Saphandra walked over to the guard that handed out slips of paper for the winners. She took hers and went back to the waiting room to get another ticket.
After finally sitting on the bench, she looked at the paper.
"37 Pearls for match 133?" she read the slip of paper. She was happy to earn so much money, but something didn't make sense.
"Wasn't I 73rd? How were there 133 matches already?" she wondered. That was when she realized she read it wrong.
"Could it be?" her mind went wild in surprise as she realized what the slip said. Instead of 37 pearls, she had actually earned 133.
That was a third more than what she had earned yesterday, all day and it hadn't even been time for breakfast yet.
She got excited and looked forward to her next fight.
* * * * *
Ning and Saphandra were both really strong for their group, and soon everyone knew.
After 3 days, Ning had started to earn basically nothing and fighters conceded before it was even their turn to fight.
While there were newbies every day that got paired up with them, Ning wasn't making much money now.
Even earning 40 Pearls a day was luxury by the 5th day.
However, as a form of silver lining, the Arena was considering moving him to the Pros section where he would fight against people that were equally or stronger than he was.
At least they claimed so.
So, both Ning and Saphandra kept fighting normally for a little while until it was time for the test that would promote them.
Ning and Saphandra went to the Arena and went their separate path to the waiting room for each of their promotion.
When Ning arrived, he saw a few other people waiting there already. When he entered, they all turned to look at him with weird looks on their face.
"Haven't seen you before," one of the men said.
"Same here," Ning said with a light smile.
"Are you new?" the man asked.
"A week or so, yes," Ning said.
"I've been here for half a year, but haven't been fighting for the last month or so in preparation for this match," the man said.
"Oh, good luck," Ning said.
"Only a weakling requires luck to get ahead in life. Keep it, you'll need it," the man said and left.
"Rude," Ning said, but quickly forgot about the man and started focusing on the various other things.
More people came and soon there were about 16 of those. No, there were exactly 16 of them.
'Tournament-style matches huh,' Ning thought after seeing the numbers.
A man walked into the room and walked over to the center and started talking.
"I will be your judge for today's promotion. The idea is simple. You guys will fight one on one until there is only 2 person remaining. Those two will be promoted," the man said.
"However, if I think any of you don't have what it takes to get the promotion, I will cancel it immediately. I'm not here to promote a bunch of sissies that can barely fight."
"If you all turn out to be just that, you will be going back to the kiddy pool," the man said. "Alright, let's start. You two, go fight."
The two people pointed swiftly stood up and walked out of one of the doors. The other 14 of them looked around, a little unsure what to do.
The man disappeared somewhere leaving them by themselves and only returned after a while as one of the 2 people that had left returned.
Behind him was a 3-meter-tall gorilla that didn't even fit through the door and had to stay outside.
Next up, 2 more people were called and they went out.
About 15 minutes later, Ning's turn finally came up and he was going against the arrogant man that spoke to him today.
Ning walked out of the room and went through a few beasts that stayed outside before finding out that he was going to have to fight amidst a whole slew of audience.
"I didn't know we were going to have to fight in the open," Ning made a casual remark.
"What? Scared?" the man asked before making his way to the other side of the stage.
Ning shook his head and stayed on this side.
"Summon!" the referee said and both of them closed their eyes to focus.
"I need someone to fight for me all day today and beat anything that comes my way. I will give you 50% of my Spiritual energy for that," Ning said.
A bunch of light moved closer to him and Ning grabbed the brightest one amongst them all.
The summoning circle appeared which surprised Ning a bit. The beast was not only physically strong but also Elementally and Mentally.
He saw symbols that meant fire as well as symbols that meant the beast was something that could fly.
'A bird?' Ning wondered when he saw the 'Aerial' symbol.
A bird with fire forever burning on its head and tail feathers arrived on the stage.
His opponent summoned a giant salamander and looked smug for a while before seeing what Ning had summoned.
Even without being close, just from the beast's aura, he could tell the Ning had summoned at least a Rank 5 beast. Against his rank 4 Salamander, the bird was easily going to destroy it.
Ning looked around and wondered if there was any point in holding back. 'It's better to gain a reputation,' he thought and decided not to hold back at all.
"Go beat his little lizard until it disappears," Ning ordered the bird.
The bird screeched and flew with incredible speed as it arrived next to the salamander. Before the Salamander could respond, a burning wing struck it on the stomach, leaving a charred skin.
The bird then came back around and scratched it on the head with its talon.
In just these 2 attacks, the salamander's summoning circle appeared and it disappeared away.
