Chapter 169 - 168 The Looming Tournament

After hearing Thabon's explanation of the rewards that he could obtain by doing well in the upcoming tournament, Marcus could not help but be incredibly tempted to enter.

'Damn they are really trying to lure me and Gurrom out. Those rewards are any forgemaster's dream, and in the future, I am going to need to get my hands on them one way or the other. I can get mithril easily enough, but adamantine is incredibly hard to get, and amethros is so rare that I have only ever seen the small sliver Thabon has. Not to mention the monster and beast materials that are being offered, are also icing on top. The only problem is that it will become annoying to have people try to recruit me once I show off my skills, especially if I do not make it to at least the top eight.'

Sighing Marcus began weighing the pros and cons, trying to convince himself to participate even if it might cause him a headache later.

However, while he was thinking Gurrom asked an important question that had slipped Marcus' mind.

"Master what makes you so certain that either of us will be able to rank that high. Certainly, I am confident in my albites but against people more than ten levels higher you pretty much do not have any chance of winning no matter what."

Thabon began nodding his head agreeing with Gurrom's statement, but he just smiled and said, "That is true, but this tournament is mainly used as a means of recruitment or at least an account of the prodigies in the kingdom. I have watched a number of the tournaments in the past, and the highest-level person I have ever seen participating was level forty-eight. Remember this tournament is only for those under the age of fifty so in that time people can only get so high of a level. If old people like me could enter, than participation would plummet since most people could never hope to win. Also, in the past the rewards were not as good as this year so people over a certain level simply had no interest in the tournament, but this year the competition might be fiercer so do not get complacent."

'Level, forty-eight. I should be able to win against average people at that level if I use my unique skills, but if they have blessings and have their stats boosted like me it could be hard. But I still have a few months to get ready, and the rewards are too good no to compete.'

Coming to a decision, Marcus told Thabon that he planned to enter the tournament and not long after Gurrom agreed as well.

"Good to hear, I will relay the message to Aria since she is the one who wanted both of you to compete. Luckily with her connections the two of you will not have to pay the entry fee and will be seeded past the first round of preliminaries. Now then I recommend that the two of you do your best to get ready. If you want to make new weapons or other items, you have bit of time but try not to delay to long. I have confidence in the two of you so go and make me proud."

Nodding their heads, both Marcus and Gurrom thanked Thabon for the information about the tournament before exiting his room and going their separate ways.

Walking to the front of the building, Marcus found the apprentice working the counter and told them about the armor and weapons he was unloading.

A few minutes later a number of wooden boxes had been prepared where Marcus could store his goods, which once full were taken away be employees of the storefront where the items people made were sold.

'Now I need to get ready for the tournament in a little over four months. I had already planned to go out and try to level up with Roxene, but now I have a real goal to work towards.'

Having finished his business at the Blazegram Forge, Marcus made his way back to his estate although along the way he stopped by an expensive butcher shop and bought the high-quality meat he had promised to Roxene.

Arriving back home, Marcus let Roxene out of his companion storage and was immediately greeted by a yawning wolf pup that asked for food.

'Yeah, you were a good girl, so I got a special cut of meat from an uncommon grade magical beast called a puff cow. Apparently, it has very tender meat that melts in your mouth and tastes exquisite so hopefully it is to your liking.'

Roxene hearing Marcus talking about the apparently delectable meat actually began drooling before remembering her normally dignified persona and caught herself saying, 'Very well, we would not mind partaking in this meat since you have procured it for us.'

Seeing the look of anticipation on her face Marcus quickly made his way to the main building on his estate where he handed the meat over to his maids and asked them to prepare it.

After that Marcus decided to do a bit of training with Roxene before eating since from this point on Marcus planned on having her fight alongside him.

Working on combination moves Marcus found that Roxene's fighting style was pretty similar to his as she would use magic or fight in close combat depending on the situation though she was more partial to getting up close and using her superior agility, while Marcus preferred to overwhelm with his powerful magic.

'Laser.'

Firing off his powerful laser spell Marcus cut though the darkness drill that Roxene had sent at him but found that she had easily moved out of the trajectory and was already advancing towards him.

Jumping towards him Roxene opened her mouth as she planned to chomp down on Marcus, but before she could reach him Marcus deployed a shield of light in front of him blocking the way.

At the same time, he had conjured a shinning lance which he was swinging forward, except as Roxene was about to impact the shield of light in front of him, she conjured her own below her and used it as a platform to jump.

With a short hop using her shield of light Roxene jumped over Marcus' own shield and simultaneously avoided his attack before using her shine form race ability wreathing herself in light similar to Marcus' unique skill, albeit without the massive stat increases.

Opening her mouth again Roxene aimed for Marcus' left shoulder hoping to land a powerful bite on him, however, Marcus had already moved forward to counterattack as he cast his arms of darkness spell increasing his strength as he sent his fist forward while also enhanced by his iron skin.

As fangs and fist collided, Marcus with his higher stats and greater defense punched Roxene hard in the face knocking her small body far away as she heavily impacted on the ground.

Standing up with a small trickle of blood going down her mouth that had already began healing, Roxene bent her head up towards the sky and was about to howl loudly.

However, before she could, she received a mental message from Marcus saying, 'Roxene we already agreed to not use unique or supreme skills during these spares. If we escalate any further will destroy the grounds and definitely attract unwanted attention.'

Roxene hearing Marcus' message came back to her senses as she had been about to use her unique skill howl of day since she felt her pride being pushed every time she lost to Marcus.

'Fine, but it is not fair, why can I not beat you?'

Roxene then let out a few whimpers before slouching onto the ground sulking.

'I knew this would happen. I told her that it would be fine to just work on fighting in tandem, but she said she wanted to get in some combat practice, so I relented. The only problem is how much of a sore loser she is, but in all honesty the fact that she can keep up with me while at only level one is impressive in itself.'

Walking over to her, Marcus tried to cheer Roxene up saying she had only been in this world a few days and that once they started leveling her up, she would get stronger, but the little wolf seemed adamant about feeling down.

Luckily her mood immediately shifted when Grace arrived and informed Marcus that the meat he had brought back was ready, and Roxene shot up and began running towards the mansion.

'For as refined as she acts at the end of the day, she is pretty simple.'

Slightly chuckling at the actions of his new companion, Marcus accompanied Grace back to the mansion and when he entered the dining room, he found the Roxene had already taken her seat as she wagged her tail barely controlling her urge to jump on the table and eat the items that were being placed there.

Taking his seat, Marcus had a plate prepared for himself and Roxene who now had a makeshift booster chair and the two of them began eating.

Taking a bite of the puff cow meat, Marcus felt a surge of warm energy through his body as the delicious and tender meat basically melted in his mouth.

'Damn that is pretty good. I never experience the wagyu beef back on Earth, but I imagine that this must be similar.'

Continuing to eat alongside Roxene it was not long before the two of them finished everything that had been prepared as Marcus actually forgot himself and ate way more than usual shocking the maids since he ate nearly six pounds of beef.

Seeing their shocked faces Marcus realized his blunder and made a mental note not to let slip his bottomless pit of a stomach again.

'Well, it just tasted so good I kept eating until it was gone, next time I will hold back.. Ah but now that I have enjoyed such good food, I suppose it is time to get back to work.'