The arena wasn't far from Shiro's apartment so it didn't take him much time to arrive, he walked into the building and saw a couple of people sparring on one of the stages.
The arena stage was larger than others and it could easily fit over fifty people. Thirty students were in this stage battling at the same time which made it look like a battle royal.
Shiro went towards that arena and saw Kenji standing close to it, he walked towards the boy and asked him what the people inside were doing.
"This? It's a battle royal, it is one of the fastest ways of increasing your battle count, you just have to be the last person standing on the stage to win and then your battle count would sky rocket. It would add the total number of participants and the battle count will all go to you."
Kenji explained, he was waiting for this group to finish up so that he could join the next batch.
After hearing Kenji's explanation, Shiro looked towards the ranking board and was surprised to see that his name was no longer first.
Copper Ranks
No 1: Mio Naomi
No of battles won: 37
No 2: Shiro Kusikage
No of battles won: 14
...
Shiro calculated the disparity between their win records and was surprised to see that she surpassed him by more than ten wins, if she had used this battle royal method to get to this point then this was absurd, all one had to do was survive a fight and end up as the last person standing on the stage.
While Shiro was thinking, the battle royal had finished and the rankings had changed again.
Copper Ranks
No 1: Mio Naomi
No of battles won: 36
No 2: Takako Sumi
No of battles won: 29
No 3: Shiro Kusikage
No of battles won: 14
No 4: Michiko Dai
No of battles won: 19
...
Shiro looked at the ranking and smiled.
'I guess I have to register for this battle royal stuff too'
Shiro then went to the person in charge of the arenas and checked the types of battle royal available. On the list were three types of battle royal;
10 persons battle royal
30 persons battle royal
50 persons battle royal
Shiro registered himself for the fifty people battle royal which was to be held in the second floor of the building. Shiro went towards the second floor, based on what he deducted from the ranking board just now, someone who took the first position through challenges can be over throne if someone else gets win record that is higher than his own by more than ten points.
On his way to the second floor, he looked into an arena stage and saw Naomi taking on a person, the person she was fighting looked like he had been tricked into the fight and had no idea how to get out of it.
Naomi showed no mercy towards the poor guy as she decimated and bullied him, right in the middle of her bullying, she accidently saw Shiro pass by the place she was fighting in, she had been wanting to meet him since he came back from the place Ichiro took him, now that she saw an opportunity to meet him she couldn't let a weak opponent such as this take it away.
She quickly dealt with the guy before rushing to meet him, Shiro had seen her battling and decided to wait for her to finish little did he know that his waiting for her looked like he was just passing which made her put in more effort to finish up her opponent.
"Wait up"
Naomi called out when she saw Shiro walking away, Shiro turned back and was surprised to see Naomi jugging towards him, he had determined that it would take her quite sometime to finish up her fight since her opponent was still trying to resist.
Naomi walked up to Shiro, she had a cute smile on her face with her hands behind behind her back as she looked at Shiro expecting it him to complement her, of course, Shiro remained indifferent to her behavior, not because he didn't know what she wanted but mainly because he did not care.
"Okay, what do you need?"
Shiro asked which made Naomi a little sad, she knew that Shiro wouldn't care to compliment her but she still decided to try her luck.
"I saw you registering your name for the fifty people battle royal so I thought that maybe we can take on the team battle royal which is going to happen later together"
"If it is a team battle royal then how are the scores and points going to be distributed?"
Sure enough that was the only thing Shiro thought of, if it was not going to give him any benefit then there was no point doing it, the thought of doing something with Naomi did not even cross his mind.
"Since it is a team battle, the total number of people participating are going to be doubled so that the winning pair has equal points, the one I wanted us to participate in is the fifty pair battle royal which will take place some time after this one"
Shiro pondered the offer carefully, what was the point of taking on double opponents if they both offered the same points, wasn't that a waste of time?
"No"
Shiro answered plainly, he was not a workaholic neither did he like pointless battles.
Naomi looked at Shiro disappointment evident in her eyes, she was really looking forward to this even since it was something they could do together.
Shiro was rational and indifferent but he was not heartless, after seeing the sad look on Naomi's face and rethinking the offer he finally agreed. Depending on the partner, this battle royal was actually better than the one where he had to battle fifty opponents alone.
The two went back to the person in charge of the arena and registered their names for the team battle royal. After registering, Shiro and Naomi went to the second floor where Shiro's match was to begin, when they arrived at the stage, there were still ten people battling so they had to wait for a while.
The fight went on for about an hour before the remaining to people in the ring knocked themselves out, Shiro found this very stupid since at the end of the day no one got the points, the two just laid sprawled on the ground as the referee called some men to take them away.
The next match was announced to begin in the next three minutes to give the other participants time to prepare. Shiro looked at the people participating in the fight, there was no one he knew participating so there was no need for him to hold back, but still, even if he knew the participants he wouldn't still hold back.
Three minutes passed in a flash as the referee called for the participants to enter the ring. The fifty people standing on the ring made the entire top floor have a different feel to it, a large crowd gathered around the ring as most of them whispered to the person beside them while pointing towards Shiro.
"That's the former first rank and the current third rank, he is definitely someone to pay attention to"
One of the participants told another who looked like his younger brother.
Shiro scanned the participants and found them to be around his cultivation level which shouldn't prove much of a threat to him, he then looked towards the referee waiting for his signal which came not long after.
"Begin!"