"You couldn't be more obvious if you tried. Ha Ha Ha Ha." Grandmaster Acalan smiled wryly. "Just how many of that poor brat's treasures are you interested in? Can't leave him even one or two?"
Ignoring the blatant mockery, the PVP tower master Crawford scoffed in response and continued with his business.
He couldn't care less about what the old fart next to him had to say. He was far more interested in the white fox with the three tails.
"Her speed just now was spectacular. I have never seen a young beast exhibit such marvelous abilities. I need to examine her better."
Mumbling to himself, the tower master was busy making his observations and calculations and then some more observations.
At the same time, the person next to him continued to be silently amused by his actions. Neither of them exchanged any words with each other.
Meanwhile…
"Mounts?" All the remaining 50 players on the tournament floor started scrambling. The members of the currently most popular All Star team also became busy.
With the latest announcement, they did not have to guess that this round depended on their mounts.
It was probably a race of some sort with the player on top of the mount. So everyone tried their best to bring out a decent beast.
Of course, the top players were still not too worried about this. Regardless of the mounts, the player would still be on top and would most probably determine the real winner. So they had nothing to worry about.
The only ones who worried were the players who were close to getting eliminated. They wanted to bring out powerful mounts and seal the gap in the player skills.
Amidst all of this strategizing, there was a little bit of issue in Liam's group as well. Alex, Rey, and the two other players did not have any special mounts.
They only had common beasts, and in fact, all four of them had the same dire wolf breed, one of the most commonly available mount drops.
And with four of them standing side by side, it was kind of embarrassing, to say the least.
"Damn it, Rey! Aren't you a hunter? Don't you have anything else? Did you have to use the same wolf?" Alex shook her brother.
"Eh? What are you worried about? Our wolves look cool. See! They look majestic and awesome, standing next to each other!" Rey even whistled to show his enthusiasm.
Alex wanted to bury her head somewhere. "Can't this stupid round start already!" She just wanted to get it over with and go to the next round, where hopefully, she might get to pound someone down.
"Sis, you need to stop being so violent all the time!" Rey poked the bear and laughed courageously. Everyone who heard him silently said their prayers.
The next second, Rey's ears started getting twisted by the said bear when suddenly bright lights enveloped all the players on the floor. Once again, they were getting teleported.
Where to? No one knew.
When the bright lights faded, everyone's vision cleared up to reveal a magnificent bed of clouds.
Like soft fluffy cotton candy, blobs and blobs of white clouds were everywhere, till the distance eyes could see, and all the players were currently standing atop these clouds along with their selected mounts.
"Oh my god! Brother! Is this where the race is going to be? This looks so beautiful..." A bright smile spread across Mei Mei's face as she started scooping one handful of white mist after another.
Her panther also shared her playful nature as the duo played around. Seeing this, Luna who was standing by Liam, jumped into the fray playing with the two.
The white fox had a precious face as she jumped around in the clouds, treating the fluffy clouds like soapy lather.
However, only these three in the entire group had this attitude. Everyone else was dead serious.
Mia's majestic white tiger stared arrogantly ahead, its pristine pure nature not in the least sullied by the shenanigans of the fox and the panther rolling around in the clouds next to it.
The tiger stood away as if it had no idea who the other two beasts were.
On the other side, a couple of bats stood near Shen Yue and Derek.
The two looked out of place, with demonic aura seeping out of them. Especially the one that Derek had, the one that was buff and muscular just like him, attracted a lot of attention from the neighboring players.
At this time, everyone was standing in a somewhat straight line, and coincidentally, the person standing next to Alex was…
PFFT! Madan laughed out loud, unable to control himself.
"What a sorry sight this is… since when did the famous Crimson Abyss become this pathetic? What is this? Four fire wolves? A small fox? A panther and two bats?"
"Ba ha ha ha ha! This is ridiculous. Four dire wolves! Ba ha ha ha! The guild vice-master actually has a dire wolf!"
Alex gritted her teeth and tried not to get affected by the fat ass. She ignored him and paid attention to the other players around them, especially the ones from the all star team.
However, Madan was not planning to let her off that easily. "Miss Alex, do you know what a mount should look like? See our boss."
He pointed to the guy standing a couple of paces away from him, where Kouske was standing. And next to Kouske was shockingly a huge death knight.
This single thing was much bigger than everything else put together, so currently everyone's attention was on this death knight.
Even Liam couldn't believe that he was doing this. "This guy is really taking full advantage of my item." He smiled bitterly.
"You see now, Miss Alex. This is how a mount should be." Madan grinned smugly. Though he had used Kouske as an example, the mount he had wasn't that bad either.
It was a black bird that looked like a sparrow, and a thick aura of dark element seeped out of it. "This is a spirit beast, right?" Alex clicked her tongue in admiration, looking at the sparrow. She completely ignored the taunts.
Madan's face slightly changed, but he was still jovial. "This little thing. It's nothing. It's nothing." He tried not to make a big deal out of his bird.
"You don't have to be so pretentious." Alex sneered and turned around.
She hated this type of person the most, the one who downplayed things purposefully, acting as if what they had wasn't good enough. She ignored the person and started paying attention to the other players.
This event was basically a show of mounts, so everyone wanted to gather information about what was available and how powerful it was.
In the midst of this, Rey alone looked occupied. Originally he was also sightseeing, but now he was staring at his system interface.
There was a message blinking for him. "I can give you the coordinates for a better hunter's pet." It was from Madan. While talking trash with Alex, the guy simultaneously messaged Rey.
"Okay?" Rey sent a reply, looking confused.
Surprisingly, a reply immediately arrived. Madan did not beat around the bush and directly gave him a couple of coordinates.
Rey looked like he was not sure what was going on. He scratched his head and stared at the screen when another reply came in.
"Just a friendly help from one hunter to another."
Before Rey could say anything to this, a bell rang loudly, so he closed the interface, deciding to deal with this later on.
With the sound of the bell, the other players also prepared themselves.
A bright line appeared in front of them, something that looked like a ray of sunshine, and everyone called back their mounts to stand in order behind this line.
Some even started climbing on top when suddenly another bright light flashed, and all the players mysteriously found themselves back on the PVP tower's tournament floor.
"Huh?" Everyone was utterly shocked. What just happened?
Moreover, it looked like only they had been teleported. Their pets were still there on the bed of clouds which was currently being displayed to them.
"Wait, this round is only for the pets and mounts?" Someone pointed out the obvious, and then everyone nodded in realization.
Suddenly everyone who was not nervous before was now sweating. Which idiot organizer would actually keep a mount race as a round in an important tournament that could decide their fate?
Shouldn't this kind of tournament be conducted based on their combat ability? This was simply ridiculous! Utter bullshit!
Everyone silently cursed this damned tournament organizer and their bad luck for not having better mounts.
Unfortunate players like Alex straight up squatted on the ground with their hands on their heads.
"Damn it. Am I going to get eliminated now?" There was simply no other result. What was a common dire wolf supposed to do in this group of monstrous looking mounts?
It was game over for her.
