"Group A: Alf Pilson, Eivind Blehr, Camilla Onstad, Bodil Esmark, Gerd Waaler, and Johan Friberg."
The elder called out the contestants' names rather than their numbers. It was a form of acknowledgement for those who'd made it this far.
She continued to read off names, but Isaac didn't hear his until,
"Group H: Hayden Stromberg, Isaac Dahl, Daniel Falkanger..."
Then she read 3 more names he didn't recognise. Isaac jotted them down in the pocket notebook he always brought with him. He was obviously acquainted with Hayden since he'd tried to recruit him before, but Daniel Falkanger was a name he'd memorised a while ago as one of the highest scorers in the trials. He'd forgotten some of the other names, but Daniel's surname had stuck in his memory for an unknown reason.
After reading out the 8th group, the elder stopped. She'd already picked all the names from the box, so she announced,
"Those are the groups for the tournament's second stage. You will fight everybody in your group once. There are 2 points for winning a fight, 1 point for drawing and, of course, 0 for losing. The two with the most points in each group will progress to the third and final stage: the knockout stages. I will also do the draw for the knockout stages now."
The official brought two smaller boxes over to the elder. The few remaining spectators all stayed silent as the elder drew paper slips from both boxes,
"The winner of group C shall fight the runner-up of group H. The winner of group A shall fight the runner-up of group B..."
The elder read out the matchups. There was a large section of unmarked wall behind her. As she spoke, a set of shimmering lines and words appeared in the air. There was a large tournament tree which displayed the structure of the knockout stage, and then 8 tables (one for each group) below it.
After she'd finished drawing names, the elder finally announced,
"Good luck in your groups. Hopefully you can show us some good performances..."
Her feet left the floor as she slowly glided up and away.
However, Isaac didn't pay attention to her exit; he was busy writing down all 8 tables in his notepad. When that was done, he left – but he didn't go home straight away. First he headed to a secluded spot in the Rank 3 district. He looked underneath the decking of a certain house and, sure enough, there was a black holdall bag there.
Isaac brought it back to his house and opened it there. There were 3 leather pouches and a stack of books inside. This was the exchange Isaac had arranged with Lara. He'd left his potions and ingredients under the decking that morning, and she must've had a lackey collect them and replace them with this holdall bag.
Isaac grabbed one of the pouches and opened it. There were 10 reward points inside.
He pocketed half of them, hid everything away, then left his house. He was off to find Abbie.
*************************
Half an hour later, Isaac returned to his house with a notebook in his pocket. This was not the notebook he'd got from Sanna ages ago, and it was not the notepad he'd been jotting details in; it was a notebook that he'd bought from Abbie.
Like Isaac, she had information on a lot of newcomers. In fact, she probably had more information than Isaac did. She also didn't have any problems helping him out, since Isaac had seen her get narrowly eliminated in today's mass battles. That had prompted Isaac to buy some information from her – information about the people in his group, to be precise.
The price was only 2 reward points – far cheaper than a professional information vendor – and it drastically reduced the chances of something catching him by surprise in the group stages.
Isaac didn't mind surprises, but he didn't like risks. Especially unnecessary ones. The risk of being caught unawares was too high for his liking, so he paid a small price to reduce it, and he was glad that he did.
When he read through Abbie's information, Isaac gave a sigh of relief; it was extremely fortunate that he knew this beforehand.
*************************
The group stages began at 10 am, slightly later than yesterday's fights. That gave Isaac time to do some stretching and warmup before he made his way to the Ring of Life and Death.
Less than 2% of the original contestants remained, so the area for participants to sit had become very small and there were only a few people there. On the other hand, the crowds in the stands had grown dramatically.
The stadium was at least four fifths full, with a crowd many tens of thousands strong. They roared and jeered as new contestants entered and walked towards their seats. The wave of noise was crushing, but Isaac endured it and walked over to his spot. He sat and looked around.
It was at this moment he realised the so-called 'stage one' wasn't really a stage at all. It was a mere weeding out of the trash, an elimination of the weak and boring participants that weren't worth watching. Now, at the group stage, each and every contestant was strong. All of them were worthy foes that he had to pay attention to.
From here onwards, the battles would be intense and impossible to predict; everyone would be giving it their all, and this was where the tournament started. The crowd knew this too, hence the huge rise in attendance.
The atmosphere was raucous, and Isaac tried to soak it in. He needed to adapt to the environment before his fight. Unfortunately, a voice came from above,
"Welcome everybody! I hope you're ready to begin your fights!"
The elder didn't bother coming all the way down to the stage, since she only had a short piece to say. Respectful silence descended upon the crowd as she hung in the air and spoke,
"We'll begin with group A's first fights. Johan Friberg and Alf Pinson, go to ring 1. Eivind Blehr and Camilla Onstad take ring 2, and Bodil Esmark and Gerd Waaler can have ring 3. Fighters, take your places."
With that, the elder drifted back up to her private booth at the top of the colosseum. The referees standing ringside took over,
"On your marks. Begin!"
A round of furious combat was underway...
Isaac watched all the fights, but he paid particular attention to ring 3, where the combat seemed to be most intense. Gerd was a well-built 5'9 woman with bulging biceps, a thick neck, and a rough, stony face. Meanwhile, Bodil had a sleek and athletic build but had a similar 5'9 height.
She held the initiative in the fight and was pushing Gerd back, but there were no signs of Gerd's defences breaking. It seemed she was merely waiting for an opportunity.
Over on ring 1, Johan was having a miserable time. He was being pursued around the ring by his opponent. He tried firing icicles behind him as he fled, but Alf was just too agile and none of Johan's shots came close.
He'd chosen the Spring Hare Anima which dramatically improved his running and jumping abilities. One of its key upsides was that it was easy to use: you just ran as normal, but everything happened quicker. Having spent some days getting used to the increased speed, Johan was already able to use it proficiently.
This was the only thing which kept him away from Alf, whose movement Anima prioritised agility over outright speed.
The two remained in a deadlock, and Isaac turned his eyes back to ring 3. Bodil was growing increasingly aggressive with her attacks, pushing hard to crack the steaming layer of ice which covered Gerd's body.
Strange... why was the ice steaming? It wasn't being melted, was it?
Isaac waited for that question to be answered as Gerd continued to passively defend. She counterpunched occasionally, but most of the time she was blocking or deflecting Bodil's strikes. After a minute or so, Bodil began to slow down. Isaac thought Gerd would go on the offensive, but she didn't. She continued to wait.
A few moments later, Bodil began to stagger slightly. Then she dropped to the floor with a thud. Of course, nobody could hear that thud: it was drowned out by a great roar from the crowd. Many of them had been shouting abuse at Gerd throughout the fight, calling her a coward for not attacking. However, the winner was always in the right. Now that Gerd had emerged victorious, those same people cheered and shouted praise.
The fights in the other 2 rings were nearly done as well. Another wave of cheers came up as Johan was pushed out of the ring. Alf had eventually cornered him and, despite being struck with 2 icicles, knocked him out of the fighting area.
Johan was sprawled on the ground outside the ring, grimacing in pain. He raised his hand towards his chest, but then thought twice and lowered it before anybody saw. He didn't want people noticing his lingering chest injury. Of course, Isaac's beady eyes picked up this detail. He made some notes in his notepad, then the official sitting stageside announced the next matchups.
It was group B's turn now. Isaac didn't have a particularly deep impression of any the contestants, so he watched all 3 battles with equal attention and made more notes.
He did this for groups C, D and E as well.
However, group F was special. Isaac's initial judgement had deemed it as the most difficult group: it contained Eva, Erik and 2 people whom Isaac had considered recruiting for his team. Both were high-achievers in the trials, as well as possessing other extraordinary abilities.
Isaac also recognised the 5th person as a high scorer in the trials, but didn't know who the 6th person was. Eva was fighting the unknown 6th person, while Erik was matched with Ole Røkke, who was on Isaac's list of defensive specialists.
Isaac looked on as the fights began.