A man was standing in the air. There was no special effect at play, no cords at play, just freely standing in the air as if it was the most normal day in the world. Ron could see the man standing in the air looking down at them like he was a god, the man was dressed in a red robe and nothing could be felt from the man however Ron could feel his skin tingling when he looked at the man. It was clear he shouldn’t mess with the man or else he wouldn’t have long to live.
The red robed man scanned the whole crowd from where he stood silently counting the total number of people here, his eyes conveniently went over the stand where the other scouts were and could see their expressions. The red robed man grinned clearly enjoying it before he opened his mouth and shouted out "Welcome everyone to the first floor newcomers tournament!" Ron could clearly hear his voice even though he was standing high in the air, ('Was he using some sort of magic skill?') Ron thought it was a magic skill to project his voice.
The red robed man continued to say "First rule, do not interrupt me while I’m talking. The second rule is that no killing or wishing will be done during the tournament. The third-" just as the red robed man wanted to continue, someone in the crowd shouted back "What if we do kill someone?". The red robed man looked down in the crowd and zoned in on the man who spoke, he grinned as if he wanted someone to interrupt him "Ah, a volunteer to show you what will happen if you break the aforementioned rules".
"He’s going to die isn’t he?" Back at the other scouts the purple robed man commented seeing the expression on the red robed man. "Probably, their methods are always cruel and vicious" The black robed woman didn’t seem to care much about the man who shouted, she seemed more interested in the red robed man’s method on how he would kill him. The blue robed woman sighed and said "This is why they’re always such a headache to deal with". "We can’t interfere, it’s their time to run the event not ours" The green robed man didn’t seem excited either at the random killings but they couldn’t do anything unless they started massive trouble on the upper floors.
The red robed man in the air extended his arm and made a grabbing motion, the man who shouted in the crowd realised he screwed up majorly and tried to run away. He moved his feet but realised he wasn’t going forwards, he looked down only to see his feet off the ground he was floating in mid air! Suddenly he shot up in the air and was face first with the red robed man, "I-I’m sorry! Please let me down!" The man apologised and pleaded with the red robed man.
"Now look, you broke the rules and now I have to kill you or else people will think there’s no consequence to breaking the rules" The red robed man responded to the man’s pleas and extended his other hand and made another grabbing motion, the red robed man then slowly pulled his arm back. The man’s shirt was ripped open and revealed his stomach "Wh-What…are…you?" The man stammered until he let out a blood curdling scream "AHHHH". The skin on his stomach went taut as if it was being pulled towards the red robed man, the skin stretched until it couldn’t anymore and in an instant the man’s entire skin was removed and blood was raining down.
"How fitting for them" The black robed woman scoffed seeing the gruelling scene, the other four scouts seemed to agree in silence with her words. Ron on the other hand had no such thoughts ('How brutal! Also this didn’t seem like magic but more akin to telekinesis') he would do well to stay in the rules of this tournament, even with the kindling state he doubted he would escape the man’s grasp.
The red robed man threw the skin and still twitching carcass aside like a piece of trash and continued his speech "Now where were we? Ah right the rules, the third rule is to simply not be too annoying to me or my co-hosts below me" The red robed man pointed down and Ron noticed there was a crowd of twenty other red robed individuals, ('were the same coloured robes really necessary?') Ron held his questions inside him.
"The fourth and final rule is simple: all types of storage skills or items will become unusable during battles. If you have any weapons now is the best time to take them out and hold onto them if you want to use them" The red robed man banned storage equipment which made sense to Ron as otherwise one could have bombs in there and throw them out at a moments notice.
"Now onto the tournament itself, the first round will be a preliminary round due to the number of people here being too big for an actual normal tournament so as a result we will hold a simple preliminary" The red robed man explained the first phase before his hand extended into space itself and he pulled out white ball. ('An inventory I suppose?') Ron was having trouble keeping up with the red robed man’s tricks and identifying them, the ball suddenly exploded into many pieces everywhere. Ron caught a piece that was flying towards him to see it wasn't a piece of a ball, it was actually a white plate with a number on it ‘486’.
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"Everyone should have a number now. The rules of the preliminary are simple, my co-hosts will each go to one of the rings and call forth two numbers, once your number is called you should go to that ring. You and your opponent will fight, like I said before no killing so there are three ways to win; One your opponent gives up, two you knock your opponent out of the ring or three you knock out your opponent. There will be ten battles and the top 128 will advance to the next stage". Ron understood the rules and so did everyone else, he wondered how many people were here actually.
"There are 1,033 people here so technically they’d need 9 or 10 wins, quite high is it not?" The yellow robed scout asked his fellow scouts. "Indeed it is high however we’re only really interested in those with high potential which would mean they’d need to at least have that many wins" The purple robed man answered and found the high condition not too much trouble. "Speaking of people, I see our little friend has a badge in his hands so he must be entering the tournament. You remember our bet right?" The yellow robed man smiled at the green robed man who had a sour expression and pulled out a bag from space and threw it at the yellow robed man. "That should be enough for a week, no?" He told the yellow robed man to which the yellow robed man laughed and stashed it away.
Unaware that he just caused a massive entity to lose a bet Ron was walking around looking if he knew someone, even if he did somehow know about the bet he couldn’t have done anything about it. Numbers were being called left right and centre and Ron had to pay attention in case his number was being called up, "Hm?" Suddenly he spotted someone in a business suit that looked like someone he knew. Walking up to the man all but confirmed it to Ron when he got close to him, "Long time no see" Ron said, he avoided using his name with other wishmasters around. The man turned around and replied "Yes it has been long, I wondered if you had died or were stuck in a dungeon by being here so late" the man was of course Jacob.
"Nah, I came from pretty far so it took a while to get here. Were you close to here?" Ron asked Jacob, he could see and feel that Jacob was a lot stronger than before if the now two guns were any indication. Jacob shook his head "No, I came from the deep south". His answer confused Ron "How did you get here so quickly then?" to which Jacob simply replied "I used a wish to teleport me close to here, did you actually run all the way here?" Jacob was even more confused, did he not use a wish to get here? Ron just now realised he could’ve wished to be here instead of running and tried to hide his embarrassment "N-no of course not! I’m not an idiot" Jacob clearly didn’t buy his answer.
"486 and 940!" Before Ron could embarrass himself further he heard his number being called, "That’s my number I gotta go" he told Jacob to which Jacob replied "I want to see you in action so I’ll follow". Ron shrugged and went to where he was being called, he jumped into the ring and noticed his opponent was another male. The man was holding an assault rifle and looked confident when Ron didn’t have any weapons on him, "Give up now and I won’t hurt you" the man told Ron.
"Seems like our little friend is going to fight" The yellow robed man had been paying attention to Ron and noticed he had entered the ring, his words caused the entire scouting group to focus on his fight. "I doubt he’ll use the boosting skill, his opponent doesn't seem like much" The green robed man replied, Ron’s opponent just had a gun and judging from the power he could feel it was still at the beginning of the first level. The man clearly thought a simple gun was good enough which was a massive beginner mistake. "Let’s see how he deals with plain guns" The black robed woman was interested.
Back in the ring Ron felt like he was being underestimated, the man felt like an absolute beginner who only acted big with a gun in his hands. He didn’t even need to take out his whip to deal with him, "You won’t even hurt me with that toy" Ron replied to the man which only seemed to anger the man as he replied back "Then don’t blame me when you're hurt!". The referee, who was one of the red robed people, then gave his signal to begin the battle, he waited at first to give each one an opportunity to give up but started the fight when it was clear neither would give up.
*BANG* a gunshot sounded out as Ron simply stood still and allowed the man to shoot at him, *Ding* a small metallic sound was heard as the bullet landed on the ground after having hit Ron’s arm. The man thought he had missed and shot once more this time at Ron’s chest, the same gunshot and the same result happened with Ron just standing still and just looking at his opponent. His opponent was shocked and horrified but didn’t believe it. "Impossible! This must be some temporary trick!" he shouted as he unloaded the entire clip onto Ron.
"Very impressive at this level, now his boosting skill makes more sense as well" The blue robed woman commented seeing Ron unphased by the bullets. "He must’ve picked up some high risk high reward boosting skill and buffed up his body to be able to use it, quite smart I think we might have found the winner right here." The purple robed man deduced one part of Ron’s strength and thought he would be the winner. "I disagree about him being the winner, there are some other interesting people here" The green robed man commented looking at multiple other rings.
In one ring a young man faced off an older gentleman with a sword, normally the winner was easy to guess however there was a third party in the ring. A yellow and black striped giant bee with large sharp stingers was flying in between them looking at the old man, it seemed to be defending the youth.
In another ring two women faced off against each other, one of the women was holding a handful of cards and the other was holding two guns, in between these women there was yet another third party this time however it was a humanoid looking creature with sharp teeth, bulging muscles, wearing a helmet with four spikes and holding a glaive.
On another ring a pale faced youth was fighting a man who had brass knuckles, the pale faced youth pointed at the man to which small icicles shot out towards the man.
"There are more talents than just him here" The green robed man concluded.