27 Tournament`s First Round

Leaving the registration area, the two decided to look for a place to stay, since they would be here for a few days.

The moon has lit up the sky by the time they found an inn. Iledoya took notice

Now with his mind not being too focused on getting the engraver, Iledoya finally realized the strangeness from the receptionist back in the Magic Tool Association. Which he felt from the innkeeper as he entered the room.

When he entered the inn, he noticed how the innkeeper had a brow raised up when he saw Iledoya, which then changed into bewilderment before finally turning into a delightfully surprised expression.

"Ooohh, Good evening there Sir Foun-- ehem *cough* *cough*" the innkeeper was an old man so the cough sounded like an old person who already has a foot in the grave. Though, despite being old, only his wrinkles and white hair could signify his old age. The innkeeper still has quite the charm to him, which could be seen by how some of the tables are filled with women with passionate gazes towards the innkeeper.

"Sorry about that. Good evening Sir, are you looking for a room to stay in or a table to dine?" the innkeeper said with a smile. Iledoya could hear some of the women around gasping when the innkeeper smiled. Nicholas shook his head while muttering "An ikemen despite the old age. How frightening he would've been in his prime…"

"A room, please." Iledoya answered.

"Okay. Come this way please" the innkeeper brought them to the reception table. "It would be 20 coppers a night" Compared to the price of an engraver, this was obviously more affordable to them. "How many nights would you be staying?" the innkeeper asked.

"Hmm… I'll pay for 5 nights for now, as we don't know how long our stay would be either" Iledoya said as he handed over a silver coin.

Receiving the silver coin, the innkeeper then took the key for a room "Understood. Allow me to lead you to your room"

Iledoya chose this inn due its short distance to the arena for the tournament. It's a 3 story inn where the first floor is where people can grab food and drink the night away. But as the innkeeper brought them to the third floor, Iledoya can't help but be bewildered. Passing through the second floor, Iledoya saw that it had 20 or even more rooms. But on the third floor, there were only 7 rooms. One of the doors looked cleaner than the others and this was the room that the innkeeper lead them to.

The room was very spacious. So clean, one couldn't even see dust floating around. The two beds in the room had enough room for 2 people. In other words, it's not a room that can normally be afforded with 20 copper coins. "I shall take my leave now" the innkeeper bowed before leaving the two.

Iledoya didn't even question it. He would be happy to get such a big room for cheap.

"Hehehe, now that we're alone…" Iledoya's voice sounded in the room. Nicholas shivered for a moment when he heard that. "What about it?"

"You can finally tell me about your previous world!" Iledoya excitedly said.

Nicholas made a wiping-off-sweat motion with his hand and sighed. "Ughh… this would be hard to explain. Hmm…"

"The world I came from was… very different. My previous world didn't have magic"

"Wait what!? Oh so that's why Hachi couldn't rank up…"

"Let me finish okay? Ask the questions later… Now where was I, oh yes, we didn't have magic there so instead, we developed our technology…

From that world I came from the year S13T06. Honestly, the year around 2100 A.D was more advanced than this world now and yet, the 2100 A.D was thousands of years ago. In such an advanced era, I was called the Inventor of the Millenium. I was called a genius as my invention was used to colonized this planet we called pluto, changing from a desolate planet to planet that could be said the backyard of our home planet from how full of trees it is now. I also made the teleportation gate to connect all the colonized planet we had.

But then…"

"Wait, what is this year S13T06 and that Inventor or pluto or colonizing, what are you talking about? And… Did you really managed to make a teleportation gate without magic?" Iledoya questioned.

"Ughh, I don't know how to explain either so just listen and pretend to understand okay? Now continuing on…

But then… as I started to invent more and more things, I started to question my actions. Why was I inventing more? I started to not feel like inventing anything anymore and started to ask why I should continue living. Until a friend of mine introduced me to… Anime…"

"Anime?"

"Gosh dang It Iledoya, let me finish my story, you were the one who asked you tell you about my world"

"Yeah your world, not you." Iledoya said while staring at Nicholas.

"..." Nicholas fell silent. "Yeah so after I got bored on all other hobbies, I wanted to just go to a parallel world of anime, so I made a parallel world transporter but as it malfunctioned, I found myself in this world with space magic. The world I lived in was world where money was everything instead of magic so it was cruel. The end" Since he already started, Nicholas decided to just finish his story in one go. "Your turn"

"I can still ask more later so... One day, I died. Met Death. Death taught me magic. Found out my attribute was of the Mutated Attribute of Absolute Death magic and Absolute Life magic. It made me Immortal, so I called it Immortal magic. After 10,000 years I came back to life. Tadah!"

"..." Nicholas didn't know what to say for a while. "I feel like I just got scammed"

Though he said that, in the end they did spend a few hours of questioning back and forth until they fell asleep.

-------------------

The next day, at the stadium for the tournament.

"Well I'm not a participant so I'm going to the spectator area. Be careful, you still might get disqualified instead of dying"

"Okay. I should be able to finish this quickly." Iledoya has already put on his mask as he headed towards the arena. The arena was big, though it was smaller than the arena Serion made. But it does have a barrier which since Iledoya had the token, he could just enter right in. Looking around, Iledoya could see thousands of people around already on the arena.

Iledoya was then startled because after he passed through the barrier, it abruptly vanished. As he almost panicked thinking he accidentally destroyed it somehow, a voice suddenly sounded loud and clear through the whole stadium.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to Ruteshia Battle Tournament! Now that all our participants has entered the arena, we could now begin with the first round!" the spectators cheered loudly in response.

Iledoya let out a sigh of relief. It turns out he just happened to be the last one to arrive.

The announcer continued "Now for the first round, I believe everyone here should be aware of the craaaaaaaazy amount participants we have this time around. I don't mean to sound like a genius or anything but I'm pretty sure it's largely due to a certain item in the prize list, the Tier 11 Healing Potion!" This time, not only the spectators but also a lot of the participants in the arena cheered loudly in response.

Which mortal wouldn't want a potion that could with full certainty, delay their arrival to doors of death? The sheer amount of participants proves just how many wants it.

"Soooooooo… the tournament organizer has decided that the first round would be… A Battle royal!" Hearing that the first round was going to be a battle royale, almost everyone was surprised as they gasped to show their surprise.

But before the participants in the arena had time to succumb to their anxiousness, the announcer said "Now without further ado, let us begin the first round, Battle Royale in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Begin!!"

Silence.

The whole stadium fell into silence. But then almost at the same time, numerous voices chanting their magic could be heard, explosions could be seen, sea of flames appearing, actual seas dropping from above, it was chaos.

Despite the chaos, Iledoya just walked around the arena. It didn't took long before he found who he was looking for. Tapping the ground with his foot, he made his favorite, giant skeletal grey hand appear in the middle of the arena.

This immediately paused all chaos that was happening. Even the announcer started to stutter "T-This. I-It ap-p-pears that a giant h-hand... has appeared."

While everyone was still shocked from the sudden appearance of the hand, it started moving. As everyone's gazes followed its movement, their shocked grew as the hand… picked up a person…

"W-What is this? PUT ME DOWN! I SAID PUT ME DOWN!!"

As everyone watched the giant hand picking up a person, the announcer suddenly said "Unbelievable! This man that the giant has just picked up it the previous Ruteshia's Battle Tournament Champion, Crudonz!"

"Crudonz?" To all the locals of Ruteshia, this is a name that they all are familiar with. Just like the announcer has said, this man was the previous champion! But due to the previous tournament being 10 years ago, now only the locals know about his power.

Crudonz continued to resist. With his weapon of choice, an axe, he even tried attacking it. "Axe of the Mountains art: Mountain Splitting Chop!" But to his horror, his attack didn't leave a scratch nor a flinch it. He could only watch with his pale face as the hand slowly but surely, placed him outside the arena, disqualifying him according to the rules.

The hand then picked up another person. To the confusion of the spectators, it was a person wearing fully grey, with his peculiar bag that has tree growing on it. But instead of being placed out of the arena like Crudonz, the person only sat there on the skeletal palm.

'Who is this?' the announcer thought. From the fact that the person was just sitting leisurely on the skeletal palm, it was obvious to all who see it to know that it was that person who made the giant skeletal hand, Iledoya.

Iledoya stood up. After clearing his throat he started speaking "Hello everyone. Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Immortal Mage"

Silence.

Even the announcer didn't say anything.

Noticing the silence, Nicholas was trying his best not to laugh

'NOOOOOOOOOO IT WASN'T COOL' Iledoya weeped in his heart. He expected that after he introduced himself, everyone would start whispering to each other or something. That would mean his introduction has made them acknowledge his powers! But since they didn't… oh well…

After calming his disappointed self, Iledoya then said "Fine then. Anyway, I am in a hurry to win so…" with a wave of his hand, thousands of grey sword appeared in the air above the arena. It was only then that the spectators realized what happened.

"Oh my gosh! Who is that? What is that hand!?"

"The swords! Look! They're the same color as the skeletal hand! How could it"

"Who is that person!?"

"Did you all not listen what he said? He said he is 'Immortal Mage'! What could it mean?"

Iledoya felt like crying. 'Slow! Too slow you all!' Iledoya just shook his head. He looked below, towards the participant in the arena. He then shouted "Block this!" Waving his hand downwards, all the swords that was floating suddenly plummet, as they each headed towards a participant.

Since the purpose of choosing Battle Royale for the first round was to thin the numbers, Iledoya decided he would help out with his own way. The plummeting sword isn't really gonna stab into the participants. With his control, Iledoya can make sure that if the participant failed to block it, then it would just transform into a net which would then drag the participant off the arena.

A few rain of swords later, the announcer finally realized what just happened. But after that rain of swords, the announcer must now stop the round.

From the initial thousands of people, finally 15 people remained. Just the amount the tournament organizer expected. Of course it was under Iledoya's control to make sure that only 15 people remained. They did so with various ways. Most of them used one of simplest method which is by making cages from their attribute. There was one however, that Iledoya would regret not seeing among those 15 people.

"And Stop! Congratulations to the remaining 16 participants, all of you will continue to the next round!"

While he was raining down the swords, Iledoya only used his magic sense to count how many were remaining. After the announcer congratulated the 16 remaining participants, he simply flew away without bothering to see the remaining 15 participants, leaving the spectators even more shocked and awed.

The reason why he flew away however, was because he was in a hurry. 'I need to get some inspiration for cool and flashy looking attacks from Nyikelaos. I Have to!'

[reviewed by ed. I think?]

[Is it okay for an extra story? Here`s one anyway I guess?]

Sometime, before Nicholas made his weapon

"What are you writing there, Nyikeloas?" At some point in time, Nicholas realized that he has somehow gotten used to the weird way his name is being pronounced. Answering to Iledoya, Nicholas said "A thought of mine, you can say."

"A thought? Why write it down?"

"Kind of a habit you can say, from when I was still back on earth and still did inventing and stuff" He said while still writing down his thoughts.

Iledoya came closer to take a peek but felt a headache seeing the foreign language that Nicholas was using. Noticing the curious Iledoya, Nicholas explained "I was just wondering if magic somehow follows the law of conservation of energy. or was it the first rule of thermodynamics?"

"Law of conservation of energy? First rule of thermodynamics?" Nicholas has taught him a decent amount of science and he is sure that he has heard it. "Oh, was the one that goes something like matter cannot be destroyed, only transform for one state to another?"

"Yeah something like that. It's been a while since I actually dabble in science instead of pure inventing."

"So you think that magic follows that law?"

"I think it does. Think about it this way, when you use magic... wait let's not use you as an example... Let's use... a water mage. When a water mage casts a spell, the mage consumes magic and in exchange, water appears. In my opinion, that means the magic experienced a change of state from energy to matter. Even back in my world, this was something that was unachievable for a long time back in the A.Ds"

"Why do you even care about this though?"

"Hehe... Because Iledoya..." Nicholas look towards Iledoya and gave him a smile. Iledoya could tell that Nicholas' smile was that of both great interest and great sinisterness.

"I was thinking that... It would be great weapon if i could make something do the reverse process"