After 10 seconds passed, Eo was quickly declared the winner. Eo watched the body get picked up and carted away.
"Well, that's this contestant's first win!"
The spectators clapped half-heartedly.
Later that day Eo was sent off to the training room. Fighters were allowed to have a maximum of 1 fight a day, so for the rest of the day Eo was free. It was rare enough that he got 2 in a row, so Eo felt pretty satisfied.
He landed another fist into the punching bag. It didn't feel right.
Eo didn't exercise. That was dumb, because it required effort and stuff. He had already discovered he had a slightly toned body from all the essence circulation he did.
Eo wondered if he could that that concept and drive it up the wall. He walked over to the corner of the training room and sat down. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on circulating all the essence into his arms.
Momentarily, Eo felt like he could lift a truck. Then the rebound effect kicked in, and Eo clutched his arms, almost screaming in pain. His muscles were forcibly constricting painfully. Eo writhed around in pain for 2 minutes, which felt like several hours for him. Other people in the room threw strange glances at him.
Eo grit his teeth and started pouring essence into his sore muscles. He didn't want to waste time on making himself feel better. The next dose of essence would probably heal them anyways.
The essence kicked back in, and Eo yelled out loud. He started screaming while clawing the floor. The pain was at least a hundred times worse.
Eo finally blacked out, unable to cope with the pain.
☆
Eo felt like a fool. His face was slumped up against the wall. According to the clock, there were only about two hours until he had to get back to his cell.
He looked around the room. His eyes spotted a roll of duct tape. Perfect.
Eo ran over to it and tried picking it up.
To his horror, his arms weren't responding. So Eo grabbed it with his mouth and tried to find his cell.
After being unable to find it, his cuff started telling him his proximity to the cell, via the "hot or cold" method. Except that instead of saying "hot" or "cold", it electrocuted him, intensity proportional to his distance from the cell.
After a grueling fifteen minutes, Eo stumbled back to his prison. The guard yelled that he was late and landed a fist to his stomach.
Eo collapsed inside his cell.
☆
Eo opened one of his eyes slightly. It seemed that every inmate was asleep, and the guards were starting to nod off as well. Eo guessed they weren't paid too much.
Eo could barely move one hand. Good enough. He duct taped his own mouth.
Then he started circulating more essence into his arms. He started out with an extremely small amount. Almost immediately, the pain spiked. His hands fell slack.
Eo wondered if he was just mentally challenged. So he wondered what would happen if he shoved essence up his brain.
Eo's curiosity took over, and as a consequence, he started feeling extremely lightheaded, His vision also turned foggy, so Eo stopped. He didn't want to go blind over science. Not yet at least.
"Hey Eo. What're you doing?"
Eo turned around. Nestaris was looking at Eo strangely. Eo rubbed his face on the wall until part of the duct tape fell off.
"Oh, I'm just uh, experimenting."
"Your arms look extremely bruised. Are you sure you're exercising properly?"
"That's what I'm experimenting on."
"I'm not going to even ask about why you're trying to tape your own mouth closed."
Nestaris gave Eo a weird glance and then turned back around to sleep.
Eo taped his mouth closed again and went back to screaming in pain.