Gloria, Oneko, and Gordon looked at each other. They were a little lucky in that they were receiving word of this mission ahead of all the invitees in the stands below. But just as Gloria was about to say something Gordon interjected quickly.
"Guys, I am going down to the ring. You should get as far from here as possible."
He didn't want to see them hurt and he knew that the beast tide would be concentrated on him. Anyone and everyone near him would have a much higher likelihood of being hurt or killed. Moving towards the door Gordon saw Gloria's face visibly transition through several emotions.
Finally she reached out a hand and caught his sleeve.
"Wait, you can't go down to the arena. It is too unsafe! Come with us instead."
She said physically restraining him. It was only now that he realized that she was also a product of strength cultivation and wondered just how strong she was.
"No, I noticed something just now when I was down in the ring. It should be really beneficial."
It was true Gordon had noticed that Renier's token reacted within the arena. Perhaps there was some functionality considering that this was Renier's temple. He supposed that this wasn't an unheard of lucky chance. Rather it could be expected and that whatever Renier could do within her own temple had to be helpful in some way. Even if was just another system space maybe Renier's private chambers, maybe there would be some sort of tool or weapon that could be helpful.
Jerking his arm away Gordon lunged for the door and successfully made it out of Jessica's assigned box. He knew he had to take advantage of surprise, because he was no match for Gloria's physical capabilities, obviously. Hopefully, the shock of being disobeyed would delay any retaliation. Pit dwellers were conditioned and systematically trained to obey those in authority. It was reasonable considering that in a crisis orders had to be obeyed or people could possibly die. So there was a rationale behind the conditioning. Still Gordon was a transmigrator who had had an entire life time of relative freedom to fall back on.
It was a pretty easy thing to disobey Gloria all things considered.
And surprise was on his side because he really was able to dodge out of the room and make it down to the arena stage before Gloria was able to react.
Surreptitiously he took out Renier's token. Afraid that someone might see it and take it. Hiding the palm sized stone against his shirt he casually tried to interact. He knew from holding it before that as long as he was physically touching it he could vaguely sense its properties. Now an interaction effect between the system and the token occured.
[Do you wish to integrate this earth elemental control token with the system? Y/N]
Just when he was despairing ever being able to use the token on short notice he found that the system was indeed working with him as it suggested.
[Y]
[A new tab will be added to your system home screen. Please select [Renier] when you are ready.]
Immediately Gordon accessed the new tab and saw several options available.
[Current options:
Training grounds
Tournament grounds
Carnival grounds]
'Looks like Renier was quite the connoisseur!'
Surprised by the three options that were available Gordon had half hoped that he would be able to access Renier's pocket space. Having some earth elementals to help defend would have been great, but even just an escape route would have been life saving not just for him, but for a lot of the people here.
Willing the training ground's information to come up Gordon felt that the tournament and carnival ground options weren't what he needed right at the moment. If he was going to hide in here, it might as well be a place that could be beneficial for his current circumstances.
He saw a new set of options.
[Please choose your training grounds:
Level playing field
Ice mountains
Wasteland
Desert dunes
Swampland
Castle defense
...]
The last option he saw on the first page of training ground options immediately caught his eye. Without thinking any more about it he choose castle and was given an error prompt.
[The training ground is currently being used for another purpose. Do you wish to override? Y/N]
'Oh, the Philos family must have some sort of control token as well!'
Gordon was about to confirm the override, but then saw the table full of gifts for the hundreds of invitees. Looking around Gordon found that the arena had already mostly become evacuated. The time he had spent absorbed in reviewing the system had resulted in a lot of changes. Funny enough as most of the kids were rushing out Gloria and Oneko were striding towards him like some kind of avenging Valkyries.
Worried that they might take him away he stood up and started backing into the center of the arena.
"Hey, I am set, I am going to stay here. Don't worry about me!"
Gloria, followed by Oneko stepped over the low wall and came up to about two meters in front of him.
"Look, we are not going to hurt you. Jessica told us to take care of you, so that is what we are doing."
Explaining calmly as if Gordon was some kind of crazy animal she didn't understand Gloria went one.
"It is just that you are making protecting you, really hard! Come on, let's find a defensible room. This arena is insanity we'll be ganged up on and slaughtered in moments."
After her lecture Gloria put her hands on her hips and stared Gordon down.
"Listen, I have a plan! Let's not waste these gifts. Come on!"
Ignoring what she had said he turned his back to her and started shoveling gifts into his system space. Thankfully they were being counted as multiples of one item so they only took up one system space. With 79 gifts it was a net profit. It looked like many of the invitees hadn't taken one. A Pit dweller didn't leave anything on the table!
"What do you want these for? They are just minor cultivation pills or low level skill books."
Sneering Gloria just watched him work, while assuming that she could take him away after he was done pilfering.
When the gift collection was done Gordon confirmed the override in his system space and watched as the arch and other equipment along with the tables sank down into the floor of arena. Next Gordon was given a warning to back away.
[Please move to the arena wall while [Castle Defense] is being instantiated.]
"Come on guys, come back to the wall while the arena resets."
Shaking their heads both Gloria and Oneko noncommittally walked to the walk after seeing that somehow Gordon had control of the arena.
Then to their surprise the arena started shifting. Even as the castle rose from the center of the arena the perspective of the castle became smaller and smaller as the space within the ring expanded out ten times as large at first but then quickly grew to one hundred and then far more than a thousand times the size of the original ring. At which point it became impossible to see clearly just how large the castle's folded space was.
Besides just the shear size of the plains in the center of the field a majestic castle arose complete with battlements and tautly waving flags. For a moment Gordon was awe struck and took some time to appreciate Renier's power even at diamond level. It was actually scary.
Then he move to start heading to the castle and a prompt came up.
[Registering that you have a party of three. Are you assaulting or defending the castle? Please confirm that you are defending. Y/N]
'Y'
Panicked when he saw that he might have to assault the castle Gordon quickly selected confirm.
Another prompt came up.
[Do you wish the training ground to supplement your party's forces? Y/N]
'What was this good thing?'
[Y]
[What level of defense, from 1 to 10, this 1 being the lowest amount of assisted defense and 10 being the highest amount of assisted defense?]
'10! Definitely 10'
[Do you require system generated attackers? Y/N]
[N]
'Hell, no!'
[Just to confirm, you will provide attacking units? You must provide a minimum of 1000 black iron rank attackers to fund the training grounds. 100 green bronze, 10 blue silver, or 1 red gold attacking unit will also fill the requirement. Y/N]
[Y]
There will definitely be enough attacking units. Didn't the system say that there were even three diamond ranked beasts?
[Currently the training grounds is set to the lowest non-lethal setting. Do you wish to keep the usual [Non-lethal] setting? Y/N]
This time Gordon actually had to pause. He didn't know how his upgrade system worked, but in many systems providing the killing attack could actually increase his benefits. If he kept this non-lethal setting he would basically ensure that he could deal the final attack. The problem was that he just wasn't sure what would maximize his benefits.
Screams sounded from just outside the arena and Gordon realized that he had to make a potentially bad choice based on not enough information.
'Fine.'
[N]
[What level of lethality would you like to set the training ground to? From 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest level of lethality and 10 being the highest. Starting from six the system will do nothing to prevent dismemberment and permanent injury, starting at 8 at the system will not actively prevent death.]
[10]
Without knowledge he had to forget about gains and focus completely on survival.
[Initialization complete. Do you wish to begin training scenario? Y/N]
[Y]
After giving his inputs Gordon, Gloria, Oneko, and Ren were directly transported to the throne room of the castle where four NPC type commanders awaited his party respectfully.
"How may we assist?"