“Thank you very much, Marooner. You are my best friend from now on until eternity.” Cody said fervently. They talked a lot on their way back to the stronghold, and Miles thought Cody was a cool guy, so he wouldn’t mind being friends with him.

“Sure, sure. See you later.” Miles waved his hand and returned to his room. He was depressed. The cave he took as his treasure land turned out to be a mirage and all the riches he was dreaming of were gone. Without elemental minerals, his forging ability was crippled, and he couldn’t merge nor create anything anymore.

But Miles wasn’t crestfallen about it. It was a god-sent opportunity for him to find those minerals in the utmost circle of Portal World while gaining two things better than those minerals in the end. First, Exaltedness of the Creator, and second his pet Culga.

The preliminaries would start the day after, so Miles returned to his room and rested. The arena where the preliminaries would be conducted, like the main arena in the F-Circle, was a weird place that could only be accessed by a stone monument. There were several of them in the perimeter of the strongholds, and their stronghold would share it with the other two.

Every stronghold could nominate a single person, so they would hold their election on different days, and main fights would only be in the main area when the real preliminaries started.

The next day, Miles left his room with his cloak up and mask on his face. The stone monument wasn’t that far from the Umbra Forest, and it wouldn’t take Miles too long to arrive on foot. He didn’t want to draw attention by driving his car there.

It took Miles only an hour to reach there at moderate speed. He walked to the stone monument and joined the queue. There were ten-odd people in front of him, all of which touched the stone to be sent to a place where fighting would occur.

This was Miles's first time going there, and the first time to use this particular stone. He didn’t know the science behind it, nor anyone in Unity knew yet. Mother AI used to say it was strange technology of this particular race mixed with mystic arts.

After contacting the stone, he felt his stomach churn and the scene in front of him changed. When he opened his eyes, he was outside of a giant hypaethral construction with many people waiting outside.

Miles found his way to the entrance and walked in to sign up. There, a device protected by guards of three strongholds stood proudly. The device had a handprint of a slot. A person could sign up by placing their hands there.

Miles walked in front of the device but stopped by the guards.

“Which stronghold?” One of the tough-looking guards asked. Miles didn’t bother to answer and only showed the virtual screen of his wristwatch showing his room record in Veteran Aomine Stronghold.

Guard looked at the screen and let him through. Miles approached the device and placed his hand on top of the handprint. His hand was a lot smaller than a giant handprint, but his fingers placed ajar on the slot accordingly, and an idea formed in his head.

“Name?” The voice of a foreign language reverberated in his mind, but he could understand it strangely.

“The Marooner.” He thought, and a ding voice heard before the same voice said, “The Marooner recorded. The number of the participant is 332.”

Miles wasn’t surprised by the number. There were thousands of people living in the stronghold, and one-third of them would want to try their hands.

After the recording procedure was done, Miles left the device and went into the arena. There, a giant coliseum-like structure greeted him. He found a seat in an inconspicuous area and sat silently.

After waiting half an hour, a giant virtual screen floated in the air and 183 matches were displayed. Miles looked at the information of his first opponent. His opponent’s name was Reynold Anik.

“Such a coincidence!” Miles exclaimed in surprise. His first opponent was Tian Ling’s right-hand man in the stronghold. He wanted to force Miles into luring the monster while they were hunting. Miles feigned passing out and threw him into the monster’s mouth before he ran away. Luckily the guy survived that ordeal, but he was matched against Miles once again. “Let me see how you survive this time.”

“Yes! I will have the chance to kill that monster!” A voice brought out Miles from his stupor. He turned to look and saw Tian Ling and his goons sitting not that far from him. The one shouting was the man of the hour, Reynold. He was still missing an arm and looked bloodthirsty with scars on his face.

“Reynold you are lucky. Boss put a bounty on that bastard's head when he stole from the boss. Now it will be yours.” One other foot soldier said enviously.

“Hmph, I will kill him and take all the orbs back from him. What is rightfully the boss's, shall return to him.”

As Miles listened to them, a smile formed on his covered face. While he was musing, the first ten fights started. The area was giant, and the arena was separated into 10 areas for ten fights to be held at the same time. Miles's fight was in the nineteenth batch, 182nd fight to be precise, so he was watching the fights. In his batch, there were only three people, and the lucky guy would win without fighting. There were quite a few familiar faces.

He saw Quinn fighting against a weak soldier from the army. They were both from the army, and the soldier requested Quinn to teach him, so she went easy on the guy. After a few minutes, Quinn won, obviously, and left the arena by touching the device in there.