182 Arena
Dyon continued forward down a long and dark corridor. However, at the end, he could clearly see a blinding light.
Soon, he reached that light, stepping out and into the upper regions of what appeared to be yet another coliseum. Why the martial world was so infatuated with ancient Rome? Dyon had no idea. But, he felt his anger boiling due to the familiar environment. He could only try and reign himself in as best as possible.
The stadium itself was smaller than the usual scale, only being about 200 meters in diameter. This allowed for only 5 levels of seats, which drew people’s attentions to Dyon’s arrival. But, once they noticed the first common level badge in his hand, some nodded and looked away. It was quite impressive for such a young man to succeed in becoming a formation master, so he wasn’t looked down upon.
However, not everyone was so nonchalant to Dyon’s arrival. Grand Elder Kroak’s and Cormyth’s eyes immediately shone with something imperceptible. They hadn’t thought Dyon would show up here, especially since the competition had already gone on for a few days now.
The elders themselves sat in an exclusive section, in their usual lofty positions. It was almost like an entire section of the seats were cut out and shifted upwards. However, Dyon didn’t pay them too much mind although he found it interesting that Elder Flyleaf was also there. Instead, he focused his gaze on the center arenas.
There, a familiar duo could be seen. Erlan and Luvon stood side by side, working through a set of problems together as two unknown alchemy guild geniuses did the same. Well, they were unknown to Dyon. To everyone else, they were twin sister geniuses of the alchemy guild: Tamara and Verrona.
After scanning the situation for a few moments, Dyon immediately grasped what was going on.
In a competition between guilds, it was often difficult to find accurate comparisons since both professions were indeed different. In fact, Dyon found the very fact this competition was taking place to be absolutely ridiculous. Array Alchemy was named as such for a reason, it was meant to be a singular entity. Only then would you obtain the best results. And yet, not only did these people insist that one was better than the other, they even competed to test their theories.
In the end, many of the competitions centered around aurora control and theory, rather than application. For example, alchemy used the soul as a power source to project a flame from the aurora. Then complex and subtle control could be taken in regards to that flame to form the necessary pills, concoctions, elixirs, etc.
However, array theory used the same concept, but to instead project that same aurora substance that produced aurora flames, into the lines of an array. Both required high levels of control, it was just that the form of the medium, lines versus flames, was slightly different.
Aside from those control trials and theory, there were also other tasks to complete. For example, a fight against equally strong opponents. Would alchemy be more useful? Or would arrays be more useful? At first glance, the answer was arrays, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. Aurora flames were good at manipulating energies, as Dyon had proven many times with his dual cultivation techniques. Using an aurora flame to incapacitate an opponent was very much possible.
You could block meridians, change the flow of energy to force cultivation deviation, you could even manipulate emotions with your flames character depending on your control. This last one was obviously seen when Dyon’s aurora flame gained a healing character after learning the pill condensation technique.
Dyon’s badge flashed into his ring. He didn’t feel like representing either guild now. He only wanted to make his name known, earn a badge appropriate for his level, set up the beginnings of his plan, then leave. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
As such, Dyon quietly waited for the right opportunity, not bothering to sit. As time passed and his disdain grew, he heard the avid discussion peak around him.
“Alchemy Head Cormyth’s daughters are quite talented, don’t you think? The poison character of their auroras is so potent. Look at how easily they took that poor guy out.”
The two girls were actually quite petite for their age. They looked as though they were at most 16, but it was clear from the discussions that they were well into their 19th year of life. They each wore light green dresses with purple patterns, making it difficult to distinguish the two. Although, this was made easier by Tamara’s short brunette hair, and Verrona’s long brunette hair.
“Formation Head Kroak’s son Erlan isn’t doing too badly either.”
“Ai, he teams with Luvon well. It seems having high ranking parents really helps you move in the world.”
“Stop sounding so pitiful, I hear Head Kroak rarely helps Erlan out. His allowance is even worse than mine.”
A soft laughter filled the group, “Luvon is much luckier though, the Dior sub-family is quite wealthy.”
“Stop talking about useless things. Look at how they’re diligently laying traps with their killing arrays. Luvon defends, while Erlan takes his time to set the perfect trap. That 7th common level alchemist is having a hard time against them despite their only being at the 3rd common level of formation mastery.”
The crowd sighed.
“Is it really going to be another tie? They’ve been at it for days… we haven’t even had a chance to see the practitioner level experts go yet…”
Suddenly, Dyon flashed from where he stood, appearing below the stands, but on the outside edge of the arena.
The crowd was shocked into confusion. They had no idea what Dyon was doing. But, it seemed like as soon as he stepped down, the rounds between the twins and the formation guild young masters were over.
Although the crowd was getting tired of watching the same 4 people compete, and many had thought of doing what Dyon did, they couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. Was watching a competition between first common level experts really more interesting than what they had been seeing?
Dyon didn’t seem to care about the crowd’s reaction, instead nonchalantly putting his hands into his pockets and strolling to the arena.