Chapter 464: Training and finding a new Trump Card

After leaving the battle arena Joshua spent the rest of the day relaxing and spending some time with his family. Somehow that ended up being a weird cross of eating a great take out dinner from Vivian's restaurant while watching some weird play that had everyone laughing at how bad the acting was. For now amateur broadcast were going to be a thing and Joshua wanted to enjoy them while they were around since soon enough he was sure that the entertainment industry would be getting back on its feet and those types of plays would be hard to find.

After a nice family night Joshua got a decent amount of rest before getting up early to get back to training. He wanted to make sure that he was used to all of the new stats he had gained from leveling up so much and made sure to do so at his training grounds. Although he couldn't fight beast there he could pretty accurately tell how strong he was with the training regimens he was used to doing and would adjust his plans depending on that. He didn't have enough time to go out on another expedition and one of the guidelines for the tournament was to avoid leveling up anymore after being registered.

This guide line was a bit of a surprise to Joshua, but he didn't plan on leveling anymore before the tournament anyways. As long as his opponent wasn't above level ninety it wasn't going to make much of a difference to him. The main challenge that would come from fighting people in the tournament wasn't going to be because of their level, but instead would depend on their abilities. There were several ways for explorers to have unique abilities that ranged from having an interesting soul beast with a challenging ability to deal with or even finding a random skill from a dungeon that would throw anyone for a loop. All in all levels were the last thing Joshua was focusing on when it came to this tournament.

That was one of the main reasons why Joshua thought it was foolish for people to show off their jobs and their stats during the scanning process. Giving an opportunity for everyone to figure out more of your abilities was much more idiotic than showing off your level. For now Joshua planned on focusing on getting his body attuned to his new stats instead of worrying about his level or the levels of anyone he might face. He had already spent a good part of the morning sparing with his father to get use to his new stats.

Since Joshua's father could use his support job to match Joshua's level while they were in the hub city and more specifically his dojo, Joshua made sure to spend some time sparring with him. It worked out for both of them since it was clear to Joshua that his father was planning on getting back into the fighting scene and there was no one better for him to fight against than his own son. In Joshua's case he had two people in his own house that he could spar against and his father was definitely keeping pace with him without much issue. There weren't any abilities involved in the fights, but Joshua was able to get a good judge of his own improvements from the normal hand to hand spar.

Later on in the day Joshua planned to have another spar with Amy so that she could get use to all of her recent level ups just like him, but since she wasn't a morning person he didn't want to wake her up so early in the morning during their break before the tournament. By the time Joshua and his father had stopped training together Joshua had a pretty good feel for his stat improvements. He left the dojo after getting a quick shower and made his way towards the market area of the hub city. He had rushed through the area on the previous day since it didn't seem to have too much of a crowd, but today Joshua had come to the market for a reason.

When Joshua arrived at the market he noticed that the place still wasn't quite as bustling as he wanted it to be, but it was still early in the morning so he expected more people to start filling in the place by noon. So until then Joshua was going to give the regular market area a look over for anything that interested him whether it was something like certain food that he knew his family would want to try for dinner later, or interesting materials that Nathan and Naomi might be able to find a use for to upgrade his gear. He passed the time doing such things until he eventually made his way to the auction house to look for what he had come there for in the first place.

Joshua knew that he had several abilities that he could use during the upcoming tournament to turn the tides of any fight, but what he was looking for was a trump card against those that already knew his style of combat and his abilities. Although Joshua doubted he would be facing anyone from his group early on in the tournament he wasn't planning on losing to them just because they knew all of his abilities. Instead he was planning to get a new trump card at the auction house that would fit well with his already diverse array of attacks. He wouldn't be surprised if other members of his group had similar ideas as him and would be looking for something to give them an advantage over each other.

Although Joshua planned on getting a new trump card he didn't know exactly what he should go after. Should he continued to build on his strengths and focus on his up close style of combat that kept his opponents on their toes, or should he finally get a long range technique that can do some real damage. Right now the only true long range abilities he had were his energy slash, which wasn't very powerful used on its own and could easily be avoided or blocked by a skilled opponent, and his rail shot ability that he could use with his gun. Joshua wasn't much of a marksman so the only real use he had for a gun was during fights with giant beast that would have trouble avoiding any of his shots.

Long range just wasn't Joshua's forte and he highly doubted that would be changing any time soon. Maybe after he reached the next tier of job or his soul beast evolved he might gain some more ranged abilities, but trying to force it now would only end up getting him a skill that will be useless in the future if it doesn't match up with his style of combat. Plus Joshua highly doubted getting a long ranged skill for the tournament would be useful to him at all. It was going to be a bunch of one on one matches which will easily put him at the advantage the moment he got in close against anyone which should be his primary goal. That's why Joshua needed to find a skill that would bolster his advantages even more so.

In the market area Joshua did see a few interesting skills, but none of them were worth his time simply because they weren't the best versions possible for those skills. It didn't matter if a skill was good if its level was so low that it was basically useless. If Joshua's echo strike wasn't at its highest quality it wouldn't be nearly as effective as it was. The highest level version of the skill gave a twenty percent damage value before you improved it through leveling. On the other hand the worst version of the exact same skill that Joshua passed by while looking through the market place gave a five percent damage value before leveling.

The difference between these two values was plain to see and would only become more glaring as you leveled them up. When Joshua's version of the skill reached max level it would be doing a full hundred percent of the damage value of the previous skill and at the moment he had already risen it two levels. The crappy version that he found in the market however would only max out at twenty-five percent which was barely stronger than the first level of Joshua's current version of the same skill.

These kind of scenarios were the main reason why Joshua only went after the best versions of skills when he shopped in the market place. It didn't matter if the skill was amazing if it ended up being such a crappy version of itself. The only place in the market area that you were likely to find any skills that were worth your time was the auction house. Of course it would cost a small fortune to actually find a really good skill, but it would be worth it if it fits your fighting style. Right now was a fairly good time to try to find such skills since a lot of explorers would be trying to make a quick buck by putting up good skills at the auction house right before the tournament, especially when it came to adventurers that didn't plan on joining in on the tournament in the first place.

When Joshua reached just outside of the auction house he could see the large crowd of people not only inside of the building, but also all those that were standing outside of it next to the large bulletin boards that showed off some of the items that were up for auction. Most of the items that were displayed on the outside of the auction house were the more affordable and abundant items or skills that your average explorer could afford. Joshua didn't really have much use for such things since he was looking for something in particular and knew that he was going to have to go inside to where all of the more valuable items would be up for auction.

Joshua quickly made his way through the large crowd towards the entrance of the auction house. The line to gain entrance wasn't long since only the high level explorers or members of large guilds would regularly enter the auction house to buy and sell goods. It only took a few minutes for Joshua to reach the front and pay the amount of system points it took to put in a deposit before entering the venue. Now it was time to find what he was looking for.