Noah was a little disappointed because in that battle no window had appeared, which proved a thesis he was working on.

Basically, he needed to face truly strong enemies to achieve this. Fighting weak opponents like the man from the last fight he participated in, the man who gave up, was not going to make a window appear floating in front of him as it appeared when he defeated Bobby.

This was not the first time that Noah had had a window floating in front of him after a battle. Noah had already received a window like this in the fight against the first man, and the result was extremely satisfactory, especially against the man from the first battle.

Against the first man, the window read:

This delighted Noah. He knew that [Hell Flames]'s ability to practically steal energy from an opponent was very practical, but if he had no one to burn, having a low energy base was bad for him. But with this new statistic he had just received, Noah could now naturally increase his energy base just as he increased his strength by consuming the dwarves. This made him remember the bodies of the dwarven mages and wonder what he would have received if he had burned those dwarven bodies.

This extra energy proved essential for Noah in the fight against Bobby, and after defeating the man, another window appeared before Noah:

This was the first time that Noah received a point beyond Strength in the basic statistics he originally had. Just like when he leveled up, when Noah felt his Stamina becoming greater, it was as if he had been given a new breath: recovering faster from physical tiredness and having a greater amount of breath.

After the battle with Bobby, Noah knew it was that extra point in Stamina that allowed him to recover faster physically from all the energy he had expended inside the arena.

Now his statistics looked like this:

With these extra points, Noah now anticipated he could face stronger opponents. Even if he had to ask Lilith for help during the battle like he did with Bobby, Noah still wanted to go against powerful opponents. After all, he could get stronger even while here. If he were to compare himself now to before, his Stamina had practically gone up one level, considering that at each level he went up, his stats went up by 1 point each.

Looking at the remaining opponents, Noah realized that there were not many other people, which was disappointing for him. The championship itself should have lasted longer, had it not been for Noah scaring the other contestants away.

As there were 16 official competitors in total, after Noah had beaten 2 people now he was already in the Semi-Finals, that is, there were only 3 more competitors left to fight and he would only be facing 2 of them.

Even if this was not the best of scenarios, Noah was still satisfied, since from the previous fights, he saw that there were still two Blessed among the remaining three who had powerful abilities and that after Noah absorbed part of their statistics, this would be very useful for himself.

And just as Noah wanted, he ended up going against a man named Merc. This man had won his previous battles with relative ease, since his speed was greater than the opponent could react and follow with their eyes.

This was exactly what Noah wanted. With Lilith beside him, he could slow the man down to an acceptable speed. In addition to that, his Pyakugan, even if his eyes didn't follow the man's movement, Noah would still be able to "see" what Merc was doing with his spatial perception.

Merc obviously didn't know that, but since he hadn't given up on the battle so far, he was clearly confident that he could handle Noah relatively easily. Even though it might not even be that easy to deal with Noah, at least it would be something possible, since during Noah's battles, Merc had realized that Noah had good agility, but it was not as good as his own, since Merc's Blessing was focused precisely on that.

When both competitors took the stage, this time no one in the audience doubted Noah. Some had the same thought as Merc, that Noah might not be able to react to his attacks, but no one said it out loud since they were still afraid of being ridiculed for being proven wrong over and over again.

Even the old folks in the VIP room had stopped criticizing Noah and doubting his abilities, when in fact, one of the people among them had noticed Noah's power several times and the ability he had, when the rest hadn't been able to see it. Unlike before, this time they just preferred to be quiet so as not to humble themselves again.

"Hehe, do you think you can keep up with me, boy?" Merc said as he gave two quick jabs in the air, so fast that it was truly difficult for anyone watching to follow with their eyes.

Merc was an apparently 32-year-old man with blond hair and a big mustache that he apparently wore to try to make himself look older, maybe 40-50 years old.

Noah realized from Merc's body language that he had a little confidence in himself to beat Noah, but it wasn't as much as he had when dealing with other competitors, which Noah certainly made a point of using in his own favor.

"Oh, and are you sure you won't look the same as the last guy who started the fight, talking more than he should?" Noah asked with a raised eyebrow as if he were truly surprised.

This made Merc's nervousness a little more apparent, as he was agitated by the answer Noah had given for his question.

He had seen what Bobby had looked like after the confrontation between the two of them; he did not want to become that way under any circumstances himself. Bobby was probably completely deformed after having been burnt like that. He would need to spend a lot of money on top rank healers to get himself back to normal. It had already been so difficult for Merc to keep up his mustache; he would have to do very well in this battle so that Noah would not end it.

But he was confident he could beat Noah. He had confidence in his own judgment, and was constantly asserting himself that what Noah was saying was just to destabilize him, which he would not let happen.

As they teased each other and waited for the judge to start the battle, the youngest friend in Robert's group said in a confident tone, "Let's see if your fighter will resist Merc. Rob, if he wins against Merc, he will fight the fighter I brought, and I will tell you a secret: he is Rank C..."

Hearing what he said, all the friends who were there looked at him with a surprised look as they thought, 'How did he bring a Rank C man to fight? Will Robert's newbie even be able to face him?'

As soon as the judge started the battle, Merc took advantage of his superior agility and didn't want to give Noah an opportunity to strike back. Without thinking twice, he ran to Noah, getting ready to punch Noah in the head before he knew what hit him and put an end to this battle right away.

But life listen doesn't go as planned, since in Merc's view, when he was about to hit Noah with the punch, it was as if he had entered an area where gravity was much heavier than normal, and his punch, which was traveling at speeds higher than a normal human eye could follow, had slowed at least by half.

This then allowed Noah to use his fire dagger at a higher speed than Merc expected, and he was able to, after momentarily slowing Merc down, slice Merc's hand off, leaving a ball of flame burning the stub with ease.

Unlike the first man, who used his own ice dagger to reduce the density of Noah's fire dagger, and Bobby, who had a lot of fat to protect himself from danger, Merc had nothing. Noah's fire dagger, which at the time had already been perfected more than it was in the first battle, pierced Merc's wrist like a knife would when cutting through butter without worrying about anything that was left behind.

Once again, to the audience's amazement and joy, a cry of pain and despair was heard coming from Noah's opponent on the stage. But unlike the other fighters, Merc didn't fall to the ground and managed to use the superior agility he had to take a few steps back so as not to let Noah cut him again with that fire dagger.

This already made both the fighters and the spectators who saw the battle feel a deep respect for Merc, since they had seen the reaction of the other fighters and could imagine how painful that flame was. In truth, the pain was even more so for Merc, who besides feeling the pain of the arm being burned by that flame, was also feeling the pain of losing a limb.

Only one person among the audience was a little surprised and doubtful when he saw this happening...