(The scene starts off with Itally suddenly waking up from a loud grunt in a flamboyantly decorated guestroom. He looks out towards the balcony to see Ra'ell training.)
"He's training again. He does this every day." Itally thinks to himself as he looks at the clock on the bedside stand, "It's 5:57, so he's been at it for about 2 hours now." Itally thought as he stood up from the bed and walked towards Ra'ell.
"Your commitment to your training is impeccable, but why train your whole body." Itally said.
"Sorry about disturbing your beauty sleep. I train my whole body because that's what works for me." Ra'ell says as he does vertical push-ups.
"But you're an awakener." Itally says with a puzzled tone in his voice.
"Yeah, huh, what of it?" Ra'ell asks as he continues his workout.
"Awakeners attain supernatural buffs to specific parts, organs or systems in their body, so there isn't need to train the whole thing. It's pretty inefficient. What is your focal point?" Itally asks.
"Really? I don't know. How can I figure out my focal point?" Ra'ell asks.
"In order to do that, you need to meditate and delve into your 'soul terrain'." Itally replies.
"'Soul terrain' what's that?" Ra'ell asks with a confused look on his face.
"Oh my Gods, how don't you know what the soul terrain is? Don't you know anything about the Trinity Path." Itally said.
"Hey, I know my fair share of the important stuff." Ra'ell snapped.
"Well, you don't know enough cause the soul terrain is important. It serves as the barrier between your soul and body. It's the looking glass into your soul where your power is stored, and the stronger you get, the smaller it will be as your soul and body begin to mesh, but it will never disappear, only fade away when experiencing Soul-touch. You can access it through complete meditation, aka Animiter." Itally explained.
"Jeez, what an info dump, so how can I do it?" Ra'ell remarked.
"Well, first you have to..." Itally said as he got interrupted by Hibai bursting into the room panting. "Ha...ha...ha... giant worms attacking... just outside the house."
Upon hearing this, Ra'ell jumps off the balcony and onto the roof, "Gosh, can't he just leave like a normal person." Itally remarks as he laves the room with Hibai.
(The focus then shifts to a scene just outside the gate of the house, Ra'ell can be seen watching in awe as a six-armed armored being with three more additional protruding extensions coming off of it's back and rear end fighting off dozens of 4 foot long worms with rows of serrated teeth as they burst out of the ground, Itally and Hibai can then be seen as they approach the area.)
"Who's that?" Itally asks aloud.
"I don't know, but he seems pretty strong." Ra'ell replies.
"Those look like tremor hatchlings. They are at least tier 5." Itally states as he watch the being fight them off effortlessly.
"That's the Armored Adventurer!" Hibai exclaims.
"The Armored Adventurer, eh, can't wait to test my strength against him." Ra'ell stated with excitement in his voice.
"Sorry, but I won't be fighting anybody." The Armored Adventurer says as he finishes off the last worm.
Ra'ell then leaps toward them as he says, "Come on now, after watching that, I'm itching for a battle."
Suddenly, a mysterious voice is heard, "If it's a battle you want, then it's a battle you'll get." Then a lady jumps down from a nearby tree.
"Finally, you come down, I was wondering why you were just hanging out in the tree, but I'm not interested in a battle with whoever you are." Ra'ell says with a dismissive attitude.
"It seems like you don't remember me. Let me jog your memory." The mysterious lady says as the Armored Adventurer armor begins to break down into pieces, revealing a tall, bald man with four arms, the pieces then begin to swarm and gather behind the lady to form a giant metallic scorpion, as she says, "For I am Sosa the master puppeteer."
Ra'ell then slams his palm into his face as he says, "Oh, I remember you, Soso, the low-tier puppet master that I washed in the Rozma town finale What are you doing here? Don't tell me I've got a stalker now."
She then grunts in rage, "Arggh, the name's Sosa, and fyi, I'm a contestant in the Quest of Deeds."
Ra'ell then scoffs, "Ha, you must be joking. You most definitely lost, so how could you be a contestant."
Itally then says, "How couldn't you know this? Due to an insufficient number of contestants, additional members were selected from the people in second place to fill up the spaces, though it has only ever happened in the first festival before."
Ra'ell, shocked to hear this, asks, "Why wasn't there enough contestants? Anyways, I'm not battling a Tier 4 nobody like you."
Itally then thinks to himself, "So he doesn't know about Thyrinn's threat. Though I doubt that would have stopped him from participating."
Sosa then says with pride, "Then I'll have you know that I'm Tier 7 now."
Ra'ell then laughs, "Ha, you must be joking now. You can't expect me to believe you went up by 3 tiers within a month."
Sosa, who's now annoyed by Ra'ell's constant disbelief, says, "How about you find out for yourself in a battle against me, or are you afraid?"
Ra'ell then replies, "Your taunting won't work against me, but I am craving a fight, so I'll humor you."
(Ra'ell and Sosa can be seen standing opposite each other, gearing up for battle with the rest standing back,the wind bellows through the leaves, and the sun rises over the distant horizon, it's perfect day for a fight.)
"Don't think that just because we match in tier that this battle will be anywhere near close." Ra'ell says.
"You seem really confident." Sosa smirks.
"Oh yes, I am. In fact, I won't even use my sword." He says as he throws he sheathed blade at Itally, who gracefully catches it.
"Your hand-eye coordination is pretty good. How about we go at it after them, or even with them? By the way, I'm Bullard, a Tier 7 mutant, I and Sosa belong to team 8, and I can increase my number of arms up to four for now."The man said upon seeing Itally's catch.
"Ah, no, sorry, I won't be a fun match-up for you. I'm Itally, Itally Roma, a Tier 5 Unorthodox materialist, Ra'ell and I are team 18, I can cast magic using music from my lute." Itally said.
"Ah, a battle before breakfast, just like the good old days. Are you ready?" Ra'ell said with a battle hungry look on his face as he took a bare handed stance.
"Oh, I'm ready!" Sosa replied with the same energy as she articulated her construct's joints, clicking sounds could be heard from it with every moment it made no matter how small, Hibai counted them down, and the very instant he said go Ra'ell charged at the scorpion.
With a left jab, Ra'ell launched the first strike, which was blocked by its right claw, then an attack from its left claw towards Ra'ell's open side, with a leap he evaded only to meet its tail arcing downward towards him, he crosses his arms to block as he gets knocked back down towards the ground.
"Ha, I guess you get first blood, but it ain't over yet!" Ra'ell exclaims as he flexes his left arm in preparation to launch a right hook, but he suddenly stops as he feels a sharp pain in the arm, as he looks to see his veins pulsating and a strange yellow liquid dripping out of the wound, he got from the last attack.
"Ah, I see you've noticed my poison. Now a timer has been put on this battle." Sosa smirks.
"If you think this is gonna stop me, you will be highly mistaken." Ra'ell says as he charges towards the scorpion with a right hook which was duly blocked by its left claw, but it wasn't enough to neutralize the force as it began to spin and swerve.
"Aha, now that it's spinning, her strings will get knotted up again, I've won now." He thought to himself as he charged towards Sosa. As his fist is about to make contact with her face, Ra'ell suddenly gets jammed by the scorpion, sending him flying.
"You tried to exploit that my little weakness again, didn't you? Well, joke's on you, I don't have it anymore." Sosa laughs as she relishes in the moment.
(The focus then shifts to her hands where brownish strings made of mana can be seen attached to her fingertips, it can be seen that when in contact instead of twisting and tangling they now just pass through each other.)
The scorpion then charges at Ra'ell with a flurry of attacks which he is barely managing to counter, fortunately for him he is able to find an opening and grab the two claws, but suddenly the tail comes striking down, slashing him across the chest, he let's go of the claws and leaps away.
"He should have been able to dodge that. He isn't moving as fast as he did that day." Itally thought to himself as he reminisced about that night with the Razor boars.
"You've noticed it too, the poison is slowing down your teammate's movements, specifically the electrical signals from his brain, if he doesn't end this soon he'll end up a vegetable, a sitting duck." Bullard said.
"What, Ra is definitely going to win, right, Itally?" Hibai asked.
"Of course he will. He's just having fun, I mean, look at him." Itally replied as he pointed to a smiling Ra'ell as he wiped off his sweat.
"Its tail is the fastest moving part of it's body, I can still manage to dodge it foe now, as long as I pay attention. Now, this is a real battle." Ra'ell thought as he watched the tail slam on the ground and return to its original position with blinding speed.
All of a sudden, with a twitch of Sosa's fingers, the scorpion lunged at Ra'ell, crossing its claws in an X pattern, trying to rend more of his flesh, Ra'ell blocks at the last minute, but the scorpion just continues to unleash an onslaught of attacks from it's claws and all he could do was block, barely. This went on for minutes, Ra'ell was starting to lose ground, and with a flick of Sosa's right thumb, the tail came flailing down.
Ra'ell who was fortunately able to dodge thought to himself, "So her thumb controls its tail, that explains its speed, the scorpion itself isn't very durable as my attacks and counters have done considerable damage to it, so there's two ways I can end this before I freeze up, I could either strike at her and break her fingers, but that would be difficult with my current speed and I'll probably just get rammed again or I could shatter it again like last time, guess I know what option I'm going for."
In that same moment, a thought flashed through Sosa's mind, "I'm almost out of stamina. How is he still able to move? I have to finish this now!"
In an instant, Ra'ell charged towards the scorpion, in response Sosa flicked her index fingers and the construct crossed its claws once again but this time Ra'ell caught them, and with all his might began to crush them with his bare hands, in fear of her construct getting destroyed once more, Sosa flicked her thumb rapidly once more, and the tail came swinging down, with its trajectory being Ra'ell's skull.
"Ra, watch out!" Hibai screamed at the sight.
Everyone thought that Ra'ell was in for a fatal wound, but to their surprise, he had leaped onto the tail, Sosa, who had now been frustrated the sight, reared the tail back at an alarming speed in order to catch him off guard, but unbeknownst to her this was the moment he was waiting, using the momentum of the tail he launched himself into the air towards her, and with dropkick to her core he ended the fight, the construct movements seized and what once seemed life-like was now no different from a rock.
(A deafening silence covered the area as Ra'ell had just defeated Sosa in the most unexpected way, but the silence was short-lived as Hibai began to cheer with all his voice.)
"Way to go, Ra! You really showed her! I didn't lose faith in you for a second!" Hibai cheered as he ran up to him.
"You see now, Soso, even if you match me in strength, my experience will always shine through, I mean, I wasn't even using my sword, and you still lost. That's the weakness of people like you. Your strength lies in your item. Without it, you're nothing." Ra'ell said as he glanced at Itally and Sosa.
Itally grew annoyed as he felt Ra'ell was targeting him with his words, "How about you get yourself patched up, Idiot?" Itally shouted.
"I'm fine, I just need some breakfa..." Ra'ell said as he suddenly slumped down to the ground unconscious.
"Oh no, the poison." Itally said as he ran to him and looked at his wounds to see they have turned a yellowish hue,
"What? Don't blame me. The poison is meant to stop his movements, not knock him out!"
(With that, the scene fades to black with Itally and Hibai huddling around Ra'ell's unconscious body.)