damage. Additionally, the Hero of the Shield was pretty good at stopping attacks. And once he realized that the Heartless would not switch their attention no matter how often he got in their way, he just had to make sure to get in their way every single time. He was kind of like a replacement-wall in a sense.

And then Shua reached them and with a [Power Strike] eliminated another Deserter. Which made the rest of them now focus on him. But since Ji-Han was already attacking the one he had previously downed, it was more like a short distraction that allowed him to strike true without problem, switching the Heartless' attention back to him.

But since there were only two left, that was really no competition and they joined their brethren soon. All in all, a quite successful fight with not one hit on any of their party members.

"Now that's more like it", declared Ji-Han satisfied and Naofumi nodded.

"Now that we know how to deal with every round of the tournament, the Guard Armor is all that is left", he exclaimed.

"I'll get to it", promised Ji-Han as he took out his weights. "What are you going to do?"

"I think it is time to check how Shua's Math is coming along", he decided. "You can use that time to grind your Weapon Mastery besides your STR."

"Yes!"

"Okay, Shua, let's go."


{You have completed the quest
[Optional Tournament: Armor Cup].
Completion Award: +11 666 EXP to you, Shua and Naofumi.
The title [Combat Novice].}

Hell, yeah! They had finally done it. Of course, there really was no question that they could, as he had already tried out to fight a Guard Armor outside of the tournament and his STR of 24 had been able to make each Power Strike deal a blow of around 75 HP-Damage to it. Without a Critical Hit.

The problem was more, what he had to do to get that STR: Grinding. And what he had done on grinding the last day… Not just his STR but a bit of everything, really. He had ran around with weights to increase his STR and VIT and at some points his Mastery skills, studied to increase his INT, let himself be attacked to increase his Guard-skill, threw stones at Naofumi to increase his throwing skill – though he had decided to forgo Power Throw after his first stone exploded, cooked a lot resulting in adding [Oumukade Rolled Egg Omelet Version 1] – hey, Shua liked it and it restored 15 HP – and [Buttered Toast] – apparently its Rank was {Inferior} which resulted in a failure rate of literally 0% – to his recipe list. On a completely unrelated note, he had currently 194 Buttered Toast in his inventory.

Lastly on his list of grinding was Night Eye. Naofumi had advised him to level up Night Eye because he would need it if they got to a dark place. Power Strike might be good for damaging enemies but if he couldn't hit the enemies, because he couldn't see them; that would be instant game over. He still knew that with his current level, it was still too short to be useful, but that was why he was investing all of his MP into activating Night Eye, leveling it up in the process. Luckily he got another skill to help with that: Meditation.

{[Meditation (active) Lv1 EXP: 0.0%]
A technique to focus the mind and achieve mental clarity and calm.
Since ancient times have human tried to find enlightenment through concentration.
Restores 0.05 MP per level plus 1 for every finished minute.
Interruption from the outside inflicts the status "Confusion" on the user.}

He had gotten the skill Mediation when Keyblade Mastery had reached level 28. And while it had gone a lot further thanks to his constant grinding, being now at level 31 and promising him yet another skill if he leveled it up once more, he still was rather grateful for that skill. It was, after all, a skill that allowed him to regenerate MP faster. And with his desire to level up Night Eye, that was like a godsend. Currently, with both his level and the level of the skill at 9, it regenerated an effective 5 MP per every minute he just sat still and meditated. That was twice as much as his current MP-regeneration!

Unfortunately, that was also its biggest weakness. He had to sit still and do nothing else for a complete minute for it to work. It was no wonder he had done so many different things. Because doing the same thing over and over and over again for hours? Freaking boring. In fact, Keyblade Mastery at level 31 and Blunt Weapon Mastery at 38 was the result of his boredom for grinding being so great that he joined Naofumi in his training fights. Maybe it was actually a blessing in disguise that his STR refused to level through training after it had reached 24. It had resulted in hours of running with only an additional point in VIT to show for it, but at last he had not been feeling guilty for not continuing to increase his STR while Shua was doing just that.

Speaking of the Pokémon, he had it even worse. Shua's stats not only leveled visibly slower than his, it also seemed that the STR he could get through training was maxed out at 20, Ji-Han's STR before they decided to have him increase it for the Guard Armor. To say that Shua was a bit disgruntled, was putting it lightly.

Though, as Naofumi had pointed out, it could just have been that their weights were not sufficient anymore. Unfortunately, Shua was already wearing full-body armor and he himself had strapped as much weights to himself as possible. So even if they were able to train STR more, they would probably need something like dumbbells for that. They probably wouldn't be able to grind it together with VIT through running anymore. Such a pity.

But that was not the only thing where his ability decided to throw a wench into his grinding plans. Remember how he had once leveled up Guard like crazy because he had been {using [Guard] without using the skill}? Not working anymore. Not that he didn't know why. Previously guarding against an attack had just been putting his Keyblade into the middle of the enemies attack at the right moment. So if he let himself be bombarded by attacks from like Deserters, for every three times he failed, there would have been one were he managed to do it.

However, from level 20 onward, the Guard-skill came with a bluish transparent shield appearing in front of the Keyblade and extending past its edges. So, since he couldn't replicate this shield just by moving his Keyblade, he didn't have the fast-leveling anymore. And as if to add insult to injury, the shield was just so freaking small, barely extending past the Keyblade. Of course he knew that with enough grinding, he would most likely be able to extend the shield from three degrees horizontal and vertical to 360 degrees horizontal and vertical, giving him a complete 360-degree barrier. But now that he lost his fast-level, that one would take a lot of time.

"Wait!" Naofumi suddenly shouted, ripping Ji-Han out of his daydreaming.

But it wasn't the Gamer that the Hero of the Shield was looking at. It was Shua, who was now frozen in place, his finger close to a semi-transparent brown panel in the air in front of him.

"Did you level up?" Naofumi interrogated the Smeargle who responded with an affirmative "Smear."

"And were you going to put your new points into STR?"

"Smear!"

"As I thought… listen, your MP-regeneration right now is literally 0. No matter how strong your attacks are, if you can only use them a limited amount of time, that makes you useless."

"That's unnecessary", interrupted Ji-Han. "While I do agree, he should get some MP-regeneration, calling him useless is completely unnecessary.

"…maybe", admitted Naofumi after some thought. "But it does get the point across. Don't use up all your points without thinking!"

"…smear. Smeargle. Gle."

"Let's see… [Observe]!" Ji-Han took a look at Shua's stats to decide to see what would be the best use for his points.

{Name: Shua
Class: none
Title: none
Level: Lv6 (46.96%)
Gender: male
Age: 2
Status: Unaffected

HP: 700/700
SP: 700/700
MP: 45/200
STR: 20 VIT: 15 (+30) DEX: 21
INT: 10 WIS: 4 LUK: 5}

"He's got 4 WIS, so if he uses one point for WIS, he would get an MP-regeneration of 1 per minute", Ji-Han mused. "He can't get to 10 WIS with just 5 points so maybe he should use the rest for something else? What about LUK? It should increase the possibility of a CRIT with his Power Strike."

"Smear, smear, smeargle, smear!" Shua chattered enthusiastically, liking the idea.

"It's not a stupid decision, so do that if you want", Naofumi told the Pokémon who did just that.

{Name: Shua
Class: none
Title: none
Level: Lv6 (46.96%)
Gender: male
Age: 2
Status: Unaffected

HP: 700/700
SP: 700/700
MP: 45/175
STR: 20 VIT: 15 (+30) DEX: 21
INT: 10 WIS: 5 LUK: 9}

"But speaking of the Power Strike", the Hero of the Shield continued, "can you now copy another ability?"

"Smear!"

Oh, that's right, he can copy attacks after a level up! Now, which one would be best?

"Air Strike Shield!" Ji-Han suggested instantly.

"And here I thought you would suggest Meditation", Naofumi commented and Ji-Han chuckled.

"It would help a lot with Shua's MP-regeneration", he conceded. "But it's completely useless for combat. And Shua can't level it up on his own. So maybe once I've got it to the point where using it once regenerates enough MP for at last one Power Strike. But not right now. That said, Air Strike Shield doesn't even use up MP, allowing Shua to keep that for his Power Strikes. And, to be honest, it's better than any skill I have."

"That is true", conceded Naofumi. "But what you don't know is, that the durability of the shield depends on the level of the user."

"Seriously?" Ji-Han exclaimed surprised. "I thought it was unbreakable."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but it isn't. The same with Shield Prison. If you don't want to give him Meditation, it would be better to look for a good enemy attack."

"Oh, like the Body Smash of the Guard Armor?" Ji-Han suggested enthusiastically but Naofumi shook his head.

"Those attacks just deal simulated damage", he reminded the Gamer. "They are useless outside the training room."

Oh, right.

"Okay, Shua, do you mind waiting before copying the next attack?"

"Smear!"

"Thanks. That said, any idea on what do to now?"

With the completion of the Armor Cup, they had finished their current goal, yet there were still over 24 hours left, until they reached their destination. And he didn't want to go back to meditating.

"First you should check out your title", reminded Naofumi. "And than we should see if the next tournament has been unlooked. Even if we most likely won't be able to finish it in time, it should give us good experience."

Ji-Han nodded.

"That makes sense. Tiles. Huh, didn't work. [Status Window]."

{Name: Han, Ji-Han
Class: The Gamer
Title: none
Level: Lv9
Status: Unaffected

HP: 500/500
SP: 500/500
MP: 35/250

STR: 24 (22+2) ← (+0) →
VIT: 22 ← (+0) →
DEX: 16 ← (+0) →
INT: 17 (19-2) ← (+0) →
WIS: 25 ← (+0) →
LUK: 13 ← (+0) →

Points: 12
Munny: 390 517}

He tipped on the title and in front of him opened a brown panel, similar to the inventory and skill ones, only that there was only one field filled. It had a white background and a cup, which resembled the Guard Armor. Tipping on the icon opened a blue panel:

{[Combat Novice]
Obtained by winning the Armor Cup.-
You have proven your worth in the Armor Cup
of the training simulation of the FO Vimana.
All status plus 2.}

Then another blue panel opened up below that.

{Do you want to equip the title [Combat Novice]?}

Without hesitation Ji-Han pressed {YES}. There were no negative effects to be had from this title and he didn't have any other one, so why would he hesitate?

"So", Naofumi spoke up. "What does it do?"

"Oh, eh, just increasing my stats by 2. I guess the other tournaments are going to give an upgraded version."

"That would make sense… [Training Program]." Naofumi opened the menu of the training room. "Looks like the second tournament has been unlocked. It is the 'Music Cup'."

"Really?" Ji-Han mused. "I wonder what kind of enemies that one has. Let's try it out!"

{Quest Alert

Optional Tournament: Music Cup

You think you are strong? Time to test it!

Win the Music Cup tournament of the training program of the FO Vimana.

Completion Award: EXP 50 000 shared equally over all party members.
You gain the title [Combat Apprentice].

Completion Failure:
No consequences.}

Without hesitation Ji-Han accepted the quest while Naofumi activated the tournament.

{Music Cup
Round 15}

Huh, so it had 15 rounds. And the enemies… there were six of them, levitating in the air looking like some kind of wizards. Like one of the black magicians from the Final Fantasy Series. They had the same black sphere with yellow orbs as head like the other Heartless but they wearing something resembling a red coat with an extremely high color that had a zigzagging brim. It had no arms or even holes in the coat for the arms, making it look more like a geometrical object with the black and red Heartless-emblem over the kick of the neck than a real coat. Only the bottom was also open, revealing two thin feet like those of a bird. And to top of their magician-look, they had a yellow pointy head, though the point in question was curved in an angular spiral.

"[Observe]!"

{Red Nocturne Imitation Lv20
Status: Simulated
HP: $80/80
MP: $180/180
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: Fire
Elemental Resistances: Fire (-1), Lightning (0.5)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $34 VIT: $25 DEX: $35
INT: $29 WIS: $39 LUK: $20}

"It uses Fire", Ji-Han told his comrades. "It has over 30 STR, DEX and WIS and over 20 VIT and 29. And for some reason it has a negative resistance against Fire."

Suddenly orbs of flames appeared on top of the tips of their yellow hats.

"Get back!" Naofumi declared and ran to the front, readying his shield as the Heartless shot the orbs of fire towards them. But even fire was no match against Naofumi's shield and they dispersed harmlessly on its surface.

"Flying magic user", mused Ji-Han. "If that's what the tournament's about, we might be in real trouble."

"Better here than on the field", Naofumi reminded him. "Now, get ready! [Air Strike Shield]!"

Naofumi summoned the Air Strike Shield in the air above them and let it fly around, smashing two of the Heartless out of the air. Ji-Han and Shua used that moment to run from behind the shield hero towards them.

"[Power Strike]", Ji-Han activated and instantly killed the first, while Shua used his own version to take care of the second one.

"[Shield Prison]" Activated Naofumi, not to capture a Heartless, but to protect Ji-Han and Shua as the Red Nocturnes attacked, two with more fireballs, the other two shrouding themselves in flames and rushing towards the place where the two were bunkered down. Then the Shield Prison vanished and they ran towards the nearest Heartless.

Shua, the first to arrive, jumped into the air, but failed to reach it. Maybe it was because of his small statue or maybe because of the heavy armor, regardless, his Power Strike failed, passing just underneath the Red Nocturne.

Ji-Han on the other hand, actually managed to reach it by jumping and hit it. Unfortunately one normal hit wasn't enough, even if it managed to knock down its HP to {17/80}. But unlike the Soldiers, with flying enemies he couldn't just kill them on a return-swing… or could he? Blunt Weapon Mastery did not just increase the damage, it also increased the speed at which he attacked. So, if he actually tried to get as many hits in mid-air as possible, could he manage a second one?

It's a pity he couldn't try that out at the moment but he was currently distracted by the fireball coming from another Heartless.

"[Guard]!" He activated, blocking the attack. That left him wide open to a flaming charge from another one, but luckily Naofumi had already caught up to them and was using his shield to block the incoming Heartless.

"Smear!" Shouted the Pokémon as he came out from behind Naofumi and attacked the stopped Heartless with a series of scratch-attacks. Meanwhile Ji-Han was rushing in the other direction, his sights set on the Heartless who had just attacked him. He jumped into the air, hit it once on from the left to the right and then as fast as possible from the right to the left. And it worked! Both hits landed on the Red Nocturne, dealing together enough damage to disperse it.

"Yes", shouted Ji-Han in triumph, until another Heartless rammed into him {-48} and his body was magically dragged to the side, rolling over the ground.

Damn these guys hit hard. That was nearly a tenth of his current HP.

Ji-Han stood up quickly and took a look around just as fast. Rightfully so, as there was another Red Nocturne firing a ball of fire at him right at this moment.

"[Dodge Roll]!" Ji-Han avoided the attack and ran forward, jumped into the air and slashed with his Keyblade. To his surprise, the first attack was the one to miss while the second hit true. It seemed he had actually been too fast for the first attack to land.

"[Air Strike Shield]!" Naofumi activated, blocking a fireball from behind.

"Thanks", Ji-Han shouted back quickly as he jumped back upwards to finish the job, only for another Red Nocturne to charge at them.

Ji-Han [Guard]ed in mid-air, blocking the charge but missing his opportunity to attack and landed on the ground again without dealing any damage. But as soon as his feet touched the ground, he jumped up again, this time attacking the Heartless who had charged him and eliminating it with one strike.

That left just two of them, both with {HP: 17/80}. The first got eliminated by Ji-Han before it could do anything, while the second one got hit by two of Shua's scratches, after missing with its charge. And yet it still hung on with {HP: 3/80}. But luckily Ji-Han was there to change that.

Alright, first round done. And while these guys packed a punch, that was only as long as they got hit. As long as they managed to avoid or block the attacks, everything was fine.

{Music Cup
Round 14}

Now as for the enemies of the second round… Ji-Han had thought that the Red Nocturnes had been looking like the Black Magicians from Final Fantasy but these six Heartless looked even more like them, with their blue color scheme opposite to the red ones.

"[Observe]!"

{Blue Rhapsody Imitation Lv20
Status: Simulated
HP: $80/80
MP: $180/180
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: None, Ice
Elemental Resistances: Ice (-1), Lightning (0.5)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $30 VIT: $20 DEX: $32
INT: $34 WIS: $44 LUK: $22}

{[Observe]'s Level has risen by 1.}

Great… even if there didn't seem to be any changes in the information?

"Ice or Water?" Naofumi suddenly inquired and Ji-Han hurried up to answer.

"Ice. They also have higher magic and less physical stats than the fire ones."

"Good", noted Naofumi as he blocked the crystals of ice that the Blue Rhapsodies had shot at them.

"[Air Strike Shield]!" Just like last time the Hero of the Shield used his transparent shield to swat two of them out of the sky and his party members hurried up to take on the downed enemies. But unlike last time there did so without the Power Strike, wanting to conserve MP.

Ji-Han still managed to take it down in one strike because he got a {Critical!} and Shua got it on the second try. As in, he got a {Critical!} that got the enemy to 0 HP.

"[Shield Prison]!" And now Naofumi once again captured his party members to protect them from the retaliating elemental attacks. Then the sphere of shields vanished and the inhabitants moved away, Ji-Han towards another Blue Rhapsody, Shua towards Naofumi, as the Pokémon still remembered the results of it trying to reach the airborne Heartless the last time.

But Ji-Han was ready and with a two-hit combo, brought down the number of remaining Heartless to half of the original amount.

But suddenly the two Rhapsodies next to him, spun around, their hats flying off of their heads and striking him like a whip while he was still in mid-air. {-25} {-25} And because the attacks had hit him not at exactly the same time, but the one on the right being just a bit slower than the one on the left, he was sent flying away from the latter one, directly below the one on the left.

{A party member has been afflicted with [$Frozen 20].}

Huh? What?!

Ji-Han quickly looked around and noticed a block of ice with Shua next to it. A person-sized block of ice with Naofumi inside of it.

"Naofumi-Hyung?!" Ji-Han shouted in panic, but the Hero of the Shield spoke up over the voice chat:

"I'm okay. I just can't move anything except my mouth and eyes. And I can still breathe. And I get 20 damage every second. Watch out for those ice beams. They ignore defenses."

A status effect. That was the first time Ji-Han had seen the Heartless use status effects. This was definitively an increase in difficulty compared to the previous tournament.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ji-Han saw something glowing and he instantly used [Dodge Roll] to avoid the attack, a beam of ice that froze the ground where it landed. He saw the aggressor, but hesitated to go after it.

"Shua, you'll be okay on your own?" He asked the Smeargle, who responded with an affirmative "Smear!"

"Try to fight in front of me!" Naofumi called out over the voice chat. "I can't move around, but I can still summon my shields!"

Oh, he was right. Even frozen he was still able to fight.

Ji-Han ran forward – and promptly slipped on the frozen floor he had forgotten about. His head landed on the ground and a message informed him of {-15}. Yet it didn't hurt and he was feeling fine. Was that because of the training room? Or because of his Gamer's Body?

Nevertheless, while the fall did not do anything too bad to him, it made him miss how a Blue Rhapsody shot an ice crystal at him until it shattered directly in his face. {-28}

Ji-Han picked himself up as fast as he could, using his Keyblade as a means to "break" through the simulated layer of ice and push himself up, his feet now outside the iced area. The he jumped upwards, over the whipping hat of another Heartless. Which he ignored once he landed, instead of running forward, towards Naofumi's field of vision. There he saw an Air Strike Shield getting frozen in mid-air because it blocked a beam of ice that had been going for Shua. Though the shield did not stay there and once it vanished, the surrounding block of ice lost its hold in mid-air and crashed onto the ground, shattering into million pieces, a part of them hitting the Pokémon near them.

"Shua!" Shouted Ji-Han but a quick [Observe] told him that he had gotten no damage. The armor had protected him.

Suddenly there was another crashing sound and Ji-Han spun around to find out what was going on. To his surprise it was only Naofumi, or rather the icy prison around him that shattered. Unfortunately with first Shua and then Naofumi, he had gotten distracted enough that an ice beam hit him from behind and he was instantly finding himself surrounded by a prison of crystals, unable to move.

{You have been afflicted with [$Frozen 20].}

{-20}

Ji-Han needed a moment to register what just happened, but only a moment.

{-20}

Damn it, he really couldn't move. And his HP, or rather SP {-20} was constantly ticking down. Wasn't there anything he could do?

{-20}

"[Status Window]!"

{Name: Han, Ji-Han
Class: The Gamer
Title: none
Level: Lv9
Status: $Frozen 20

HP: 500/500
SP: 279/500
MP: 35/250

STR: 24 (22+2) ← (+0) →
VIT: 22 ← (+0) →
DEX: 16 ← (+0) →
INT: 17 (19-2) ← (+0) →
WIS: 25 ← (+0) →
LUK: 13 ← (+0) →

Points: 12
Munny: 390 517}

{-20}

Okay, so could he get a little bit more explanation for that?! He couldn't move his arms so…

"Frozen? [Status]?"

{-20}

{Status: [Frozen 20], Duration: 000:00:00:14
The Affected is frozen in a porous block of ice.
Movements except for the eyes and mouth are impossible.
Protects from outside attacks except gaseous ones.
Vision and hearing is decreased by 50%.
Deals 20 Ice-elemental damage every second.
Is removed when hit with a fight-, fire-, sound- or time-elemental attack.}

{-20}

So it goes only for 13 more seconds. Good to know. Wait. Wouldn't that take all of his SP?!

{-20}

Uwaah! He had to get out of here fast! But how? Maybe an attack?

{-20}

"Power Strike!"

But nothing happened. Did that mean he couldn't use Power Strike, when he couldn't move?!

{-20}

Damn! What else could he do?!

"[Guard Break]!"

Ji-Han had only used the skill because it was a Fight-elemental skill, but to his surprise it actually worked. His Keyblade glowed and stabbed forward, destroying the ice on its way, which resulted in a chain-reaction that shattered all the ice around him.

"I'm back!" He declared happily, proud of his accomplishment. Then he quickly looked around to get ahold of the current situation. Together Naofumi and Shua had taken out another Blue Rhapsody and the last two were now focusing on them.

But without Ji-Han's support and Naofumi not allowed to get hit, they had quite the trouble against their enemies.

"[Shield Prison]!" Activated Naofumi as another ice beam was shot, capturing the originator as well as the beam. The ice got through the small gaps in the Shield Prison and soon covered all of it. But that was alright. As long as the Shield Prison stayed there, it would not crash onto the ground.

Meanwhile Ji-Han ran up to the other Heartless, who was preparing to shot a crystal of ice, jumped into the air and struck it twice, evaporating it.

"Finally back?" Greeted Naofumi. "Though you did get out faster than I expected…"

"The ice prison is weak to fire, sound, fight and time", Ji-Han explained. "I didn't had the room for Power Strike but Guard Break worked."

"We'll have to try out whether Guard Break or other attacks hurt the person inside when you use it", decided Naofumi. "Here it comes!"

The last part was referencing the Blue Rhapsody that had vanished from the inside of the frozen Shield Prison and reappeared out of dark warp point in the air next to the prison. Ji-Han went instantly into motion, letting the ice crystal fly above his head, before he jumped up and finished the fight.

Still, second fight and already down to near 159 SP? If that continued they could kiss their victory good-bye.

{Music Cup
Round 13}

"I guess those would be lightning", Naofumi concluded about the next batch of enemies and Ji-Han had to agree. They had the same base figure of the Red Nocturnes and Blue Rhapsodies, only that both hat and cloak were yellow. Besides…

"…do you know Final Fantasy?" The Gamer asked the Hero of the Shield who answered in the affirmative. So they had come to the same conclusion based on the fact that fire, ice and lightning, were the three staple elements of the black magicians of Final Fantasy.

"[Observe]!"

{Yellow Opera Imitation Lv20
Status: Simulated
HP: $80/80
MP: $180/180
Type: Imitation
Elemental Alignment: Lightning
Elemental Resistances: Lightning (-1), Wood (0.5)
A holographic enemy of the training program of the FO Vimana.
It has no actual substance but its attacks
are treated as real within the simulation.
STR: $30 VIT: $20 DEX: $43
INT: $31 WIS: $39 LUK: $19}

And they were right.

"Yep, it's Lightning", confirmed Ji-Han for real. "And it's got DEX and WIS around 40."

"Good to know", declared Naofumi as he moved to the front while the Heartless were summoning orbs of lightning on the tips of their hats. Then, in a flash, the orbs vanished and at the same time bolts of lightning came striking down from the sky. {-26} {-27} {-25} {-26} To be precise, four rained down on him and two on Shua. Naofumi had been completely ignored.

"These guys attack from above", Ji-Han quickly informed Naofumi of the situation who cursed.

"Keep moving!" He ordered his party members. "As magical lightning it's possible they always hit straight-down."

Ji-Han and Shua made to follow the orders, only for the Heartless to get into motion, too. Like insects they zipped all over the place, only stopping to create an orb of lightning at the tip of their hats.

Ji-Han and Shua quickly ran away and, soon enough, a lightning bolt hit the place they had been before. And since he couldn't see all his enemies anymore, Ji-Han continued to run. Rightfully as he soon heard another lightning bolt coming down behind him.

Then one Yellow Opera came to a stop in his field of vision, preparing another attack.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Declared Ji-Han as he charged the Heartless, only for the Heartless itself to tip its head and charge directly at Ji-Han. The Gamer, not expecting that, got hit dead-centre and pushed back, until the Heartless let go of him. {-44}

Holy shit, that hurt a lot. As in, in terms of damage. This was just a simulation so there was no actual pain but still, the SP-loss…

And that was when he got hit by a lightning strike {-25}, all the Heartless vanished and instead a message in large letters appeared:

{GAME OVER}

"Ah, damn it!" Cursed Ji-Han. "Guys, if the next world happens to have Yellow Operas in it, we'll run away, alright?"

"Smeargle?"

"You might be joking, but this is your life", reminded Naofumi. "Better to run away from an enemy you can't defeat than die to it."

"Right, right", conceded Ji-Han. "Then, I guess instead of trying the tournament another time we'll go to combat-mode again?"

"That would be an intelligent decision", agreed Naofumi. "And we also should study all their attacks closely. Like damage, MP cost, side-effects."

"Huh? Any special reason?"

"So that, if we meet one of them outside, we can decide whether or not to have Shua copy the attack."

"That's a really good idea!" Exclaimed Ji-Han. "Let's do that!"

"Smear!" Shua joined in the enthusiasm, only for his stomach to growl.

"After we got you something to eat", conceded Ji-Han. "You still haven't tried my Cooked Rice, if I remember…"


A/N:

Hi, guys and gals.

This chapter is most likely not the most interesting, but unfortunately if I had skipped the travel, some things wouldn't make sense. Thus this chapter. But at last I could show off the tournaments. The tournaments of Olympus Coliseum in canon Kingdom Hearts don't really make much sense. The Heartless are supposed to be driven by instincts, so qualifying for a tournament is a bit of a stretch. Moreover, you are practically killing these guys and that should be a bit of a no-no. So we've got simulated enemies instead.

Gashadokuro Amanojaku