Cheerful Jingle!
"Hello and welcome back everybody to our livestream! I'd like to thank you for making it through the ad break. I am your today's host, Alvin." The man then looked at the lady beside him.
"And I'm your other host, Angela," the lady continued.
"Now that that's out of the way, let's return to the tournament that's happening right now, shall we?" Alvin declared cheerfully.
"Yeah, let's do that. How many rounds has it been again?" Angela asked.
"I believe that the participants are about to face the 5th wave of enemies. And just to remind everybody, there have been a couple of eliminations so far. The wave of enemies keeps on getting stronger and stronger, after all. But the more this goes on, the more we can see the real skills of the remaining participants."
"I totally agree with that, Alvin. Oh, by the way, I heard from a totally anonymous source that you've got your eye on a particular participant in the Superhuman bracket. Care to enlighten me and our viewers about that, hmm?" Angela looked at her partner and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh, please. Don't do this to me." Alvin wore an embarassed and flustered expression after hearing this.
"Come on, partner! It's okay; just tell us. I promise, I won't tease you."
"Promise?"
"Yep! I promise."
"Alright, well..." Alvin paused for a bit before saying, "Yeah, my attention is on participant #235."
Angela browsed through the files, smiled, and gave him a knowing look: "Oh, her! I believe she is Juliana Seymour. I see, no wonder why."
"You said you weren't going to tease me!" Alvin whined.
"What? I'm not!" Angela denied his accusations. "I'm just stating what I know."
"Miss Seymour is an 18-year-old Tier 9 Level 9 Superhuman from the Western Region. Her profile states that her class is a rather peculiar one called Shrine Maiden. It says here that she could summon alien creatures to fight on her behalf; she also has access to several buffs and de-buffs to dominate the battlefield," Angela stated.
The screen behind them is focused on the contestant that they're talking about.
"From what I learned so far, not many people know about her class. I believe that some of you are actually hearing this for the first time despite knowing Miss Seymour prior to her participation here."
"I mean, I can't blame them. Her songs are really good, and she's really pretty," Alvin dreamily stated.
Angela just stared at Alvin with a knowing look. Her partner saw this and warned, "Don't even."
"I won't." Angela chuckled. "But anyways, let's just look at this right here! Everybody could see that she's doing quite well on her own. Do you know the names of her summoned creatures, Alvin?"
"Well, I can see why you admire him," Alvin commented. "From what I've seen so far, his spells are at least Level 10. I believe he chose to upgrade them through practice instead of using Essence Souls, which is insane because that takes an absurd amount of effort to do."
"I wouldn't have been surprised if he only had one spell at Level 10, but that's not the case. All of the spells he's using are at Level 10, at the very least, and he's using a lot of them. I don't think he's merely talented at this point; he's a bona fide monster!" Alvin exclaimed.
"Yeah, I know. Such talent is enviable. But what I truly admire the most about him was his hard work. Not many people could say that they are this impressive at this age," Angela added.
"Damn, our future is truly bright." Alvin exhaled softly. "If this tournament never happened, we would've never been aware of such talents lurking around, and what a shame that could've been!"
"Fortunately, the Prime Earth Federation had the foresight to create this grand event, allowing us to marvel at the skills of the current generation of Superhumans," Angela commented.
"Yeah, I totally agree," Alvin replied. "But you know what I'm really curious about?"
"What?"
"Well, where did all of these creatures come from?" Alvin exclaimed. "You know, the enemies that our participants are facing. Because from what I can tell, they're neither humans nor demons!"
"Oh, you silly guy," Angela chuckled. "They are energy constructs made by our dear Sun Sage. They're not actual living beings."
"Really?" Alvin's eyes widened comically.
"Yes, really." Angela nodded. "I, of course, don't know what they're called either. I'm afraid that only the Sun Sage can tell us that. But I do know that they're not actual living beings. They are light-based energy constructs that the Sun Sage purposefully created to add variety to the foes our participants face.
Through this, they'd be able to judge the skills of the participants more accurately and provide a better and more comprehensive final ranking based on their performance."
"I see. That's very smart."
"I know. I mean, it's the Sun Sage after all; of course he'll have a way to make things interesting," Angela dreamily said.
"Oho? What's this? Is my dear partner Angela infatuated with our dear Sun Sage?" Alvin teased.
"You know, I'm not even going to deny it. So what if I am, huh?" Angela bravely announced. "I mean, have you seen him? Gahd, what a man! Most girls would understand what I feel."
"Somehow, I regret what I just did." Alvin sighed.
He then saw some changes in the livestream, and his eyes gleamed. He tapped Angela's leg with his foot under the desk to signal her and said,
"It looks like the 5th wave has concluded. This will be followed by a five-minute break, and that means a commercial break for our program too."
"Stay tuned, everybody; we'll be back to introduce you to other well-known participants after this short break." Angela smiled at the camera.
Cheerful Jingle