Conrad steadied himself.
Now that he decided to fight for real, he looked at his opponent for a moment.
His eyes, deep down, changed slightly.
Brone was no fool; as he noticed the gaze from Conrad, he noticed something was different.
"Is that some sort of ability?"
"Gazing?" he asked himself.
Conrad then inhaled and moved.
The rings came again.
Conrad shifted left, then sharply right.
Two rings sliced past where his head had been an instant earlier.
Another grazed close enough that he felt the disturbance in the air against his cheek.
He did not counterattack.
"My orbs are already deployed."
"I deploy them before I even start the battle."
"There is no need to just show them that I have them while in combat."
Conrad grinned as he thought.
And while watching, he noticed something important.
The hit he had taken earlier, aside from the pain, had changed nothing else.
There was no lingering effect. At least for now.
Usually, he believes most of the conjuration users would add special effects to the object they conjure; attacking an enemy would be the simplest but logical conditional activation.
"That means, whatever condition he fulfilled by hitting me… it wasn't something applied to me."
"He may not have anything, but it is logical to think that he has."
He created more distance, retreating deliberately toward the edge of the arena.
Brone did not pursue physically.
He did not need to.
The rings adjusted their trajectories smoothly, tracking Conrad.
Conrad also definitely understands this time that Brone is really not great at direct physical combat.
Then Conrad saw it.
The six rings, which had been pale and nearly colorless before, began to shift.
Their surfaces brightened, as if light were being drawn into them from within.
The rotation speed increased slightly, enough to be noticeable.
White.
A second later, Conrad's eyes widened.
The six rings split.
Each ring separated cleanly into two identical copies, forming twelve rings in total.
They fanned out smoothly, reorganizing themselves into a wider encirclement.
"I get it," Conrad thought.
He did not panic.
His feet continued moving, faster now, muscles working closer to their limit as the density of attacks doubled.
Rings passed above, below, and beside him.
One struck the ground with a sharp crack, sending stone fragments skittering across the arena.
"What a great battle."
"It seems like, Conrad, the newcomer with two wins may get his first loss!"
The narrator woman shouted out loud as the huge crowds of people started getting excited.
As Conrad dodged, his mind worked rapidly.
"Brone is a conjurer," Conrad concluded.
"He creates six Frisbee-sized rings as his base construct."
That much was obvious.
"But the attack pattern isn't fixed," he continued. "That means manipulation is layered on top."
He was actively controlling them, adjusting speed, angle, and timing in real time.
A hybrid application conjuration for the objects, manipulation for their behavior.
Conrad ducked low as three rings crossed overhead, then rolled forward as two more converged where he had been standing.
"And now the condition," he thought.
"When one ring successfully hits the target, something triggers, but not on the target. It triggers on the rings themselves."
The earlier hit replayed in his mind.
"After a successful strike, the rings enter a secondary state."
"They double in number, and their color changes to white."
Conrad's breath remained steady as he moved, but inwardly, he felt a flicker of admiration.
"What a clean design," he thought. "Risk and reward are built directly into the construct."
He continued analyzing.
"The doubling isn't instant," he realized.
"There was a delay."
He counted internally, measuring the time between the moment he was struck and the moment the rings changed.
"Roughly ten to fifteen seconds," he estimated.
"That's likely intentional."
A short window where the user must survive without immediate benefit, preventing the ability from snowballing too fast at the very start.
"And now with twelve rings active, the pressure multiplies exponentially."
If another hit landed, what then?
Twenty-four?
Forty-eight?
He didn't need to see it to know the answer.
"I'm sure if he keeps landing hits, the color will keep changing."
Conrad thought.
"White might be the second stage. There could be others red, black, and gold each representing a further escalation."
"I am sure if the number of rings exceeds forty-eight, there is no way for me to win if I do not get a clean hit."
"I think there is a limit to the number of it."
"Controlling too many objects for a conjurer is not logical..."
"Three hits and three multiplying must be the limit."
"But, these are all guesses."
Brone had not spoken during this exchange.
He stood calmly at the center of the arena, hands relaxed,
"So, he did not know of my ability at all..."
Brone noticed that everybody in the arena, from the announcer to the people watching the fight, was not shocked but expected his rings to be multiplied.
Only Conrad was shocked.
"He prefers to not watch the battles beforehand."
"It must be his training; these fights are..."
"Also, because he is increasing the risk, his men must respond to him better."
Conrad vaulted backward, narrowly avoiding a converging pair of rings that would have trapped him between them.
His foot hit the ground hard, and he pushed off again, creating more space.
"The weakness," Conrad thought, "is obvious but not easy to exploit."
"It becomes a battle of endurance and control," Conrad concluded.
He smiled faintly.
"What a great ability," he admitted to himself.
"But I have a great plan too."