"So, how is this Tournament going to work?"
Cane was somewhat pissed. Even though he got a legal identity, it came at the cost of being forced into a stupid Tournament for kids.
Of course, Cane himself was pretty much the same age, but he ignored that part. However, Cane had no choice, so he needed info on how the Tournament functioned.
"Well, the first and most important rule of the Tournament is that you can't kill or permanently injure anyone." Cassidy explained. "Everyone who's participating in the Tournament is still expected to join the ranks of Masters and clean the Empty Districts in the future, after all."
"They say it's a tournament, but it's more like a competition. The tournament part happens later." She cleared her throat before continuing. "Simply put, every contestant gets sent through a gauntlet of 10 monster, with each level getting more and more difficult. After all, we're meant to be clearing the Empty Districts. Basing our ranks on how well we fight humans would be stupid."
"After everyone is eliminated, the top 8 people will enter a tournament, where the winner gets a prize. The prize, of course, is a mystery. Each round, you get a random weapon provided by the organisers. So... you won't be able to use those Plasma Pistols of yours."
Cassidy looked at Cane with a hint of awkwardness in her eyes. Even though she knew that Cane was a good person, the thought of him illegally owning multiple weapons was kinda strange.
Cane was a very conflicting person, no doubt.
"Anyways, apparently the 10th monster is a rank 3. Unlike before, we'll have to fight it solo." Jeremy was somewhat nervous. "If the 10th round is so scary, I doubt I'd make it past the 7th round. But I really feel bad for Susie."
The others all nodded, with Susie looking sheepish. Her powers had almost zero combat ability. If she could even make it past the first 3 rounds, she'd be quite happy. As for Gabriel, his situation was only marginally better. After all, Battle Song could increase his own strength as well, though he needed to continuously sing.
As for Blind, it was useless. Perhaps it could provide as a momentary distraction, but if Gabriel wanted any chance at fighting, he'd also need to use Battle Song. Thus, the monster would still be able to locate him via sound.
"Remember, guys. We can view our opponent's battles and determine their abilities from the fight." Frytz began to flip a curved sickle in his hand as he continued. "Even though our own abilities will be exposed, as long as we use them unconventionally, things should turn out okay."
As for Cane, he was set.
If nothing else, he was a great hunter. It was literally his surname! Plus, Cane's abilities were all useful for combat. Hidden Strength would be the basis for his attacks - he planned to fight mainly physically. Divine Treasure Eyes allowed Cane to locate weak points, and Hidden Luck was naturally useful for many purposes.
His first awakened ability, Steal, was also useful. If nothing else, it could double the amount of weapons he had. Of course, despite the upgrades to how many simultaneous objects he could use Steal on, they naturally had to be individual objects. As Cane had previously tried, he knew that you couldn't use Steal on the same object if it was already undergoing a different Steal.
However, the recent upgrade to Steal might prove to be Cane's trump card. For the early rounds, the monsters would naturally be low-ranked. Thus... their IQ levels would be low as well. If that was the case, Cane could directly use Steal on the creature, making it confused and disoriented. It'd also bring the monster in close, for an easy attack.
"Looks like the only thing I need to focus on is... training in different kinds of weapons? All things considered, I'm Ready For The Fight." Cane turned his head to look at his friends. He grinned. "And you guys need some more monster-hunting lectures!"
Everyone's faces collectively went pale.
...
"What the hell. Where on earth am I? Good heavens, I'm really lost."
The Wanderer was wandering quite a bit. In fact, he'd wandered so far that he currently found himself in an entirely unfamiliar part of the Central Cities. The entire place looked entirely abandoned.
Gray skies loomed oppressively overhead, and distant roars could be heard. Pretty much every window on every high-rise had been shattered, and on that note, quite a few of the buildings had been either partially destroyed, or straight up razed to the ground. The air was dusty from the rubble, and the ground itself no longer resembled the clean, black roads of the Cities.
"What happened here?" The place looked absolutely crazy, but the craziest part was how quickly the scenery had shifted from futuristic to apocalyptic. Wanderer moved further in, alert to his surroundings. However, he wasn't alert enough.
In a sudden, brief moment, his head was covered in a cloth and The Wanderer found himself getting dragged away. He struggled, using all of his heaven-granted muscles. However, it felt like punching cotton. Wanderer also activated Frost Energy, which didn't seem to slow down his kidnapper in the slightest.
Luckily, The Wanderer had only been dragged for a short moment. The next second, the bag was pulled off his head before he had time to activate his clones. In front of him stood...
A purple snake with horns, sporting a bunch of scattered, golden-spiked scales at its tail. Behind the snake was an old black dog with a shaved tail, as well as a white snake. The three looked at Wanderer as he split into multiple clones.
"Who are you guys. What do you want?" The Wanderer felt quite amused. To think that these creatures would kidnap him! Of course, he wanted to see where this was going.
The dog stepped forward.
"You look like a human. But... you don't feel like one at all." He leaned forward with a smile, narrowing his eyes. "Us three have been looking for a way to enter human society. Since you look like a human, but aren't one, clearly you're a Demon Beast like us! Of course, it looks like you've figured a way to change your body shape."
The old black dog motioned behind himself, and the purple snake moved forward. The snake opened a bag and poured out the contents, which was a large pile of golden scales. From the looks of it, the snake had been gathering his scales and re-growing them for collection.
The purple snake introduced himself. "My name is Hei Xu. These here are my scales, which are much more miraculous than ordinary scales. They have incredible hardness and durability, so you can use them for defence or offence as you please. If you can teach us your cultivation technique for shape-shifting, I'll give all my scales for you to refine."
Cultivation technique? Refining? Demon Beasts? Wanderer felt somewhat strange. What was up with these strange terms?
"Cough, perhaps try checking your information of Story World 2093 again." High Heaven No. 1 interjected over the mental channel, which shook The Wanderer out of his thoughts. Right, the info!
He peered through, trying to find what High Heaven No. 1 meant. Then, he found it. Under the subheading [The Continents], the one on the east read as:
Eastern Reaches - A continent filled with mountains, valleys and rivers, located east of World 2093. Wuxia level technology and customs/culture. Utilises a cultivation style power system, focused on gathering qi, comprehending martial arts and learning spells. Suitable for Wuxia, Action-Adventure, Philosophical.
Wuxia genre!
Somehow, these three Demon Beasts had made it from the Eastern Reaches all the way to the Central Cities! The Wanderer wasn't sure on how it happened, but he knew he should send them back. As the thought crossed his mind, a portal opened up.
"You need to focus on your MC. Don't waste your time with things like this." High Heaven No. 1's voice could be heard over the mental channel, before she cut it once more.
"Oh, would ya look at that! A convenient portal, leading directly back to the Eastern Reaches!" Wanderer and his clones smiled at the three Demon Beasts, walking up to them and making it seem like he was going to shake their hands. Well, tails, for some.
As he grasped their respective body parts, he, still smiling in a friendly way, flung all three of them through the portal at extremely high speeds. Right on the heels of that, the portal closed.
"Well, that's that! All sorted, now I can make my way outta here and find Cane! Really, I wonder where my pesky MC has gone." The Wanderer straightened his back, dusting his hands and turning around with a smile. Then, that smile dropped.
Because standing behind Wanderer, a huge, towering rank 4 monster could be seen. It was like a giant ant with wings, and below this ant was hundreds of rank 3 ants, which were smaller. Even though they were smaller, that wasn't saying much. They were still about 2 metres tall. Below those? Rank 2 ants, of course - and even smaller, at the height of 1 metre.
Crawling through the windows of the surrounding buildings, tens of thousands of rank 1 ants were revealed. These were the smallest, but even then, they were half a metre tall.
Without him knowing, The Wanderer had already been surrounded on all sides by this veritable ant army. Perhaps they'd been attracted by his strength and vitality?
Wanderer thought to himself. Or maybe, it's because I'm too handsome as the heaven of this world. After all, apparently every worker ant is a female. That basically means that...
Gulp.
"Well. Looks like I won't be leaving here anytime soon, huh?"
The Wanderer and his clones began to gather Frost Energy around their hands, Ready For The Fight.
"Bring it on!"