"One thousand nine hundred after counting our commission… minus the six hundred seventy that you spent at the auction brings us to…"

After finding Three the servant who was apparently waiting for me outside the booth, we went to the accountant's room to receive my gold…

"One thousand two hundred twenty eight."

That was already almost 5 times the highest amount of money that I have ever had!

"Here you go."

"Thanks!"

Taking the bag full of coins, I didn't stay in the auction house for long as I went back to the market district and into my room in the 'Hotel' to get another comfy sleep…

`~~`~~`~~`

2 days later…

Holding a small yet expensive booklet in my hand, I was walking in the market district in my way to the Colosseum where the first stage that could be truly called a 'Recruitment Tournament' would be held soon…

The booklet that cost me 1 gold coin was also another item provided by the 'Hotel', it was called 'What You Need To Know About The Tournament', which obviously contained what its name indicated, a booklet with detailed information about the 'Recruitment Tournament'...

The first stage, also known as the 'Qualifiers', was the stage where recruitees participated in knockout matches till they dwindle into the number that would 'Qualify' to participate in the next stage…

The next stage was, as I already previously knew, the one where the sect members, also known as the 'Seeded Participants', would join in the poll and the battles would reach a certain level of quality as most of the inexperienced newbie recruitees would be theoretically disqualified at the first stage…

'Not really that vital, but it should make it less awkward for me…'

As a person who was still not as informed as a native, every simple piece of info might prove useful so I didn't really mind spending that much on this booklet.

Closing the booklet and putting it away, I slowly made my way to the Colosseum, somewhat excited for the first actual stage of the 'Show Off Battle Royale'.

`~~`~~`~~`

'It's quite the big one…'

The Colosseum which was at the very center of 'Battle City' was indeed quite big as it almost took up half of the city while being its core.

The size of it kind of reminded me of the olympic stadiums where the Olympic games took place at back in reality, but it did make sense as this 'Battle City' was obviously built with the 'Recruitment Tournament' being the mean motive behind it…

The gates that were supposedly situated at both sides was quite big as well, but it seemed somewhat busy, as according to the small booklet which had a lot of useless info in it, one recommended recruitee could bring along 2 persons who would bear the status of an invited who can watch the 'Recruitment Tournament'.

However, in comparison, any sect member could theoretically enter 'Battle city' without any limitations, so the gate at the other side should be facing an even more crowded situation, of course that was only in case they were even interested in watching the 'Qualifiers' which was unlikely for those who didn't participate as 'Seeded Participants'...

After entering through the gates, there were two middle sized tunnels which seemed to be an understage path, one had 'Participants only' written above it while the other had 'Invited Viewers only' instead, it was likely that the 'Invited Viewers only' one was a direct path to the viewers seats, while the other one which I went through would be the place where they organized the participants' match ups and such.

"Your tags, please."

As soon as I reached the end of the tunnel along a few others, we were stopped by a guy in official clothes who seemed to be one of the organizers who demanded to see our tags which we showed soon after before being allowed in…

As I suspected, the place we entered was a viewing place that was directly on the ground, which allowed us to see the 5 rings that battles were likely to take place in, on the other hand, the stadium like viewing chairs were indeed what the other tunnel guided the invited into.

The number of the participants in the ground viewing place were already over five hundred but due to the official closing time being in a quarter of an hour with some participants having yet to arrive, the three organizers didn't tell much yet as we had to wait for these 15 minutes before knowing the full rules and battle system…

`~~`~~`~~`

"Alright, may I have your attention, please…"

As the clock finally ticked 9 AM, one of the organizers closed the door of the tunnel, while one stood up on a stand and grabbing our attention with the last one standing behind him…

"From this point only the participants in this ground viewer are recognized as true participants of the 'Qualifiers'..."

While I didn't know if they were people who still couldn't make it, it seemed that they had already lost their opportunity, though it was unlikely for them to do so unless they already got recruited into a sect before hand somehow…

"As some of you may know, the 'Qualifiers' is going to be knockout stage which will be repeated a number of times till we reach an adequate number of qualified participants to move on to the next stage…"

Oddly enough, the number of the participants that were in was exactly 666 participants, which meant that the first knockout round would go on in a 'smooth' way decreasing the number of the 'Might-Qualify' participants into 333.

"Seeing that your current number is six hundred sixty six participents, the 'Qualifiers' stage is going to be separated into two rounds."

It seemed that it was likely that the 'Seeded Participants' were only about 100+ as putting 666 'Might-Qualify' participants into two rounds of knockout matches should produce only about 166 qualified participants, not that I knew the detailed info about the stages to come…

"As for how the following matches will proceed…"