Kyle and the others walked through the streets of Janus' Hold.
As they kept walking, the streets became fuller and fuller, and eventually, they noticed why.
There was a humongous arena in the middle of the city.
'Kinda looks like a semi-modern version of that big arena in Rome. Rome was in Italy, right?' Kyle thought as he looked at the huge building.
Its walls were almost 30 meters high, but compared to the Colosseum in Rome, this thing didn't have all of these arches.
It was basically just a gigantic cauldron made of solid steel.
Naturally, to fit into the color scheme of the city, it was colored yellow.
Starkhold also had an arena, but Starkhold's arena wasn't nearly this big.
Starkhold's arena was more like a training field with a couple of walls.
"Are these guys here for us?" Kyle asked.
"Yes," Michael answered.
By now, Michael was not as antagonistic and arrogant anymore.
Everyone had talked and planned for a couple of hours last night, and Michael had realized that Kyle and his teammates could contribute valuable information.
The entire conflict from yesterday was forgotten.
After a while, Kyle saw a huge queue in front of one of the entrances, but Michael led the team to a heavily guarded entrance without a queue.
"Identification," the guard asked, approaching them.
Michael handed several documents over, and the guard looked through them.
"You may enter," the guard said. "Locker rooms are to the left. You get the red locker room."
The team walked past the guard and entered the red locker room.
'Ew. Looks like a fucking South American prison in here!'
The locker room was cramped, and several of the wooden bars were already molding.
"Is this usual, or are we just particularly lucky?" Kyle asked.
"This is normal," Michael said without any surprise or annoyance. "This environment helps the teams focus since they can't get comfortable in here."
"Sounds more like money-grubbing to me," Kyle commented.
The other two Sorcerers were not happy about Kyle's comment, but Michael didn't say anything.
"So, what do we do now?" Falk asked, leaning on the next available wall.
"We wait," Michael answered.
Kyle just looked at Falk and shrugged.
For the next 30 minutes, everyone just aimlessly wandered around, making small talk.
Eventually, the door opened.
"Exploding Aegis, your member list, please," a guard asked.
Michael took out a filled document and handed it to the guard, who left afterward.
"As discussed?" Kyle asked.
"As discussed," Michael answered.
Kyle just nodded.
Some minutes later, the doors opened again, and this time, a Sorcerer with two guards entered.
Michael stepped forward without being asked.
"Michael Bolting, Initial Sorcerer," he said.
After that, the Sorcerer chanted two Spells successively.
"Clear," the Sorcerer spoke.
Then, the next Sorcerer stepped forward, introducing themselves and naming their class.
Eventually, it was time for Kyle to step forward.
"Kyle Freeman, Fighter, but I'm also a half-dwarf. My body readings might be a bit off," Kyle said.
"A half-dwarf?" the Sorcerer asked. "Are you willing to prove your claim?"
"You got some meat?" Kyle asked with a smirk.
"Of course," the Sorcerer answered evenly.
Next, one of the guards pulled out one of the sacks he was carrying and pulled out some raw meat.
'Huh, they actually do have meat,' Kyle thought. 'Guess dwarves are not rare in the arena. They're really prepared for everything.'
The guard handed the meat to the Sorcerer, who inspected it before handing it to Kyle.
Kyle just threw it down his gullet and swallowed.
Everyone waited for about 30 seconds.
Nothing happened.
"Proof accepted," the Sorcerer spoke.
Then, the Sorcerer chanted two Spells.
"Your readings are not outside the norm," the Sorcerer said. "Your body and mind are very normal."
"Normal?" Kyle asked. "I thought I was pretty strong."
"Normal, not average," the Sorcerer corrected. "Your readings are within expected parameters, taking into context your current standing."
Naturally, these kinds of powerful tournament teams all had amazing Aspects of Power.
So, being called normal by the Sorcerer meant that Kyle had two amazing Aspects of Power.
As for Kyle's Center and Soul…
The Sorcerer didn't check.
He was not supposed to.
He was only checking the Aspects of Power relevant to the class.
Of course, Kyle was going to participate in the fight.
As for the last member…
It was Tracy.
Naturally, she also passed the check, and the Sorcerer left with his guards.
Then, it was time to wait again.
Five minutes later, another guard entered to deliver two pieces of paper.
On the first piece of paper were the roles of the enemy team.
"Oh, wow," Kyle commented, looking at the piece of paper while Michael was frowning at it. "That kinda confirms that they were the ones who planned all of this."
"We already knew that," Michael commented.
"So, you got a plan?" Kyle asked.
"As discussed," Michael answered.
Kyle looked at the piece of paper again.
One Shouter, four Assassins.
Funnily enough, this was almost identical to Kyle's team.
Of course, joining a tournament with such a team was idiotic.
This combination could easily dismantled by just using a bunch of Shouters, Juggernauts, or Snipers.
However, this kind of team just so happened to perfectly counter a team with three Sorcerers, which counted as Armor Breakers.
Naturally, Exploding Aegis knew how to deal with this kind of enemy. Otherwise, they wouldn't have reached such a high ranking.
Sadly, without their other two members, these tactics wouldn't work.
With the addition of Kyle and Tracy, Exploding Aegis had a Juggernaut, an Assassin, and three Sorcerers.
Kyle couldn't put in more than one role, and since he still didn't have enough money to build his next set of armor, he acted more like a Juggernaut than a Shouter.
It was important to be as honest as possible when talking about the roles.
If any attempt at deceit was seen, the team might get disqualified.
Kyle saw himself as a Shouter, but he knew that others wouldn't view him as one, most likely.
After looking at the enemy team, Kyle looked at the second piece of paper.
"This is about how we are going to fight, right?" Kyle asked.
Michael nodded.
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