The watching Mages talked to each other with excitement and interest.
All of this was just a show to them.
They didn't specifically care about the politics between warriors, but the open drama was more than entertaining for them.
Just for this show, paying the Grade Five Mana Crystal was already worth it.
But for the warriors, this was quite an intense and emotionally charged conflict.
They were warriors!
Barbarians didn't exist in Area 23 anymore, but everyone had still heard of them, and the reputation of the barbarians wasn't the best.
They seemed inferior and weak.
Yet, this Lei guy called everyone with a Diamond Body a Barbarian.
This was extremely disrespectful to nearly every warrior present.
Many of the warriors had already created their Diamond Body, and even more of them were in the process of creating it.
They had worked for decades, if not centuries, for their goal, and they couldn't accept it when someone told them that all their hard work had been for nothing.
Lord Starsky remained quiet.
At the moment, he felt conflicted.
On one hand, the sudden interruption from the foreign warriors was disrespectful towards him and Star City as a whole, and even more, if these warriors actually won against the present warriors, it would pull down the warriors' prestige, which would pull down the entire event with it, which would pull down the organizer, Lord Starsky himself.
But on the other hand, if his warriors defeated the foreign warriors, it would increase the prestige of the warriors in the Lightning Manor's territory.
It all depended on who won.
Lord Starsky was confident in his power and his status. Even if the mysterious Mage Lord were more powerful, they couldn't just enter the city and kill him. The Lightning Manor would have issues with that. It was one thing when a Mage Lord living in the Lightning Manor's territory killed another Mage Lord, but it was something different when a foreign Mage Lord did that.
"I have made my decision," Lord Starsky announced.
Everyone looked up at the floating platform.
"This is an unusual occurrence, but I believe that everyone has gathered here to witness the birth of the strongest warrior of the world."
"Because of that, I decided to let this group of warriors partake in the tournament."
The present Mages felt excited when they heard Lord Starsky's words.
"How many of you will be joining?" Lord Starsky asked the person in the blue cloak.
"Two for now," the person in the blue cloak answered. "If both of them are defeated, I will send a third, but that will be the last one."
Lord Starsky looked with interest at the four remaining cloaked figures.
He hadn't expected three.
The first two were obviously the person with the red cloak, Lei, and the person in the silver cloak. Even though they were wearing enchanted cloaks, Lord Starsky wasn't just anyone.
Lord Starsky was amazing at feeling out someone's power.
The two people in the red and silver cloaks were well within the Fifth Realm, and the silver one was definitely more powerful than the red one.
In comparison, the ones in the white and black cloak had power that was well within the Sixth Realm, which made it impossible for them to be warriors.
Of course, Lord Starsky could only tell someone's actual power, not their Realm or level through the cloaks. If one of these two were an extremely powerful and talented Peak Archmage, they would also exhibit the power of someone inside the Ancestral Mage Realm, but that didn't matter in this case.
After all, how could a warrior possibly reach such powers right now? In the future, maybe, but not right now.
'Does this mean that they are hiding the third person?' Lord Starsky thought. 'Are they that confident in their power?'
'Maybe they thought that I would have declined their participation if I had a chance to feel out the third warrior.'
Lord Starsky felt like they had won one over him, but it wasn't a big deal.
After a moment, the person in the silver cloak jumped into the arena, but they stayed near the side and didn't take off their cloak.
This was obviously the second participant.
Lord Starsky informed his ten Ancestral Mages about how they should handle the current situation, and they nodded.
"Because of the new contestants, we are reshuffling the fights," the leader of the Ancestral Mages announced.
"The new contestant going by the name of Lei will fight contestant 32 for a spot in the tournament. Contestant 1 and contestant 12 will remain at the edges of the arena for now."
The current contestants were not inside the arena to keep their identities a secret. It made for a much greater show when the audience didn't know who was about to enter.
But it made no sense to keep the contestants secret again. Because of that, contestant 1 and contestant 12 could remain at the edge of the arena instead of having to retreat back into the waiting rooms.
Contestant 1 and contestant 12 shot a glance at each other for a moment, but they walked to the edges of the arena separately without interacting with each other.
What the people didn't notice was that contestant 1 had tried to create some form of temporary alliance with contestant 12.
These were foreign warriors, and they should be the enemy of both of them.
However, contestant 12 declined immediately.
From what he had seen, this Impose Stage was better than the Diamond Body Stage, making these foreign warriors more warrior-like than all the other warriors in this tournament.
When everyone reached the edge of the arena, the Ancestral Mages called in contestant 32.
The gates opened, and a younger man with brown hair, carrying a long spear and a tower shield, entered the arena.
Everything that happened in the arena was transmitted to the people in the waiting rooms, and they couldn't wait to tear these foreign warriors apart.
How dare they call them Barbarian?!
Lei just smirked, moved his trident to the back, and taunted contestant 32 by curling his fingers.
Contestant 32 narrowed his eyes.
