Even before the Old Blade’s arrival, the council room had been serious, the air heavy with worry and intrigue.

  Each of the families struggled to keep their emotions in check, not in a petty fashion, but out of genuine curiosity. It was forbidden to exchange too much information about the three chosen children, yet everyone was dying to know more.

  The council room was divided into five parts, one for each of the branches. At the head of each branch was one of the Old Blade’s children.

  Jianyu, head of the empty branch stood alone.

  Taeyang, head of the heart branch and father of the first chosen child, Anna, stood with his wife beside him and his branch behind.

  Xiumei, head of the garden branch and mother of the second chosen child, simply known as the Child of Gold, stood alone. Her branch, the most numerous of all, stood behind her.

  Yuna, youngest of the five and head of the freedom branch, stood alone. Behind her was her branch, though none of them was related to her.

  Ryuseong, the eldest and head of the heaven branch, sat, biting on some straw, paying no attention to anything. He was the father of the third chosen child, Kaito, the Lightning Child. Behind him stood no one, he had forgotten to tell them about the meeting.

  When the Old Blade arrived, his very presence demanded that they all be at their best behavior. There was absolutely no room for error. Every branch member lowered their head in respect. Four of the five children fixed their posture, and Ryuseong-Ryuseong did nothing, continuing to bite on his straw.

  Not telling them might have been the best mistake I’ve ever made, he thought to himself. He could easily imagine how they would’ve nagged him from behind if he didn’t fix his posture. Scary…

  “I have been observing the children,” the Old Blade said, sitting in his chair which was at a higher elevation. “And I have to say… I am not displeased, at least not yet.”

  Everyone that was present bowed lightly at his words.

  “Japanese branch… can you be so kind as to illuminate me as to the actions that your child took while—”

  The mood shifted, the Old Blade’s glare becoming dangerous. The very air became sharp, any movement would cause injury, even to those in the council, some of which were already at the grandmaster stage.

  It was only a second later that the council members began to notice what had caused the Old Blade’s agitation. Everyone except Yuna. She had made a surprised expression even before the Old Blade, noticing the problem even before him, as it was something closer to her to begin with.

  “My blade…” she muttered, her words barely audible.

  Somewhere far, far away, a theft had occurred. Yet, what was stolen was nearby. Delayed by both time and space, and further aided by the Old Blade being distracted, only now did he become aware of the problem. Someone, that neither he nor Yuna had chosen or were even aware of, had done the impossible.

  “Someone has gained access to something of ours, something that I personally severed from the very heavens,” his words were calm, but everyone could feel the fury that was underneath. “They have dared to intrude upon my domain… Find them… Now!”

  ----------

  After seeing someone that all three friends were sure was related to Anna, bisect his opponents and teammates, they sort of drifted into silence.

  It wasn’t due to fear or any other similar reason. They had simply taken that display of strength as a wake-up call. Up until this point they had still looked at the tournament as nothing more than a formality that they had to go through in order to gain a portal to the Frontier. At no point had any of the three ever considered that they were at actual risk.

  With a silence so heavy that it was impossible for anyone to speak, the three kept their eyes on the floating screens.

  Even though there focus was on the screens, they did notice some things, specifically, how the summoning worked. There appeared to be a queue, and whenever a match started, the next person would be given the option to either go underground and prepare or to stay aboveground and appear directly on the arena.

  But with such a high number of participants, and the speed at which some matches ended, barely lasting seconds, it became impossible for Stella to monitor all the screens herself.

  So, even though Anna protested quite a bit, Stella still made Anna and Alex help her by keeping an eye on three screens each. Ed, helped by keeping an eye on the remaining one.

  Hours passed, and Ed began to get fidgety, but the other three remained unbothered.

  “Is this because they’re E ranked and I’m not?” he asked himself in a low voice, not expecting anyone to hear him. “Because if that’s the case—”

  “It’s not,” Alex answered.

  “Is little Ed getting tired?” Stella asked, playfully. “Anna, take him for a walk.”

  “Huh?” Anna said, surprised.

  “You guys’ straight up suck,” Ed said, getting up, ready to leave.

  But then, as if knowing his intentions, a message appeared before him. Already willing to leave even before the message, he selected the immediate teleport and appeared underground, where he felt his mind clear.

  “Aggh, finally,” he said as he stretched.

  ----------

  Unlike those from Solace, which were all high level, at least by the planet’s current standards, everyone else’s levels began at 10 and ended at 19. Those that reached and had undergone evolution were the elites of the elites, their matches tending to be the ones that lasted only seconds.

  So, when Ed, someone who could evolve whenever he wished to and merely didn’t in an effort to achieve impressive results, entered the arena, the results were obvious to anyone who knew him. Though, the image that he gave might not coincide with reality.

  Ed didn’t have the money for a proper weapon, so he used a mana reinforced wooden stick as a staff—not an actual staff—just something really close to one. And since he couldn’t purchase a proper weapon, a storage ring was even harder, so he always carried his staff with him.

  “A staff and a kid? You were really fucked by lady luck weren’t you,” a rough looking woman said, chuckling. With a mean grin, she lifted her gun, already sure of her victory. “Magic means nothing against the great equalizer that is a gun!!” she shouted as she unloaded her entire magazine.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ed was the last one of his team to appear. Quickly, he sprang into action in a defensive manner by spinning his staff.

  Unlike in movies, spinning something really fast didn’t mean that you could block every incoming projectile, much less something as fast as a bullet. Yet, Ed still managed to block some of them, aided by his rapid dodging. But his intentions weren’t to block, his true aim was to obscure.

  Even though the woman, SunsetonGr8ll, was unloading her gun all at once, it didn’t mean she wasn’t aiming, she was, and with great accuracy too.

  Spinning his staff as fast as he could, he advanced while quickly taking note of who his teammates were. With every step he took, he approached his closest opponent, all while trying to hide where his torso was. There wasn’t much space behind the spinning staff, but even a centimeter could be the difference between life and death.

  Rapidly approaching his target, Ed stopped spinning his staff. Instead, he quickly reached out toward his teammate, yanking him back away from the bullets, as he hid behind his opponent. Now, all the bullets that were tracking him landed on what was now his cover.

  Lifting the lifeless corpse of his opponent, Ed used it to maneuver himself toward the erected dividing wall that was opposite the shooter. Once there, Ed threw the body he was carrying and ran at the wall, using it to push himself from one side of their little arena to the other. By the time his opponent had readjusted her sights, the staff had already lifted her off the ground, but that still wasn’t enough.

  Quickly retrieving his staff, leaving the woman to fall, Ed rapidly spun his entire body, increasing the force of his strike as he hit the still falling woman on her side. The force was enough to send her flying against the lateral wall.

  He didn’t even have to take a moment to confirm that his opponent was out, he merely made his way toward his other teammates and helped them with their opponents.

  When Ed appeared underground, he waited a moment, feeling as five bullets slowly exited his body and fell to the ground. He made a light frown as he heard someone talking to themselves in one of the alcoves but left them alone. After he cleaned himself up a bit, he began to walk out of the underground area, pondering a bit.

  “I wonder if that would have looked cool. Should I have waited until she—”

  “Halt,” someone said from the side, their voice calm but commanding.

  “Huh?” Ed said, turning to face the one who spoke. “Are you talking to me?”

  Standing with basically perfect posture, was an Asian, tan and bald man, wearing traditional orange monk robes. In his right hand, he held an intricately carved wooden staff that had eastern dragons dancing along its length.

  “Yes, I speak to you,” the monk began. “Your posture is terrible. Stand proud before the heavens, respect yourself before you show respect to them.” His speech was quick, yet clear.

  “Heavens? Respect? What are you—”

  “I have not finished speaking,” the monk said, firmly. “To respect yourself is to respect others. In this moment, the best way to respect yourself is by respecting me. In this manner you not only show education, but also allow me to see that you are educated. Every interaction conveys meaning, and it is your duty to ensure that the correct meaning is interpreted by others.”

  “Excuse me, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t even know who you are,” Ed said, a hint of worry in his words.

  “You need not know who I am, Edward. Not yet…”

  Edward’s eyes peeled as he tightened the grip on his staff.

  “Worry not, for we will get to interact with much more frequency in the future. Fate moves us toward each other. To deny it would be hubris.” The monk suddenly bowed. “Until we meet again.”

  Ed looked around, searching for anyone that saw their interaction and was just as baffled as he was. But no matter how much he looked around, he didn’t find anybody that did, everyone was focused on their own matters.

  “Weird…” he said, making his way out of the underground area.

  Ed returned to his seat, briefly explained what had happened underground and after a brief discussion about it, had no other choice but to return to watching the matches.

  No one, at least no one that he trusted enough to tell them, remembered seeing anyone that resembled the description that he gave. Eventually, even Ed, who had been the one most affected by the stranger, fell back into the routine that they had going on, the matter settling into the back of his mind.

  ----------

  Up until this point, the matches were one of three types: equally matched, overwhelmingly one-sided, and disturbing.

  Equally matched, as their name suggested, were matches in which both teams were equal in terms of strength, skills and level. Though, they did notice that even something extreme like a 9-level difference didn’t really influence the match as much as they had expected.

  A level 10 could more than make up the difference against a level 19 with pure skills and talent. But that only meant that such a thing was possible, the times that the friends had actually seen such a thing were still far too little to hold any significance.

  The overwhelmingly one-sided matches tended to happen when one of the few that had undergone evolution was matched up against a team who had no one like that. The perfect example of the difference that existed between E rank and F rank was Anna’s match.

  Even when she was flustered and trying to make sense of things, Anna never felt that she was in danger, and the people who knew her could tell. Sure, she was uniquely trained and had a special upbringing, but she mostly used brute strength during her match.

  That wasn’t to say that all the overwhelming matches had to have someone that evolved, just that they tended to. A prime example of that was Ed’s match.

  The disturbing matches were few and far between. The first one had obviously been the match in which everyone had been bisected by conceptual power that was wielded by Lightning Child, someone that the three friends were sure was related to Anna.

  The next match that they considered disturbing was one in which a fat, drunk man, pummeled his opponents to death with overwhelming strength. And it happened in a match that began right alongside Ed’s.

  There was nothing special about the drunk man’s movements, it was pure and simple strength. His opponents, some who were of similar build and age, used weapons and skills that should have made it easy to deal with a drunk.

  Which is why it was a surprise to see a drunk not only react fast enough to dodge all their attacks but even play around like any other drunk. He was even aggressive against his own teammates, spitting alcohol on them and threatening them to stay away.

  Then the drunk appeared to grow bored and suddenly grasped a spear by the tip, unharmed by it. And with his overwhelming strength, he yanked the spear along with its wielder toward him. One punch was all that was needed to win the match, yet the drunk continued until the spearman was one with the ground.

  All the other opponents immediately surrendered as soon as they were able to.

  No other match had come close to the same level of the two disturbing matches that they had already seen.

  ----------

  More than twelve hours had passed, the moon was high in the sky and Stella was beginning to tire. Her mind still wandering back to those two disturbing fights. Her eyelids were heavy and no matter how strongly she tried to focus, she always found her eyes moving in response to any movement. She wanted stimulus and these matches weren’t enough, not anymore.

  “Hold it together,” Anna said, patting her on her back. “It’s almost your turn.”

  “Do you think that your family planned to have to hold over ten hours of matches?” Stella asked, her eyes empty. “This just seems like poor planning on their part. I would’ve had a free for all during the first round and stop when we reached like… twenty people? Yeah, twenty sounds about right.”

  “Don’t complain to me. I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Anna protested, playfully. “But I one hundred percent agree with you. We would already be done by now if we did it your way. Though I would have just made it a free for all, period.”

  “Look at the bright side,” Alex interjected. “No one from Solace has lost yet.”

  “I don’t think anyone has had to go all out yet,” Stella said, sure of her words. “It’s like all the matches were carefully selected in advance. They might have even known about who would die during their little free for all.”

  “Now that you mention it…” Anna muttered, lifting her hand to her chin as she considered Stella’s words. “Are you basing that on the fact that some gods were able to tell the future? Are you putting my family at the same level?”

  “It’s not that far-fetched,” Alex said. “I’m pretty sure I saw some miracles here and there, nothing too major. But if even followers of different gods are participating, doesn’t that mean that your family is pretty high up?”

  “I guess,” Anna relented.

  “Even those that were equally matched didn’t do anything extraordinary,” Stella said, bringing the topic back to what it was. “And I’m not doubting the contestants, I’m doubting the groupings. I’m beginning to think that they aren’t truly random.”

  “Did they ever say they were?” Alex asked. “And suppose they aren’t, then what do you think is going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Stella said, sighing. “It might be in an effort to guarantee certain matches. Like guiding the participants until certain matches happen, you know?”

  “So, we won’t see the effects of these groupings until much later?” Alex asked. “Maybe when we reach the individual matches, right?”

  “That’s my guess,” Stella said.

  “There still the option that it was just poor planing,” Anna said, nonchalantly. “And am I stupid to think that one of those matches is between me and my cousin?”

  Stella and Alex turned to Anna, staring for a second. Their expression was one that basically screamed “obviously.”