Chapter 191: Sword Arena
Yale obtained a room in the inn for him and Wyba free of charge for the first month thanks to their tokens.
Once inside the room, Wyba changed again to her half-beast form.
“Big bro, Wyba will remain here to train.”
She had just transformed into her human form to avoid problems in Sword City, but if she didn’t leave the room, she could be in her half-beast form without problems and Yale didn’t have any complaints with that.
“Alright. Then, I will go to take a look at the city. Train quietly, I will be back after a while.”
Wyba didn’t have any interest in a city dedicate for swordsmen, but Yale had learned about it thanks to soul-search, and he knew what he needed to do to use the city to increase his level of swordsmanship.
Yale’s destination was the Sword Arena in the center of the city that was the same arena which provoked the creation of Sword City; undoubtedly the better place to train swordsmanship in the city.
By battling in the arena, it was possible to obtain Sword Points, but that wasn’t the only benefit, by battling it was also possible to obtain reputation and a better position in the city.
Although Yale didn’t need Sword points immediately, and a good position in the city wasn’t something he targeted at that moment, he wanted to win some reputation for being able to attract strong opponents to battle with him.
Usually, strong people battled against strong people because although there wasn’t a rule against two swordsmen with too different abilities battled against each other, the strong ones never accepted such battles because it would be impossible for them to accept all those requests that wouldn’t have any benefit from them anyway.
Strong people could reject those weaker, but for people with just an ordinary position in the city, they can just register for a random battle. Although the Sword Arena always tried to make a balanced battle that was easier to say than to do.
When Yale reached the Sword Arena, it was full of people watching the battles, and although Yale knew that the battles were popular, that exceeded his expectation.
“I want to register for a battle; this is my first time in the Sword Arena. By the way, there is always so many people seeing the battles?”
Yale couldn’t resist the temptation to ask when we registered for a battle; it was difficult to believe that with so many battles each day it was always that crowded. Yale thought that maybe some particular battle was happening, but from where he was he couldn’t see the battle.
“This is your number. You should be new if you don’t know because currently, the governor is accepting battles betting his own position in Sword City, so probably you will need to wait a bit time for your battle. You can also challenge him, but I don’t recommend that to you because he is at the Expert Rank, and his swordsmanship is at the grandmaster stage.”
Although it might seem that the governor wasn’t powerful enough, to govern such a big city, those more powerful than him didn’t like to remain in a city, so the governor’s power was already considered top class.
Even the governor had difficulties to find worthy opponents due to that, so sometimes he betted his place as a governor in order to attract powerful opponents, but he didn’t find anyone who could battle at the same level with him.
At that moment the governor was battling with the second strongest in the city, a woman who was at the peak of the Practitioner Rank and at the master stage.
After hearing about the battle, Yale went to see it immediately because that was indeed a battle worthy of attracting so many people as it was possible to have a sudden inspiration just by looking.
After all, those battling were the two highest placed of the Sword Five, a group formed by the five citizens of Sword City with more power in each rank; all of them had a high position in the city, and the strongest among them is also the one who is rightfully the governor of the city.
The strongest in each rank was the one to enter in that selected group, so the other three members were at the Apprentice Rank, the Novice Rank, and the Mortal Rank; they didn’t have any chance in front of the governor, so only that woman at the peak of the Practitioner Rank dared to battle against the governor.
Before the governor battled with that woman, there were a few people at the Expert Rank who also tried to battle against him, but their swordsmanship was clearly inferior, and they lasted even less than his current opponent.
In the memories of those bandits Yale had just obtained basic information about the Sword Five, they were all monsters regarding the sword.
As a curiosity, Yale discovered that except the governor and the one at the Apprentice Rank, all the others in the Sword Five were women.
The main reason why those bandits had learned well about them was to be sure to not offend them by mistake when they did their wicked acts.
However, Yale didn’t care about four of the five members of the Sword Five, he only cared about the one at the Apprentice Rank because that one was at the master stage, but his rank was equal to Yale, so he was the only one Yale thought that would be a good objective to reach. The governor and the woman battling with him were far too strong for him, and the other two girls were too weak.
Of course, he didn’t plan to challenge that guy directly; he still had a long way before reaching the master stage, that was just his final objective in the city. Even if he was crazy enough to issue a challenge he would be rejected as he was just an unknown guy.
That intense battle ended with the governor’s victory; he always battled slowly to give a chance to his opponents to improve; after all, he wanted strong opponents and not just winning easily.
Giving their difference of strength, the governor would have been able to win in just a few hits if he wanted.
After the great battle, a few more fools tried to battle against the governor, but they were weaker than the previous woman, so all of them lose. In truth they knew that they were to lose, they just wanted to try to have some sudden inspiration in the battle, winning was never their intention.
After that, the normal battles resumed, and after two hours Yale’s number was called. There had been an accumulation of people waiting to battle due to the governor’s battles, and although there were secondary arenas in other places of the city, most people just wanted to battle in the original arena.
Skills were forbidden when battling in the arena, battling with just pure swordsmanship was a must. However, the strength of the body wasn’t something that could be balanced by such a rule, so that was also an important factor.
The guy who battled against Yale was at the same level of power as him, and at the same level of Swordsmanship, but his strength and agility were far lower, so Yale won that battle without too many difficulties. However, his swordsmanship didn’t advance because that first opponent was too weak for him.
Yale obtained five Sword points as a reward for his first victory of the day; if he battled again, the next battles would only be rewarded with two Sword Points if he won. Even if someone lost the battle, there was one Sword Point as a reward in the first battle of each day, that was a great motivation for those with little hopes of winning, at least they could earn something.
However, Yale didn’t mind that his next battle would have fewer rewards, so he applied for another battle just after finishing the first one.
After waiting a while, Yale started his second battle; that time his opponent was at the 7-star Apprentice and was superior to him in strength and swordsmanship.
That battle was a defeat for Yale.
However, that defeat was something Yale liked more than his previous win because he improved enough to advance a level of his Swordsmanship; that kind of battle was what Yale needed to improve himself.
Yale left the arena and returned to the inn, after losing one battle it was impossible to ask for other until the next day.