The streets of Parachenko Village were much busier today.
Despite that the total population of Parachenko Village had decreased by a huge percentage, both those mortal survivors, and those Fae Master combatants were eagerly excited about today's event.
Once again everyone came together, to celebrate the time honoured event of watching young men and women beat the shit out of each other.
There were only two Tournaments a year, both of them centred around the new generation of Fae Masters. It was mainly just a piece of propaganda, which focused on highlighting the talented members of each generation, which usually tended to be the descendents of Elders.
However, those of more common background, like Randolf and Andrea, did occasionally give the upper echelons of the Clan a nice surprise.
The mortals and Fae Masters alike also loved placing bets on who they thought would win each fight. The notion of winning a large amount of money, never once left the minds of many people present.
Additionally, many wiser members of the Village thought that this generation might be the most talented in terms of combat in recent years. Quite a few of them had fought to protect the Village in the previous beast tides, so their combat senses would be better in comparison to previous years.
Arthur sat silently, in the same chair that he did almost an entire year ago.
He felt the gazes of dozens of people on him at a single time, not to mention quite the malicious gaze from another person, sitting quite close to him.
Zoya.... hadn't taken to Andrea's death quite so well.
He had punched Arthur once in the face the moment he saw him this morning, and was held back by his friends as Arthur calmly gazed towards him.
"You let her fucking die Arthur! If you had time to save us, you should've been able to protect Andrea!".
Arthur's expression didn't change, and he merely just turned around and headed towards his seat.
Acting out on his emotions, in front of so many people wasn't a good idea. Many knew that he had lost the "love" of his life, and an even greater number felt some sort of sympathy for Arthur and his plight.
Zoya too knew that Arthur was injured, and had a massive wound on his belly, but....
The object of his affection was suddenly killed without any sort of warning or meaning behind it. And the person he thought that was strong enough to protect her had failed.
Everyone knew there wasn't anything Arthur could've done, but some people just let their emotions get the better of them.
Arthur steadied his heartbeat, noticing a tall figure sit down beside him.
The corners of his mouth turned upwards slightly before he opened his mouth to speak.
"If you're here for another deal, then I'll have to disappoint you Randolf".
The tall, muscular young man grunted slightly before shaking his head.
"If you did accept, I would be the one disappointed in you, Arthur".
The pair sat in silence, one with his eyes closed, his head hanging low, with his hair covering the majority of his face. The other steadfast, his back straightened, and his eyes gazing outwards towards the main stage.
There was a slight pause in the air, however, the faint sounds of feet shuffling and men and women screaming out their bets removed any sort of tension or awkwardness in atmosphere.
"I'm going to beat you this time".
Arthur's smile grew just a fraction of an inch, before he raised an eyebrow.
"But you won last time".
Randolf's brows furrowed slightly.
"I may have won first place, but I didn't win the fight. You of all people should know the difference between winning, and first place".
Arthur shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"If you want to take first place Randolf, then you, just like everyone else will have to fight for it. Although, it would be a shame if you lost before you made it to the finals. There is less competition this time around, so the length of the Tournament might not go for the entire day".
"Although, the intensity of the fights is something that is dependent on the combatant. Some fights might only last a single move, while others, might go on for over a hundred".
Randolf nodded.
"I heard that those three have improved by quite a bit as well".
By those three, Randolf was referring to Ratimir, Alina and Borik.
Ratimir's skill with weapon type Fae had increased by quite a bit over the past year, and in the past few weeks, he had found quite a number of Bone Attributed Fae and Water Attributed Fae that he quite liked.
Borik had completed his bear transformation fae a long time ago, and was now looking towards starting a Flowing Poison Serpent Transformation. This particular spirit beast was the Rank 2 equivalent of the Surging Poison Serpent.
While Alina.... probably had the biggest haul out of all of them.
The sixteen year old girl had found two Fae which promoted the size of an individuals origin essence sea.
One Rank 2 Essence Expansion Fae, which increased the size of the Soul Origin Essence Sea by 40%.
And one Rank 1 Bone Limit Fae, which increased the size of the Body Origin Essence Sea by 20%.
Her maximum origin essence sea size had increased from 232% all the way to 292%!
Her talent was no longer second tier! Alina was now classified as a first-tier talent!
When Arthur had heard this news he unconsciously narrowed his eyes.
This.... was undoubtably caused by his presence.
In his previous life, Alina had only found a single Rank 1 Bone Limit Fae, which increased her maximum origin essence sea size from 232% to 252%. But now, she apparently found another one, which increased her origin essence pool even further, bridging the distance between Randolf and her.
Fae that promoted origin essence size.... were normally much rarer and much harder to form. In the two beast tides in his previous life, there was probably a dozen origin essence sea size Fae that had formed.
The best being the Rank 3 Bone Development Fae and the Rank 3 Consciousness Development Fae.
But Arthur had found a little under a dozen fae of such typing, within the past few weeks alone!
The only thing that could explain such an occurrence would undoubtably be his presence!
There were just way too many Fae that couldn't normally form in Azure Envy Continent that had formed!
Elder Vova and Elder Anatol were both researching the unknown Fae that they had found, before shrugging their shoulders, believing them to be some sort of unknown variation fae.
They had never experienced a beast tide of that magnitude, or with a Beast King, so the new variables did make it seem as though these two reasons where the original cause.
However.... Arthur knew better!
He didn't make any physical movements, but he did bite his bottom lip slightly.
'The effects of the heavenly laws exemption.... were starting to bite back at me!'.
He couldn't control such a power, it naturally influenced everything around him.
The only way Arthur could stop such a thing, would be to leave Parachenko Village completely.
Arthur let out a sigh before shaking his head.
'Things should be fine for the time being at least. There isn't anyone within Winter Rain Mountain, or perhaps in the outlying powers that can identify these Fae. I already got exposed due to the Ocean Vein Tree, but that was managed to be kept a secret by my Father and Dominic. The only thing I have to worry about, is the continuous appearance of fae that can increase origin essence sea size.....'.
Alina would have a much easier time fighting, considering that now she didn't have to worry about her origin essence expenditure.
She could activate a wood essence fae, or a shadow essence fae and then wait for her origin essence to regenerate in between battles. Even if she wasn't on Randolf's level in that regard, she was still more dangerous that Ratimir and Borik right now!
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
This was the second time in his life that he had been surprised by something.
The first being the existence of the Boundless Forest Yearning.
And the second time, was the exemption of heavenly laws now being used against him!