Demon Lord's Reincarnation

John and the others followed behind Luke, and after walking out of the station there were astounded by what they saw. It was already amazing to witness the majesty of New Grenton from the outside but inside the city was a whole different view. It truly made them feel like they were in a different world. 

The whole area was full of lights and the various buildings were glowing ever so brightly. Then there were the carriages without horses moving around on the beautiful-looking street. The six prodigies sensed that the horseless carriages were moving using mana, the problem was it was not the drivers that were using mana it was the carriages themselves. Noticing the interest the six of them had, Luke smiled as he pointed at the moving carriages. 

"Those things are called automobiles. They run using mana crystals and depending on the type of automobile they can move really fast. Also depending on the mana crystal that's installed in the automobile, the automobile can function for at least a whole day, and the best mana crystal has enough mana supply to last for a ten-day continuous operation. You can recharge the mana crystal of your automobile in recharging stations that are all over the city. Well, I guess you guys don't really need that information since you guys don't own an automobile." 

Luke shrugged his shoulders as he continued walking. The group then arrived at an automobile that was slightly bigger than the ones they saw on the street. Luke then touched the automobile and his wristband started glowing. Melody noticed that there were multiple spell formations in the wristband as well as the automobile that started linking together. After Luke twisted his hand the doors of the automobile unlocked, he then opened the doors. 

"Alright, you guys get in." 

Jonh and the others nodded their heads as they entered the so called automobile. Once inside they looked around in curiosity. It was like a mini train inside the so called automobile. As they traveled towards the dorms were they would be staying during the competition John and the others continued to be in awe of everything they saw. 

While they were on the road Luke started to explain some basic things about the dorms they were heading to. The dorms were made for not only them but the prodigies of regions four to six. So there were two more groups of prodigies that they needed to stay with. 

The start of the preliminaries was three days from now, and during that time they could do whatever they want as long as they don't leave the city. They don't really need to leave the city anyway as everything they would need for the tournament could be found in the dorms. 

There was an arena were they could spar with the other prodigies. There were also video records of the previous tournaments for the last ten years. If they didn't want to train they could also enjoy doing recreational activities. 

Despite hearing the many recreational activities available none of the prodigies were interested, most of them were more interested in the arena. On the other hand, John was interested in those so called video recordings of the past tournaments. He wanted to see the battles of the former champions against the legendary Emperor. 

...

It took them a few minutes to finally arrive at the dorms and when they arrived, John noticed that there was a sound of clashing steel echoing throughout the vicinity. As they disembarked Luke gave them a tour of the dorms and introduced them to the prodigies of the other regions. 

The other prodigies had shown the basic etiquette and simply greeted the other party and then they went back to training. John then asked Luke to teach him how to watch the recordings of the previous tournaments. 

Luke asked if the others wanted to watch as well, but the others decided to go to their assigned rooms and rest first. Seeing no one else wanted to come Luke guided John to the audio-visual room. Upon entering the room, the first thing John noticed was a square box that had a non-reflective glass. 

"This is a television, and to watch the recordings of the previous matches, will be using this Seer's orb. So that we can watch it properly we need to connect the Seer's Orb to the television." 

Luke took out a small orb that was marked the sixth championship. He then took a wire with spell runes on it and connected it to the Seer's orb. Luke then proceeded to explain to John how to use the television as well as the Seer's orb. It took a few minutes for John to understand how to use the play and fast forward function. Once Luke was done teaching John what he needed to know he left the room. 

...

John watched each championship battle against the legendary Emperor Ren. The first-ever recording was the match ten years ago, the sixth champion was a mage that specialized in earth spells. 

The Emperor fought in a relaxed manner as he easily evaded each attack, and no matter what was thrown at him he did not move from his spot. The challenger then used an attack that would hit in all directions, it was at that moment the emperor spoke to the mage, but the recording did not have any audio of what he said. After speaking the Emperor finally took out a weapon from his shadow, it was a large sword similar to Tyr's but larger. It even had an aura that you could feel through the recording, an aura that would make one feel threatened. 

The Emperor swung his sword in a relaxed manner and after that one swing, everything ended. The surrounding spears of earth were broken and the mage had fainted. At first glance, it looked like the Emperor used only one swing, but after studying it a few more times John finally saw the truth. The Emperor swung his sword several dozen times hitting everything with a sword wave. He was just moving so fast that it only looked like one swing. 

John then continued to watch the other championship matches and all of them ended in a similar fashion. The Emperor would allow the challenger to attack with everything he had, and once the challenger has shown all he could, the Emperor will do one simple attack to win. 

John then watched the matches each champion had beforehand to see just how strong they truly were. After watching most of their matches John knew that the level of the champions were similar to his own and some of them were even stronger than him, yet no matter who they were they could do nothing to the Emperor. 

Realizing just how strong the legendary Emperor was made John's blood boil in excitement. He wasn't really one who enjoyed battle like Tyr, but he liked the challenge. It has been years since he had faced such overwhelming odds. It wasn't just facing the Emperor that would be challenging, even getting to that stage was going to be difficult. 

He had only seen a glimpse of what the other prodigies could do, but that was enough for him to get a rough estimate on how strong they were. Most of them were practically on the same level with each other with only slight variations. Some were slightly stronger, but the difference was just minuscule that the other party would still have some difficulty winning.. John grabbed the talisman hidden in his pocket as determination filled him.