( Luke's POV )
After Leo came to Luke in a frenzy, Luke confronted Cervantez about his brother's findings in the game the next day over private chat.
While Cervantez did not remember what happened to Earth, as after leaving the planet in his past life, he had never really bothered to check what happened to it, but he told Luke that if an operator had given Leo the information, then it was bound to be right as he advised Luke to act at the earliest and bail their mother out of the dying planet while they still had a chance to do so.
While Luke did not get any official system quest explaining how much reward he would get should he win the upcoming Grand Tournament, Luke knew that if he got the win and became the lord of a territory, he could certainly leverage it with the right people to gather more MP, as in his mind he had decided that once the grand tournament ended, he would contact their mother and try bail her out of Earth.
He was also thankful that Leo brought this to his attention before the cataclysm ended Earth, as Luke himself was not planning on visiting the MP exchange store any time soon.
" Since Leo visited the MP exchange store, he must be in the capital right? We should definitely meet up-" Luke wondered, as he made a mental note to meet Leo within Terra Nova Online and visit the MP exchange store together later, to make a video call to their mother back home, if it was possible.
He also wanted to meet Leo as it is, as he had never met his brother inside the game, nor did he have any idea what his gaming ID was.
" Is he here for the grand tournament as well?" Luke wondered, as Leo's arrival to the capital, oddly coincided with the open round preliminaries, as Luke could not help but think he might be here because of it.
"Well, whatever it is, I must hold a comfortable talk with him later-" he murmured to himself, as he threw this thought to the back of his head and headed out alongside Jerome to observe the preliminary rounds of the open qualifiers.
*****************
( Leo's POV )
On the qualifier day, Leo, accompanied by Ben, made his way to their assigned martial arena, using the map that the registration official had given him.
Martial arenas, each about half the size of a football field, had sprung up across the city and its outskirts to accommodate the competition's open round.
These arenas evenly distributed the participants, with each hosting qualifiers for around 750 contenders and drawing spectating crowds of thousands more.
The qualification's first challenge was an over the top battle royale, where without the use of any weapons or harmful techniques, 250 competitors would enter the arena and attempt to push out one another outside the martial stage.
There were no points for eliminating a candidate, however, there were points for survival as the goal was simple! One only needed to push opponents out of bounds, with only the last 10 individuals standing advancing to the next round.
Each martial arena was set to conduct three rounds of this challenge, each round featuring 250 participants and ending with 10 advancing further.
Leo, whose martial arena was within the city, near an accessible market, was set to compete in the day's first round, as he walked on to the stage and found himself surrounded by all sorts of different competitors.
NPC humans, NPC non-human characters like elves, orcs, Beastmen. Players of all classes. It was a mixed pool of every kind of competitor. Yet Leo felt no fear as he looked into the eyes of his competition.
He was wearing his full assassin gear today, adorning Ben's old robes and the black painted spider clan's mask, but was not carrying any smoke bombs or daggers around his waist, since the use of external items was illegal in this round.
With his display information set to mislead his opposition, Leo played the role of a tiger hiding in pig skin, as he desperately hoped that his opponents underestimated him.
Ben's only advice for him in this round was for him to not display more abilities than he needed to as according to Ben, even if Leo only used his wits and agility, he could easily win this round without breaking a sweat and that was exactly what Leo hoped to do.
While there was no proper viewing stands constructed around the martial arena for the preliminaries, there were still a few thousand commoners gathered, who watched the contest from behind a safety rope as they hoped for an entertaining contest.
The favorites to advance to the next round seemed to be a sumo-sized human who had the mass of five Leo's combined and a super tall orc, who seemed to be pulsating with insane muscle strength.
Even before the round began, those two intimidated everyone, as people subconsciously moved away from those two opponents, maintaining maximum distance with them.
As for Leo, he had a minimal presence of the stage, as he casually stood with his hands behind his neck, as he knew that while 'TheBoss' needed to make a big wave in this tournament, the time for it was not ripe yet.
Just as Ben said, showing off his skills in preliminary rounds with a crowd of 2000 commoners was going to do him no good whatsoever, hence Leo kept his cool and did not mind when some people with nefarious intentions surrounded him, as with a single glance, Leo realized that those four players had teamed up to survive the first round and had singled out Leo as a target.
Smiling under his mask, Leo awaited the officials to declare the start of the first round, as the tournament officials made the final preparations like checking the headcount, ensuring that all participants were at least 2 meters away from the edge of the arena and that nobody had brought any weapon onto the stage.
Once they were satisfied and all referees were in position to check if one had fallen off or not, the head tournament official announced the start of the first round, as immediately the coalition of four players went after Leo, trying to eliminate him first.