One really can’t underestimate the power of a Rank 6 noble or an influential merchant. After they both left the Null manor, it only took the time for the sun to rise once more and the entire Everlight city knew about the engagement challenge and what shocked everyone even more was that the Donima family joined in on it.

Although the nobles in the circle wanting to marry off their son to Univa and make a strong connection to the Crost family, their eyes shined wanting to strongly get their own children to win to connecting with two out of three of the biggest powers in the Radiance empire.

That said, when Chad asked to go so insistently, the nobles of the other houses actually let him do so, it was for two reasons. First they wanted to use him to test out Xero’s strength and to see his own strength to see if they had someone that could win against him if he actually won.

It was made clear, only at the age of sixteen they would marry but until then, the ‘person with the right to marry’ had to protect that right.

As such, after a short discussion, Chad was chosen among the many 12 or 13 year old that could battle with Xero, because it is quite clear that it can only be 1 year older than him and this contestant will be identified by the Crost family identifier to make sure to the age is properly within the range they set up.

This was on day one of course, as for the 6 other days that were left, an amazing scene happened within the 10 km space of the outer city. With almost 20 earth mage of the Donima and 40 earth dragons and their riders from the Crost family, they combined their power to erect a coliseum, complete with a large plaza with shops, all owned by Donima merchant firm, more than half of them being food stands, while the rest were stalls from other merchants.

The coliseum had a capacity of nearly 2000 people with a VIP platform that can hold around 100 people and maids that would take care of the VIP.

When Xero arrived at the spot, after spending his entire week training with Grunt and Ashley, he was shell shocked.

“Ahahaha! Xero, and here I was thinking I had a complicated relationship!” Void laughed until a fist met his gut.

“Shut up Void, I don’t get what you mean by complicated, you seem quite happy stuffing your face before going to bed just so you can forget it happened in the morning.” Hilda said before crossing her arms but admiring the 30 meter tall circular coliseum that was shining with countless magical formations and symbols showing that it was heavily fortified and would hold up against a battle of level 60s. “I’m just amazed that a, currently, small family like the Null family could attract so much attention.” Hilda said.

The three men from the Null family who have done so chuckled dryly. Until now, only Zip was comfortably avoiding the watchful eyes of the high powers.

Void got the royal family, Nil attracted the attention of two Church orders because of his familiar, Xero attracted the attention of two massively powerful family.

“We should enter soon.” Nil said and they all nodded.

Xero was dressed like a young knight, with some leather and steel armor but it was all thin plate as it was not expected to survive in a fight but it could protect limbs sometimes.

As they walked through the front gate, they found an amazing scene but not in the sense of awe but surprise.

Standing on a 4 meter high pillar with some ten desks around him, a halfling was shouting, “Come one come all to the official Donima Firm’s betting pool! Come bet on the winner! Who shall get our Donima Firm head’s daughter and the Marquess Crost’s 3rd daughter’s hand in marriage!? The defending party from the Lurian Empire, son of the Rank 2 Grand Knight Nil Null, Xero Null or the challenging party, from the Kedoth empire’s Rank 5 Earl Liquivet’s Son, Chad Liquivet! Come and place your bets!” The halfling shouted.

All around were many people betting more and more gold coins to try and rack in quick money.

“Come, come! The defending party, Xero Null, it was identified he has a Devil Familiar and the level is equal at level 27. Don’t be deceived because even as they are, he has a strong ability to summon minions and his minion can handle it’s demon for and fight Level 31 and above level creatures. The defending party, Chad Liquivet, recently grew to Level 31 becoming a Rank 1 knight and his familiar is an Arachnid Ant familiar. With physical strength on par with dragons level 40 his own strength being as good, he was trained for knighthood under his own family. Come and place your bets the winning odds are against the defending party. The odds of the defending party are 6:1 while the challenging party has a 1.5:1 odd.” The halfling on the pillar shouted.

“As expected of the Donima family, any small event turns big with them around.” Hilda said.

Xero looked at the odds when suddenly Nil walked up and pulled out a magic bag, “15,000 gold on the defending party winning all three rounds.” Nil suddenly said.

“Wha!” Xero, Zip and Void said together.

“Father, what are you doing?” Zip asked.

“I am giving my support to my son.” Nil replied firmly.

Hilda laughed, “Yes that’s how it should be, let this pretty lady play as well. 5,000 gold that the boy wins the first round without getting hit once.” She laughed while boldly making the bet.

The people all around were astonished by the bets the two had put out.

The Halfling’s grin grew wider as he saw the money flow out and looked at Xero and raised a brow. Soon his grin turned like a cat. Pointing at Xero he shouted, “Look, the defending party has arrived, you can see for yourself how strong the young ‘prince charming’ is who charmed our Donima firm’s young miss!” The halfling said and at once everyone was focused on Xero.

Many of them tried to size him up but people who did not surpass level 30 into 31 didn’t release any kind of pressure unconsciously making them seem normal until a fight starts.

This was exactly what the Halfling wanted, he wanted more people to look down on Xero while the Donima family knew his real strength. The story of him battling to a standstill a level 41 Wyrm and such a high level strength would not be underestimated.

After the Null made their bet they walked inside and a Crost family knight met up with Xero and took him in.

Outside, many people looked down at him and shook their head as they bet on Chad even if it was a small rate it still increased their money by a small bit. Only a few people put some coin on Xero to make sure they didn’t lose their money.

In case there was an ‘upset victory’.

Within the coliseum, the public was slowly filling up while on the VIP area, it was slowly filling up and to the surprise of the Null’s they were brought here and sat with the Donima and Crost family, since Xero was the main fighter today.

In the field there were captured beasts and warriors battling it out as the opening show. Soon knight groups would come out and battle it out for fame and fortune. Mercenary groups wanting to show their power for fame.

“Ah~! This turned out much smaller than I hoped.” Francis sighed as he looked around. “If it were given a month's time and were in the outside dungeon city there would have been nearly 10 times the space for people and time to set up the preparations.” He sighed.

“I-Isn’t this good enough? This is already a big event.” Nil said sweating.

Francis laughed, “Of course not! Where there is an opportunity for making money, there is no ‘too small’.” He laughed “I also plan to help the boy out, starting tomorrow there will be an event were 12 and 13 year old children will participate in daily tournaments and during the week ends the five winners will battle it out to fight Xero. If they lose though they can’t try for 1 month giving the chance for others. While constantly keeping the highest level pressure on Xero to make sure he never slacks off.” Francis laughs.

The Nulls felt pity for Xero to get this kind of father-in-law that would not only use his own daughter as a trophy but even keep using it over and over again to train him in a ruthless manner like this.

The girls’ in question were watching near the edge of the VIP area where everyone could see them, much to their dismay since they were shy and red faced already since this entire event was because of them and Xero.

Finally after many short battles, Francis stood up and took out a magic item that amplified his voice and sent it all over so that he could be heard at long distance through sound magic.

“Greetings all, the time for the main event has arrived, all betting tables have closed and no more bets shall be taken, all that is left is the result. Each better recieved a ticket so the winners can receive their reward after their bet is concluded. Now onto the main event!” He shouted making the crowd roar and even cause the air to vibrate. There was even a hint of killing intent in the air from the previous battles mixing into the excitement.

“Now, the rules of the competition is as followed, it is a three match battle, all three battles are fought, there is a limit of 15 minutes for each battle unless one side defeats the other side. If the time limit is reached a group of judges, randomly chosen among the nobles here, shall judge the battle and declare the winner. The first battle is a battle of swordsmanship and magic between the two masters. They can only use their own skills and magic, or abilities that affect their body coming from their familiar without using their familiars own ability and magic. This means Aura’s are allowed while buffing magic that a familiar may possess is not as one affects the master passively.” Francis said.

The cheers rang through the coliseum, the first match was a test of skill and strength as well as testing magic casting speed and power.

“The second match is the battle of familiars, they will not have their master’s command, they are following their instincts into combat using their own powers as they wish displaying any and all control of the master aside, which is done by the masters sitting in a special sound isolating magic formation that blocks the mental link between the familiar and master from connecting.” another round to cheers came as the thought of wild and powerful familiars running amuck in battle was another excitement.

“The last battle is 10 minutes after the second battle and is a battle of master and familiar together. All restrictions on using abilities and powers are lifted and everything goes besides killing.” Francis finished. “Now! The defender, honorary rank 1 knight of the Lurian empire, Xero Null!” He said and suddenly on one of the two gates on the arena stage, a large metal cage door opened and from inside, Xero walked out while his stomach clenched under the stares of almost two thousand people. His heart was in his throat.

Ashley felt his anxiety and came out before holding his hand and smiling as they walked out helping him calm down.

“Now on the other corner! The challenger, Rank 1 Knight of the Kedoth empire, Chad Liquivet!” he shouted.

A very loud cheer came from the knights that hailed from that empire. Chad came out raising his arms with confidence. He then turned to Xero while grinning but with a dark expression, he put his thumb on his neck and ran it along it as if saying, “Today you die.”

Xero just breathed deeply trying to find some peace of mind and unsummoned Ashley before walking forward.

A Crost family elder flew down using magic before pulling out several swords or weapons that floated around the elder with his magic. “Choose your weapon.” He said.

The weapons were basic grade steel magic blades. This was a truly fair contest were the weapons were even grade to make sure the strength and skill would not be hidden behind the increased power of the weapon.

“I choose longsword.” Xero said and took a long sword that was double edge and around a meter long, it could be held with one or two hands but he took it in a two handed stance.

Chad snorted, “I choose short sword and shield.” He said and took a short sword with a kite shield.

“You have 15 minutes, your bodies are imprinted with life saving barriers but if they are activated you lose. Take a distance of 30 meters from the center.” He said.

The arena was 300 meters wide and it was open to be completely used, after all there exists familiars of all sizes.

Around the audience, a bright barrier shined to protect them from the incoming attacks that will definitely be wide while the walls rising around the arena that were nearly 4 meters high before opening to the seats. All this had magic formations to protect and repair damage that might happen.

When a distance of 60 meters had formed the two stopped and turned around to face each other.

“May the fight begin!” Francis shouted.

“HA!” Chad shouted instantly and hit the pommel of his sword on the shield causing a magic formation to appear causing the defensive power to increase as well as form a thin barrier around him.

Even with his eyes open Xero could feel in his sword his mana weaving into hundreds of sequences making mana gather inside the sword until it formed Ashley’s Elemental Cleave. It was a quick and simplified version though but the power was great.

Xero bent forward while holding the longsword with his right arm.

BANG!

With a suddenly launch Xero suddenly covered 15 meters in one lodge, of course Ashley’s greatest feature has always been her jumping power. From the start as a level 1 imp, to a level 27 Sword Devil, this has always been her most powerful feature and after having his body tempered over and over and over again, his body had very little difference in comparison to Ashley’s making his own jumping power so supreme and it was the only level 30 strength the two currently possess.

Chad paled when he saw the speed of the lunge that was pure leg power. It was something he could do but not as efficiently as Xero whose muscles are tempered and he trained his body in high speed combat with Ashley while constantly lunging and jumping around.

He put his shield in front and bent down smashing the ground with the bottom of the shield. “Iron wall!” He shouted as the shield’s formation shined and fed off the earth mana changing it to metal mana and forming a strong barrier around him while he prepared the spells in his sword to attack.

Xero jumped another two times before he grabbed the sword with both hands and jumped upwards. His body suddenly released a dense, thick aura that gathered around his body and sword. What caused everyone to shiver was that slowly the aura changed to look like a huge shadow of a black knight with a large sword that overlapped Xero. That image appeared momentarily before it gathered at the edge of the sword and his body as he dropped and swung down.

SHEEE!

A sound similar to a knife cutting glass caused many people a headache but they watched as the sword effortlessly sliced the barrier down the middle and his body dropped towards the shield.

DING!

The shield was hit as the sword was barely 10 cm above Chad’s head.

“DIE!” he shouted as he pushed up to make Xero lose his balance but to his dismay pushing up caused the sword to suddenly slice through the shield and stop 5 cm from the middle of his arm where it was holding the shield.

“Stop!” the referee shouted.

Xero landed and jumped a few meters back pulling the sword out of the shield.

“He activated your life saving barrier twice, the winner is Xero Null!” The elder announced.

“WAIT!” Chad shouted. “When did he activate the barrier?!” He demanded.

The elder snorted and looked at the VIP box.

Francis stood with a grin, “Boy, when he slashed down and the sword hit your shield, the sword aura around his sword was extended almost 10 cm off the blade. That was the first time, when you pushed off, the barrier stopped your arm from getting cut off.” Francis said silencing the cocky noble.

Chad’s face turned bright red with rage but he couldn’t do anything at this time.

The two walked a distance of 150 meters away where a magic formation was set up after they summoned the familiar and told them the target of their battle and to fight as they please. The two then sat down to meditate and feed mana to their familiar so they can battle.

The second battle was a battle of familiars, Ashley was looking at the ant and yawned, “What a low grade Elite Lesser Arachnid Fire Ant Soldier, the only thing worth scavenging of its carcass is the carapass on it’s abdomen.” Ashley muttered.

“BEGIN!” The referee announced and the Ant screeched and began to stomp its legs.

Suddenly around it, five holes caved in and a lot of skittering sounds could be heard.

Ashley sighed and put her hand in a magic bag, unwrapping the top before waving her hand. Suddenly a few dozen swords flew out under her mental control and struck the ground all over surrounding the ant and it’s nests that were opening.

“Collapse.” She ordered.

Suddenly a magic wave came from the swords as the sandy ground was instantly changed into stone and compressed closing the holes but the elite ant soldier screeched and the holes reopened in the hard ground.

“I see, it’s an ability similar to Ember’s cave summon. Even if the ground was covered in steel plates it would appear and disappear.” She said and waved her hand making the swords come back spinning and landing around her before shining and forming earth sword devils.

“Oh ho! So these are the famous Sword Devil Minions, quite something, with a base strength of at least level 20 when freshly forged these in particular look around level 25 and their stance is quite good.” Marquess Crost said.

“They are a good help for training knights. New ones have strength but no skill and are slow so they are like iron golems.” Nil said how he had once used them to train his knights who were steadily advancing up the levels. All he lacked was money to pay for more than 150 familiars.

“Good use.” The Marquess nodded

On the field Ashley watched as a red carpet of ants finally rose out of the holes before she covered her mouth snorting and laughing. “W-what is this! Ahahaha! A-are those really level 10 Fire ant soldiers!?” She fell back laughing, “What a joke! Don’t you feed your swarm?” Ashley asked. She looked around and noticed only Soldiers. There were no workers that usually outnumber soldiers 100 to 1. “I see, he can’t spawn workers so he lacks food. The fool should have searched for a smart magician and made more types of nests.” Ashley said shaking her head.

Still, the numbers were unending but it did not matter to her, with a mental command the red eyes of the minions shined and all of them began to radiate their Demon’s aura and casually walk forward.

Everyone wondered what would happen but they were shocked, as the first ants reached the feet of the metal knights, unexpectedly it was cut apart.

They stopped and let the ants slowly crawl and bite but the defensive power was too high and after several seconds under the aura, the life of the ant would end and it would be cut up by the wind passing through the aura that became like sword blades.

Anything with the Sword Devils aura would become sharp like a sword. Even more so thanks to Ashley’s aura that amazingly extended 5 meters from her and she was making a very weak whirlwind around her but that weak wind made it so that ant corpses were rapidly piling up around her while she took out a piece of raw meat stuck to a bone and summoned out a flame to quickly roast it to the shock of the public who began to ask what was going on.

It took two minutes to roast the meat and she ate it quick. Then she looked at the meter long bone and summoned out a small butcher knife and began to slice the bone forming a stake on one side. She did it casually while ordering the minions to start using magic.

From there, carnage began to happen as each step caused a field of spikes to rise and fall and with it piles upon bloody piles of ants littered the arena.

Chad was pale as he watched so many die while none could take down the minions of his enemy. He wanted to shout and order it to use something different to swarm tactic but the ant was simple minded, it did not think about tactics beside overwhelm with number. The problem was that the ant was strong when it listened but weak when it used common ant tactics.

When the magic item that was counting down 15 minutes had reached 30 seconds, Ashley finished the bone spike and turned towards the large ant.

“Time to end this game.” She said and bent forward like Xero had done but something about her form being more natural, and her female muscles being more flexible, caused her sudden jump to launch her 40 meters right on the back of the first minion of hers. From it’s back just jumped high and spin while her entire aura gathered on the spike. This wasn’t any ‘spike’ it was in the shape of a thrusting sword, or in this case, a throwing sword. She bent her body in the air while spinning and launched the aura infused bone sword like a missile.

Before the ant soldier could react to the pheromones surrounding the bone, the projectile pierced its torso clean through it and into the abdomen nailing it to the ground, dead.

The body broke down and the ants retreated to the closing nests leaving behind the countless ant corpses.

“What a waste of trash material.” She said but she did find the ant corpses interest because of their fire affinity. She gathered a pile to see what the effect would be in feeding these to her fire swords. After that she sat on Xero’s lap hugging him. “How was I master?” she asked.

“You wasted too much time.” he said.

“But I was hoping for a good fight and he disappointed me so I wanted to at least pay him back for the disappointment. Humiliating him was quite nice though. Tell me master, do you want a quick end next match or a low slow one?” She asked.

“Let's end this already, I feel bad under the stares, much less the headaches that come after.” Xero muttered.

Like promised, 10 minutes was given for the two of them to rest as well as betters to get their money, Hilda came back shaking a magic bag with 30,000 gold coins for betting that Xero would win without receiving one hit on him. She had wanted to bet once more on Xero but after two matches, the odds had turned from 6:1 for Xero to win and 1.5 to Chad to win to 1.5:1 for Xero and a 10:1 chance for Chad to win.

No one believed he would win any longer after the spectacular win but there were those who bet he would win because a master and familiar battle was much different.

As the ten minute end the magic formation broke and the two stood up. Around Chad the ant nests and the ant’s began to exit but this time it was much different ants.

“Ah so that is how he does it.” Ashley exclaimed.

Behind Chad ten one meter long red ant’s walked out and stood behind and around the boy.

“The familiar is stupid and follows common ant tactics but Chad breed Royal Fire Ant Soldiers. Possibly because of the lack of food he would have even had them cannibalize.” Ashley said. “He is much less of a fool then I thought.” She said.

Even so she opened her magic back and all her minions came out and unlike before they were sharp and half became minions while the other picked up the nearest partner. She took the volcanic black red sword and Xero took out the Metal Sword minion.

“I will show you what my real strength is like!” Chad suddenly shouted as the largest Ant that stood next to him began to shine and suddenly broke apart and suddenly began to fly around him making him grow to the size of an adult as the bulky armor built around him. What is more, the armor allowed him to understand and emit pheromones that could direct the ant’s with great precision.

What is more, with an order, another ant linked with the familiar making it look like an overly armored bulky centaur like ant. Still they could not be underestimated but still.

“Now it’s our turn!” Xero said as all the swords on Ashley, his and the Minion’s hands shined. The armor equipped them all and the minions grew large and wielded dual blades while Ashley wore black burning armor and Xero used Shining steel armor. It had turned from a group of sword devils to a platoon of knights and what is more is that they released a very strong aura from their body that said, ‘death’. The weak minded spirits were no longer so weak minded as two spirits worked together to drive the body making them smarter.

“Attack!” Xero said and the Minions marched forward.