It was two days since Micky arrived. Apparently those old fogies had been waiting around for Micky’s challenge. Though Micky specifically remembered being the one challenged.

Micky was wearing new dudes, though a significant downgrade from what he had been wearing. He was wearing living fibers because living things, even when [Dead], conducted mana and spells better than dead things. This was excepting and enchanted mythril scale mail or an ablative multilayer adamantium plate armor. But mythril and adamantium went against the curve. Actually a dryad’s living elder wood armor would be the best thing that Micky knew of, and this was only from his period hero scroll stories so it had to be totally accurate. And then there was a heavily, and perfectly enchanted bronze suit of armor. Best if it was scalemail as well so that it could be individually enchanted.

Micky was in a robe. It was a battle robe though, which actually made it less cool. Yeah, mages always looked like dorks, and they were always know it alls even though it was the sages job to… know it all, which made them even more dorky. At least he didn’t have those darn pointy wide brimmed hats. The girl working the counter managed to even dare tell him it was fashionable through all her ‘hidden’ snickering to wear a wide brimmed hat with the ensemble!

Micky’s outfit was a long robe that came to just below his knees which were covered in leather shin guards with bone reinforcement. The waist was tapered in and the thick long upper portion covered and protected his entire body with thick textured plant fibers. Micky didn’t know what plant but it was [Fairly] resistant and [Fairly] mana conductive for the price, level, and rarity. It also made him look like he just woke up from a night out on the town and found out that the girls he invited back to his place were still there… He was just missing the slippers and the night cap.

Micky hated that diamond reinforcement because the patterning just reinforced his terrible image. It didn’t help that Micky refused to completely close the front portion of his chest because the thing was too damn hot otherwise. It wouldn’t matter anyway, if he was hit by an arrow, he would be hit by an arrow. And the little bit of unprotection wouldn’t affect anything if he was hit by a melee weapon unless it was specifically targeted. And if they were targeting it? Better than his head, much better.

As for his head? He had on a leather skull cap with bone reinforcement. But it looked like a bone crown. Just give him a skull mug to sip from and he would complete his evil sorcerer nightwear outfit. But he couldn’t truly afford anything better, and his legionnaire outfit that he had actually taken the time and effort to have perfected was confiscated. So Micky was left with this fashion horror. Now Micky wasn’t much into fashion himself, sure he would buy the latest hero shoes, and latest hero shirt, and latest hero pants, basically anything that a hero was selling… and the latest model, as in what they were selling a few years ago… But even Micky knew that it wasn’t fashionable… just the coolest.

But Micky hated looking terrible, and then having to go out in public like this. But he had to at least look the part as he was in fact taking part in the battles as a handicap. This was because the old fogies were the best of the best, and theirs could totally trounce his. He was going to make them regret underestimating a true [Pink Mage] and complete support.

The girls had their own gear that they had to get for themselves. He had left a bit of money, and they had their own from various sources, but they still weren’t floundering in coin. But it was enough and with some last minute enchantments and potions from himself they would be outfitted decently… he hoped… ok, let’s face it, those old fogies were totally going to cheat in that direction but at least he hoped he closed the gap. And they couldn’t complain since it was his own abilities.

Strolling up to the venu that was the rented out training grounds Micky surveyed some of the other pits that were out there. He could see some bloody tier 3 battles in the open pits that were reserved for the military. A few stands over were some battles by tiers 1 and 2 but nothing special, just training spars. Some were even clearly parent/child matches just to train a bit.

He watched the military training spars while he waited. They were mostly there, but it had turned into a slightly larger thing in his absence. There was now a points based bracket in round robin style. The wagers had gone up, yet he had been gifted a mostly free pass on them. He would still make out like a bandit if he won, but he would need to get into third if he wanted to receive the original wagers, minimum. But Micky wasn’t aiming for third. He smiled evilly to himself.

He saw a few of the other teams warming up. One group looked like it had a barbarian woman, an archer dude, and a magic girl. All of them looked exactly 10. They were warming up and doing stretches and extremely light spars, didn’t want to give away anything that wasn’t blatantly obvious to the enemy. This could also mislead people by specifically not practicing specialties and just sticking to the basics.

For example, Micky could tell that the archer specialized in dual one handed scimitars at his waist for melee. But he didn’t use them and only his archery in practice, even in a melee situation, even if he lost the spar because of it.

Some though, were flexing their muscle, at least some of it, to make intimidating poses. Like the little fire mage that could, and by that Micky meant could probably set a fire that could be a big problem if it isn’t handled properly.

Lastly, there were those that were just chill. Even the one kid that was taking a nap while wrapped up like a burrito. He read about them in his hero scrolls, they were always super powerful because they didn’t want their naps disturbed. He would have to watch out for burrito.

Micky surveyed his surroundings until Yolanda showed up with her kids. She was followed by that slightly creepy lady, a taller handsome dude, and some all male kids of her own.

Yolanda waved when she saw him look and Micky waved back from the stands.

Yolanda climbed up the stairs and sat down but not before introducing her rising stars. “Kids this is Micky, he is your senior disciple so respect him-” This recieved the obligatory “Yes.” from the three obviously spoiled but obedient brats. “-And This is Andy, Sandy, and Mandy… There is nothing wrong with their names and that is not why I picked them to be my disciples! They're also triplets!” She said. She seemed to be defensive and evasive about the whole name thing.

Though Micky paid attention to the triplets thing. Birth skills were a known thing, even before a person can divine their class they may gain these birth skills. They are rare but common events… well make them common. One of those was being born twins and such. They usually had mental links that the others could all use simultaneously. This might be annoying for octuplets though… Of course, those with noble birth had common noble type skills at birth, or being born at the exact same time as your neighbor's kid and so on. Basically rare events at birth tended to give abnormal skills. So much so that nobles tended to try and manufacture them into their children, to varying degrees of success. Though the practice was technically outlawed everywhere, nobility were just less obvious about it these days.

It didn’t affect that he wasn’t even facing them and he knew they were in trouble. And that wasn’t even considering the young men in lock step standing behind the scary ‘young’ lady. They stood by each other in military precision and were non-responsive to the ‘young’ lady’s antics. Not ignoring, or blatantly ignoring, but precise and serious. It was obvious they were trained even long before they were even divined.

So Micky knew trouble was brewing. These two brought a lucky encounter you couldn’t reproduce if you tried, and years of precise training. Now Micky was feeling far less confident in his chances eve with his handicap...