think
After finishing his meal, Liam first paid a visit to the alchemy association and booked a high-end production room which cost him an arm and a leg.
He was rather short on time, so investments like these were an absolute must.
Also, with an increased success rate and high-tier equipment, he could make so much more of the product and earn back this initial excess expenditure.
Liam spent the next few hours inside this high-end room, leisurely concocting the Fire-Resistance potion in bulk.
He also made another batch of health potions, and mana potions as he was using these like there was no tomorrow.
Using potions like these left a mark on the body and the impurities would slowly accumulate and corrode the body from inside out.
Others were oblivious to this fact, so they carelessly kept over-using these items, considering there was no cooldown option.
However, Liam also did the same even when he knew the side effects because when he ultimately purifies his body again, all of these could be removed.
Only after that, he would need to be more careful and couldn't gulp these down like water.
This was also why he hadn't bothered to progress in the quest he had obtained at the very beginning.
The reward for that quest was either a recipe or a vial with an invaluable treasure that could perfectly rebuild his body. This would also increase his strength and foundation tremendously.
However, that came at a price. Once something was extremely clean, it was very easy to dirty it. So there would be a lot of limitations on what he could put into his body after that treatment.
With this in mind, he decided to put it off for now.
When he reached Level 50, it would be an entirely different ball game with several things in the mix. For instance, players would be able to form mana core.
Just like recipes and skill scrolls, the methods of forming mana cores would also drop from elites and dungeon bosses.
So at that time, it would be best to take care of this foundation cleansing and start fresh so that he could form the best mana core possible.
Liam roughly thought about these numerous objectives in his mind as he mechanically concocted the potion that he was familiar with.
His mana control had also increased tremendously since last time so doing this was a breeze for him and might as well be a form of relaxation after hours and hours of continuous combat.
As he whistled contently and poured the sparkly orange liquid in one glass bottle after another, he couldn't help but look at the other person present in the room along with him.
Liam smiled helplessly and comforted the poor thing who had been sulking for quite a while now.
"I know you want to start immediately, but you need to wait and be more patient. We should find out more details about that gemstone first, Luna."
Kyuuuu. The fox whined in place, without looking up.
"It's yours. I promise. Just wait a while."
Kyuuuu.
Liam smiled with a soft sigh and continued doing his work. Unlike her, he had many responsibilities so he had to think through each and every small detail.
He first needed to get that gemstone inspected. It seemed to be part of a unique quest, at least from the little information that he had managed to gather from Gu Zui.
So there could be many things associated with it. He might even find a clue to another special quest.Though he had a lot of knowledge about the nice things in the game, his knowledge was far from being exhaustive. It was always best to approach new things with caution.
And the fact that the ape managed to form a partial mana core with this gemstone was also a huge hint.
Even after this, if he ignored the gemstone, he could only be called an idiot.
Moreover, items such as that were also typically gold sinks, so grinding for more money came first. How could he possibly explain these things to the little fox?
So he gave up and decided to coax her later with some good food.
Liam spent a few more hours in the high-end alchemy room before finally finishing everything that he had on his to-do list.
His inventory space was already filled to the brim so he had to take the last few items in an actual bag.
Lugging everything along with him and also taking the sulking fox under his arms, he then made his way to the auction house.
Combined with his clothes and the way he was hauling a huge ass bag around, he stood out like a sore thumb.
Among the players who were covered with sparkly equipment and dazzling ornaments, studded with gemstones, he looked like a beggar who couldn't even afford inventory space purchases.
Several people gave him disdainful looks as he neared the posh huge building.
It was one of the most crowded areas in the city so people did not appreciate players who came that way just to take a look.
And from the way he acted, everyone could tell with one glance that he belonged to that category. Moreover, he had his face covered. Who was he trying to fool?
They sneered at him in contempt and then went back to minding their own business.
After all, they could only look down upon the poor and the naive, they couldn't really ban these idiots from mingling in the game.
Liam as well was too busy to notice anyone around him. He leisurely sat down at an empty spot.
It was fine to even sit right next to someone else. They won't be able to see another player's interface and the transactions would remain a secret, only visible to self.
"Ok. Let's start then." Liam first took out 5 Fire-Resistance potions from his inventory space and put them up for auction.
This one single act instantly created a stir amidst the gathered crowd as if suddenly someone had dropped a few hundred dollar notes on a crowded dance floor.
Everyone started contacting their guild and messaging the higher-ups, trying to gather as much funds as possible.
"This person is such a villain! He has once again put the fucking potions on a 2 hours bid without a buyout option! Just how greedy can he be!"
"Fucking bitch. He can only enjoy this spotlight as long as this stupid dungeon is relevant. Let's see what he is doing after that!"
"Ya. you are right. What an idiot! He has a golden goose but he doesn't know how to use it properly."
"If it was me, I would have used this chance to make friendly relations with a lot of top guilds, instead of antagonizing everyone like this."
The entire area fell into an uproar and several people started complaining and cursing loudly at the mysterious anonymous person.
Even the player sitting next to Liam let out a long sigh.
"You should be grateful that you don't have any money and suck at this game. Top players like us are suffering right now." He lamented out loud.
But from the corner of his eyes, he could see that the noob dressed in scraps was not paying attention to his words at all.
"You know… I am in a good mood today. What item do you want? I can help you buy it!"
He smiled while sneering inwardly, anticipating how the noob's attitude was going to take a 180 now. Not paying attention to me, now we will see!
However, a couple of seconds passed and his neighbor was still unresponsive.
"Fuck. Even this little bitch is ignoring me. Just what I needed today. Why am I even talking to idiots." The player angrily grumbled and he also went back to his work.
Meanwhile, Liam's hands were very busy. They were moving non-stop plotting his next step.
After putting up the potions for sale in the auction house, he sent a message to Abraki. "Is any of you guild members near Yleka city auction house?"
Almost instantly, he received a reply. "I will be right there!"
"Alright. Open a trade window when you are here."
"Thank you." Abraki curtly replied.
For two players to trade their goods, they only needed to be in the vicinity. It was not required for them to be face to face.
This added a level of protection against any sneak attacks, especially in a crowded place like this.
"Whatever he does, he does it perfectly without any loopholes." Abraki sighed. Dealing with Liam was a pain in his ass. In this aspect, the informant hadn't been wrong.
Every single interaction he had with him made him feel like he was being played around by a cunning mastermind.
However, unfortunately, he still had to continue dealing with him. In the case of people like this, it was better to be friends than enemies.
Not that he expected any help from. He would probably never get something like that out of him. But it was still good to be not on the bad side.
Abraki soon arrived and opened his trade window, simultaneously contacting Liam.
Promptly, a stack of 20 Fire-Resistance potions appeared in his window without any other reply from him.
"20 potions?" Abraki's eyes went wide. "Damn it. This confirms it."
"This guy can concoct the Fire-Resistance potion. He would not have been able to obtain these many potions otherwise." He lamented to his guild member.
"How much is he charging you?" His friend asked.
And suddenly Abraki realized something…
"He did not mention a price." He smiled bitterly. This meant that he had to suggest a price and the other party will either accept it or reject it.
If he suggested something too high, then he will lose out. If he suggested something too low, then this bridge he was trying to create was as good as burnt.
Moreover, there was another set of potions being auctioned right now.
Why would he sell these to him, instead of auctioning everything for the same high price?
Abraki's head hurt. He had a feeling that he was once again being played with.. This person was very troublesome.
Seeing the constipated look on Abraki's face, his friend quickly interjected.
"Guild leader, don't think too much. I remember the price the potions got sold last time, about 100 gold coins. Let's just use the same amount."
"If we run the dungeon and get the first clear, the price should be worth it. 20 potions is a lot. With this, we can do several trials and finish it for sure."
Abraki froze. "This is a good idea. Ahem. Thank you." He was very nervous and he had ended up unnecessarily overthinking things.
He immediately entered the price and much to his surprise and relief, Liam also quickly accepted it. The next second, he received the stack of 20 fire-resistance potions in his inventory.
"Got it!" Abraki excitedly exclaimed.
Just as he was about to ask Liam if he had more potions for sale or any other special items, another message popped up.
"That's all I have for now."
"Oh?" Abraki couldn't help but feel disappointed. However, almost immediately another message popped up.
"But for every member of the guild Divine Retribution taken down from the leaderboard, I will give you the chance of buying 20 more potions."
"Of course, I also have other useful potions that are not available anywhere else right now."
Abraki almost couldn't believe his eyes.
This deal… was too good!
This meant that as long as he needed potions, all he had to do was find one of the top players in the Divine Retribution guild and kill them once.
This might be too much to handle for the smaller guilds for a guild like Assassin's guild, this was nothing.
They were all still assassins in their core and this was what they did anyway.
"Thank you. I will contact you again." Abraki sent his reply quickly.
"What happened, guild leader?" His friend asked and Abraki smiled. "Someone else's misery is going to become our luck. He He."
Abraki truly felt sorry for the guild. If Liam was going to offer this chance only for their guild, then it was a different story but he had a feeling that it was not going to be so simple.
"That guy is probably going to make this offer to a whole bunch of guilds, reversing everything. Heh. I really wouldn't want to be that guild leader right now." He muttered, chuckling to himself.
"Huh? What is going on?" The other person was confused to see the guild leader talking to himself and laughing about something.
"Nothing. Nothing. Forget about other things and quickly, find out the whereabouts of all top players of the Divine Retribution guild."
A quick look at 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝑒𝘭．𝑛𝘦𝘵 will leave you more fulfilled.
"Divine retribution guild?"
"Yep, divine retribution guild. They are going to be our new rare elites. Ha Ha." The two of them then hurriedly left the city on Abraki's insistence.
He did not want to be left behind in the dust by the numerous other guilds that were all soon going to be hunting down the damned guild's members.
At the other end, Liam casually closed the message interface.
He stretched his hands lazily, feeling bored from all the tedious business transactions.
"I guess this is better than farming for stuff personally." He hummed and then pulled up the auction house interface again.
He hadn't yet collected the money from the previous time when he sold another batch of fire-resistance potions. So that was sitting there in the deposit and waiting for him.
Liam quickly accepted it.
Right now when everyone else around him was scrambling to make gold and get ahead in the game, he was probably the only one who did not even bother to collect the sales from the auction house.
He also had a huge chunk of wealth in his hands that could fetch him a few hundred thousand dollars. However, he had no intention of exchanging this gold.
Be it gold coins or money, they were both going to be worthless really soon. There was no point in accumulating either.
Instead, he once again speedily went through the different items for sale in the auction house and he bought out all the herbs and other raw materials that he could lay his hands on.
Unlike other games where certain raw materials from the beginner areas would become obsolete and cheap, the materials here were valuable even at the later stages of the game.
This was because every single precious her or ore had an abysmal spawn rate and irrespective of the level of the player, they had to deal with this spawn rate.
Sitting for hours together just to pluck a few stalks of herbs?
Liam did not want to do that. So he hoarded all the raw materials like there was no tomorrow.
He spent quite a bit of time on this as he was recently flush with cash and finally stood up with a low grunt after an entire hour.
He once again stretched his hands and legs, still lugging the huge bag along with him as he started walking away.
The person sitting next to him gave him the stink eye, frowning at his disappearing figure. "Useless trash. I can't believe idiots like him waste time like this. Well whatever, not my problem."
Liam smiled as he could faintly hear that guy's words, but he continued walking away. He had too many things that he needed to go. He did not have time to entertain random people.
He directly went to an old square building next to the auction house, which kind of looked austere and empty as opposed to the crowd in the auction house.
This was the warehouse of Yleka city. Not many people used this facility as the inventory space itself was quite huge and if not there was always the guild vault.
This warehouse was mostly meant for the use of individual players. However, currently, there was no individual player who had a need for this.
Raw materials were selling like hotcakes, thanks to Liam. So everyone was selling everything on hand if they were not using it.
And Liam who was the person buying everything was the first real customer of the warehouse.
Everyone who had come here before him had just bought a spatial storeroom to quench their curiosity.
Players were doing everything that they can to trigger secret quests and special quests so there were quite a few who rented space here and made conversation with the accountant with the hopes of getting something in return.
But Liam already knew that there was no such thing. So he did not bother doing any of that and directly purchased a slot. It cost 1000 gold and it was a one-time purchase.
So he paid the amount and dumped all of his items inside the gigantic inventory interface. The plus point was that this was huge with the capacity to hold millions of items.
The drawback was that he could only access it within the Yleka city. So he kept all the consumables on hand and dumped all the excess raw materials and gear.
He did not auction off the gear just yet and wanted to wait a bit more. The time wasn't ideal just yet.
In a few days, the main nether realm event will start and that was the most fortuitous time to place all these items for sale.
He took a few minutes, transferred everything, and when he walked out, for some reason he felt light and free.
In his last life, he could only look at this warehouse and comment about how it was a waste of gold. But in this life, he was actually using it!
Liam smiled and walked out.
And as for his next destination…
He stared at the giant tower at the heart of the city, the PVP tower. This was also one of the major changes post the update.
If he completely ignored this and just focussed on the nether realm event, he had a feeling that he might be making a mistake.
So as long as he was here in the city, he decided to take a look first.
Just as he was about to head in, suddenly he got a new message from someone on his friend list. So he paused and opened the message to see that it was actually from Derek!
Liam looked shocked for a moment but after reading the contents of the message, his lips revealed a big fat shit-eating grin.
Sir, I have left the guild."
Derek's message was short and simple.
He hadn't contacted him for this long and now all of a sudden he replied? What could have possibly changed?
Liam silently pondered for a bit and then a thought entered his mind. He had just now contacted several guilds to make his trade arrangements.
But he hadn't contacted two for obvious reasons.
One was his old friends' guild, Divine Retribution and the other was Derek's guild.
He wondered if this for some reason affected the flow of things and ended up being in his favor.
Knowing how his guildmates treated him, they most probably would have blamed him for everything and once again harassed him.
But this was the usual occurrence? What could have been the breaking point?
Maybe there was some huge altercation resulting in Derek getting kicked out or him leaving voluntarily?
"Well, whatever."
In reality, Liam couldn't care less about what exactly happened. The most important thing was that he now had this person beside him as one of his strengths.
Except for his sister, he probably would never trust another person in this world but if there was an exception it would be this guy.
"Your timing is good. Where are you right now? Can you get over to Yleka city?"
Liam knew that he was probably desperate at the moment. So even though he didn't say any details or explain anything, Liam also did not dig into the dirt.
He just sent the short message to which he instantly received the reply.
Coincidentally, Derek as well, was in the city right now, so he promptly replied back. "I am here, sir. Where should I meet you?"
"Oh, you are here. That's perfect then. Come to the entrance of the PVP tower."
Shortly, in just a few seconds, a tall and muscular guy jogged towards the PVP tower entrance. Even without all the gear his figure was fearsome and very obviously suited to be a tank.
Waving his hand at this incoming person, Liam grinned ear to ear. He did nothing to hide his happiness.
We are 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑐𝑜𝘮, find us on google.
"Hello. Welcome to the dark side?" Liam chuckled.
Derek also squeezed out a smile though clearly he was currently very down and bothered about something.
Noticing this, Liam neither asked for any explanations nor bothered to comfort him with empty words.
He directly hit the nail on the head. "How urgently do you need the money? Is it okay if it takes a couple of hours or do you need it right now? ASAP?"
Huh? Derek stood frozen.
For the nth time, he was shocked by the person in front of him. Until now in his life, he had begged for money several times from different people.
Their family was below the poverty line and yet they carried a burden of complicated illnesses that even middle-class families would struggle to deal with.
Both his mother and his brother were right now suffering from this cruel fate. Their disease was not fatal and something incurable.
At least if it was like that, then everything wouldn't be this bad. They could have accepted their fate and made peace with things.
But the thing was their disease was completely curable. They just needed money and lots of it. However, in their family's condition, this was no less than a death sentence.
Their father was a useless asshole who took off a while back when things went to shit. Their relatives had all turned their backs to them in fear that they would ask for help.
In the end, everything fell on his shoulders and his elder sister's shoulders.
How could two people who didn't even have the opportunity to go to college bear such a big burden?
Derek could only find odd construction jobs to make whatever money he could and his sister worked in a maid service.
In this situation, one of the other guys from the construction business had introduced Derek to this new game.
One of his former friends was also in-game and when they randomly met each other on the street, he had told Derek about his guild that paid a hefty salary, almost equal to a blue-collar job.
Hearing this, Derek immediately bought a cheap helmet and tried his luck to earn money in the game.
Without any education or backing, he knew that this was the best chance he was going to get to earn decent money and he readily jumped on the opportunity.
However, everything after that did not go so smoothly. He was humiliated, demeaned, and treated like a slave day in and day out.
He did not know why or what exactly happened, but somehow their team's star player had it out for him and he belittled him every chance he got.
Derek bore all of those insults, but this they went too far. They did not give him his salary blaming him for whatever happened in the recent past.
And when he told them about the business deal, Liam offered, they laughed in his face saying that he was trying to rob them and steal from them.
And finally today, the person had gone too far.
His exact words were…
"Dude, is your sister also big like you? I have a fetish for big girls. You should bring her in-game and we can pay you double of what we are paying right now."
This was the last straw that broke his patience and Derek instantly quit the guild without turning back.
After that, he contacted Liam and came over to him directly.
Previously, Liam had mentioned to him many big things, had spoken big words, and had made big promises. Derek did not know how much of that was true.
There was no free lunch in this world. He was not that naive teenager anymore. He knew how people were. They might speak flowery words but the cold truth was always fucking ugly.
From the beginning, he did not have any expectations from Liam.
However, he also couldn't shake off the feeling that he had gotten from their last conversation. So he had come here despite his better judgment.
But… this person did not even ask him for anything.
They did not speak of any terms or discuss how much he had to work or what work he had to do. He didn't even ask him the reason for taking this long to respond to him.
He just directly offered him help…
Derek was truly dumbstruck. This person was either naive or …
"Sir." Derek gulped.
Since the other party was offering him a hand, he did not intend to refuse it. He already decided to walk in this path, so he also went all in.
"Sir, even a few days is good. But it is for my family's emergency so the sooner we-"
"Got it," Liam interjected. He then paused as if he was thinking about something and then once again asked Derek.
"By the way, did you tell your ex-guild mates about me? I mean the fact that you are planning to leave them in order to join me?"
"No, sir. Absolutely not. I would never do that." Derek resolutely replied.
Liam flashed a smile, patting the big guy.
Since he replied so quickly, anyone else might doubt him but Liam knew that he was saying the truth.
Unfortunately, this was not a world for the good and that is why he was in his current state.
"Ok. That's good then." Liam responded. "If everything goes well, you can earn more than enough by the end of the day."
"And as a special welcome gift, I will also make sure that most of this money comes from your beloved ex-guildmates."
"Sir?" Derek's eyes widened.
"What? Stop looking so surprised every time. You should have more confidence in yourself. Come let's go and get this started. You can earn the money you want on your own.. You will see."
Chapter 197 - PVP Tower
Without wasting any time, Liam dragged Derek into the tall sky-high tower. "Do you know what this is?"
"No, sir. I didn't have the time to check it yet."
"Ha." Liam chuckled. "You can just call me Liam. No need to be so formal. And this is the PVP tower. Instead of me explaining everything to you, why don't we just dive in?"
"You can then find out for yourself just what sort of a place this is."
"Ok, si- Liam." Derek nodded. As opposed to his body's build and broad structure, the guy looked like he was a very reserved and silent type.
Liam almost couldn't believe that this was the same person who would one day become a dragon-like war god.
As he thought about this, another small doubt sprouted in him.
He had changed the timeline and influenced something major, so would this person still develop as much as his previous self?
Or this time, he wouldn't become that exceptional warrior and instead just remain an ordinary soldier?
There were clear consequences for every one of his actions, so he wouldn't be surprised if this time also things changed completely because of his intervention.
"Well, I guess he would still be a soldier who is loyal to me. So it doesn't matter." Liam muttered in silent contemplation.
He did his part to bring him to his side. The rest was not in his hands, so he let it be for now.
However, despite his words, he couldn't help but hope for the best. He wanted that strong and powerful awe-inspiring General on his side.
It would be a shame if that person never existed.
Liam sighed silently and as he was musing about this, Derek took a look around the place.
The entrance of the tower opened up to a huge hall without any other rooms or corridors.
In the center of this huge hall, there was a big fighting ring, an arena, and surrounding this arena were numerous seats enough to house hundreds of people.
It was almost like an indoor stadium except that there were several of these stadiums one above the other in the structure of a tower!
And in total, there were 1000 floors to this tower!
Derek gulped, looking nervously at the lift near the entrance. It really had a thousand buttons, the entire wall adorned by these buttons, dazzling brightly like multi-colored gems.
It was disorienting to look at it, probably because of the magnitude of the building rather than the flashing lights.
This was probably the gateway to going up and down these floors, but it looked like not everyone could access the lift?
When Derek tried pressing one of the buttons, nothing happened.
Seeing this, Liam pointed to the referee who was sitting at the corner of the arena.
"No. You need to first participate in a match to determine if you are worthy or not of going to the upper floors."
"Go and register yourself with him."
Derek nodded, clenching his fist. This was his first test. He wanted to do his best to show Liam that he was worth his salt.
He did not want to disappoint the first person who had shown kindness to him.
As the two of them walked in, one seemingly relaxed and casual and the other anxious and nervous as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, several people turned to look at them.
There were already many players gathered around, sitting on the seats surrounding the arena.
"New blood!" Someone from the crowd shouted.
Fuck! Finally, my chance has arrived!" Someone else shouted.
"You are joking, right? Look at that guy's size. He will crush you in a single hit." A third person snickered.
"Hey! I was not talking about him. Look at the second person. He looks like a noob. Doesn't even have a single piece of gear on him."
"I think that guy probably paid this guy to carry him. If we play against him, it will be an easy win. He He."
"Oh, you are right. I am going to go sign up now before I miss this chance."
"Fuck! It was my idea. I will sign up first."
A small commotion arose in the arena as different players hurried over to the referee.
Liam still had his face covered so no one commented much about him. Derek on the other hand quickly became a topic of discussion.
While they all wanted to fight with the former, no one wanted to fight with Derek. He was a big intimidating guy but he wasn't overweight and flabby.
He was muscular with a tight figure. So even at a mere glance, no one dared to underestimate him.
They openly eyed Liam like he was the harmless cat sitting on the tiger. They hurried and queued up, hoping to fight with him instead of the bulldozer next to him.
And seeing all these theatrics, the harmless cat shook his head helplessly.
"Tsk. Tsk. What a hassle! The ground floor is always messy. Don't worry, once we go to the upper floors, it will be much more peaceful." Liam grumbled, to which Derek nodded silently.
The two of them also joined the long queue and eventually signed up with the referee.
"Liam, is there any place where I can… maybe practice?" Derek asked nervously. There were so many people gathered in the arena and he did not have any confidence.
He hoped that he could maybe train somewhere for a little bit since there were several players queued up to fight.
It would definitely take a while for his chance to arrive so he wanted to calm down in the meantime.
But, Liam did not respond to him and only gave him a mysterious smile.
"Huh?"
Before Derek could make sense of this weird smile, the next second, the referee stood up and called out his number loudly.
As opposed to what he was thinking, it looked like they didn't have to wait for long at all.
It was his turn already!
Seeing the big guy sweat nervously, Liam patted him and pushed him forward. "This floor is just a gateway. As long as we win one fight here, we can go up. So no need to be so nervous."
What he didn't tell Derek was that the fights were not called on a first come first serve basis.
Rather, the highest level player was called out first and since they had registered together as a group, Derek being weaker among the two had the first chance to fight.
In other words, apart from Liam, he was the strongest player right now on this floor.
Of course, if Liam had mentioned this, the poor guy might have had more confidence when stepping into the ring, but he did not plan to make his life easy.
Since Liam had effectively altered the fate and relieved a lot of stress from this person's life, it unfortunately now fell upon his shoulders to sharpen this blade.
He didn't know yet just how much effort he had to put in, but he hoped that it wouldn't be too much. He also personally witnessed his fighting style so he wasn't worried too much.
Pressure might shape a person. However, in the end, whatever was inside was only going to come out. If nothing was inside then nothing would have come out.
So awaiting the future General's performance, Liam rubbed his hands in excitement and sat down in one of the seats to watch the show.
Meanwhile, Derek slowly walked over to the fighting ring at the center. He raised his hand and notified the referee that he was here.
The referee checked his details quickly by inspecting him and then he in turn responded by asking Derek to get in.
On the other side, another player also got in. When compared to Derek, this guy was actually a hundred times more nervous.
Every single player on the floor wanted to fight with Liam, so he could only curse his bad luck for drawing the short straw.
Just as he was thinking about giving up, the referee stood up and shouted a few instructions loudly.
"Rules of the PVP arena:"
"Once the player is inside the ring, they are not able to withdraw from the fight."
"The fight ends when one of the two players' health reaches 1. The winner is the player with higher health."
"Both the players' levels and attributes are equalized, but skill proficiency is preserved."
"Both the players are allowed to equip according to their choice. However, usage of consumables is banned."
"The fight has now commenced and the two players can begin fighting! GO!"
Before Derek or his opponent could properly prepare themselves, a loud gong sounded.
Derek was still somewhat calm even after hearing the bell, but the other party became too nervous and rushed towards him with a big saber.
It looked like both Derek and his opponent were melee players. So the player who landed the first hit had the initial advantage.
Also, certain attacks could trigger additional effects like 'bleed' or 'faint' and if that happens then the fight was almost as good as over.
Considering this everyone thought that the fight was almost over.
"Hey. Look at that. I think we overestimated the big guy. He doesn't have any decent gear and he is also slow and sluggish."
"Easy win! Easy win!" The other party's friends started cheering loudly.
On the contrary, Derek had come in with only one person who showed no such intentions. Liam casually leaned on the seat, a twinkle appearing in his eye.
Derek hadn't moved yet but he knew why. So he silently watched the fight. "This is going to end quickly."
And just as he muttered, Derek side-stepped at the last minute, letting the other party hit the air.
Because of this, he stumbled for a second, and before he could regain his balance, Derek used his plain fists to land a crushing blow to the party's upper back and then a second one on his neck.
WACK. WACK.
The guy who was already stumbling forward couldn't react at all and both the hits landed perfectly, taking out huge chunks of his health, sending him directly to the ground.
Even without the proper gear or the weapon, Derek had smoothly managed to use his strength and his opponent's movements against him.
Adding to this momentum, he then executed a final slam, right on top of his neck, targeting the same area as before.
HYAP!
The opponent yelped in pain and then his head flopped down. It turns out Derek directly knocked out the guy!
And the fight was over?
It only took him three moves to finish the fight?!
Everything happened too fast and the spectators' mouths hung open awkwardly as they did not even have the time to finish the cheering.
DANG. DANG. DANG. The gong once again sounded loud and then a deafening silence spilled and spread across the room.
Every single player present in the arena closed their mouths tightly shut. Even if their own abilities were lacking miserably, they could tell that this was not just another player.
This was an expert. A strong and powerful fighter who would probably soar through the ranks in the tower.
Before him, they did not even have the right to make a sound. They stood dumbfounded, their minds automatically replaying the fight again and again.
Derek, on the other hand, looked confused. That was it? He looked up at Liam instinctively to see his reaction, who only gave him a silent thumbs-up.
This was just the first entry-level fight. From Liam's point of view, there was nothing surprising about this result.
The referee then finally spoke, breaking the silence in the arena.
"The fight has ended. Winner - Number 1895"
"Next up. Number 1964 and Number 1378, please come to the arena."
"Ah, shall I leave?" Derek asked, to which the NPC gave a simple nod. "Your team is now eligible to go to the next level."
He hurriedly stepped out of the arena, his movements extremely awkward. He even fumbled a bit before getting down.
However, this time, no one standing there dared to judge him based on these actions.
The person he was right now was completely different from the person who had fought the actual battle.
The confidence level between the two was miles apart.
They could only silently mull over this thought as they watched him casually leave with the other person.
Since they already had a win, their team did not have to play again, at least on this floor. That was this floor's rule.
So when one person did the actual labor, the other got carried easily.
"Lucky freeloader!" Someone commented, making sure that it wasn't too loud. "I wonder if it would be possible for me also to hug a thigh like that!"
"Shut up. They haven't left yet.." The person standing near reminded him.