Chapter 276 - 276 The Tournament’s Opening Ceremony

After enjoying the first day of staying at the Twisted Cats' Tails' Inn, it was now the day of the opening ceremony and first matches for the main tournament.

Now that the competitors had been whittled down from tens of thousands to just five hundred and twelve, it was finally time for the massive arena that resembled the Roman Coliseum to be put into use.

But before the matches began, the king himself was supposed to make an appearance and start things off with a rousing speech before the brackets for the tournament were revealed. Then after that it would be time for the fights to begin.

Of course, whether or not Marcus fought on the first day would depend on how the brackets went since even just the first round lasted four days for all of the matches.

There was a time limit of thirty minutes per match so some of them could wind up going quite long and if it came down to the time limit a panel of judges would decide the winner.

However, Marcus doubted that any of his matches would go that long, since if he went all out, he was either going to win in a few seconds or loss to the backlash of his own power.

'Time to get going.'

After changing into is gear Marcus exited the Twisted Cat's Tails' Inn and began making his way towards the large arena, and along the way equipped his scythe for aesthetics.

Normally Marcus just kept it in his item box since it was faster to take it out from there, but after yesterday when his nonchalant attire had gotten him confused as an audience member today Marcus wanted to look the part.

Of course, he had also made a quick protector for his scythe's blade, to prevent any unfortunate accidents from occurring.

Walking towards the arena Marcus certainly garnered his fair share of attention as a few people going to the arena to watch the matches recognized him as one of the competitors that made it to the main tournament.

Luckily none of them approached him, probably owing to the big scythe on his back, but one person seemed to show no fear and came right up to Marcus though he was certainly no spectator being decked out in high level gear.

"Nice to meet you Lady Geist, my name is Novak, and I was really impressed with you match yesterday. You really beat my friend Clay, with just a single spell at that which really impressed me."

Hearing this Marcus wondered for a moment if Novak had come to get some sort of revenge on Marcus, or was going to declare that he would crush him in the tournament.

But as Novak saw the sharp look in Marcus' eyes, he put his hands up and said, "Wait I did not come to start a fight I just wanted to talk. You beat Clay fair and square and I just wanted to tell you how impressed I was by your display."

After Novak had cleared up Marcus' misunderstanding the two of them walked to the arena together and talked along the way

It turned out that Novak and Clay were part of the same adventuring group that traveled around from nation to nation which while not unheard of was pretty rare.

Most adventures stuck to their home nation or just traveled between a few in a central area that they operated in, but Novak said that his group's goal was to travel to every nation associated with the adventurers guild.

Apparently, they had just finished up on their journey on the continent to the west, and this was their first kingdom they were visiting on this continent.

Naturally Novack also asked Marcus about himself and since Novak seemed to be a nice and easy-going guy Marcus did not mind telling him.

"Wow to think you would be so accomplished at such a young age. Being a noble, adventurer, and forgemaster sounds like a lot of work."

Shrugging his shoulders Marcus said, "My title really comes with no responsibilities and was more just honorary to reward me for the help I provided to the kingdom during a crisis. I am certainly more of a forgemaster and an adventurer than a noble."

However, soon their conversation came to an end as they made it to the competitors' entrance, and after having their identities verified were led to separate waiting rooms to wait for the opening ceremony to begin.

"Well see you around Irene, and good luck in the tournament." Novack said as the two went their separate ways.

After separating with Novack, Marcus was led to a small private waiting room where a small couch was placed as well as some common refreshments.

At this point every one of the competitors had their own private room to wait in so as to avoid any sort of tensions before the tournament.

'Might as well relax until I am called.'

Sitting down on the couch Marcus pulled out a book and read until about thirty minutes later a staff member came to get him and led him out towards the center of the arena.

Along the way Marcus could see a number of other competitors similarly being led, and soon they all walked out into the open part of the arena where the cheers of the audience resounded.

It was a far cry from the number of people that had been watching the preliminaries as Marcus looked around and figured that the number of people in the audience must have been somewhere near a hundred thousand.

The cheers that they were letting out were near defending, but Marcus quickly disregarded them as he looked out at the people that would be his competition in the tournament.

This was his first time seeing most of them and he wanted to get a general idea of how strong they were and started firing off his creature appraisal skill.

'Thirty-seven, Forty-four, forty-one, forty-seven, thirty-nine, fifty-five.'

Going through everyone he could see, Marcus found that no one was below level thirty-seven and the number of people below forty were few and far between.

And at the height of levels, he had seen was a woman in full adamantine armor that looked like she could take and army down on her own at level fifty-five.

However, there were a few people that he was not able to appraise because they had artifacts like Mrazivý's, or a skill called hide identity that Marcus had recently seen when going through the skills he could purchase.

Luckily none of them were able to pinpoint Marcus like Mrazivý had, probably because Marcus was not the only one using an appraisal skill.

A number of the other competitors were darting their heads around as well, and it was almost certain that some of the audience members were using their skills too.

However, the loud and frantic stadium soon came to a silence, as up on a large podium that was built into the arena a man with royal blue hair that was streaked with gray stepped out with knights flanking both of his sides and even knight commander Darius at his back.

It was quite obvious at a glance who this was, it was the current king.

Marcus then watched as he pulled out some type of magical tool and as he spoke into it, a series of screens lit up and displayed the king as well as transmitting his voice throughout the arena

"Good day to everyone, and it is good to be here again after three years. Now please give another round of applause for these five hundred men and women who fought bravely through the preliminaries and have made it to the main tournament."

The audience then went into another frenzy of cheering and clapping until after minute the king held his hand up and all went silent.

"And along with these five hundred competitors we have twelve, whose fame and renown spread within and some even beyond our kingdom."

The king then motioned towards one of the tunnels that led into the arena's center and the twelve people began to walk out.

These were the twelve people that had been seeded past the preliminaries, and among them was one person that Marcus recognized.

Among the twelve seeds was Mrazivý, having been chosen as the royal family's representative to fight in the tournament.

'They're strong.'

After looking of the twelve of them Marcus could tell that each of them had obtained a high level and quality.

Unfortunately, he could not see what a single one of their levels actually were since they all had an item or skill that hid their level from him.

The king soon continued his speech talking about how the kingdom's history and how this was a momentous occasion, but Marcus had stopped paying attention focusing his gaze on the people he had identified as the strongest.

Even though he could not tell what most of their levels were, after all the time he had spent fighting he could at least tell if someone was strong or not.

In fact, a couple of the other competitors felt incredibly dangerous even to Marcus.

But soon his attention was once again drawn to the king as he said, "And now it is time to reveal the tournament's brackets."