Both Priscus and Icarus spent the rest of the day working to get back the lost 0.59 vitality.
It wasn't all that difficult with Icarus' B-grade potential, all he had to do was run through his training routine one more time while injected with an E-grade gene serum.
Having done all they could they rested for the evening, anticipation for the morrows events causing fickle sleep. Yet both found themselves refreshed when it came time to leave the following morning.
The bi-monthly games were a special event in the small corner of the empire in which Priscus resided.
Having been colonized only 200 years prior there hasn't been enough time for the full grandeur of the empire to be implemented across every planet in the sector.
While the technology available was certainly advanced, it paled in comparison to what one would find in the heart of the empire back on Prime Earth.
The Lupas family was originally from Prime Earth, but circumstances had forced them off-world as they couldn't afford the insane property taxes required to stay there.
They settled here on the edge of the empire and managed to build a solid gladiator school once more, yet their troubles followed them.
It seemed to them that there were those out there in the shadows who had it out for them.
But all such considerations were far and away from Priscus at this moment.
The only thing he could focus on was what he would do if Icarus did well, and what he would do if he didn't.
The chances of Icarus underperforming were so small as to be almost nil, but Priscus wasn't one to not worry about it anyway.
Boarding the space cab he ordered for travel purposes he and Icarus were swept off the planet to the vast space arena set in synchronous orbit midway between the planet and its moon.
The reason the arena had to be so far from the surface was its sheer size, it was roughly 10% the size of Prime Earth's moon and as such had to be adequately distant to not disrupt life on the planet.
At about 215 miles in diameter, the station was beyond enormous, and it had to be to accommodate the millions of gladiators as well as tens of millions of spectators who came to participate and watch the games.
The sight of the station was breathtaking to say the least, fashioned as a sphere the surface was covered in an artificial atmosphere eliminating the need for space suits for those visiting the station.
Additionally it had a working biosphere complete with flora, fauna, and storms that would occur randomly during the games.
It was not unheard of for the champion to fail in accepting his reward because a bolt of lightning just happened to want to shake his hand.
The cab in which Priscus and Icarus were traveling was one of the newer models developed by the local Helios company. They specialized in space travel and terraforming. The cab made the trip that would take a conventional rocket months, into a leisurely 20-minute drive. The longest part of the trip were exiting the planet's atmosphere, and reentering the Space arena.
Their system ID's were scanned before allowing them entry and then began the long process of confirming participation registry, rank verification, decontamination, and many other boring procedures.
Accompanying these were the typical low level bureocrats who just loved to make things difficult, ask unnecessary questions, and take offence at every opportunity. Not to mention the young masters strutting about just waiting for someone to bump into them so they could make a scean.
But Priscus was familiar with all of this, his father had walked him through what to do since he was 10 years old and just starting to take a real interest in the family business.
Following the protocols, not talking back, and avoiding the young masters, was all second nature to him and it allowed him to get through this mind-numbing ordeal nearly unscathed.
It was of course infuriating to be treated like a second-class citizen, but alas with his family's situation, there was little he could do about it. Perhaps things would change after the games but now was not the time to be stirring up trouble.
He and Icarus were required to separate as only one of them was a participant.
Bidding a final farewell and good luck Priscus made his way to the upper deck where the low-class lanistas were sat to watch their gladiator's di...participate in the games.
Finding his chair he quickly activated the isolation feature which blocked all external sounds from getting in, and internal sounds from getting out. It also obscured his facial features making identifying him impossible.
Now that that was done Priscus immediately began to cross his fingers, toes, arms, legs, everything he could cross. He would have folded himself into a pretzel if he could.
'Come on Icarus! You got this!' Maintaining this new and excruciating yoga pose Priscus settled in to await the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, Icarus was below the arena going through his own preparations.
Standing before the Aediles Icarus was made to swear the gladiatorial oath.
His rich baritone rang through the chamber as he cried. "I will endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword. For my dominus, and for the glory of Rome!"
His voice was forceful, carrying the weight of his conviction and determination to win or perish. His entire future rested on the outcome of these games, and he would be dead before he gave up on his chance at glory.
Having finished the proper rituals he was then escorted to the waiting area where he was handed his gear that he had been required to relinquish upon entering the station.
Some decades back, at the opening games of the station he was now on someone tried to stage a revolt by smuggling in weapons for those gladiators who were fed up with their lot in life.
Now one might ask themselves why anyone would be dissatisfied with being the equivalent of a modern-day NFL or NBA player.
The truth is that not all Lanistas are the same. Some don't do a very good job at all of taking care of their men. Also, most of those who are angry are those who lack the talent but not the ego. Feeling that they deserve more they tried to take it, but in the end, were slaughtered down to the last man by the gladiator who would later become champion of the entire sector.
To put that into perspective the Empire is divided up into 40 different sectors stretching across hundreds of lightyears of space. Each sector holds dozens of stars and thousands of planets, not all of them colonized but a good portion.
So to become the champion of one of these sectors was a massive deal, but more on those people later. Icarus was focused on becoming the local champion first, he would have plenty of time for galactic fame later. Assuming he survived here.
Taking his time dressing himself in his Veles gear set, Icarus began to meditate and go through his control practices. In doing so he hoped to maintain a cool clear head going into the first round.
There would be a total of ten rounds fought today, the first round would feature the arena floor split into ten separate fighting areas roughly 20 square kilometers each.
1 million rank 1 gladiators would be sent to each fighting stage and only the top 100,000 would move on to round 2. 100,000 might sound like a lot but it really isn't given the sheer number of participants in the games.
Round two would have all of the participants randomly selected into new fighting arenas with 10,000 gladiators each. This round would take a while because each of the 100,000 from the first round would be split ten ways and would cycle through the arenas group by group.
There was no delay waiting for all the groups to finish before sending the next batch though. As soon as one arena had 1000 gladiators left they would be cycled out and the next batch of 100,000 would be sent.
Finally, in the third round, the 10 million who had begun had been whittled down to just the top 100,000. Making it even this far in a battle royal event was something to be proud of. But here is where it started getting a bit more intense.
The pattern continued in the splitting of the 100,000 into 100 groups of 1,000 each. Ten of which were sent to the arena to begin their battles, the difference was that each of these gladiators had proven themselves a cut above, so the danger present in these matches was far more intense.
Each group of 1,000 fights till just 100 are left, then round 4 each group of 100 fights until only 10 are left, then round 5 fights till just...1 is left. And this round brings us to the top 100 gladiators within the sector at rank 1.
It is also at this time going into round six that the battle royal style is abolished and we move onto a more traditional elimination tournament style.
All 100 gladiators receive seeds at this point which places them in different rounds, the number 1 and 2 seed moving directly to the semi-finals at the 9th round.
The gladiators then fight a series of elimination battles with seed 100 fighting against 99, 98 against 97, 96 against 95 and so on untill everyone has fought and either won or lost cutting the numbers down to 51 gladiators left.
At that point round 7 starts and the same happens again with single elimination matches until only 28 are left. In round 7 the 3rd and 4th seeds don't have to fight to make it even.
Round 8 starts and whittles us down to just 15 people, and 9 brings us down to just 8.
The final 10th round will feature all 8 gladiators split into four pairs. If you win your match you face off against someone from another match until you have accumulated 5 victories or 4 losses the pairings are completely random, and it is not impossible to fight the same person more than once.
If you win all five matches you are exempt from any other battles until the finals take place the following day, additionally, if you are the only person to achieve a perfect score of 5 consecutive victories you are declared the champion.
If multiple people achieve 5 consecutive victories they will battle it out in one on one matches until someone has again reached 5 victories or 4 losses. These final matches happen on the final day of the games and serve as the finale to the games.
While Icarus was deep in thought trying to remember all of these rules and the structure of the games he heard a loud blaring horn being blasted through the speakers of the entire station.
There was only one reason for such a sound to go off.
Chuckling to himself Icarus stood straight before taking determined steps towards the gate leading to the arena floor.
Stepping through his assigned gate and gazing at the literal million gladiators arrayed against him all he could think to say was.
"It...Begins."