Rising Against Fate

His gear-shaped pupil started rotating at a speed where it almost seemed circular. There was a blueish shine to it, but due to the sunlight, it was hard to notice.

He pulled out a MM from the right pocket of his pants. It was a small, well-crafted analog watch, which one would easily be able to identify at the sight because analog watches were considered a rarity these days. There were no companies that still manufactured those, and the ones like Kat's could be sold at millions in auctions.

The crowd was surprised, but not because they got to see a valuable analog watch. Instead, that was because it was considered utter foolishness to show one's MM in battle. Revealing MM was like showing one's biggest weakness.

Richi was just staring at Kat in surprise. Even someone as reckless as he knew how stupid Kat's actions were.

"Are you trying to surrender or something?"

Kat just ignored Richi and started rotating the crown of his watch. Due to this, Richi became even more annoyed and charged straight at Kat.

Kat stepped forward and threw the watch high in the air. For a fraction of a second, Richi was confused there.

He could target the watch, but it was apparent that it was just a diversion. He also knew that Kat would be able to use his psychic abilities to manipulate the movement of the watch mid-air. But then, he noticed that the marbles that were spinning around Kat were getting faster and faster with every passing moment. And he was confident that it had something to do with that watch.

The one thing he realized was that the watch was directly above Kat, and even if kat manipulates its movement, he would be able to attack him next. It was a rather simple way of thinking, but that was what appeared logical to him.

When he was at a suitable distance, he leaped up towards the watch. But surprisingly, Kat did nothing; he just left the watch to gravity and Richi and fired the marbles that had already gained enough momentum at Richi. All eight of them were fired one after another towards Richi, who was directly above him.

That was stupid. Stupid in a sense that if he were to just destroy the watch —Kat's MM— the marbles would lose their speed significantly, and he would easily be able to block those with his vibration shield.

He punched the watch and broke it into pieces using physical enhancement and his vibration magic. Almost at the same time, he created a vibration shield below him. But much to his surprise, the marbles hadn't lost one bit of momentum.

The shield was able to block two of them, but the rest were able to break through and hit him. The six marbles hit him at six different parts of his body, and as a result, he crashed on the floor. They were aimed perfectly to make the impact non-lethal, but were severe enough to knock him unconscious. The improved version of Kat's eyes were capable of doing that level of analysis on that brief moment.

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Normally, one would assume that Kat was trying to increase or remove the limit—if there was one—on his mana absorption rate when he took out his MM. But that was not the case here. What Kat was doing was pure misdirection that one gets to see in the circus magic shows.

One doesn't need a better trick to win. They just need to use the trick they know efficiently, and the victory will be within their grasp. At least, that was what Kat believed.

That watch was not Kat's MM; it was just a distraction. And it appeared that he increased his speed, not because he went beyond what his limit was. Instead, the marbles were slow from the start, and he only started spinning them at their normal speed after what appeared to be him activating his ace move.

It just happened in a moment, but it took quite a bit of hard work for Kat to create that moment. Of course, there were uncertainties involved, but here, in this case, he just had to make Richi think for a few seconds. And in those seconds, Kat was able to change the tides of the match, the way he wanted.

"That was an MM, but not mine. It's a duplicate of one of the greatest MMs out there. I thought some would be able to notice it, but I guess only those dudes were able to notice it."

Kat looked towards the luxury box as the medical team quickly rushed to the stage and started checking Richi's condition. After examination, the medical team gave a signal to stop the match, after which the announcement continued.

"The match has been decided. The winner of this match is Kat F. Nerdy."

Kat slowly walked down the stage and walked towards the waiting room. The exit was right next to the waiting room, and the medical room to treat any injuries was on the side. But Kat went to neither; he went to the washroom and stood in front of the mirror.

The pupil stopped rotating, and with that, everything around him got blurry. This ability of his could be considered cool, but it came with a side effect — he wouldn't be able to see clearly for the next minute after every use.

It allowed him to perfectly plan the time it would take for Richi to jump that high. And based on that, he determined how high he needed to throw the watch. He could analyze the motion and movements to tiny details, and those details allowed Kat to come up with a perfect plan.

Those weren't the only perks of this ability of his, but in this case, it worked that way.

It was one of the most powerful visual abilities out there, but even the most incredible power has some weaknesses. That's how nature worked. As it went, everything that has an origin will meet an end one day, so there is always a balance in everything.