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1058 Words
Felix shrugged and sent him an information packet. “I didn’t get anything too fancy, but here’s what I bought. Call it a thanks for having my back when that dumbass shoved me.”
Matt skimmed the packet and agreed. It was a very general dossier about the highest-profile Pathers who were expected to participate in this year’s tournament.
Matt found it amusing that Talous, the man who had instigated a fight during the vassal war, was considered notable enough to rate a mention. It wasn’t much, just a blurb about him having done quite well in the mundane blade tournaments over the last decade.
What was more interesting was seeing both Melinda’s team, and Conor, Annie, and Emily all getting their own posts. Melinda’s team from solving some kind of problem in a newly settled world that suffered unexplained monster attacks. Though, it didn’t say what the actual issue was, just that the team had resolved it.
Emily, Conor, and Annie had participated as a team in both Tier 8 and 9 open tournaments, making a name for their relentless assaults and massive damage capabilities.
Suddenly remembering to check his messages, he saw that they said they were still a month out and grinned, happy for their success after the vassal war as a combined team.
His own team was missing from those reports, which amused him all the more. When he looked his team up specifically, the reports stated they were expected to wait for the next tournament, where they could take advantage of a greater time at Tier 10.
No one expected them to be here at their age.
For any normal team, the smart play would be to wait and accrue wealth, power, and any extra advantages they could before participating in the tourney, after all.
Based on that, they would probably be rated quite low once their participation was noticed. Matt smiled at the thought. That fit perfectly with their plan to publicly settle in the middle of the pack and disappear into the anonymity of mediocrity.
Eventually, he and Felix met up with Liz and a group she was chatting up.
A pair of men stood to meet him first. Dark, metallic-looking skin contrasted sharply with silvery eyes, giving them each a distinct look that Matt hadn’t seen before. It would have been unique were their two faces not identical.
“I’m Johnson.” The first twin stuck out his hand to shake.
The second twin proffered his hand right after. “I’m Johnson as well.”
That brought Matt up short. “Really?”
The first twin burst out laughing. “No! Not at all. I’m Harvie, and that’s James.”
James smirked. “Sorry, we just can’t resist. It’s a funny story. Our parents joked that we looked and acted so similar they should have just named us both Johnson and been done with it. Now, we just f**k with people with the joke.”
Now aware of the joke, Matt grinned and was introduced to the rest of the team. A woman nearly his own size, Kacy, and a smaller man who had a moving band of air swirling around his arm named Kevin. If his spiritual sense was to be believed, that little feat of magic was done with [Air Manipulation] and was incredibly well controlled.
After acquainting himself, Matt introduced Felix, who launched into a retelling of his own story as drinks were ordered for the two of them.
Liz snuggled into his side. “Did you have fun?”
Matt grinned right back. “I did. What about you?”
She smiled. “Oh, yeah. Saw a few really nice items I’ll probably go back for in the next few days and started chatting with Kacy when we were looking at a chest plate. After that, we moved here to network. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve learned so far.”
Interested, Matt asked, “And what have you learned?”
Kevin must have heard that question as he scooted over with Kacy while the twins shamelessly flirted with Felix in their own little corner.
“We learned a lot about the upcoming challenges. Or at least what was seen last time Tur’stal hosted the Tier 10 tournament, twenty-five years ago.”
Liz snuggled deeper into Matt’s shoulder while tracing distracting patterns into his chest as Kevin continued.
“The endless rift has the largest amount of information, as they don’t ever remake it. Too hard to. But the information is pretty helpful. The monsters are always random every round, so there isn’t much you can do to prepare, but we did learn a few good tidbits. The rift starts the monsters at Tier 10 and works its way up every ten rounds until hitting Tier 14 levels. At that point, it just repeats bigger and bigger waves of Tier 14 monsters forever until you eventually get worn down. The broadcasts of those delves are always a hit, so the info was easy to find.”
That fell in line with what Matt had learned of the rift, so he asked, “What else did you learn?”
Kacy sipped at her beer before she added, “That was just the easiest one, since we know it won’t change. Apparently, most of the other competition rifts are brand spankin’ new, so we can only speculate based on what the other tournaments have had before. There are always the rift speed runs, but that’s all about finding a flaw, quirk, or vulnerability in the rift that you can exploit in some way.”
Matt nodded along, as he had done his own research on that event. “Have the rules about sharing information been released yet? They always handle it differently, allowing some information leaks before the rift is closed, after all.”
Martial abilities weren’t the only things being put to the test here. The organizers always left avenues for participants to leverage their less combat-oriented skills, too, like information gathering and espionage. At least that was what Luna said.
The rules for the beginning challenges were lax enough that a contestant could gather intelligence about the contest beforehand, so long as they were only using their own capabilities.
The testing went far beyond the obvious first layer of combat strength that the general populace focused on.
- Writer
