Chapter 482: Singling out the good Competition

Sitting on the couch in his little cottage, Joshua had spent his spare time since the end of the second day of preliminary matches watching replays of different matches. He didn't spend much time on his own matches outside of his match against Marl which showed that she had a lot of potential, and the last match that was against the masked woman. The match against Marl was rather straight forward. She was too many levels below his own to put up a great fight, but her ability to stand up to Joshua's pressure, even if he wasn't using his aura, showed she had a lot of potential.

The fight with the masked swordsman however proved much more informative for Joshua. It wasn't particularly the masked swordsman's skill. She was decent with the blade and was able to hold up well by trying to fend Joshua off with energy slashes for a while, but on her own she would have been taken out within seconds by Joshua just like many of his other opponents during the preliminaries. It was the little stones that she was able to throw on the ground that created intricate trap spells that made the match so noteworthy.

Joshua didn't know exactly how the stones were formed, but they did something that no other item Joshua had come across in the past could do. The stones were able to allow a none-magical job explorer to use a spell. A swordsman was able to use a fairly strong binding spell against Joshua just by throwing down the rocks and nothing else. She didn't have to concentrate or control the spell, it was as if the spell was predetermined the moment the stone activated when Joshua got so close. Joshua smiled a bit at the idea of whoever made the magical stone being someone who was either a researcher or programmer in their past life. It would make sense with the way the stones seemed to work.

After looking over his own fights Joshua spent the rest of the evening looking through other matches that had gained his attention. Joshua didn't really look through the matches of people he knew since it was obvious how they would turn out. Anyone that was in the main group had very little chance of losing any of the preliminary matches. If any of them had actually lost a match then there was no doubt in Joshua's mind that they would be put up on the main stage by news crews and the battle arena for being involved in a major upset. Up to this point Joshua hadn't really seen any upsets beyond people that were below level seventy five. Anyone higher level than that was undefeated.

Instead of watching matches that he knew would be ended with little skill involved Joshua decided to check out the other likely contenders that he would be up against throughout the tournament. For the most part everyone that he observed was finishing their fights fairly quickly. This was even more often the case for those over level eighty that blitzed through all of their matches without showing much of their skills. For this reason alone Joshua didn't end up focusing in on that many competitors while searching through all of the matches.

In the end there were three people that Joshua focused on while looking through the matches simply because they either showed something interesting or were someone Joshua knew was going to be challenging no matter what skills they were hiding. The first person that Joshua watched replays of was his father's old rival the Iron Claw. The man was dominating each match just as thoroughly as Joshua had been doing if not a bit more vindictively. Each match was ended in a matter of seconds and for the most part the man just casually walked towards his opponent to start things off.

When the Iron Claw was against other close ranged fighters things were rather simple. He'd casually knock aside any attempt of someone trying to hit a gap in his light armor, but anything else he just let bounce off of him. After having a little fun toying with his opponent by letting them find out that their attacks were having no effect against him he would end the fight by grabbing them by the neck and lifting them up into the air. His grip seemed to be even stronger than Joshua judging off of how fast his opponents would pass out. He'd even crush any armor that got in the way with his fingers before strangling them until they vanished from sight.

When it came to long range opponents he would end the matches even faster by charging them down and strangling them whenever he got in close. Every single match that he fought in would always end with him holding his opponent up in the air with one hand while strangling them. Joshua didn't get to see any skills or abilities from the man, all he knew was that he had a frightening level of strength and he had far more than enough speed to put that strength to use.

The next person that Joshua focused on while looking through the different matches of high level contenders in the tournament was the guild leader of the Stranger's Guild. There wasn't much information to find out about the woman and there wasn't very much that Joshua could gain from looking at her appearance. Although he could tell that she had a nice figure any defining features were hidden by her gear and the mask she wore to cover up her face. The only thing he could tell from the information on her was that she was the guild leader of one of the strongest large guilds in the hub city and that she was currently level eighty-two. That wasn't the highest level of participants in the tournament, but it was up there.

The reason Joshua paid attention to her matches was because he found out that everyone in her guild that was participating in the tournament was using those stones that could form spells. After watching her first match Joshua was able to see why that was the case. The stones weren't some items created from a specialty blue print that the Stranger's Guild had found, but were instead something that the guild leader could make on her own. It was clear that was the case when she took out what looked like a regular stone from her inventory and her finger started to glow with mana before she started scribbling on the stone with it.

When the match started she tossed the stone over to her opponent who tried to charge passed and get in close against an opponents who seemed to not have any weapons on her, but the moment he got near the stone it activated just like all the others. Large mana cords shot out of the stone and restrained the knight that struggled to break free. The cords seemed far more powerful than any of the other ones Joshua had seen being used in other matches as they not only completely restrained the man, but also started to constrict and break his armor. Eventually the man vanished from the arena and the match came to an end. The guild leader waved to the crowd before leaving the arena and the replay finished.

Watching some of her other matches Joshua noticed that she ended all of the matches with the exact same tactic without a change. Joshua had the feeling that she was advertising her abilities to create these odd spell stones for everyone to see. With each match she purposefully created the spell work on the stones right in front of everyone so that they would know that she was the one creating them. She could have easily pulled out an already finished stone from her inventory just like the other members of her guild, but she decided to show that she was the one that could make the stones.

Joshua could tell from how easily she was able to create this specific spell that she had a lot more tricks up her sleeve and would be a challenging opponent if they ended up crossing each other in the tournament. All in all she was one of the most interesting contestant that Joshua knew about at the moment and she was gaining a lot of potential through her tactics of using the tournament to advertise this skill and show how other people could use the stones no matter what job they had as an explorer.

The last person that Joshua paid attention to was someone that went by the name of Shawn. He didn't have his last name displayed for the tournament and didn't seem to be affiliated with any guild from what Joshua could see. He was the lowest level of the people that had caught Joshua's interest being level eighty. Normally from his gear you would think he was a mage of some kind with the robes he had on, but when watching his matches Joshua had a hard time seeing any sign of magic at first. The first few matches Joshua saw of the man ended swiftly as he seemed to blink behind his opponent and end the fight right away. The dagger Shawn would be holding at the end of each match seemed to be what he used to finish off his opponents swiftly which made Joshua question if Shawn was a mage at first, but looking into things a bit more deeply started bringing up more questions.

What Joshua noticed about Shawn's matches after watching a few of them was the fact that his opponents didn't even get the opportunity to move. The moment the countdown ended Shawn would suddenly blink behind his opponents and the fight would be over. There would be a look of surprise from his opponents before a bit of pain would show through and they would vanish from the arena. Joshua knew something strange was going on from the fact that his opponents weren't moving at all. Even if Joshua was able to blink behind his opponent they would at least panic and try to evade his attack even with the level difference. There was something else going on with this guy and Joshua was interested in finding out what it was.

Eventually it started getting late and it was time for Joshua to rest up for another day of preliminaries. All of the members of the alliance decided they'd have a meet up after the final day of preliminaries so he had that to look forward to. He was hoping to find out more about some of the people he had taken notice of in the tournament at that meeting. Either way the tournament was finally starting to look interesting.