After they registered their team, Michael and the others spent most of their time in the Ulran Arena.
On the official first day of the Battle Exchange the Solo Combat discipline was held. Michael decided to watch a few battles with Kaleb and the rest of his team to find out more about their potential opponents in the Team discipline.
Interestingly enough, Lokai, who had been complaining all day about not being able to participate in the Solo discipline, kept her mouth shut after watching the third battle with everyone else. She realized that nobody was given much time to rest in between their battles, and that the strongest Awakened at the Peak of the 3rd Tier wouldn't show any mercy to their opponents.
They unleashed their strongest attacks to end their battles as quickly as possible. By ending their battles quickly, the Awakened had more time to rest up than the others. Furthermore, they could establish dominance over others, potentially forcing them into surrendering and weakening their confidence.
Just like Michael predicted, the top 200 spots of the Solo discipline were all filled with Peak Tier-3 Awakened, and Late Tier-3 Awakened with extremely powerful Soultraits, and special powers. Neither Michael nor Thaor were confident of defeating them. However, that was only normal.
Both Thaor and Michael had manifested their War Rune less than a year ago. Meanwhile, almost everyone in the top 200 of the Solo discipline manifested their War Rune close to four years ago. The difference may only be three years, but that was equivalent to six years inside the Origin Expanse!
They could close the gap if they were more talented, in possession of stronger Soultraits, or given enough resources to accelerate their growth. However, even closing the gap of strength was not something that happened overnight. Everyone was already striving hard to grow stronger, making it already difficult to maintain the gap, forget about closing it.
By observing the fights of the Solo discipline with great interest, Michael learned a lot. He made mental notes about certain opponents and told himself to collect more information about them later. But even if Michael was very interested in the Solo discipline and the Awakened's Soultraits, they didn't spend too much time watching others fight. Instead, they returned to the Ulran Arena where Kaleb was told to spar with Lokai, Thaor, and Mekhaz.
Kaleb had yet to gain their respect as Warriors. Thus, the young descendant of the Zenovia family had to show them what he was capable of.
Fortunately, it was not really difficult for Kaleb to take the two Berserkers and the Warlock Centaur by surprise. He tapped into the Power of Frozen Nova and unleashed one of the strongest moves he could control – though just barely. One moment everything was perfectly normal, and the next moment everything in the Ulran Arena froze. The temperature in the arena dropped rapidly, and breathing the chilling air in the arena was both uncomfortable and painful.
Every breath was harder to endure, and his opponents felt like their lifeforce was being frozen into a block of solid ice.
Michael had to create a small dome of Extraction around him to extract the chilling air around him. He was unaffected as Kaleb used his 7-Star Soultrait. However, the opposite could be said for Mekhaz, Thaor, and Lokai. They didn't expect Kaleb to have such a powerful Soultrait, and were taken by surprise as the flood of ice and chilling air hit them.
Kaleb had to stop using Frozen Nova after a few seconds. His energy storage had been drained rapidly, and he felt a little dizzy. It was far from easy to control Frozen Nova, especially the Frozen Tsunami.
It would be easier to control Frozen Nova if his energy storage was bigger. He wouldn't have to restrain Frozen Nova's extraordinary powers to use weaker attacks with great precision. Unfortunately, as a rather powerful 7-Star Soultrait, Frozen Nova's weakest action would still drain one-fourth of his stored energy. The attack was extremely strong, but it drained too much energy. Thus, Kaleb had been focusing on controlling Frozen Nova, and further splitting up the power output of Frozen Nova to use his Soultrait with lower energy consumption.
Once Kaleb gained the Berserker's and Warlock Centaur's respect, it was about time to come up with battle strategies. Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs were known for their aggressive combat style, but Michael and Kaleb wanted to take their opponents by surprise. They hoped that their tactics could be different from the norm. That way, they could overwhelm their opponents even if their overall combat prowess might be weaker than that of the enemy team's.
It was not easy to discuss battle strategies with the stubborn Berserkers, but Mekhaz made it a lot easier. At least, the Warlock Centaur listened to their ideas and combined them with other important factors that hadn't been taken into consideration.
As such, several hours passed and it was not long after their heated debates came to an end when the second day of the Battle Exchange started. The Solo discipline finished at midnight, and the Duo discipline started one minute after midnight. The second discipline started the moment the first finished, giving those who participated in both disciplines no time to rest or recover.
The second day of the Battle Exchange was rather uneventful for Michael and the rest of his team. They spent the whole day in the Ulran Arena, testing a few combat strategies, and sparring with each other in two versus three teams. The team composition was changed after every spar after they talked thoroughly about their teamwork, how to fix the flaws in their teamwork without letting it negatively impact their combat prowess, and how to improve their tactics further.
Even though they didn't watch the Duo discipline's battles, their team received many reports about the battles. Apparently, the battles of the Duo discipline were even fiercer than they had been during the Solo discipline. Many Awakened had been injured, and two Awakened – one human and a Berserker – were brought to the nearest hospital because they had been crippled. They had to be tended to immediately to save their lives after they had been mortally wounded since not even the Healing Soultraits of the attending healers had been strong enough to tend to them.
After the incident in which the human Lord and Berserker Adventurer had been injured, the tension in the Underground Colosseum reached a new height. The Berserkers began to fight more fiercely than before, all while the human Lords used their Soultraits to inflict more injuries on the weaker opponents. Even the Warlock Centaurs had a hard time controlling the rage surging through their bodies.
"What a mess…" Kaleb mumbled, staring at the screen in front of him. It was already late at night, and their team was just about to split up and sleep a few hours when more reports flooded Kaleb's crystal watch.
Michael and the others received a few reports as well, but Kaleb's information network was the most developed due to his family's effort. But even the few reports Michael and the others received were more than enough to frown deeply.
"Was it really a good idea to throw the Tritan Alliance into the Battle Exchange? I already had a bad feeling about Killian and the others, but this doesn't feel like allies fighting for a better spot in the ranking… Isn't that more like arch-enemies trying to kill each other…for the sake of killing?!" Michael cursed loud enough for everyone to hear.
"It's not that bad. Injuries make Berserkers only stronger. The wounds inflicted to the weak will heal rapidly and make them stronger than before. We think of wounds as lessons and don't hold grudges...usually. The lightning freak never intended to kill me either. He wanted to establish dominance, but he never released the strongest form of his lightning – not after he saw how much damage his strongest lightning made after our first clash," Thaor tried to pacify Michael while looking up from the report he read.
"The lightning freak might be a piece of shit for acting the way he did, but that was his way of gaining our respect – through domination and an attempt to inflict fear. It was honorless, but our race always respects the strong," Thaor added, only for Lokai to intervene, "You might not understand this yet, but the strong can do whatever they want. The strongest beings determine the rules of society. A single command can kill tens of thousands."
Michael had already guessed that Thaor was not angry at Killian Zeus for attacking him because Thaor spoke rather lightly about the 'lightning freak'. Nonetheless, it was a little bit weird of him to act like that after nearly getting charred to death.
'Even if Killian didn't reveal any killing intent…isn't the fierceness a little bit too much between allies? Or is that actually normal? Can cultural differences be that huge?'
He already knew the answer to the last question that had flashed through his mind. Every race had a unique culture. In fact, even within the races cultural differences existed. It was perfectly normal.
'Looks like I have to adapt a lot more to the cultural differences than I thought.'
Michael smiled faintly and nodded his head.
"But if that's true, why are the Berserkers more aggressive in battles than before?" Michael asked out of curiosity.
"That's also pretty simple. They're getting more excited to fight human Awakened. Sustaining injuries in battle is perfectly normal for us. In fact, it brings great glory to leave a bloody battlefield with scars. By allowing our excitement and battle spirit to take over, we're showing our allies that we consider them valuable allies with great power. Furthermore, it is also a sign that we would never turn our backs on them, and leave the Underground Colosseum as one unit – just like it's supposed to be as allies!" Thaor announced, his voice growing louder with each spoken word as his chest swelled with pride.
However, Michael and Kaleb could only look at each other in confusion.
'That…seems fucked up…' Michael thought, blinking his eyes irritatedly, 'But why do I feel like it makes sense?'
