The Ancestral Mages looked with furrowed brows at the five cloaked people.
These people had disturbed the grand tournament, but they couldn't just reprimand them. After all, there was a Mage Lord among them.
Mage Lords were exceedingly rare. The Lightning Manor had around a thousand Mage Lords, but there were also a couple of unaffiliated Mage Lords.
About 50 to 100 unaffiliated Mage Lords lived in the Lightning Emperor's Empire without directly being part of the Lightning Manor.
There were no known unaffiliated Mage Kings.
This meant that these 50 to 100 people represented the most powerful people in an Empire aside from the forces below the Emperor.
The three Mage Lords running Star City were part of this group of Mage Lords.
This meant that this blue-robed Mage Lords was on the same level as the ruler of one of the biggest cities in the world, Star City.
Because of that, the Ancestral Mages couldn't just attack or offend the Mage Lord.
"Talking openly is forbidden," Lord Starsky spoke from his flying platform. "I can feel that you are not from around here, which might explain your words. Let this be my first and last warning for all visitors."
Lord Starsky managed to spin the current situation in such a way that he didn't seem like someone that didn't dare to reprimand someone in his city.
"I was under the impression this was a tournament between warriors," the person in the silver cloak spoke up suddenly.
Earlier, the person in the red cloak had interrupted the proceedings, but now, the person in the silver cloak also interfered.
The Ancestral Mages and Lord Starsky narrowed their eyes.
Lord Starsky had given them a way out earlier without disrespecting them, but they hadn't taken it.
This meant that they were obviously here to cause trouble.
Lord Starsky's mind extended toward the person in a threatening manner.
WHOOOM!
Yet, he felt the power of his mind being deflected by the person in the blue cloak.
Unsurprisingly, the person in the blue cloak supported the two troublemakers.
'But why?' Lord Starsky thought. 'What would they get out of this?'
It was very difficult to assess the mysterious Mage Lord's power, but Lord Starsky could tell that they were not a pushover.
Lord Starsky was a Late Mage Lord, which put him in the top 10 unaffiliated Mage Lords in the Lightning Manor's territory. He had been around for a long while, and he knew basically every unaffiliated Mage Lord in the Lightning Manor's territory and also plenty in other territories.
Yet, the bits of aura he could feel coming off the person in the blue cloak didn't feel familiar.
He was quite certain that he had never come into contact with this person before.
"What is your business here?" Lord Starsky asked coldly, his voice echoing throughout the arena. "Have you come here to cause trouble?"
The person in the red cloak stood up from their seat and snorted. "Depends on what you view as trouble."
SHING!
The red cloak covering the person's body vanished, revealing their true appearance.
It was a tall young man with short, fiery-red hair, wearing form-fitting red armor. Everyone could see an arrogant smirk on the man's face as he held a long and red trident in his right hand.
Tridents were part of the spear category.
When everyone saw the person, they felt confused.
An Early Diamond Body Stage warrior?
Why was he suddenly causing trouble?
However, the few Diamond Body Stage warriors and True Path Stage warriors in the audience noticed something else.
This man's aura felt different.
Contestant 12's aura was different from any other warrior's aura due to his unique Stage, the Weapon Variance Stage.
Yet, the red-haired man's aura was different once again. His aura didn't feel like the aura of someone in the Diamond Body Stage, and his aura also didn't resemble contestant 12's aura.
But the majority of people couldn't feel a difference and just assumed the warrior to be in the Diamond Body Stage.
"Haven't you heard what my friend just said?" the young man shouted with an arrogant smirk.
Then, he pointed his trident at the two contestants from his seat. "I thought this was a tournament between warriors. Yet…"
His trident pointed at the distance contestant 1. "Why is a Barbarian," he said before his weapon moved to point at contestant 12, "fighting a Weapon Master?"
"I don't see any warriors in the Fifth Stage here."
This immediately enraged the warriors in the audience, but they didn't dare to say anything.
At the moment, there were thousands of Ancestral Mages in the audience, and even though the Ancestral Mages didn't even look at them, the warriors felt intimidated and tiny in their presence.
Yes, the strongest warriors of the world were fighting in the arena, but if one chose any person in the audience at random, the chances were quite high that this person could defeat the strongest warrior.
The warriors were proclaiming their power in this tournament, but that was only true when compared to their earlier weakness.
In front of the Mages, they were still nothing.
"Barbarian?" contestant 1 repeated, his voice sounding extremely insulted.
"Weapon Master?" contestant 12 repeated, but compared to contestant 1, he sounded confused.
"Yes," the man in red repeated. "A Barbarian and a Weapon Master."
Then, he looked at Lord Starsky. "I thought this was a tournament between warriors."
By now, Lord Starsky had some suspicions, and he decided to play along.
"If they are not warriors, what is a warrior?" he asked.
The red-haired man harrumphed in confidence.
BANG!
Then, he jumped into the arena and landed a distance away from the two contestants.
"I am!" he shouted as he raised his red trident.
After raising it, he swung the trident to the side.
BANG!
Everyone could feel some sort of power come out of the trident, and a moment later, the walls of the arena in the distance rumbled a bit.
The eyes of the watching Ancestral Mage's widened with surprise and curiosity.
They hadn't felt such a force before, and they were intrigued.
They hadn't felt the red-haired man give off any kind of Mana, but the force had still managed to stretch to the walls of the arena, which were several kilometers away from him.
That was very curious.
"My name is Lei, and I am a warrior at the Early Impose Stage."
