"This arena is a spectacle for those of the nine families. Aside from us, their representatives, the higher ups watch the fights from above, in the VIP cabins. The fights are also recorded, but there audience is extremely limited, only available to the regulars of the restaurant and those related to the families. Aside from the tickets, the restaurant earns a lot of money through betting. It's an unsaid rule, but families have to bet for themselves not to lose face, this way the restaurant can afford to continue this arena even without much public." After taking a small pause and grabbing a cup of water, the leader continued.

"Now... about the event. The arena is a series of battles to showcase the power of the up and coming forces of the families. Like I said before, the full power of B blessed is a very well kept secret by all families, so they won't join this kind of battle. Only groups like us, rising, are selected to represent our families. Aside from the Essence, there will be no official prize or reward given by the organizers of this arena, unless you bet. The family, however, greatly values the results of this arena. At the same time, since the decision to join comes from ourselves, embarrassing the family with a bad fight is also unacceptable."

"So this is why you didn't join for these weeks..." Noah muttered.

"Precisely. Since our family has already taken a heavy blow due to the internal issues, if we were to join and me eliminated, the image of the Khan Family would have suffered greatly," Michael was clearly angry about it, but there was nothing that could be done by Noah... Or was there.

"Since I'm here now, there's no need to fear those blessed, so we could join this arena without any doubts, wasn't it?" he asked, raising the spirits of all blessed.

"Exactly. Moreover, we only have to fight three times, so the fights are held today. So long as we are within the second round, it can be said we did our job. But this time it won't be complete until we beat those assholes from the Hyu family. We gotta wipe the floor with them!" The whole group cheered after his words, but Michael hadn't finished his explanation yet.

"The winner of the fight is decided when the last person of the family is unable to fight, or the group surrenders. If a person becomes unconscious, they are automatically out, and it's against the rules of the arena to attack them. However, lethal atacks are not forbidden. We generally try to avoid killing people because it becomes a pain later, but it's not against the rules of the competition. Either way, they have many qualified healers and a medical facility in case someone gets heavily injured. So long as you can fight, you can still join the next battle even if you were eliminated before." After speaking the leader sat back down.

"I see, thanks for explaining all that to me. It seems, in the end, it's just like fighting monsters with good teamplay," Noah shrugged.

"To think he'd compare those blessed to monsters... Noah is just not normal," one of the blessed let out a wry laugh as he spoke.

"Like we said before, good grief his sword is on our side," said the scout.

"Yeah... With him, our victory is all but guaranteed!" one of the mages agreed.

"But remember, it's not because he's here with us that you guys are not necessary. For us to win, we all have to do our jobs. Now, who wants to send some magic straight at those idiots' faces?!" one of the mages said, making the other mages cheer.

"We still don't know who we'll be fighting in the first round, but so long as we win, it should be fine. Make sure to protect the backline so we have their support when we start getting tired. Remember the time limit, so we don't get forced into a "vote victory"," Michael started speaking, but doubt started arising in Noah's mind.

"What is a "vote victory"?" he asked.

"If you can't finish the fight in half an hour, the team with less members disqualified wins. If the number is the same, the team with the most "votes" gets the victory. A vote is a unit of betting equivalent to 10 thousand bucks. Generally speaking, it's a way to ensure maximum profit in the case the final round ends in a draw. But since the Khan Family situation is not at its best, we can't expect to win on it..." the leader mulled.

"I see... So if time is running short and we're at a disadvantage, I can go hand and eliminate some enemies to ensure we win," Noah said as if it were a matter of fact.

"Sometimes you scare me, young man," Michael snickered. "Either way, now we wait for them to call us. Even if we're not the first group to fight, we can watch their battles to learn about their strategies. I'm not sure whether the other families have new people either." As soon as he stopped speaking, Noah could hear knocking on the door, and a female warrior who was standing close to it walked towards it in order to let the person in.

"Dear blessed, you presence is requested in the arena, do you mind accompanying me?" another servant, this time dressed in a way more formal attire, requested their attention. Noah could see that this man was at least one rank above even the manager who served them above, in the restaurant. This person had the aura of someone who spent all his time around extrmely rich and important people.

"Let's go!" Michael said, standing up and bringing everyone with him.

"Is everything okay?" Noah asked, as he lowered his pace to fall behind and talk to the healer. She looked a bit too immersed in her thoughts, so Noah felt she could maybe use a hand.

"Noah?! Ah, yes, it is... I was just thinking about something that happened earlier today," she said, lowering her head.

"You're talking about the whole car thing? I'm really sorry, I didn't mean for it to get awkward for no reason... Sorry," he apologized, thinking this was what was making her behave strangely.

"No, no! It has nothing to do with you, rather, you did nothing wrong! It's just that... someone I didn't want to see happened to show up at my place a bit after you left," the healer answered, lowering Noah's worries.

"I see... I hope you dealt with them well... I remember when I used to have such unpleasant encounters, back when I first started diving into fortresses as an F rank..." Hearing his words, the healer's eyes widened, and so did her mouth.

"F rank?!" asked out loud, but not enough the rest of the group heard it.

"Yeah, I started all the way from the very bottom. It was pretty hard in the beginning. I'm happy I made it all the way here," Noah taked with nostalgia about the times when he just started going into fortresses, and how because of the task mos people thought his blessing were his good look.

"I can't really blame them for it, thought. Had I not seen your power, I took would have thought you blessing was your beauty," the healer said, laughing. 'If he made his way all the way from F rank, I too can improve and reach at least the level of a B rank blessed! If I do that, I'll surpass the social influence of those people, and I won't have to deal with their harrassment anymore,' the healer thought, reminded herself of her encounter earlir today with her mother.

"You flatter me. I'm not that out of the ordinaru. I'm just your regular young adult." Noah tried to brush her comment aside, but only managed to make her point stronger, as she thought, 'Of he's not out of the ordinary, I'm as atractive as a pebble in the roadside."

It didn't take them long walking through the corridor to find someone and, unfortunately, the first people they saw were those from the Hyu family.

"Oh, look who showed up. I thought for sure you guys would have run away with your tails between the legs by this time," the woman from earlier spoke to them, making Noah's blood boil. Since this time the Pyakugan showed him that they had no ill intentions for now, he thought it was not worth it to start a fight at this time, ignoring them entirely, without making a single word, just like the rest of the group.

"You dare ignore us, you filth!" One of the men by her side yelled.

"Hey, Noah, did you hear anything? It sounds like an insect is trying to get our attention," the bearded warrior said, provoking the other group.

"You!" One of the men in the Hyu Family walked forward, ready to create anoother confusion, until a female hand reached for his shoulder.

"Leave them be. It won't be good for us if there's a fight before we make the way towards the arena. We can wipe the floor with them later," the woman said looking at the group who passed them with bloodshot eyes.

Noah felt a response from Pyakugan, but the reaction to her was so small it was almost meaningless...

'Either she's so powerful she can cheat Pyakugan, or she's just all talk no show...' he thought, not even bothering turning his head around to watch the people they had ignored.