Chapter 493: Bracket Matches Begin!

While Joshua was looking through his bracket the screen in the waiting room that had been showing the news crew stopped for a moment before switching to the battle arena's footage. It started off showing the matches from other brackets outside of Joshua's so that he wouldn't be able to see the matches of the people he would be fighting for the day. Instead he would see the matches of other groups where only one person from each of those groups would make it to the final day of the tournament. Thus the matches didn't have nearly as much immediate value to Joshua as seeing the matches of his own bracket would have had, but he did enjoy watching the people that he knew in their matches.

It was clear that the fights were already starting since the battle arena was showing competitors enter separate arenas for their one on one matches. One thing that Joshua did notice was the fact that the arenas were much larger than before. It was clear that the system was doing its best to even the playing field for mages so they had more room to work with and prevent people from getting knocked out of the arena's so easily. It would force people to fight until the system deemed them injured enough to be taken away from the arena.

From what Joshua could see none of the number one seeds that he had seen in the brackets were fighting at the moment. It was likely the system set it up so that the number one seeds would all sit out for the first round of fights keeping them from being able to see each other's fights without finishing their matches quickly. All of the matches that were currently happening were between the seeds that were closer to each other such as the sixteen and seventeen seeds up through the nine seeds versus twenty-four seeds. After those matches finished it would be time for the other half of the competitors to go up for their matches.

The matches were a lot closer than any of the preliminary matches had been. Everyone in those matches were over level seventy with the higher seeds at least being in the mid-seventies for the most part. The fact that people weren't holding back their trump cards anymore in the matches made it much more exciting to watch. Joshua did check in on some of the matches that alliance members were involved in, but all of the members of the alliance's main raiding group had seeds that were too high to be fighting now.

The way the system had set up the matches made it so that the high seeded fighters wouldn't be able to learn about each other's abilities while the people they were likely to fight on the way to reach the top in the tournament would be able to see their matches and plan for them. Regardless Joshua just sat back and enjoyed the show until it was time for his match. Most of the matches this time around were much longer than any of the preliminary matches had been, after all everyone was going all out to stay in the tournament. That being the case it was still necessary to pace yourself considering you would have to go through five matches to make it to the next day of the tournament.

When there was only a minute left before the countdown ended on the timer in Joshua's waiting room, all of the first round matches had ended and it was Joshua's turn take the stage. He checked his gear one final time before he was teleported away to the battle arena which had a crowd around it twice the size as before. It was clear that with the larger arena's the crowds had grown in size and had been concentrated into bigger groups with the fewer amount of fights going on compared to the preliminaries. The cheering was insane and Joshua wasn't sure if his parents were in the crowd since he knew that both he and Amy would be fighting at the same time for now.

After spending a little time looking around at the crowd Joshua turned his attention to his opponent who seemed to be doing the same thing as him. Thomas had a decent build standing a little under six feet with shortly cut dark brown hair that was on the curlier side. From his gear alone Joshua could tell he relied on speed when it came to combat that didn't involve his beast companions. All of his gear was light weight and he had a cloak that Joshua could sense was imbued with some sort of enchantment. He had two well-crafted daggers at his side, but he clearly wasn't a dagger specialist from what Joshua had seen in his previous fights.

The moment Thomas saw Joshua he didn't get into a fighting stance or prepare for the match, but instead his eyes seemed to brighten up and a big smile spread across his face. It was a look that Joshua had recognized after running into certain people while going through the markets of late. It was the look of a diehard fan. "Joshua it's so cool to finally meet you. I've been a fan of your guild ever since I watched the large town subjugation."

Joshua was a bit surprised how forward the guy was being as he walked over as close as possible to Joshua's side of the arena as he could get before the match started. It didn't seem like he was up to anything since he was so genuine in his emotions and there was a five minute count down before the match would begin, so they had some time to talk before they got serious for the match. "Well it's nice to meet you Thomas. I've actually watched one of your matches in the preliminaries and was surprised to see another beast tamer."

"Oh so you know." Thomas said as he grinned while scratching the back of his head a bit awkwardly. "I'm a huge fan of Lilly's and I was hoping to meet her in this tournament. Her beast companion's look so cool, and I'm sure she has even more powerful ones that she hasn't shown off yet. I can't wait to see them in action."

"You say that like you know you will be able to watch her matches?" Joshua asked with a teasing tone. It was obvious that things were swayed heavily in his favor for the upcoming match since his opponent was only level sixty-seven. Even if he had strong beast companions they would be around his level and wouldn't be much of a challenge for someone like Joshua.

"Isn't that obvious. I don't really stand much of a chance in this match, but that doesn't mean I won't be going all out." Thomas said with an excited look that didn't really fit someone that was expecting to lose. "Besides I've made it this far into the tournament and I haven't even been an explorer for all that long. It just shows how cool my beast companions and I are."

Joshua could only chuckle at the younger man's reaction and immediately threw him into the same category of people as his excitable sister or his goofy partner Lilly. At this point he was starting to wonder if all beast tamers acted similar to this. "Well now that I've gotten a chance to talk to you I wanted to make you an offer." Joshua said as he noticed there were only a couple minutes left before the match would begin. "I was hoping you'd like to join our guild after this tournament. I feel that you could learn a lot working with Lilly and learning more about all of the beast we've encountered. I don't think there's any other guild around that can make such an offer."

"That would be amazing. Learning from Lilly would be the best!" Thomas said as he pumped his fist in the air. "I'll sign up right after the tournament."

"Great, now I suggest you get ready for the match." Joshua said as he stepped a few paces back. He took out his large scale blade from his inventory and strapped it to his back letting the entire crowd see his prized main weapon for the first time in the tournament. Thomas's eyes seemed to light up even more for a moment before he backed away and quickly brought out the little squirrel that Joshua had seen in his preliminary match. He pulled out both daggers while another large beast appeared next to him. This time around it was the red fox, but the creature was far bigger than the last time Joshua had seen it.

The fox stood up at nearly two stories high while in its crouching position. Instead of the single tail it had initially this time around it had two tails with white tips and a large amount of heat was coming off of the creature. Its claws were glowing orange as heat emitted from them and a few large fireballs were already starting to appear around the creature. From the way the beast looked over to Thomas it was clear that it had decently high intelligence, but at this point it still hadn't reached the point where it could communicate in a similar fashion to some of Lilly's beast companions like Cinder. Even so Joshua was certain a tamer that was able to reach the high sixties levels wise in such a short amount of time would be proficient at working together with his beast companions.

After seeing the large fox Joshua decided he made the right decision to bring out his scale blade for this fight. He didn't plan on using his aura as long as he could get away with it, but to take down a creature of that size would take more that one of the simple swords that he had in his inventory. Speed was also something that Thomas and his beast companions seemed to thrive with so trying to shoot them down wouldn't be a good idea either. In the end Joshua decided to go with the most fun option of using his scale blade. He could always go after Thomas to end the match, but testing out a new recruit seemed like the right thing to do.

As the countdown came close to ending the squirrel on Thomas shoulder stuck up its tail that started to glow. Joshua could sense a growth in Thomas's strength and knew that he was synchronized with the fox while the squirrel was boosting him even more. The moment the sound off for the match to start began both sides charged towards each other at full speed.