Michael landed on the pavilion where the river town people and disciples were cheering excitedly for him. In the front two seats, he saw Claire and the Elders were clapping with bright smiles on their faces. Even the usually calm and composed Elder Sandra was greeting him with a wide grin.
"Brother Ghost!"
"You are at level 10?!"
"Brother Ghost, you're so awesome!"
"The other sects are gonna be so pissed hahahaha"
The disciples were too excited, not a single disciple remained in their seats. All of them were jumping up and down waving the name boards with Ghost's name on it in the air.
"Brother come here come here" Cindy called him, sitting on Claire's lap. On Claire's right side, the elders remained seated while on her left, there was an empty seat reserved for Nightmare. Next to Nightmare's seat sat Olivia, Ricky, and several disciples who were in the sect longer than anyone else, the seniors.
Seeing Michael approaching, Nightmare flapped his wing to launch himself in the air.
"Let me get that Master Ghost" Ricky quickly came to him and removed Michael's dual sword sheath so Michael could comfortably rest on the chair until the first round for Core Formation warriors starts.
"Thank You Ricky," Michael said after giving his swords to Ricky. He then made his way to the seat.
"Teacher, are you even a human?" When Micheal sat, Olivia asked.
Instead of answering, he just gave her a smile.
"What took you so long?" Claire's voice was mixed with giggles and concern.
"I came here as soon as I wanted to. Did I miss anything interesting?"
"It depends on what you call an interesting teacher" Olivia looked at the stage where the guests were sitting on an elevated stage on the field. Michael immediately recognized Lord Ashton. Both Michael and Ashton locked their eyes, without uttering a word, each of them just nodded, wordlessly reminding them about their agreement.
"Who are they?" Except for Asthon Michael didn't recognize the others.
"That's His Majesty King Bredia and Her Royal Highness Princess Katherine," Olivia said in a low voice looking at the king and the princess.
Then she turned her gaze at the red haired man,
"Sitting right to the king is His Grace Duke of Flamefair, Avon"
Michael took a long look at the man. He was on Lucifer's hit list because of the slave mines. After seeing the state of Aria's two brothers, he wanted to know what kind of experiments they were doing in the slave mines. Unfortunately, the place was too dangerous for Michael to infiltrate at that time and he had too many things on his plate. If a normal being suffered what Aria's brothers suffered, they would have died but something kept them alive, Michael was curious to find out more about it.
It wouldn't take a genius to figure out Duke Avon has a hand in the slave mine operations. Michael wasn't looking to play good samaritan by cleaning up the slave mines but had a gut feeling that the slave mines might give him something useful.
"That man with a mustache is Lord Ashton, he's an Elder of the Kane family. A frickin Fusion stage cultivator" He could feel the shock in her heart through her voice.
"Oh?" Michael pretended to be surprised,
"Who is that blue hair?" Michael quickly asked before Olivia went into details about Ashton because she seemed like she had a lot to talk about Ashton and Fusion stage.
"Lord Calvin, he's here representing Kingdom Thusia" the moment Michael heard the word Thusia, he gritted his teeth. A sudden explosion of anger erupted in his heart like a boiling volcano. The flashes of the sanctuary burning, Abras's life, the smiles of the elders, the good memories, the betrayal of the princess, everything flashed across his eyes.
For the first time in a long time, Michael sweated because of anger. He had a difficult time controlling his anger. Since the soul piece of Abras's had merged more with Michael's part, the pain he experienced was so intense. In his mind, he didn't feel like someone else was betrayed but himself.
"Teacher, are you alright?" Olivia noticed Michael sweating and shivering,
"Brother"
"Ghost"
Cindy and Claire turned their concerned gazes at Michael,
"Yeah, it's just I'm feeling hot" Michael wiped the sweat off of his forehead with his hand,
"Do you need something teacher?"
"No" Michael's voice turned cold as it sent a chill running through Olvia's spine. Claire and Nightmare who was sitting on Claire's lap with Cindy could literally feel a sudden coldness around them.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Michael's train of thoughts was suddenly interrupted by the loud bell sounds. He took the gaze away from Calvin to see a translucent red chakra rotating above the battle stage. Since the coordinators had already taken the pillars and mirrors, the stage was empty.
"This year, the two tournaments will be conducted parallel instead of one after another. That means, after finishing one round of the Body Strengthening stage tournament, the round for Core Formation will start, so on and so forth" James Hall's voice reverberated through the arena.
"The first round of the Body Strengthening stage will now begin. The competitors please step onto the stage"
Michael saw youngsters in various armors jump onto the stage one by one and group by group. It took only a few more minutes before the stage got crowded with youngsters. Following the youngsters, a couple of coordinators arrived on the stage,
"Please stay still" the coordinators' voice too had the same volume as the commentators so everything heard them loud and clear.
No one dared to act otherwise after hearing the coordinators' instructions. They remained still as the chakra above them started to glow brighter and brighter before several orbs of red, green, yellow, and blue flew down from the chakra to the participants.
The four colors of orbs of lights landed on each participants' body. In a blink of an eye, a thin layer of light enveloped the participants' bodies. Some of them had a blue layer, some of them had green, the rest of them had yellow and red.
"If you are wondering or counting still, there are 25 participants covered in each color. Those who have the same color layer would battle to be qualified for the next round" Ishihara explained,
"The rules of the first round are simple, you just need to eliminate the other participants by knocking them out or throwing them out of the battle stage. The last remaining 10 will be qualified for the next round. Each elimination will earn you a point that will be used in the later rounds to rank you and save you from elimination" Darius explained the rules to the participants as well as the audience. Those who attend the championship tournaments were familiar with the rules yet the commentators would explain the rules for people like Michael who never witnessed a tournament before.
"And when the round begins, your Arch energy will be blocked by the chakra above you, making you temporarily lose your cultivation power. As mentioned before, this round is designed to test your combat prowess without Arch energy. You are also prohibited to take any kind of potions or pills during the battle. Taking alchemy drugs will result in disqualification and banned from participating in any tournaments that will take place in Elon in your future" Darius's words immediately caused a commotion among the participants as well as the crowd.
Michael frowned after listening to Darius. He was expecting him to talk about the armor the participants were wearing yet Darius didn't seem to have anything to talk about armors. He tried to sound like the committee wants the tournament to be fair but there was nothing fair about battling a participant covered in unbreakable armor like Alex.
Those who couldn't afford to wear armor such as Alex's or Peter's were clearly at disadvantage. Of course, Michael was not planning to raise his voice against this unfairness. As far as he was concerned, being born poor wasn't one's fault but living and dying as one is.
Michael could have easily bought or hired a dwarf to forge him an armor but he chose not to because he had APD that could inject him with healing potions, strength enhancers, and the system. Wearing armor like Alex's would certainly restrict his both hand-to-hand combat and sword skills.
"Now it's time for us to decide which group should battle first and who is better to decide this other than His Majesty" Ishihara let out a sweet laugh as an orb of white light appeared from the chakra before floating towards the king.
"Your Majesty please place your hand on the orb, choosing a color among red, blue, green, and yellow"
Under the gazes of thousands of people, the king gracefully placed his hand on the floating orb before him. In a few blinks of an eye, the white orb radiated bright blue light.
"Blue team it is, the rest of the participants please return to your places and return to the stage when it's your turn" Among the participants who remained on the stage, Michael spotted three familiar faces. They were Evan, Victoria, and Sabrina.
After realizing three celebrity disciples were going to fight each other, Michael got slightly interested in watching the battle. The remaining 25 disciples prepared themselves to fight. Some of them formed small groups of three quickly after murmuring among themselves while Sabrina, Victoria, Evan who had the utmost confidence in their abilities remained alone without forming any sort of alliance with the others.
"The battle will begin after the three bells. Prepare yourselves people, you're in for a ride"
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After seeing the overwhelming response to my last question about the release order, I have decided to go with MMGGMMGG format so the battles will not be interrupted and make you go crazy on the author.
The following tournament chapters will be focused on Michael and filled with action you've been waiting for.
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