Chapter 369 - Prejudice
Shane couldn't help but look around the vast colosseum in awe.
In the beginning, he'd thought that the colosseum was a big city surrounded by gigantic walls.
However, it didn't take long before he realized that there was not a single different building complex in sight, except the walls, rows upon rows of seats, and numerous combat arenas in the center.
The sight was neither to be underestimated nor something magnificent, and Shane couldn't help but feel odd.
There was something ancient about the colosseum, but he couldn't put a finger on it.
Other than that, Shane's interest was more in the prodigies of the other races more.
He assumed himself to be the only human, but the number of humanoid races that looked eerily similar to humans was countless.
This caused goosebumps to spread through his entire body, and Shane was simply staring at members of every race he saw.
During the last few months, he had seen many foreign races, but only Yan, and a few particular individuals had revealed an aura that had been full of self-confidence, arrogance, and the feeling that they looked down on everyone.
Shane found this more interesting than intimidating which was what the young prodigies were trying to achieve.
Unfortunately, almost all of these youths were confident about their own combat strength which they had trained for with their utmost efforts.
As such, simple tricks to intimidate someone were unlikely to be helpful.
There were also exceptions, but one could never know whether they were acting, or if they were seriously afraid of some specific individuals.
It was impossible to disagree that some races, or to be precise, prodigies were terrifying.
Only a few were suppressing their mana fluctuations or even concealing their mana storage from the public eye.
The rest were simply revealing everything without showing any signs of being nervous.
Shane's mana fluctuations were among the weakest, which awarded him with several pairs of raised eyebrows that looked at him weirdly.
However, most prodigies were fully aware that the individuals who looked inconspicuous were the most threatening; those were the wolves in sheep's clothing.
Underestimating them would lead to a certain death, which was something one had to avoid, by all means.
Everyone wanted to come out of the Primordial tournament with a victory but that was not feasible for 99.9999% of the participants.
The exact number of participants hadn't been disclosed yet, but according to the number of Basic races, and the fact that many races had multiple prodigies they considered to be 'god-like', there should be more than 10,000 if not 100,000+ participants.
In the end, one couldn't neglect the existence of ferocious beasts that were able to participate in the Primordial tournament too!
Not only were they numerous, but also suicidal in their attempts to improve their bloodline, strengthen their foundation, and so on.
As such, beasts could be considered as the most threatening opponents during the first few rounds.
At the same time, they could be extremely easy to defeat. There were certain Overlord beasts that thought highly of themselves, while only having a mana purity between 90% and 95%.
In contrast to the other participants of the primordial tournaments that was low. Without any other means to increase their strength that could enable them to fight at par with everyone else, their death was inevitable.
There was not much time for Shane to observe everything clearly because the tournament was about to start.
A gigantic holographic screen manifested in the air, clearly stating the only rule that was in fact that no rules existed inside the combat grounds.
Only outside the arena, it was forbidden to hurt, let alone kill each other.
At the same time, it was announced that the colosseum was inside a Basic Primordial Dimension, meaning that it was impossible to use certain equipment that crossed the dimension's threshold.
This was something everyone should have been aware of because it had always been like that according to the information Shane had procured.
Below the 'rule' that didn't feel like a rule at all, one could clearly see the tournament chart, with the names of participants that were supposed to fight against each other.
The tournament chart could be accessed with the system too, which was exactly what Shane did.
Reading the name of millions of individuals would be quite difficult and not worth the effort.
After reading through the chart for a few minutes, Shane couldn't help but eye it weirdly.
"It doesn't start directly with the K.O rounds?"
Apparently, there was a small change in the Primordial tournament turning the first round into a group round.
Every group seemed to consist of four participants and one would have to fight against every group member to determine the best two who would advance to the second round.
In the second round, the K.O rounds would finally start.
Somehow, it was weird. There was literally no reason for the Primordial tournament to change their rules out of a sudden. Was that change really necessary?
It just over-complicated everything without a significant achievement.
Nevertheless, there was no need to ponder about the abrupt reason for this change, if there was even a reason, to begin with.
Rather, Shane was curious about who he would face in the beginning.
Apparently, there were two beasts in his group which allowed Shane to research their known strength according to the name he could see.
This was only a rough indicator and mostly shallow due to the high quality the beasts would generally have in addition to possible mutations allowing them to become stronger, but it was better than nothing.
As such, before the fights started, he researched information about the Fiendish Cheetah and the Penta Illusion Monkey.
The Penta illusion monkey didn't sound special, but against Shane's expectations, it appeared to be stronger than the Fiendish cheetah.
This was mainly owing to the extremely rare variation evolution it seemed to have undergone.
In the end, both beasts were not something he should underestimate, while the third opponent was someone Shane didn't know quite well.
There were only two pieces of information provided on the tournament chart, which were the first name and the name of the race.
Thus, in Shane's case, his information was provided as- [Shane(Human)].
It might seem to be very little, but that was already enough to determine the possible combat prowess or to be precise combat experience, likely mana purity, and body refinement state.
The human race was still young and lacked exceptional instructors who could teach the youngest generation as it was the case with other, older basic races.
Furthermore, young races were likely to overestimate their own limits, meaning that they were likely to enter the Primordial tournament with a lower mana purity than that of the other participants.
Somehow, this was exactly what was going on with Shane, but contrary to the expectations, his mana purity was not what made him strong!
Shane hoped that he would be underestimated due to prejudices, but it was unlikely.
However, everything he had thought was proven wrong as he encountered his first opponent inside the arena.
It was a young prodigy with a mana purity of around 98%. He belonged to the Witura race, a winged race with blue skin, and four arms.
Every arm was extremely strong, and they were known as.
As such, Shane had decided to go all-in, only to notice that his opponent was underestimating him.
This caused him to frown, but instead of doing anything to allow the young prodigy to take him seriously, Shane had chosen to end it quickly, without any mercy.
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