Chapter 484: Alliance's Meeting to Prepare for the next Stages of the Tournament

The last match of the preliminaries made Joshua feel a little sad for dashing the hopes of someone that needed the victory to be a part of the rest of the tournament. He didn't hold back and ended the match with a well-aimed strike that was too much for the poor guy to handle. With that match over it was the end of the preliminaries for Joshua. He didn't know how he would be involved in the matches for the fourth day of the tournament, but the system didn't send any messages for him to read through and figure out.

After being teleported away from the battle arena Joshua got a quick snack to hold him over until dinner later on before heading to the phoenix guild base in the hub city. Amy came along with him since they both finished up their matches around the same time. When they reached the Phoenix Guild they were some of the first ones there since most of the members might still be involved with the battle arena depending on how long their matches were or when they started their matches in the first place.

The people that were already at the Phoenix Guild weren't much of a surprise to Joshua. For now Laura, Madalyn, Natalie, and Isabella were all there waiting for everyone else to arrive. It was likely that they all finished their matches quickly and had teleported to the battle arena in the first place from their guild buildings. That would have made it extremely easy for them to get here before everyone else. It was only a few minutes after Joshua and Amy had arrived that several more people started showing up. Lilly was the next one to show up and it wasn't much of a surprise since all of her matches would end quickly without her having to do much of anything besides summoning one of her beast companions and watching it take care of things.

After Lilly it didn't take very long for Adrian, Aito, and Henry to show up putting all of the strongest members of the alliance in one room. After that many others started to arrive and with the jovial attitude Joshua could tell that just about every one of the main members of the alliance had won every single one of their matches. The only one who had lost a match was Marcus because he was up against a decent level knight that had the skills to block all of the damage from his explosives. Everyone else got through with full marks.

Just looking at the fact that so many people in their alliance alone had gone undefeated in the preliminaries was a good sign that there were going to be a lot of people in the bracketed portion of the tournament that hadn't lost a single match yet. This fact got Joshua wondering how exactly the system of the battle arena was going to be able to decide their positioning on the brackets. He had the feeling that whatever was going to happen during the fourth day would have a huge effect on that.

With everyone in the meeting room it was time to get down to business and Laura decided to be the one to take the lead in the meeting this time around. She was the one that planned on having one in the first place after all since just about everyone was doing their own thing for the tournament. "Although we've all agreed to keep from getting involved with each other when it comes to going against other members of our alliance I thought it necessary to have a meeting on what we've seen so far in the tournament." Laura said before looking to Isabella who brought out several documents of information through the system that were compiled together before the meeting.

"All of this is information that we've gathered on some of the key opponents that we will be going up against during the bracketed portion of the tournament." Isabella started to explain to everyone as they all looked through the files that had been sent over in the system. Joshua noticed quite a few of the people he had taken notice of while watching some matches during his waiting periods between his own fights were on the list. "These are all candidates that not only went undefeated in the preliminaries, but were able to make it through each match without truly having to show off any of their skills."

"In other words these are the opponents that will actually be worth our time to prepare for in the tournament outside of anyone in our own group." Adrian said with a smile as he looked through some of the files. "Not much eye candy here, and all the ones that might actually be pretty good looking seemed to go out of their way to cover themselves up. Or even worse…wear a mask."

"Of course that's the first thing you think about." Henry said with a sigh before ignoring his friend. "Although it's nice to have them all grouped up together like this, we weren't really able to see much of what they could do during the tournament. I'm guessing you aren't only basing the information you've gathered on them from what we've seen them do in the tournament. Otherwise it would be pretty useless."

"Of course not, there's no need to waste our time with something like that." Madalyn said as she scoffed at Henry's words. "The only thing we learned from this tournament is that the leader of the Stranger's Guild can create interesting items to use in combat, and that everyone else likes to end their matches as quickly as possible. Oh and that Joshua can use a gun."

"He's not a good shot or anything, so you don't actually have to worry about it if you go up against him in a match." Adrian said jokingly getting an annoyed glare from Joshua and agreeing nod from Aito.

"The information that we've compiled isn't from the tournament, but is instead from any sightings we have of them on expeditions or in the battle arena. For the most part the information we gained on them is rather basic and I'd be willing to bet that none of them have showed off their trump cards to anyone outside of their guilds or mercenary groups." Laura explained while everyone started to quiet down to read through the information.

There were several contestant in the files that Joshua recognized, but the ones that he zoned in on were the people he already knew of and wanted to find out more information about. The first person he noticed in the files was Rex, the man that was a member of the World Government Guild that he had seen back during the registration process. Although there wasn't much information on him available since he didn't do much more than beat up any of his opponents in the tournament with just his fist up to this point, Isabella was able to find out some information from past expeditions. The most important part of the information that she had found was that Rex was a spear user in a similar vain to Allen. Although she wasn't able to find out much about his skills, the fact that they now knew he primarily used a spear for combat gave them a good idea of what his fighting style would be like.

The next person that Joshua focused on in the notes was Shawn. Even though there was a file for him there wasn't really any information. He wasn't a part of a guild or a mercenary group so it was hard to find any details about the expeditions he had been on in the past. All they knew was that he was a mage of some sort, and every battle that he had ever been in that was available to look into ended the exact same way. He'd blink across the arena and end the match with a well-aimed strike with his dagger. Even the strongest tanks couldn't continue on if their throat got cut.

Moving on from the complete mystery that was Shawn Joshua looked through a few more files before he came to someone else that was interesting. The leader of the Stranger's Guild had a file and for the most part it focused on the fact that she definitely had a unique job that involved creating things called ruins. The only reason they knew this information in the first place was because she made it a point to show them off in the past. It seemed like she planned to sell them in the future which Joshua had no doubt several people would be in line to get a hold of such useful battle items. At the moment the only other ruin they had seen her create outside of the binding one used during the tournament was a ruin that creates a large explosion of pure mana. It was basically a powerful magical grenade that anyone could use. Joshua made sure to keep that in mind even if he knew those were likely to be her weaker ruins.

Outside of those three there were several other files that Joshua had taken an interest in. There was the fact that the boss of the Raider's Guild seemed to have a unique job that dealt with shadows. It was either a unique job or a soul beast ability, but it was hard to tell from the footage shown in the large town expedition that the World Government Guild had gone through a while ago. What seemed weird about it was how the abilities seemed like those belonging to a mage, yet he was as fierce in close ranged combat as any of the more physical classes. Joshua was a bit excited to fight against someone like him.

There were really only two other files that Joshua paid attention. The first was that of the new leader of the World Government Guild Charles White. Although they didn't know exactly what his job was they did know it somehow involved using a sword and a gun at the same time. He also seemed to have extremely high level speed whenever he fought against beast or corrupted creatures during his expeditions. He had a military based fighting style that always focused on efficiently taking his enemies down.

The last person of course was the highest level contestant in the competition. The Iron Claw was a contestant that seemed to enjoy strangling or chocking out all of his competition. There wasn't any true information on his soul beast or job, but there was one note that Isabella had placed in the information that Joshua hadn't noticed while watching the matches. Every single one of his opponents didn't just feel like they were getting chocked out, they also felt as if there power was being drained away from them. It didn't matter if they were a mage or a tank. Every single one of them said the exact same thing.

The meeting went on for a little while longer, but everyone was focused on the files more than the discussion itself. When it started to get late they headed home to prepare for the next day of the tournament. No one knew exactly how the fourth day would work, but they were all eager to find out.