686 BROAD VIEW

After Jovan left, Jimmy shut the door and locked it. He slowly and casually walked to the center of the meeting room where Lucky and others were sitting silently. Jimmy knew that they all were waiting for his arrival. So the room was completely in a silent state.

Jimmy looked at everyone and asked, "What do you think, Grandfather?"

Ram thought for a moment and said, "If this was happening in the Chaos World, then I would have definitely suspected this? But since we are in the Astral World, I don't know what to think about it?"

"Hmm! I agree with you." ,Jimmy replied, "I definitely feel something is off."

"What is so off about it?" ,Lucky who didn't understand, asked in confusion, "I don't find anything suspicious about this competition."

"Remember every events that occurred with us since we entered the Solar City." ,Jimmy started to explain, "We entered the Solar City. Jovan was at the registration counter. We registered for the citizenship in the Solar City. Jovan was very strict with us that time which wasn't weird in any way. He brought us to our temporary house where we are still living at the moment. Everything was fine the first day. But the things started to change since the second day."

Jimmy continued, "I heard Jovan to be an ass licking person. He would always care about his political position. In order to gain higher seat, he would always lick the boots of his superiors. He makes friendship with those people who might be helpful for his future. He would neglect people and maintain cold attitude towards people who are not useful for him. I even heard a situation where Jovan once followed a person who was the son of someone who had the potential to become the City Lord. But that candidate who was supposed to be the next City Lord was assassinated before he could become the City Lord. And the son of that person couldn't become the next City Lord because of the political drama. Since that person has no longer any use for Jovan, Jovan started to neglect him. He even started to criticise him by saying that he was the son of a loser!"

Jimmy continued, "If this is what Jovan's character is, then it is understandable if he tried to build friendship with us, when we had a higher political status. But do we have any political background in the Astral world?"

Lucky and others remained silent. Because the answer is obvious. There is no need for anyone to answer it.

Jimmy took a deep breath and continued, "And after three months of our stay here, Jovan came once again as usual but leaked information to us about this competition. It wouldn't have been anything weird if next year would be the completion of hundred years of term and the time for the next competition. But it's been just thirty years since the completion of the previous tournament. There was still seventy more years left for the next term for the tournament. And yet this conduction of this tournament is too sudden. And the rules were slightly changed as well. Unlike the last time, this time, it became mandatory for each and every cultivator to participate. Why?"

"It was too much much of a coincidence." ,Dick said.

"That's right. It's very big coincidence." ,Jimmy said, "But why should we believe in coincidence? I feel that someone is setting us up deliberately. Or to be more precise, they are trying to test our capabilities! Hence, they started this competition much earlier than the scheduled time."

"But what if this competition is truly a coincidence?" ,Gnanwell(Gnan) asked, "What if you are overthinking the things?"

"Don't underestimate your enemy!" ,Ram said to Gnanwell, "Gnan! We should think things with broader view. The enemy we have to face might be much stronger than our wildest imagination. This enemy might be the one who is pulling the strings from shadows."

"Enemy?" ,Gnanwell asked in astonishment, "What enemy?"

" what do you think, father?" ,Jimmy asked, "Do you really think that the Void has given me his power just because he liked me? There is no free lunch in this world. If I received such a tremendous power, then that means, the Void is expecting me to fight for him against a powerful foe. A foe that is much difficult even for the Void to handle. It is similar to the Lord Chaos who gave me the power of the Universe Will and was expecting me to fight against his foes.

"That.... that's true." ,Lucky said while lost in thoughts, "Then who is this powerful enemy that you were talking about, boss?"

"I don't know." ,Jimmy sighed and said, "But one thing is for sure. We can't judge our final enemies with common sense. We just need to have as much broader view as possible. And all the things are just my considerations. They don't have any definite proof ti claim my considerations. So, don't think too much about it. At least, not now."

"We need to think about the competition at the moment." ,Ram said, "We don't have any other choice but to participate."

Ram then looked at Jimmy and asked, "What are your plans on this tournament?"

"I consider this tournament as very important one for us." ,Jimmy replied, "Initially I wanted for us to gain battle experience mostly in the Maze Palace. But since we longer will have to think about the Maze Palace, it is best for us to think about other options for the battle experience. I am obviously going to participate in this competition as a Combat Master."

"Then what about the Lifestyle Master?" ,Alister asked, "It is the rule in the competition that one Combat Master has to assign one Lifestyle Master at least, right?"

Jimmy replied, "We will adjust it accordingly. We have a total of ten people who are reliable. At least five of us will be participating in the tournament as a Combat Masters. As for the rest of the five people, they will participate as our Lifestyle Masters. Since we are new here, there is no way anyone would go with the new and Unknown faces like ours. So we will participate in this tournament in our way."