White grade gears might be nothing in the eyes of those silver spirit masters, but to any common spirit master, it was something good.
"I will join your team," and when Garlend waited for the answer from the leader of the red falcon team, William suddenly spoke up.
He didn't like this situation, didn't like someone getting abused thanks to his low background.
He couldn't help that kid right now, but he could get part of his dignity back by crushing this arrogant team led by that Garlend.
"Hahahaha, losers did indeed stick together, hahahaha," and just like what William expected, that dude was indeed a bad guy. He showed his true colour towards William, and the latter just kept smiling calmly without showing anything on his face.
That look… That calm… The kid from his class saw it before. It was the same look William gave to Guanin before crushing him twice in front of everyone.
Seeing William's face like this made that kid's heart skip a beat. And just as the team led by Garlend passed by William, the latter winked towards that kid.
And that made that kid's body tremble uncontrollably, a subtle move that went by without getting noticed by anyone.
"Thanks brother," the leader of the red falcon team said after the departure of Garlend and his men, "I didn't intend to mistreat you. But…"
"Don't worry about that, what's the value of a white grade gear anyway," William shrugged as if this was something that didn't bother him.
And he was indeed worthy to not care about white grade gears. If it was silver grade and higher, then William's interest would be instantly piqued.
But he was sure the entire team in front of him would have at most silver grade gears and weapons, if not having bronze grade gears as most of their belongings.
"I'm Lucas," the leader of the red falcon team properly introduced himself, "welcome to the red falcon team."
The other eight silver spirit masters greeted William as well. "Thanks, but what was all that anyway?" William returned the greeting to them, before asking about what he didn't know.
"It's like this…" Lucas started to tell William everything that he didn't know, leading everyone to one small building that was missed from William's eyes thanks to the large number of spirit masters here.
It was the building responsible for handling affairs related to the arena, the same place William wanted to visit.
'Not now,' William decided to come here later after the end of today's competition.
From Lucas' words he learnt many things about the arena and its system.
He realised how important today was. Many spectators came from outside the academy, placing bids on different teams.
The red falcon team was one of many taking part in today's competition. And from what Lucas said, they were all part of the third and fourth year in the academy, dropping all the classes and working as an individual team to compete in the regular contests here.
They lived on the gains they got from the competitions they won in the arena.
To William, this was the best outcome such common spirit masters could have in the academy.
To William, winning or losing didn't matter. He got enough wealth to make him not even care about the one thousand spirit crystals the team kept mentioning.
It was the grand prize, meaning they got to win every single battle to acquire such wealth. The best outcome the team ever achieved was the thirty-five place in the arena.
It happened when the team came here for the first time a few years ago. No one knew about them or their abilities, and so it was expected for them to make their path towards the top.
During which, they met with Garlend and his team. William knew that this team was called the blue silver scales, and they were quite famous and arrogant in the arena.
They never missed being in the top fifty anytime, and their highest rank ever was fifteen.
At the time when the red falcon team reached rank thirty-five, they met that team of Garlend, ending up beating them.
And since that day, the enmity between the two kept going on. The two met many times later, and the red falcon team got crushed many times already. But such old enmity was still raging in the chest of Garlend.
William knew his earlier guesses about Garlend were true the more he listened to Lucas' stories. Only bad guys would keep such enmity for such a long time. And Garlend seemed to place destroying the red falcon team and disbanding them as one of his priorities.
As for the arena rules, they were simple. There were solo competitions and team competitions. The solo competition wasn't that popular unless for the top ten names in the arena ranking list. Other than this, the general audience liked to watch the team battles more.
Not to mention the grand day contest of the arena didn't include any solo competitions.
As for the team competitions, there were many forms of these. Teams could be counted starting from five up to fifty. But in the big day competition, the official team member count was ten.
William learnt before that the grading of any team would be decided by the lower ranking member here, provided that the difference between him and the highest ranked member didn't exceed one grade.
For example, if the red falcon team got him and another white ranked spirit master, then the final ranking would be silver.
This wasn't going by logic as William thought. But when he realised that this was some sort of a punishment from the arena to anyone trying to not follow the rules.
If the team got members with two grades difference or more, then the team general assessment would be following the highest ranked member in the team.
That made all the teams here formed from nine of the same grade and the last member of a grade lower.