Socialising wasn't a priority at the moment, they'd have free time later. First he wanted to look at the collection rules for each event, because obviously he was going to participate in all of them.
There was little time before the first event though.
"You won't be punished for failing to dominate a beast, but i don't think we have any at mortal realm." Said the akward attendant. He looked like a normal young adult with purple skin and was responsable for introducing things in the first event to the ten or so participants.
"Don't care, bring me to an magically conductive monster." Aki imediatly shrugged his concerns away. He really was the only chosen in the mortal realm. Seeing as the guide was being useless he decided to scan the area himself. There was a floting cloud of green stuff with multiple crystals inside, a dragon with molten lava flowing through it's skin, a normal white horse, a little puppy... "I'll take the puppy." Aki imediatly decided, entering the cell withouth missing a beat while the guide just dumbly questioned if they had something like that in the selection before.
There was no way he'd know the hellhound in there had already been devoured.
{Human, give me scritches!} It demanded while cutely barking at Aki's feet. He readily complied and began a full body massage on the golden fluffly pupper, which lasted until the ridders were called.
Reaching the lines, everyone looked strangely at the man carrying the much smaller dog to the his lane.
Some people were literally riding lions with wings, a pegasus, a sphinx, a particularly mad centaur, the puppy was just so out of place no one even remenbered to laugh or question it's pressence.
One notable ginger hunk was about to joke about it, but the moment Aki put the dog on the ground and got a bit away, it suddenly started to grow. After reaching three meters tall and five long, It's already shinning fur started to radiate a golden and blue hue, complex rune patterns started becoming obvious in it's legs and heads, which had clearly turned much more lupine in nature.
"Who's the best girl? You are. Who's going to completly destroy the competition so throughly that they will be ashamed of their birth? You will!" Aki cutely said to the snorting Angela, who looked majestic and completly above all other 'rides'.
At the end of it, there wasn't even a need for Aki's bodily reinforcement, not that they'd be able to work well enough on someone so much stronger, and he won by eight laps of diference, Angela's time magic making all attacks irrelevant in front of her speed an precognition.
"The first place goes towards Aki and Angela." Announced the game master.
Some people wanted to complain it was unfair that he had a fucking peak spirit realm as a mount, but at least half the participants were also ridding mounts that had not been offered by the competition, havgin been summoned by previous accords with said beeings. The other half also did not follow suit simply because their gods had no way to get them in contact with creatures similarly powerful that were also within the rules.
Translating, half the present people had called in favors or made a promise towards those beings, they couldn't just ask for whatever from their patrons.
In Aki's case, he'd long convinced and tricked many of Hades' dogs while taking care of them. How did you think he got that Time affinity? He'd have done the same with the shoggoths around, but they were too stupid, otherwise his spatial and shadow affinity would have long reached the maximum he could handle.
"The first place receives five hundred golden tickets, one hundred black tickets and one cyan ticket, plus this beast strenghtening art of god rank." The game master anounced. Being someone who had already browsed the shop, Aki was mighty happy with his reward, though it'd likely be a long time till he actually ussed the rearing manual as intended.
Forgetfulness of what the very first event of the next day was aside, everyone directed themselves to the next event.
It was already agreed upon that Aki's time would be divided by twenty before being used as the final score, but then something unexpected happened.
Aki was only five times slower than the last person to reach the finishing line, meaning his score was actually better than the fastest guy.
No one thought anything when he suddenly broke through to Knight rank before the competition or when he took his sword out. Them he ate a handful of pills and downed a potion.
It was allowed and a couple of guys were doing the same actually, but no one thought much of then, because no way they'd be able to keep doing that in what was obviously not a normal race. They were right, of course, but apparently no one had accounted for someone coming with a ton of mid-ranged teleportation consumables.
Though Aki had downed some medications to raise his speed, those weren't put to use until he reached the area full of space distortions, which stopped any kind of teleportation and greatly delayed him thanks to it's great length.
Literally two thirds of his time were wasted there, just running with his comparatively low speed, reaching only the upper limits of what a genius on the brink of breaking through to spirit realm could show.
At this point in time, at least a third of the chosen were starting to seriously hate Aki. One must understand, the runner up was specially pissed when he was told that his time had been double the one of someone a bit more than twenty levels bellow him had achieved, in great part because he had been one of the people that had confidently ignored the discussion with the game master, saying even if his time was divided by a hundred it wouldn't matter.
In a competition with so many more people, everyone considered the mortal realm weakling would not be able to surpass then in physical prowess even if he had some kind of hidden talent and simply focused on running the fastest they could while sabotaging those around them. Snares and slows didn't count as violent actions after all, nevermind that everyone there but Aki could survive having an actual sky-scrapper land on their shoulders or something, so rough housing a bit was not even registered as violence.
Some tried to complain he hadn't raced at all, but the use of consumables was allowed since the beginning of the competition.
"If you all agreed it was something bad than you should have asked to veto the rule or used it yourselves. The second event has already ended and i will not allow for questioning of my rulling at this point in time. Prepare for the next event or disperse, just don't waste my time or you will be banned." The floating robotic torso said with mechanical calm that failed completly in calming those present.
Looking around while he waited for the treasure hunt to begin, Aki just watched those people while eating popcorn since he didn't have access to much other media at the moment and didn't feel like reading a bit just to have to store the book right after.
Said competition ended up having even less participants than the first one, sporting a grand 3 people standing in front of the game master. This game didn't allow for spectators or outside help, though guests could also subscribe to participate in the stead of their chosen, so now Aki and two cute boys, one teenager and one young adult, stood in front of the circular table the game master had first appeared at.
"The rules are simple, find the most precious object you can and bring it back here to be judged by me." Said the disembodied voice coming from no place in specific before declaring the beggining of the competition. Aki was now imediatly targeted, but unexpectadly to both young man, they hadn't noticed the seed of malice that made them launch a possibly lethal attack that would also restrain their oponent instead of just restraining him.
While from either their points of view it was not actually a technich worth mentioning, it would still have injured Aki because of his frailty. Coupled with their not so artificial thought of disliking the man, the area imediatly rebounded the attacks, protecting Aki and sending them home.
Reverbarating through the halls and reaching all those present, sudently came the mechanical voice of the ame master.
"As of the disqualification of his oponents, chosen Aki has won the treasure hunt by default, becoming the champion of the first day and having all his current rewards doubled." The tunderous voice for some reason seemed to shake the bones of all those hearing the announcement, but it certainly wasn't because of it's manlyness or the energy behind it. "I realize many may think cheating has happened durring this event, but i must point out that both guests broke the rule of no violence against a chosen durring the gathering. A video recording will be made available to all who wish to view the occurence, that is all for today. I pray for your enjoyment of the available facilities. "
Silence rapidly ensued as not even the smart asses that were previously guffawing at everyone else's frustration could hold onto their sudden regret.
Aki on the other hand, decided to pay for twelve hours of dilated time inside a training chamber, being allowed two days and a half for practice of his newly earned techniques by using 'measly' fifty black tickets.
By the way, tickets range from gray, as the lowest possible, to black as the highest currency. Between then one can find white, red and golden tickets, usually as the price for several consumables, equipments, cultivation manual and arts/spells.
You might have noticed, but there's more to this gathering then socializing and gifting free stuff to whoever is already is the best at one thing or the other.
Besides the obviously advantageous hyperbolic chambers for training, one can also find a myriad of chambers focusing on testing one or more characteristics of it's challengers and gifting precious opportunities and tickets for their degree of completion.
For those unable to imedetiatly understand why a test would be such grand thing, and i really can't imagine there's many, please sunm it up to cultivators being masoquists that do not know better. For those that did notice that such tests are actually perfect for grinding affinity levels, here, have a cookie.
*****
The next day.
"I see, so these grow with the ideal of nurture and care instead of simply consuming energy, making it so that i have an equal chance as to others a realm above. An incredibly well thought out proposal since it really brings out the idea of the competition." Aki nodded towards the game master while taking the plain, head sized white egg being offered into his arms.
"Wait wait, i'm pretty sure this guy is ussing the same translation module as me, so why the fuck couldn't i understand the first half of what he said?" Inquired one of the more surprised competitors.
"If you are unable to reach the same conclusion than you simply aren't worthy of finding out. That i had to censor his words was already unexpected, but not a bad thing." The game master did a greatly coordinated shrugh with all his eight pairs of shoulders, deciding not to fuck with the guy that had the courage to ask, since the situation really was that strange.
Not confident on his luck, the green haired elf decided to simply nod and position himself to begin nurturing the unborn chick.
The following competition was mostly just twelve people sitting arround and trying to nurture the egg to their ultmost before hatching it. Some people sang songs laced with power, some tried to directly strenghten the egg, some tried to upgrade the chick's bloodline and some even tried to do two of those at the same time. Aki did all three, strenghtening the individual chick and it's bloodline while trying to tell it to remain in it's shell so it could grow stronger faster.
Playing 'Never gonna give you up - Rick Astley', followed by 'Treasure - Bruno Mars', 'Army - Besomorph & Arcando', 'One call away - Charlie Puth' and finally 'Wake me up - Avicii', had a very big part in making the small chick leave only during the last possible minute, but it mainly shaped it's personality and it's resolve in following it's instincts in gorging itself in the offered energies, allowing for the formation of something incredible.
"You are sinfully cute right now, and i'm sure you will be even more handsome after growing up." Aki affectionally said while carresing the head of the black bird with white eyes that popped out of the already pitch black shell. It had been grandly name Charles Julianos Carneiro. CJ for short.
"The time has ended. Participant Aki wins, by creating an entirely new subspecies of phoenix that has peak god realm potential." Announced the game master as said monstruous being was enjoying Aki's undivided attention and felling proud of himself.
"You got to be shitting me!" Complained one of the present women, being the runner up by having her 'chick of extremely undetermined genetic sequence' turn into an actual ice phoenix. "How did he even have the energy to make the nescessary energy to make the nescessary ideals seep into it's being?! He clearly cheated somehow" She screamed, pointing a very accusatory finger towards him.
Instead of refuting her, the game master simply stood there floating, making people think for a second they'd finally caught the cheating bastard. Seeing Aki's outstreched palm turn to then and suddenly summon a pile of gold tickets falling to the floor, everyone realised what he ment even before they confirmed he had a huge mocking grin plastered on his face.
"I bought it bitch. Not my fault you're so poor when everyone started with the same grand amount of zero merely yesterday." He mocked while carrying his newborn child away to the crafting competition, completly ignoring the money he'd left on the ground. Paying to be a jerk was certainly not a bad feeling.