Chapter 461: Second Stage of the Tournament

Today was the day. It felt like it had been a long day coming. He had been hearing so much about this tournament, but it was only today that he felt like it was actually real.

“Are you ready?” Freya asked him. They were taking a carriage to the stadium where the tournament would be held. He had already been over here to sign up, but if he thought it was busy then, it didn’t compare to today.

There had to be hundreds of thousands of people all cramming together as they tried to enter the stadium gates. The stadium itself was absolutely massive. It made the Roman Coliseum look like a rundown backyard.

He could barely see the top of the stadium; it was that tall. Luckily for them, there was a designated spot for participants to arrive. So they didn’t have to wait for very long.

“I’m not sure. I don’t even know what the first stage will be. They have kept it a secret, and we won’t know until they give an announcement,” he said to her while still observing all of the people around them. He smiled when he saw a bunch of families laughing together in excitement.

“Have you practiced with your new skill enough?” She prodded him.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not as much as I wanted to, but I haven’t had all that much time either.”

It didn’t help that last night was also hectic. They had finally done the ritual that officially established him as Cain’s disciple. It was shockingly simple. Freya took care of everything, and Julius could barely tell that anything had changed. The only thing that he had sensed was the new connection between him and Cain in his soul.

It was as if they had both transferred some of their own soul to each other and left a mark. It was actually similar to the mark that Savath left on him, only a lot more personal.

On another note, his new skill, [Spirit Fortification], was quite an interesting skill. It was very similar to what he had been expecting and what he had already done with his aura-woven mana in the first place.

He hadn’t played around too much with the epic ranked skill, but he had been happy with what he had figured out so far. From what he could tell, it was a skill very similar to [Kinetic Energy Refinement] and some of his other enforcement skills.

It primarily functioned as a passive skill, providing a slight boost to his current manipulation techniques. The main difference he was able to sense was the sheer speed with which he created his constructs. Aura-woven mana took some time to piece together. It was why he often had bracelets of pre-made aura-woven mana, ready to be remolded to whatever he wished.

This helped him lower the time it took for him to respond to an attack, but it was still slower than his regular mana constructs. However, [Spirit Fortification] allowed him to almost halve the speed at which he created these constructs.

As long as he had already created the construct before, the skill helped him build a premade structure, and all he needed to do was feed it mana and aura. This structure basically wove the mana for him. The focus it took to do it manually was drastically decreased.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a massive boost in power since he had found a workaround by keeping the constructs deployed constantly. Nevertheless, he believed that once he leveled up the skill, he would find more uses for it.

So far, he hadn’t gained any skill levels, but he also hadn’t spent more than a couple of hours playing with it. He was hoping that the tournament would help him hone this ability a little more.

He had already discussed it with Aliyah. She had told him that the first stage was mainly to remove the weaker participants and that he shouldn’t have to worry.

He hoped that she was right; he was hoping to take it easy for the first stage. Several people had told him that it would be a good idea to hide his level of power at least initially.

Not only would it create less of a target on his back, but he wouldn’t be bombarded by annoying organizations, looking to recruit him or curry his favor.

Honestly, he wanted to do it because of that last part. He hated being harassed by spam callers.

He was also worried about the Conclave and Clan Genshen. He didn’t forget about them, especially not when he had seen several people wearing Clan Genshen clothing at the event a couple of days ago.

He hadn’t recognized them, but he had made note of their presence. It meant that at least some of their members had qualified for the tournament. It wasn’t surprising since they were a powerful clan, and he reminded himself that he should be careful about creating too much of a commotion.

He also hadn’t heard from Edwin, and neither had Derek or Lily. His old teacher hadn’t reached out to them yet, and part of Julius was worried that something might have happened to him.

He shook his head, clearing the negative thoughts. He couldn’t think about that at the moment; he had his own issues to worry about and had to trust that Edwin could take care of himself.

***

He found himself standing next to his friends as the crowd roared all around them. He thought he would have been better prepared after experiencing the tournament at Goldencrest, but this was on an entirely different level. Even with the sound-dampening effect from the barrier, the stadium still shook from their cries.

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It wasn’t just him and his group either. There were well over a thousand people his age participating in the event. They were all gathered together in a huge group in the middle of the stadium, as the tournament organizers stood on a stage in front of them.

They were explaining the first stage of the tournament to them. From what he understood, it was quite an interesting concept. He had been expecting a stage where he would have to fight the participants.