Salim eyed the king from his where he was. His name was Balurm… That was probably a coincidence. Even if it wasn’t Salim was going to keep his eyes on the ruler.

Balurm continued, “now that you have booted my seeds out of the qualifiers I need others. You will be one of those others.” He spoke in utmost confidence leaving almost no room to argue.

“What I need you to do my dear Salim is to throw the match in the quarterfinals,” Balurm spoke with such contempt when he said Salim’s name Salim wasn’t sure if it was a coincidence.

So he checked.

Activating observe Salim soon found a blade underneath his neck. One of the women had him with a knife to his throat and pushed him down on the ground.

How could he have been so stupid?! Vivyern had some sort of magic that let her check if the skill’s where activated and it would make so much more sense if someone here had something like it.

Salim groaned as a foot settled on his face. The man on the throne tsked at Salim mocking him as if he was a small child.

Waving his hand Balurm simply uttered, “take him away.”

The knife was removed from Salim’s neck and he was put in what looked like a cell cuffed both arms and feet to the wall. Chained up Salim hung in the shame of his stupidity.

He had blown his whole charade with that single fuck up… He needed some sort of stealth skills and do recon or something beforehand.

Salim hung there contemplating. From now on he would make it smaller. He had no idea why he thought attending a tournament was a good idea. To be fair it was a lot of fun for Salim but at the same time he ended up here in chains. Well, he also made some more mistakes that made him end up here.

Earlier when he had first come to this place stuff had happened that was entirely out of Salim’s hands. He just had to roll with it.

But now, now things were different. He could do things to prevent all these mishaps from happening. Salim wasn’t going to blame it on not having the right skills that just seemed wrong and childish.

It was how he used his own skills and stats that determined how well he could deal with these mishaps. Well, that may be a bit of the wrong path to take… It wasn’t just how well he could react there where precautions he could take such as the amazingly obvious one that would not have ended up in a cell.

The easiest was to simply not bother with a tournament. Salim had been caught up in the excitement and wonder of his own abilities.

Heh, back on earth Salim had contemplated the effects on the human mind if one were to wield immense personal power. He had unfortunately been victim to his own conclusion. All though he didn’t show it to the world Salim was rather uncomfortable with his place in the world.

Like most people, he craved to be something more, to ascend in some sort of fashion. This new personal power gave him the ability to do so and the effects where some sort of self-glorifying high that he had only now come off of thinking about it.

Just to think a second ago he was happy and chipper enough to be enjoying messing with a ruler of an extremely prosperous city. Not that he still didn’t want to do that, he really did just a bit more caution and tact is needed.

Rushing into something needlessly was going to get him caught most of the time in something he couldn’t handle so he was taking it small.

Until he did take it small he was still stuck in a cage. Looking at his stats Salim realized his mana was being drained at a slow rate.

Was touching him? Could the cuffs be draining him of mana? It certainly made sense from a security perspective. If your prisoners lacked the ability to shoot massive fireballs then they were a lot safer.

But Salim wasn’t sure what to do.

He really wanted to break out but where that would lead him Salim had no idea. The unknown layout and guards of this place would for certain screw him over.

On the other hand, however, Salim could wait until he was released as he was most certainly going to be released at some point. He could still be useful for his spot in the tournament unless they disguised as him…

That would be problematic if so. Salim just wasn’t sure what to do in this scenario.

Looking around his cell for anything all Salim spotted was a barren floor completely swept free of any dust, dirt, and things that could help him.

Salim’s cell faced outwards and across the hall was another person chained up to the wall. While they just had their arms tied up a completely defeated look was the only thing Salim could recognize on their face.

It was hard to tell if the person was male or female maybe androgynous for all Salim cared. Attempting to whisper across the hall Salim tried to make contact with the person. All that was received was blank stares, however, the androgynous person at least noticed him.

“Do you know a way out?” Salim tried asking only receiving a dead cold stare.

Seeing as he wasn’t making any progress Salim began to think more along the lines of skills he could use. All of his main battle skills were not of any use as there was no one to fight…

Wait a minute! He could use damage over time to slowly break free of the chains!

Well if he could figure out how to activate it without actually fighting someone that is. So that idea was shelved for another day.

He probably could use his energy based moves. Yea that would most certainly work. So he did have a way out but now the only issue he had was the crux of the plan.

Salim had no idea where he was and what type of people guarded the place. If they were high levels then he would get destroyed, but the chance that they were at a lower level due to having cheaper upkeep was certainly a possibility.

Hmm, where these people slaves or higher servants that is an interesting question…

But not one that really pertained to the situation so Salim discarded the thought and began brainstorming other things.

Thoughts of his fights with lower leveled people came to his brain making him pause.

He had been getting outplayed during the whole tournament by people who he should totally be above in stats.

To be fair stats were not everything and people could make up for some of it with skill but he always felt around his opponents in terms of stats even though he knew that his stats should be much higher than anyone's around the level twenty mark.

Maybe he wasn’t trying hard enough? Honestly, Salim was at a loss for what the problem was.

Salim suddenly felt a surge of emotions from the soul bond. Fear, confusion, and denial flooded out of the bond from Viveryn in a sudden burst.

Salim tried to find out why she was feeling this way but as soon as he got close they suddenly disappeared a cold feeling of numbness overtook him when he tried to look.

He wasn’t going to leave immediately but he needed to leave soon.

Sighing in frustration Salim tried to get his body into a sort of comfortable position. Finding none Salim resigned himself to staying there in an uncomfortable position.