Chapter 454: Interesting System Update

Joshua put up his scale blade as he glared at the giant hole that the snake had left behind as it fled the area. Even if they knew where it had gone it would be foolish to try to fight such a creature underground where half of their group wouldn't even be able to attack it. If it released one of those clouds of poisons while they tried to follow it down the hole there would be no way for them to escape whatever effects it would have on their bodies. They might have healers in the group, but Joshua had seen more than enough explorers stuck at his mother's hospital that tried to rely on their healers to fix any injuries. It wasn't a risk Joshua was willing to take.

With a sigh Joshua backed away from the hole and turned to look at the rest of his group. Henry had already put the bobcat bodies away in his inventory and Lilly was busy putting away her beast companions and bringing out Momo so they could get on the move again. There was a small hill nearby that Henry pointed out so they all headed over there to clean off the blood from their weapons. It was still mid-day and there was a lot of distance that they could travel if they got on the move. They didn't want a bunch of beast following them because they could track the smell of blood on their equipment as they made their way through the prairie.

While cleaning the blood off of his gear as best as he could Joshua had a frown on his face as he thought about the snake he had just finished taking on. It had already been an issue when they allowed the vulture to escape and come back to harass them for as long as possible. Joshua had no doubt that the snake would be able to do something similar if given the opportunity and that was exactly what happened the moment Joshua let it get away. The snake was much smarter than the vulture and would probably be a dangerous threat under certain circumstances. Joshua was sure that it would be aiming for those circumstances in particular instead of just attacking them out of nowhere.

Making matters worse was the fact that it would easily be able to track them down with its heightened sense of smell. Joshua had fought with the creature long enough to where it could track his smell with no issue and probably from a great distance considering it was a predator that was known for ambushing its prey. Even if it couldn't lock on to Joshua's smell there would be no way to know if the creature was following them especially if it burrowed through the ground the entire time. That was a situation Joshua couldn't solve and he would just have to wait for the snake to make its move first.

After everyone was cleaned up and ready to get on the move once more they all got up onto Momo's back as she started gliding through the grass as she dashed off into the prairie. It was a fun ride that they had all gotten used to at this point, but they made sure to keep an eye out just in case any other creatures tried to track Momo or ambush her. After Momo settled into a steady pace Joshua simply focused on his aura sense to make sure nothing was around them that could be threatening to the group.

They spent the next few hours traveling at a good pace while avoiding any danger that they came across. A large pack of coyotes tried to catch Momo at one point, but with a small boost from Henry her speed became too much for the coyotes to keep up with and Momo was out of their and off into the distance within seconds. Usually Joshua would have stopped and fought the coyotes, but since they were traveling through tall grass at the time and there was still the threat of the powerful snake tracking the group, Joshua didn't want to take the risk.

By the time it was starting to get dark once more the group had made it quite far and were currently in a nice field with a few trees and a hill for the to rest on through the night. There weren't any large herds of animals nearby so they were going to be able to set up the repellent machine for the night without any worries. Joshua quickly helped set up camp before everyone started to settle down and go through the usual motions of preparing to settle in for the night.

It was while they were all getting dinner set up that Joshua noticed a system message suddenly pop up for him. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't the only one that got the message by the sudden looks of everyone around the camp. He decided to pull up the message in front of him while he continued setting up his tent for the night.

[A System Update has been put in place for the battle arena. The battle arena will now be starting the use of tournaments. The first tournament will play a huge part in your overall battle ranking from the start and will be open to all individuals that have met the required amount of victories in the battle arena. Your ranking in the battle arena will also affect your overall phase two rankings so come one come all and enjoy. The tournament will begin in one week's time so make sure to register beforehand.]

After Joshua finished reading the message he was a bit surprised. He wasn't expecting a tournament so soon from the battle arena since it had only been around for a short amount of time. He was expecting it to spend more time figuring out what the rankings should be before it set up a battle arena. Although he did believe a tournament would be a good way to figure out the rankings of people that hadn't lost in the battle arena or those who had an easy road through it since they only challenged people instead of being challenged themselves.

Before Joshua could think too much on the upcoming tournament another system message popped up that he immediately opened up.

[A System Update has been put in place for the hub city. A new area has been formed that shall be known as the entertainment district. This area is modeled after your former civilizations entertainment facilities. At first there will be robots in place to help set the system up for the community, but soon the entertainment portion of the hub city will be run exclusively by humans. Some arenas have also been opened that aren't for combat, but are for entertainment purposes. Use them however you like.]

Joshua thought this message was a long time coming and he was surprised it had taken so long in the first place. Although the hub city had a lot of things that could support everyday living it was missing out on the finer things of life that people were used to in the past. Hell even the television at the moment was only useful for system announcements and the two news stations that were in business. That was an abysmal amount of avenues for entertainment and having a bustling entertainment industry would also lead to several new jobs in the hub city.

At the moment there were really only a few things you could do to make a living in the current set up of the hub city. You could become an explorer that goes out and gains system points from clearing dungeons and towns. This was by far the most dangerous option and was probably the only dangerous option, but it was a necessity if they were to reclaim their world. The other option was to start up a business such as a restaurant or a weapon shop. This usually relied on having a support job that gave you the capability of successfully running such an establishment which in some cases could be as difficult as being an explorer when it came to the test you'd have to go through to improve at that job and gain levels.

The only other true option to making a living in the hub city was to work for one of the system buildings or work under someone else in their establishments. Working for a guild would fall under that criteria. Outside of those options you were basically forced to live under the circumstances that the system laid out for everyone at the start. You wouldn't be homeless since every family was given a house to live in at the beginning of things, but you'd barely have enough system points for food to sustain yourself if you didn't work in some way.

Having an entertainment industry in the hub city would go a long way to fixing the issue that was laid out in front of them. This would give a space for all of the people that wanted to get involved in sports, writing, acting, and anything else that had been left behind with the seriousness of the current situation. Plus having something to relax to when coming back from expeditions seemed like a great idea to Joshua, but it would still take a while for a foundation to be set in place.

Joshua could only smile at the idea of several former musicians and actors trying to make a comeback with this announcement. Hell Joshua was fairly sure his own father might get back into mixed martial arts professionally, but Joshua had a distinct feeling that combat job holders would probably be kept away from any type of sports. It would be unbelievably one sided if explorers were allowed to get involved with that type of stuff so Joshua didn't plan to get involved. However writing stories or going to concerts and sporting events with his friends like he used to be able to do was an extremely appealing option.

The night was filled with discussion on the new system updates and it seemed like just about everyone had similar feelings about it as Joshua. Everyone in the group was excited about the upcoming tournament and Joshua was certain that everyone on the expedition outside of possibly the healers would get involved with the tournament. There was some joking about the entertainment stuff, but for the most part everyone seemed excited to have something else to spend their free time with outside of training and working on their support jobs.

The only issue Joshua had with the sudden announcement was the fact that it put an even tighter time limit on their current expedition. The tournament would start in a week and they needed to register before then so Joshua planned to find the next guardian site before heading back and seeing how the system was going to handle a tournament that involved the entire hub city.