Grand Opening

Isaac found a book a tried to read a little, but he found himself getting restless. He knew he wouldn't be able to relax and read in the state of mind he was in, so he left the library.

He walked almost aimlessly through the streets, until he arrived in another empty alleyway. He looked around. There was nobody. Isaac made a spontaneous decision to continue training, even though the tournament was tomorrow. He just needed to work up a slight sweat, get his blood pumping and try to control the reckless determination burning within him.

Isaac created a sword and began to swing it. Though he only wanted to do a light practice, his movements quickly began more fluid and violent. Soon he was performing a deadly sword dance of his own creation, sweating from every pore with a smile on his face.

Eventually Isaac lowered his sword. He deactivated the Spirit Sword Anima and stood there panting. Then, just as spontaneously as he decided to practice, he chose to leave. Still heaving in deep breaths, he turned and walked out of the alley.

He returned home.

When he got back he made dinner – he hadn't eaten lunch so he prepared quite a large meal – and ate it. Then he washed up, meditated for a bit, and went to bed.

*************************

Soon, the Sun rose on a new day (metaphorically, of course – the Sun wouldn't actually rise for another hour or two).

Isaac woke up groggily, but he forced himself not to laze around and to get out of bed quickly. He splashed his face with water to properly wake himself, then he went to get ready.

A short while later, Isaac was walking down the street. He was heading towards the wall between the Rank 1 and Rank 2 districts, but this time he wasn't going back to his hole under the wall. He strolled up to a gate. This gate was usually locked shut and guarded, but now the guard in charge was holding it open. Isaac joined the stream of teenage disciples flooding through the gate and continued to walk onwards.

He seemed to meld into the flowing river of bodies as they all kept walking in the same direction. They bumbled their way towards the Rank 3 district, where 2 guards in pristine silver armour held another set of gates open.

Isaac and all the other newcomers set foot in the rank 3 district. For most of them, this would be their first – and perhaps only – time entering this district. Of course, that wasn't the case for Isaac, so he wasn't awestruck like some of the others, but he still appreciated the district's splendour. It was nothing short of impressive that the sect could create such opulence in Northern Tundra of all places, a barren, frostbitten land with the least resources out of all 4 continents.

However, Isaac did not desire wealth or grandeur. While he could appreciate the feat of creating these magnificent buildings, he did not feel the same sense of awe or yearning to live there that the others might have. While some people stood in place and observed their surroundings, Isaac continued to walk.

Of course, some people felt the same as Isaac. He found himself walking with these like-minded fellows in a smaller group than before. They walked onwards and, eventually, a hulking shape appeared at the end of the street they were on.

It was a building, but a building unlike any other they'd seen. Instead of being made of marble, granite, pale stardust stone, or any of the light-coloured stones which made up the buildings on either side, this was made from brown rust-shaded material. It was hard to tell what the material was, but it stood out against its surroundings.

There were two other things about the building which caught the eye: its size and style. Isaac recognised it as a colossal version of the colosseums that were popular in Eastern Mountains, but there was a Tundran twist to the architectural style. The building was more angular than a typical colosseum; its pillars were rectangular rather than cylindrical and it had pointed doorways instead of elegant arches.

Several rings ran around the outside of the building, and each had the large words, 'LIFE *** DEATH' engraved all around them. As Isaac's gaze swept over the building, it lingered on the top ring. This was the highest point of the building, and a layer of snow should've built up upon it. However, it hadn't. In fact, when he looked closer, Isaac could see steam rising from the ring. It appeared that the snow which landed on it was being evaporated.

Perhaps it was the effect of an Anima, or perhaps it was due to a property of the material itself. Isaac was eager to find out, so he continued walking towards the grand colosseum.

It looked even bigger up close. Isaac got the chance to fully appreciate its enormity as he joined the queue to enter.

The queue moved forwards at a fast pace as each person was handed a slip with a number on it and then ushered inside.

Soon it was Isaac's turn. The woman at the entrance handed him a piece of paper saying '0798' without even looking at him. Isaac took the paper and quickly entered. He walked through a short, narrow tunnel, then emerged within the colosseum. In front of him was an expansive stage, raised to about chest-height and filling the entire inside of the arena. Around the stage were stands, stretching up so high they nearly touched the heavens. Most of the stands were empty, but Isaac could see some ant-like figures taking their seats.

He followed the others ahead of him as he walked over to a small section of the stands nearby. It was an area next to the stage which had been cordoned off so participants could use it. Isaac found a set of stairs and walked up a bit until he saw the row '0600 - 0799'. He sat down right on the end of the row in the chair marked '0798'.

As he sat down, he felt that the seat was pleasantly warm. He felt the ground and the other areas around him and realised that they were all heated as well. This strange orange material – which was neither stone nor metal – seemed to be emitting warmth, and that had caused the snow to melt as Isaac had seen earlier.

Now that his curiosity had been satisfied, Isaac looked back at the entrance he'd come through. It was a special side door, not one of the main entrances, and disciples continued to stream through it. The seats around him began to fill up. The rest of the arena was also slowly filling. Isaac could see people entering through the countless entrances dotted around the stands and finding seats of their own.

Soon, the seats around Isaac were almost completely occupied. A twig-like man with deep-set eyes had come to sit on Isaac's left, while a man with a completely average build and appearance but a flashy black-and-white coat was on his right at the end of the row.

Suddenly, Isaac noticed somebody walking up to the arena. It was a person dressed in a majestic white coat with red trimmings around the edges. She had a silver moon badge pinned to her lapel and Isaac immediately recognised that she was an elder.

Out of the tens of thousands of people in the sect, only 50 or so had reached Rank 4. Of those, around half had been granted the title of elder. That meant the woman before Isaac was one of the 30 most powerful people in the sect, and the entire arena quietened down when they saw her walk out onto the stage.

"Welcome to all of our participants," the woman gave a sweeping gesture towards Isaac's part of the stands, "and to all of our viewers." She cast her gaze across the rest of the stands, which were about 10% full by now.

"Today is the opening of our biannual newcomer's tournament, and I, along with everybody else, eagerly await who will come out on top."

Her voice was not loud, but everybody could hear her clearly. It was evidently the effect of some Anima.

"Unfortunately, we will not see a winner today. Nor will we see one tomorrow. The newcomer's tournament is a long journey, and any prospective winner will need patient persistence as well as strength to triumph. I wish all of you good luck; may you put on a as good a show this year as your predecessors have done in years passed."

The audience burst out into applause. While the stadium was only 10% full, the sheer enormity of the colosseum meant that 10% was still some 6 or 7 thousand people. When the applause died down, the elder had already left the stage. Isaac watched as she floated upwards towards the highest level of the colosseum, then disappeared into one of the private boxes situated there.

Meanwhile, a sect official had taken the stage in place of her. He had a large container with him. He dipped a hand inside, then withdrew it; there were 5 bits of paper in his grasp. He unfurled them, then shouted,

"Can contestants 1912, 1743, 0449, 2481 and 1106 please enter ring 1."

Isaac watched as a handful of people stood up and walked down towards the stage.

As they were walking, the official called another set of 6 names. More people got up.

He called another set of people, then another. It wasn't long before he was announcing,

"Can contestants 0063, 2101, 0984, 1209 and 0477 please enter ring 10. On my mark, your fights will begin. Out of the 6 of you in each ring, only the last one standing will progress to the next part of the tournament."

Isaac looked down at the stage. It was split into 10 separate circular rings, each of which had 5 disciples standing nervously inside. Tense silence descended for a moment, but it was quickly broken by the simultaneous cries of 10 referees,

"Begin!"