A few days later

Helial was gazing at his friends in the distance. They were training. Now, they were perfectly aware about what was waiting for the next.

The needed to make a name for themselves in Orma. Their group was, after all, all made of Humans and wastes of society. With the special bonus of a Goblin who would only sleep his days away on a tree. Still, Helial paid no mind to Vlad. He knew his words could nothing to convince Vlad to get down to training. He would need to wait for the right moment to strike some chord within him.

In order to build a name, the group should take the field in the Colosseum against other groups. In the Colosseum, matches were divided into three different kinds. Every victory or fail would be recorded in the global dashboard.

1 vs 1

One member selected by each group would challenge another from the opposite group. The group whose member beat the other would turn out to be the winning one. Usually, groups would send on their strongest warrior so as to ensure victory.

The 3 vs 3 relay competition would be carried out by three different members from each group instead. Every time a participant would by defeated, another member from the same group would take him over. The participant who had beat him could decide to be taken over as well or keep fighting until the end of the match.

Since matches could only be fought by people in the same Phase­ – unless both parties agreed otherwise – the more were the group’s strong warriors the greater would be its chance of winning. However, as it often happens down the Dao of Mana, quantity is doomed to lose to quality.

Helial makes for a good example. If Helial faced a hundred First Phase Intermediate stage warriors, he would wipe them out easily enough.

Inside the Colosseum hang a dashboard listing out how many points each warrior would gain.

Win 1 vs 1 1 Point Win 3 vs 3 1 Point Win all vs all 0.5 Points Fail -2 Points

This meant that in order to earn a decent amount of points, failure was not an option. Helial’s team must collect a great number of victories in order to climb in the rankings.

The wager system of the Colosseum was a state-of-the-art one. Every year, billions of golden coins would be thrown into its treasury thanks to the warriors fighting in the arena.

Ordinary fighters wouldn’t see a penny, whereas the strongest ones would get pretty nice amounts of money.

The arena had two dashboards. One listed out warriors by their Phase. The other was the global one. In the latter, the warrior’s Phase would enhance their ranking by adding points to those already earned by fighting.

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The Colosseum hosted fights between warriors up to the Sixth Phase. Sixth Phase practitioners would get a x1.5 bonus in every fight on the global dashboard, whereas Fifth Phase warriors benefited from a x1 bonus.

Every Phase under the Fifth one would get a bonus inferior to 1. This meant there was a significant gap between the practitioners in the Fifth Phase and those below. The bonus of a Second Phase practitioner was x0,2. Therefore, in order to get the same points on the Global Dashboard as a Fifth Phase practitioner, they would need to fight five times as much!

Helial had studied the global dashboard in detail. To his little surprise, he found Pseudonym right on top of the ranking.

Pseudonym - 2509 Points 1994 Wins 0 Fails

Helial looked at his friends. They were training under the stern gaze of Iblis. Helial stood still and pondered on what might be waiting for them next.

Iblis casually turned his head. He took notice of Helial’s thoughtful expression. On his little legs, he reached for him until he stood by his side. “How will you set up the matches?”

His master had surely little doubt on what strategy would be the best one. Therefore, Helial resolved for a blunt answer: “There’s no way we can allow ourselves to earn points regularly. Pseudonym spends every day fighting in the Colosseum. We would never reach him that way.”

Oh, by the way, it might have gone unnoticed that Pseudonym had no team. Pseudonym fought alone. From 1v1 to group competitions, Pseudonym had always relied on himself only. This was what most made him famous all over Orma.

Even Caesar and Aure, the only Immortals in Orma, didn’t boast no such feats back in the days.

Or rather, to be precise, no one had ever accomplished such feat over the last eras.

Even if Helial wanted to do something this crazy, it would take him forever.

The quickest way was challenge the strongest Fifth Phase warriors in order to earn as many points as possible right away. It was indeed true; Pseudonym had now had to fight opponents in higher Phases than he was, whereas Helial would start from scratch. This way, he wouldn’t need to hurry as he slaughtered his way through the ranking. Pseudonym was on top, and only a long climb of dead opponents would lead Helial to him.

“Every first victory against the top three warriors in the Phase dashboard gives you 30 points while casting a 15 points Malus to the loser. We’ll start from them. Also, the top three teams are coincidentally the top three forces in Orma.”

Lately, Helial had been visiting the Merchant Guild fairly frequently. Every visit was a chance to ask Caliban about the news in the Colosseum. So he had done on that very morning. The young Merchant heir already showed him which groups he would need to challenge first.

“Guild of Life and Death, third position. It’s the Tramps Team. A full expert team. They grew up in forests clearing monsters for days on end.” Helial’s irises made out the silhouette of seven fighters.

“Clan of the Heavenly Eagle, ranked second. It’s the Knight Team. Armed to the teeth. Their melee Classes have some frightening Defence.”

Nine new silhouettes appeared next to the first seven.

“Sect of the Worthy. Ranked first. The Team of the Executioner. It’s made of the twelve best talents in the First Phase,” Helial finished as his gaze lingered on his friends, training.

“Every team has strengths and weaknesses just as we have. We lack cohesion, because our group is green. It’s a problem we can’t undervalue.” Despite his ominous words, Helial was speaking with a broad smile on his face.

“And how are you planning to defeat them?” Iblis asked as fierceness flashed in his evil eyes.

Helial clenched his fist and whispered: “The first two matches will go smoothly.”

“What about the third?” Iblis glanced up and finally gazed at the eyes of the young boy.

Helial thought at the Sect of the Worthy. He cast his mind back to the arrogance of Medusa and his sister, at Comodus’ poisonous gaze, at what they might be working behind their back in that very moment.

What about the Sect of the Worthy?

“It’s gonna be a carnage.”