Chapter 175: Battlefield Arena

After checking their equipment for the last time, Angus and the Sur Clan depart towards the ancestral ruin with the clan head Jade as the leader.

The journey is relatively peaceful, if not because of the monster that tries to attack the group. However, none of the monsters posed a threat to them. They decide to stop every few hours to keep their stamina and mana in check in case they need to go all-out fighting.

Living inside this treacherous land for a long time, everyone already has the habit of becoming cautious. Every step they take may cause a great disaster for their group. Fortunately, the journey came to an end after a whole day of running.

From far away, they could see the end of the sand desert and stone wall. The stone wall covers a very vast area like an ancient city. This stone wall is the entrance of the ancestral ruin.

At this moment, everyone could see that many people were entering the stone wall entrance orderly. Despite the lack of the guard nearby, none of these people create a ruckus since all of them know it is not worthy of such trouble.

After a while, the Sur clan group also managed to enter the Ancestral ruin without any trouble. Behind the stone wall, there is a vast plot of land with a stone floor. Some of them are already occupied by people that come before them.

Since there is enough space for everyone, people never truly bother about the area they get in this place. After looking for an appropriate location, the Sur Clan started to build their living space. 

The villagers also didn't forget to build their merchant stall since this is their true reason for coming into this place. The Sur village may be located in the Surya desert with a little bit of supply. However, they have their own specialty.

One of these specialties is Fire Ore that is produced by the Surya desert. The hot temperature of the Surya desert makes it a good place for Fire Ore to be naturally formed. Fire Ore is precious ore that is comparable to Manatium.

It is said that it needs a dry yet hot place for it to form. Even in the Surya desert, people need to carefully look around the hot desert before they can find a few grams of it. For many years, Sur Village has been one of the main suppliers for this ore.

On the contrary, the Sur village will trade the Fire Ore with many other supplies, especially freshwater. Although they could create freshwater with magic, most of the Sur villagers have an affinity towards fire elements, making them expend more mana in creating water.

Besides, having more water while living in the desert is always never wrong. With this transaction, they could support their lives for a few years without worrying about freshwater.

Of course, trading Fire Ore with only freshwater is a loss for the Sur village, so they sometimes also exchange with various products from the other village or zone.

Besides the Fire Ore, Sur villages are also famous for their Sand Slime. The Sand Slime is a creature that Angus and Jayna encounter when they arrive at the Surya desert. This creature's body actually has many uses for alchemy purposes.

In the hand of the excellent alchemist, this slime could turn into many useful alchemist products. One of them is a booster for the potion. Using the sand slime as one of its ingredients could boost the potion's potency by 1,2 to 1,5.

Although it does not always work for every potion, it could still be applied to common potions such as mana and other healing potions. Fortunately, the sand slime only lives on the top of the sand turtle shell, which nobody knows besides the Sur village.

The Sur village becomes the sole provider of the sand slime for the people that reside in the Endless Battlefield. 

Even the hidden group that oversees the Ancestral Ruin also procures sand slime from Sur village occasionally in return for the safety inside the outer area of Ancestral Ruin.

Not truly interested in trading between villages, Angus and Jayna decide to explore the outer area on their own. 

Since everyone knows about their strength, the clan head Jade permits them to venture on their own. Besides, nobody is foolish enough to create trouble inside this area.

Besides the trading hub, the outer area also held a few gambling attractions with the mana core as currency. One of the famous gambling attractions is the battlefield arena. This is a place where people bet on a fighter to fight each other.

Angus and Jayna may not indeed be interested in trading. But, they are still interested in this battlefield arena. Apparently, they also hear that after surviving inside the inner area, they need to fight inside this arena as part of the ceremony.

This will test the survivor's combat capability and show everyone that they are worthy of the things they got inside the inner area. Many people already lose their lives and the things they got inside the inner area from this arena.

Although the outer area is quite lawless, the battlefield arena has its own rules. First, they could only fight people that have different grades to themself by one. So, Angus and Jayna could only fight people from grades one to three.

However, the majority of fighters are mostly grade three combatants. It is even rare to find a grade two combatant in this arena.

Besides that, the fighter could surrender but need to pay some compensation to the winner. It is also possible to kill the opponent and win the match. The winner will take any possession of their opponent.

Until one of the fighters surrenders or is killed, there will be no interruption from the outside. Once the fight is interrupted, the fight is null and not counted.

On the contrary, the fighter could use anything to win the fight, be it a potion, poison, or other artifacts. This rule is posed to every fighter bound with contracts so no one will dare to break it.

Along the way, Angus also hears that the Battlefield Arena also will hold a sort of tournament after the inner area event with a grand prize from the hidden group. This news attracted many people since most of them want to have a connection with the hidden group.

Each year, the prize is different from one with the others. But, mostly, it is a priceless treasure. From the rumor, the tournament is only for the grade three below as it is mainly for the people who have been entering the inner area.

Arriving at the arena, Angus and Jayna could see a stone building resembling a colosseum from Angus's past life. The building is big and various kinds of cheers could be heard from it. 

Entering the building entrance, they found inside a sort of giant circular colosseum with a large podium. In the middle of this building is a big arena field that is divided into many battle arenas.

Right now, many fighters are fighting for their life inside this divided battlefield. Curse, cheers, booing, yelling, all sorts of reactions are coming from the audience while the fighter fights like a bloody animal.

Taking an empty spot, Angus and Jayna decide to observe the battle. Most of the fight is quite dull for Angus if he does not include the brutality part. After watching for a while, Angus found a particular fighter with a masked and slender figure.

Judging from her figure, Angus guesses the fighter is a woman. However, what he finds amusing is not her female figure but her aura. Her aura is icy and could easily freeze the entire arena.

She wields a long staff as her weapon and regular clothes. At the same time, her opponent wears a full-body enchanted armor, a typical warrior type. From his observation, Angus knows that her opponent is a veteran at fighting.

After a moment of introduction, Angus found that her name is Ice Maiden and her opponent's name is The Grounder. Both of them are grade three combatants.

After a brief introduction, the referee gets out of the arena and starts the fight. The moment the battle starts, the Grounder dash towards the ice maiden without hesitation. The speed is relatively fast, and in a few moments, he arrives in front of the Ice Maiden.

But, the ice maiden does not stay idle either. She points her wooden staff to the approaching Grounder and shoots many [2nd Circle -  FrostBolt] towards the grounder. *Whoosh* *Whossh* *Whossh*

All the pointed [Frost Bolt] come towards the Grounder. Looking at the incoming attack, the grounder imbues his axe with mana and slashes them down [Axe Art - Ravaging Cleave]. 

The grounder attack managed to destroy the frost bolt easily while keeping his incoming momentum. Suddenly, an ice wall appeared in front of the grounder [2nd Circle - Ice Wall].

The grounder once again brandished his axe towards the ice wall, but it stuck at it and couldn't manage to break it down. Without notice, there is a layer of fragmented ice in the grounder body from the leftover of [Frost Bolt]

Then, A bright circle comes from below the grounder [2nd Circle - Water Torrent].