Child of Destiny

The next day, Leonard finished his regular morning training a little earlier than usual and waited for Scar.

Upon arrival, Scar smiled at Leonard before saying. “You are quite early. It looks like I have to adjust the time for training the other tribe members.”

Not long after, he immediately started his lecture. “As I said yesterday, I will be teaching you about Hex Enchantment.”

Leonard nodded, ready to listen.

Scar cleared his throat for a moment before continuing. “Hexes are spells used by ancient tribes. It is another application of utilizing the forces around us.”

“It can be considered as the mystic arts of the ancient times, which were one of the ‘ancestors’ of the Mentalism Methods of the current era.”

“As for the Hex Enchantments, it can be considered as a combination of a Mentalism Enchantment and a Qi Reinforcement Skill. It’s just the source of power is a little different compared to the two.”

“Hex Enchantments is also an advanced application of Blood Power that we possessed,” he paused for a moment when he reached this point before saying. “Watch closely.”

Zong~!

In the next instant, Leonard saw a series of crimson tattoos appearing on different parts of Scar, which was releasing a pulsing light.

He was quite familiar with this sight as he had already seen it from his hereditary memory. But seeming it personally had also let him feel the pressure that Scar was currently emitting. The suffocating pressure that the latter was emitting was heavy enough to affect the surroundings.

“This body enchantment technique not only greatly increases the overall capabilities of your body, but also significantly heightens your senses by a large margin,” said Scar. “Moreover, the enchantments that these Hex Tattoos provide are not limited to their activated state, but also greatly nourish your body to make it much stronger.”

“You must already be familiar with the formation of these Hex Tattoos. But since you are also a practitioner of modern Martial Arts, we must make a few adjustments to maximize your overall abilities.”

“You are not the first member of Ancient Tribes to also have practiced in the modern martial arts, so we are still quite familiar with this area. Just take Joaquin Giovanni as an example. He is also a disciple of an Ancient Tribe, walking the path of Blood Sutra, on top of being a powerful Martial Artist.”

Seeing that Leonard nodded, Scar then released his Hex Enchantment and clapped his hands. “Alright, let’s first start with conditioning your body so that it will be easier to create a War Body with both your Blood Power and Martial Aura, making the creation of the Hybrid Hex Tattoos much easier.”

***

After a week, the group stage of the United Cup had finally come to an end. The top eight had already been determined.

The first seed was already determined earlier. With the perfect run of the Empyrean Talons, it was impossible to shake their number-one position.

As for the second position, it was snatched by God’s Paradise, having a 3-point difference over the third seed, Pandemonium Descendants.

The fourth seed was seized by the Dragon Pavilion after an intense battle against the Slayers Adventurer Team, who had taken the fifth position after that loss. The overall scores of the two teams only had a 2-point difference at the end of the knockout rounds, which indicated their final positions in the leaderboards.

The sixth placer was the Hand of Midas, which had surprisingly reached the top eight despite not having even a single combat player on the field. They had only sent the chiefs of respective departments, further proving to everyone that a lifestyle profession was not just meant for production and crafts – they were also capable of competing against other combat classes.

Another surprising thing was the seventh placer, the Hydra Guild. It was quite unexpected for them to have such a low ranking, especially when they were supposed to be the current number one guild within the game.

But if the people had considered that the key members of the guild had never made their appearance on the stage, then it was still quite understandable.

The place, on the other hand, had become a very sensitive topic. There were some controversies about this since the Central Order, which was one of the Powerhouse Guilds within the game, had conceded their match against the Earners Mercenary Group.

But this did not mean that the Earners were a weak team. They were still powerful, especially when they were an organization with more than a hundred Monster Class Players from the previous games. Their lineup was not inferior to the top four seeds, which had a lot of star players.

This even made them the number one Mercenary Group within the game.

They had just not sent their most powerful members to the tournament, making them struggle a bit in the rankings.

In the eyes of powerful organizations and top guilds, the Earners Mercenary Group seemed to be training their members and adjusting their formations. It looked like they were doing the same thing as the Empyrean Talons, who kept on experimenting in each of their matches.

They had just a slightly worse result compared to that group of godly monsters.

The match between these two groups was supposed to be one of the most intense ones in the lower bracket. But with the Central Order suddenly surrendering before the match could even happen, the imagination of everyone started to run wild.

A lot of people had criticized the two teams and even accused them of match fixing, especially when there were a lot of gambling sites focusing on this tournament.

But none of the officials of the tournament nor the executive of the said teams stepped up to clarify the reason for the Central Order’s decision.

But amid the chaos in the online platforms, the Central Order still posted something on their official webpage to calm everyone down, especially their loyal supporters.

From their statement, the Central Order wanted to put all their energy into the next big ‘team’ tournament, the Guild Wars, which would be held before the end of this year.

They claimed that it was the real stage for all the top guilds and huge organizations within the game, especially when it was a huge-scale tournament that would involve all their forces.

They wanted to tell everyone that the most powerful guild would only be determined in that stage.

This statement somewhat convinced everyone since the might of the guild did not only rely on their key members, but also the power of their army. They would only be able to showcase their true power to everyone if they could access all these resources on the field.

But there were still some people who continued to criticize the Central Order, saying that they were a guild of cowards or whatnot. After all, the impact of the United Cup was not that small.

This tournament was meant to determine which guild or organization had the strongest key members or most powerful ‘trump cards.’

But this was just a small episode in the entire tournament since what came next was the draw show for the play-off rounds.

It was much bigger and grander compared to the previous one since the brackets of this stage would continue up until the grand finals.

A lot of people had tuned into the program, further breaking the viewer records that the virtual community had.

The show would be hosted by Miss Bunny and David once again since they were the most sensational duo broadcaster/commentator of the tournament.

Regardless of all the festivities online, the Empyrean Talons did not pay that much attention to the draw show.

Aside from Chaotic Luck, Alucard, and Akailu, who did not have anything better to do, none of the team wanted to watch it.

Leonard was too busy with his training in the real world and wanted to progress much faster, especially when he had heard that Arthur was about to succeed in his breakthrough.

Shin had also felt a little inspired at the moment, wanting to do a bit of training in the real world. After all, he was only lacking a few pieces before he could proceed with his breakthrough.

He wanted to take it a little easy and let the process flow naturally. But Leonard’s enthusiasm in training affected him a little, so he also did a short special training of his own.

After all, there was an entire week’s break before the play-off rounds kicked off, so he had more than enough time for this.

He had also told everyone that Samael went back to the Aurora Continent to train. The guy would be participating in the ongoing war between the two major factions in the Dark Cloud Kingdom.

Bored, Cloe dragged Huahua somewhere within the game, saying that she would be training the little shaman and honing her techniques. They would only come back before the play-offs began.

Archimedes and Daulla had also disappeared somewhere, saying that they would also undergo an intense training to prepare for the next rounds.

Alice, on the other hand, said that she had something to do in the real world. She told everyone that her solo agency wanted her to do a certain project, so she had to comply and look into the proposal given to her. As an idol, she still had some responsibilities to do despite the freedom that she had been granted.

Diablo had routine checkups that he needed to do in the real world, so he went to the Research Department of the Magic Ace Academy to look for Benedict and Processor Henry.

Meanwhile, Owen and Ithilien seemed to have gone on a date, making the three single dogs left in the virtual space curse at them.

This was why Chaotic Luck, Alucard, and Akailu were the ones left idle to watch the drawing show.

But it could not be said that they had wasted their time as the show was quite entertaining, especially when Miss Bunny and the tournament organizers had prepared some surprises for their viewers.

…