Chapter 492: The Path to Victory

The morning of the bracketed portion of the tournament Joshua got up early before any system message could appear for him. For once he decided to little more than stretching during his usual morning training since the next couple of days were going to be a marathon worth of matches instead of a sprint. The preliminaries portion of the tournament weren't all that tiring with the level of opponents that Joshua found himself going up against, but over the next two days Joshua would go through the same amount of matches if he won every single one, but they would be far more difficult. The first match might be a bit easier, but after that it was likely Joshua would be going up against people closer to his own level.

It would take five wins in a row for Joshua to make it to the final day of the tournament and another five wins in a row for him to win the entire tournament. It was going to be a challenging couple of days and that only brought more excitement for the participants and everyone that would be watching the tournament. Joshua just decided to wake up early to take a moment to relax before he was thrown head first into that excitement that would likely go on throughout the entire weekend if he got as far into the tournament as he wanted to.

After getting cleaned up and ready for the day Joshua was a bit surprised to see that his sister was already up and getting prepared for the day as well. Amy was even wide awake giving him a quick wave as she walked to the bathroom with a bundle of clothes. This was the first time in years that Joshua had seen her so wide awake this early in the morning, but from the grin on her face he was just sure that she was excited for the upcoming matches. Eventually Joshua made his way to the kitchen where he helped his mother with making breakfast before Amy and his father finished up getting ready for the day.

By the time breakfast was done everyone was down at the dining table ready to eat and Joshua's father was a little less standoffish than he had been earlier on in the week. He still didn't talk about the tournament while they were eating breakfast, but he did act more like his usual boisterous self which was all Joshua wanted so the family meet ups wouldn't be so awkward.

According to his mother the hospital was in good hands at the moment so she was planning to take the weekend off to watch her children's matches in the tournament. Joshua could tell by the way she gave his father a short glare that he would likely be there with her to watch their matches. It didn't take too long after dinner for a system message from the battle arena to be sent out for all of the remaining contestants to see. The moment Joshua got it he immediately clicked on it to open it, and he could see that his sister was doing the same thing. Their parents both seemed interested in finding out what they were reading.

[Today is finally the big day of the contest between the top explorers of this hub city. In two hours' time all remaining participants will be teleported to their waiting rooms where they will be able to find out which brackets they have been placed in and with who. Don't expect to be able to use this time to look up your opponents since the screens in the waiting room will only display matches that happen throughout the day along with news crew coverage of the events of the day. No prior matches will be available for viewing throughout the day. There is also a pass that all participants will be given that will allow them to invite family members to the battle arena to watch their matches for the day, but they should make sure to get there early with the expected crowds. Good luck to all participants.]

"Looks like we've got an easy way to get seats now." Joshua's mother said after she had finished reading the message after looking over Amy's shoulder while she was reading through her message. "We'll be sure to cheer you two on."

"Make sure you two don't get ahead of yourselves and overlook your opponents. Even if they have a lower seed you can expect just about everyone at this point in the tournament to have a trump card that you haven't seen before." Joshua's father said before going back to finishing off his food.

"You don't have to worry about that dad, Joshua and I have got this covered." Amy said while still chewing some of her food thus getting a slap to the back of her head from their mother.

"Then I'll make sure not to go easy on you when we meet in the arena." Joshua said getting a pout from his sister in return, but with the glare she got from their mother she made sure to swallow her food instead of immediately responding to Joshua. After they all finished breakfast Joshua and Amy went off to make sure they had all their gear ready for the tournament while their parents left to head to the battle arena early to make sure they got some good seating. Eventually the time came when the battle arena summoned all of the remaining participants to the waiting rooms.

The moment Joshua appeared in the waiting room he looked to the usual countdown clock to see how long he had before his first match. From what he could see he had two hours before his first match, but he doubted he would be in the first wave of matches considering there was usually only an hour before things got started after being summoned to the waiting room. On the screen in the waiting room the news crew was discussing the upcoming events for the day with people calling into bet on who would win the overall tournament.

Joshua didn't pay much attention to what was going on with the news crew, but instead turned his attention to another message that popped up for him to read from the system.

[The start of the bracketed portion of the tournament will begin in one hour. From the countdown clock you should be able to tell how long it will be before your match so use that time to look through the brackets to see your own positioning. Don't expect to be able to gain any information on your opponents through the system outside of what they registered before the tournament. Good luck!]

After reading the message another one popped up, but this time around it was the brackets for the tournament. It wasn't just the smaller bracket that Joshua was currently in that he has to push through for the day, but also all of the brackets in the entire tournament. The first thing that Joshua did when looking through the brackets wasn't to look at his own, but to instead see where everyone from the alliance were at in the brackets. Looking through the number one seeds in all of the brackets Joshua was able to immediately notice the people in the alliance that were able to get that seeding. From the alliance Joshua, Lilly, Amy, Adrian, Aito, Henry, Laura, Natalie, Madalyn, and lastly Isabella were all able to get number one seeds.

With so many people from the alliance joining the tournament it wasn't all that surprising that they had so many people with the highest seeding, but having ten members from the alliance with number one seeds in the tournament was shocking. Nearly a third of the top spots were taken up by their guilds. The only group that came close to that amount was the World Government Guild with six number one seeds and they still had several other participants that weren't as highly seeded. All in all that meant half of all of the number one seeds in the tournament were between the alliance and the World Government Guild and that would surely be eye catching for the audience.

Outside of those sixteen first seeds the rest were filled with guild leaders from other guilds such as the ones from the Stranger's Guild or the Raider's Guild. Vince was also a number one seed along with the Iron Claw. Outside of them there weren't any other mercenaries that got seeded so high. All in all the number one seeds were fairly unique from one another with several people that had skills that Joshua had no clue about and that was going to be interesting to go up against on the last day of the tournament. Although Joshua expected several of them to get upset it was likely that these would be the type of people that could give him a challenge in the tournament.

After looking over all of the first seeds in the brackets Joshua turned back to looking over his own bracket to see if he knew anyone in his own bracket that he would have to face today. Looking through the names he was happy that most of them weren't people that he knew but there were a couple of people in the alliance that were in his bracket. Marcus had gotten a fourth seed in Joshua's bracket while Devin had gotten the second seed. It was likely that Joshua was going to have nock them both out of the tournament at some point during the day, and he was interested in seeing what skills they had up their sleeves that he hadn't seen before.

Joshua turned his attention to his first fight of the day instead of looking ahead and getting himself in trouble. He was surprised to see a familiar name with the thirty-second seed in his bracket, but he smiled a bit when he realized what kind of fight he was going to be put in to kick off his first fight of the day. The person that Joshua would have to fight first was Thomas Simmons, a man that he vividly remembered watching a match of on the fourth day. The man stood out simply because he was the only other beast tamer Joshua had seen outside of Lilly and Joshua grinned at the idea of getting to meet the person so soon.

"Looks like I should treat this as a chance to recruit the guy." Joshua said with large smile spread across his face. "Lucky me."