"No, it's not even close to the usual number of teams taking part in most of the competitions we took part in."
When Lucas said these words, William knew there was only one reason to explain all these coincidences… Someone must have gotten a bribe and made sure the two teams would meet up at some point in the competition.
If they got arranged to meet early on, things would be quite suspicious. But to meet up every single time the team came to the competition, it was indeed fishy and suspicious.
However, even if William knew there was something wrong, even if all the team members knew that, there was nothing in their hands to do.
Without any evidence, they couldn't go around and accuse the organisers of the arena of such serious manipulation claims.
"We won't get into the top fifty again this year," another member of the team said with a deep sigh. William looked around, and from all their faces, he saw bitterness, depression, and disappointment.
'Sigh! Power can't make everything right,' William knew this was the result of underhanded means used by Garlend and his team, 'but power can solve anything.'
He didn't really care about what would happen to this team. However, he didn't like just underhanded and dirty methods to win.
"Let's do our best then," William said, trying to raise morale.
"We'll get around three thousand crystals by the fifth round," Lucas suddenly said, bringing up this matter.
William realised even when the team was facing such a dead end, Lucas was still thinking about his wellbeing.
"It's ok for me," William shrugged. He knew what went through Lucas' mind right now. Lucas recruited him on the premise of getting one tenth of the final reward. And it was a huge difference between getting one thousand and three hundred crystals.
"This…"
"I was just walking around when you stopped me," William said, ending this issue once and for all, "so getting one thousand getting three hundred it doesn't matter. It's free wealth coming to me without even thinking about it."
"Ok," Lucas knew that William was reassuring him by saying these words. But as the man himself said it, he didn't say anymore.
For William this was entirely nothing in his eyes. The little spirit crystals he'd gain even if they secured the first place was nothing in his eyes.
What he wanted to experience was the true heart of this arena and its contests. If it proved to be really worthy, then he'd change his entire plans and let his team compete here.
"The good news is that the first two teams are weak," one of the team members said.
"These two we met before and managed to win," Lucas explained, "we met the first round team two years ago and the second team at the second round last year."
"How can you tell which team we will face?" William felt how weird it was to specify certain teams by name. There were too many teams in the entire list to remember, not to mention many came from outside the academy and even those inside might have gained few of the outsider spirit masters.
"The little numbers beside each team's name," Lucas pointed again at the paper he was holding, "these are the expected odds decided by the arena experts."
"And?" William couldn't believe they just decided who would win and lose based on such evaluations.
William didn't need to ask, these numbers didn't represent the odds of winning and losing, but the odds of bidding on these teams.
And bidding was always an unreliable method to determine the winners and losers in any fight.
"We follow this as the general way to assess each team round result," Lucas said, which William didn't like to hear, "as for those teams we are familiar with already, we can determine better about their results either against their opponents or against us."
"I see…"
"Don't bother yourself about anything," one of the team raised a thumbs up to William, "we are going to carry you all the way to the fifth round."
William didn't say anything. He wasn't weak. And he knew if he took part in the competition, he'd perform much better than many of these silver spirit masters around.
However, he kept his silence while following them inside the arena. "The arena is divided into one grand fighting space called the Grand Arena. It's formed of twenty small fighting grounds, five medium sized grounds, and one big and central fighting ground…"
Lucas started to explain the grand design of the arena to William as the team entered it. They weren't the only ones getting inside, a swarm of people were also flooding the place.
William learnt that the arena contained three general fighting arenas dedicated for anyone to use. The big day contest and everyday fights were held at these three.
In addition to that, there were around one hundred small private arenas that could be hired for different prices.
From Lucas' words, William got that the difference in price was meant for certain things like the general size of the private arena, the strength of the concealment arrays used, and even hiring one gold grade or higher expert to teach anyone what he wanted for one day.
It seemed like a place to learn and gain experience, not just to fight and win wealth.
"... The central stage in the Grand Arena is reserved for the final three battles in each grade. As for the other twenty-three stages, we are going to compete there until we reach the last two rounds."
By saying this, the team arrived at a grand space inside the Grand Arena. William noticed that there were many sectors here, not that private to be called a room, formed of three walls while leaving the fourth side open to the grand space here.
"Let's go there," one of the team pointed towards a place, and before the team would move there, William spotted Garlend and his team moving to the same sport and took it.
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