The Newbie Tamer's Tournament is a formal event that occurs once every three years. Participants of the tournament are usually promising tamers who have tamed monsters with unbelievable degrees and powers.
There, tamers would battle each other in a one-on-one elimination-type match. Of course, killing other participants' monsters is forbidden, but accidents happen often. Each time this event was held, at least one tamer would, unfortunately, lose their tamed monster.
The schedule for this year's tournament is one week from now and will be held in the capital city, which is about 4-5 days of travel away from the current town. In short, now that I have accepted to participate in this tournament, I need to travel to the capital as soon as possible.
"And so, we will be training while on the way!"
I declared this to Ember as we walked along the highway. Since we just earned a lot of money, we can ignore living expenses for now and focus only on training her skills. Ember, who heard this, excitedly jumped around.
"Okay! Now, as usual, we will be training skills while chaining them together!"
Since beasts are usually only able to activate one skill at a time, learning to activate multiple skills in parallel is a big plus. Ember, who can already use [Cloning], [Polymorph], and [Playing Dead] at the same time, should be considered a powerful beast by newbie standards.
"However, that combo can only work for surprise attacks. Now, we will be fighting in an arena, where there's nowhere to hide."
Hearing this, Ember shook a little. Her emotions were filled with both worry and expectation.
"And so, I'll be teaching you a few combos! Along the way, we'll be alternating combos to train your skill activation speed, accuracy, and power."
Ember motioned as if nodding her head. She was eager to get stronger, even if only by a margin.
With Ember enthusiastic about the training, I immediately told her a few available combos with her skills. I even included some chain skills, creative fighting techniques, and sneak attacks. Hearing about each and everything I taught, she happily practiced each of them until we were satisfied with the result.
Since we were managing our pacing, we reached the next town over before the gates were closed. We rested for a night and set out for the next town along the way toward the capital.
Practicing skills during the day and resting inside the safety of the town at night. After repeating this cycle for five days, we finally reached the capital city.
The capital city was similarly covered by walls; however, the city's size was several times that of any town I'd passed through. It could probably fit all five towns I passed through inside the capital with space left over. It was that large.
After entering the city, the first thing I did was go straight for the government office. I would first need to register there to participate in the tournament. Fina told me that she had already passed on the message about my participation on their behalf and handed me a recommendation letter just in case too.
The government office in the capital was of a similar design to those in the other towns. That being the case, I easily found my way around the large building. I was about to go straight towards the counter but was surprised by the amazing number of Tamers queuing in front of all the counters.
Having no choice, I decided to just shut up and join at the end of the line. Luckily, the queue moved quickly, and within an hour, it was already my turn.
"Good afternoon. How can we help you?"
The counter was manned by a beautiful woman with her golden hair tied in braids. She had an ephemeral smile pasted on her face. Although she lacks some curves compared to Fina, she is definitely top-tier in terms of facial features alone.
"I'm here to participate in the newbie tournament. I was told that Vice Chief Fina already notified your office."
"Ah, yes, we did receive her message."
Nodding her head, she quickly took out a sheet of paper.
"Please fill out this form, and your registration to the tournament should be complete."
Since there were some people still queuing up behind me, I quickly filled up the details on the sheet of paper. By the way, if you're wondering, even as an orphan, I learned how to read and write properly. And by a stroke of luck, the letters and phonemes in this world matched those from my previous life, giving me a further boost in both reading and writing skills.
After confirming that I had filled out everything perfectly, I quickly returned the parchment to the blonde woman. After she confirmed that I filled out the form correctly, she immediately stacked it atop a pile of other forms by her side. It was already as high as the table. Just how many tamers participated this time?
"With this, you are now registered for the Newbie Tamer's Tournament. The matchups will be released tomorrow at noon on the plaza's bulletin board, so come see it there tomorrow. Good luck!" She said with a gentle smile.
Ahh, this girl is definitely the healing type. Just looking at her face makes me feel like all my inner demons are burning away. Jokes aside, after saying my thanks, I quickly went out and searched for an available inn. With how many tamers have applied, if I don't move quickly enough, I'm afraid all the inns would get fully booked.
Luckily, I found a vacancy after the third inn I checked and quickly booked it for a week. The tournament spans a total of 5 days since there are just too many participants.
Fortunately, the stadium where the tournament would be held could hold hundreds of simultaneous battles without a problem. If not for that, I think it would take several weeks just to reach the finals.
Since we did all we needed to do for now, we turned in a bit earlier in anticipation of tomorrow.