Chapter 548: Celebrity

Julius didn’t know whether to be surprised or exasperated at the attention he found himself suddenly under. Thanks to that little incident, he was now at the center of everyone, and his appearance didn’t go unnoticed. The people who had been blissfully ignorant of his appearance were now staring at him with excited whispers and murmurs.

Soon, the entire tram was bustling with mentions of his name.

“Really, is it truly him?”

“Nah, can’t be. Why would he be riding on the tram with us?”

“He looks younger than I expected.”

“He’s a first year, dumbass, of course he looks young.”

“No, I mean it’s hard to tell what he looks like when he is surrounded by fire.”

“You think he will sign my shirt?”

He wouldn’t say he was attacked, but most of the tram politely crammed together as they wanted to get a closer look at him. Some of them even asked for some autographs. They were really nice about it, too.

Since they were so respectful, Julius smiled and started signing people’s stuff. They were asking him a whole lot of random questions.

What was his favorite color? Did he prefer tea over coffee? Some of these questions made him laugh.

Then, as he was talking to another young man who was telling Julius about a supposedly excellent restaurant he wanted Julius to visit, he felt something tug on his pants.

He looked down and held back the laugh at the sight he was greeted with.

A young boy, around five years old, somehow weaseled his way to the front of the crowd. However, it was the large item the young boy was desperately trying to hold on to that caught his eye.

It was a helmet that was much too big for him. A beautiful yet simple helm that looked like it had seen its fair share of battles. It was still in pretty good condition except for one significant slash across the forehead of the skull.

“Can you sign my helmet?” The boy asked cutely. His high-pitched voice melted Julius’s heart, and Lily clenched her chest as if the cuteness was too much for her.

The boy’s mother pushed through and found her son clenching the helmet. “There you are. Don’t run off like that, it’s dangerous, you might get stepped on by somebody,” she scolded her son before turning to Julius with an embarrassed flush.

“Sorry about that. That’s his dad’s old helmet; he wants to be like him when he grows up. You don’t have to sign it.”

Julius shook his head. “No, it’s fine. As long as you are okay with me signing it, I don’t mind.”

The mom glanced at him hesitantly, then back at her son, who had some of the most adorable puppy eyes. “Only if it's really not an issue.”

Julius smiled brightly and leaned down to grab the helmet from the boy. He gave it a quick sign with his pen. Luckily, the pen was magical, so the ink actually stuck to the metal without smearing right away.

The boy jumped up and down excitedly. The people around him were all grinning at the boy’s exuberance.

Julius, on the other hand, was beaming widely and couldn’t help but feel great about himself. Apparently, he had become some sort of celebrity, and he didn’t hate it as much as he thought he would.

Lily pulled him away from these people and off the tram when their stop approached. She muttered something about dragging him away before he started to get too big a head.

He merely laughed at her, but allowed himself to get dragged.

The start of the third stage was as much of a dull affair as he thought it would be. There was a ceremony, but he almost fell asleep in the middle of it. There was a lot of talking and a lot of celebrations, but there wasn’t anything really required of him to do.

The only thing he cared about was that the brackets had finally been made. His first fight had been scheduled for later tomorrow. He would be fighting some guy named Erik, but until then, he was allowed to watch the rest of the fights.

He also found out that Liam, Lyra, and Jonas had made it through. Unfortunately, Irene hadn’t made it, nor had Christine.

Stolen novel; please report.

He was actually with Derek’s family at the moment, sitting in their special booth, away from the crowd. He wanted to watch from the same place he had watched the first stage, but with how popular he had gotten, it wasn’t possible.

Unlike the people on the tram, most of the people who spotted him wanted to speak to him about other things. That wasn’t even mentioning the organizations that were hounding him.

He found himself getting harassed by almost a dozen representatives who asked him to either join their organization or do something else for them. He did his best to ignore them and avoid them.

Of course, this was harder said than done.

He guessed that another thing he was excited about was the badge he and the other competitors received at the end. It was an ivory white badge with a ray of light shining over the horizon.

He could feel a unique warmth to it as he played with the surface. He didn’t know if he wanted to keep it; for all he knew, it had some kind of tracker on it. He would make sure to show it to Freya before he decided. However, he couldn’t imagine the Empire giving out tracking beacons to all of the competitors. It would only take a single person finding out to ruin the Empire’s reputation.

Speaking of Freya, they had just arrived. When they made eye contact, he waved her over and showed her the badge.

“Oh! This is pretty typical,” she explained to him.

“Really? What is it?”

“Basically, proof that you made it to the final stage of the tournament. As long as you keep it on your person, you should be able to use it as a form of identification when you are in the Empire. There are also some passive enchantments placed on it. I think there is a small but potent enchantment that will help one’s focus when training. I also believe that you will be able to upgrade it if you win your match. Those who make it further will have their colors on their badge change.”

“What are they called?”

“You really didn’t listen to them, did you?” She asked with a sigh.

He held his hands up. “I was busy practicing my life mana. I got distracted.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “It’s called a Contender’s Crest, typically seen as a tremendous honor and accomplishment to receive.”

Julius grinned and looked at the badge with a more favorable opinion.

The day of his match arrived quickly. He had been so focused on practicing his mana channel technique that he barely paid attention to the fights. They weren’t all that interesting, to be honest.

He suspected the Empire had done some kind of scouting and made the brackets so that the stronger fighters fought the weaker ones. It helped ensure that the strongest person would move on, but it wasn’t a perfect system. There were a few upsets.

Or at least there were, according to Lily and Derek. He didn’t really know who was who and was just going with the flow. Speaking of that, he needed to focus on the guy currently standing in front of him.

The match was about to begin, and he reminded himself of that while he was already standing across from his opponent.

For some reason, they looked a bit… scared. Julius didn’t know why, but he could practically smell their anxiety from their aura. They clearly didn’t have high hopes of winning.

“Forgive my impertinence, I would surrender, but I need to give a good showing,” the guy said with an apologetic shrug.

“Why would you surrender?” Julius couldn’t help but ask curiously.

“Are you kidding me? We all saw you beat Riven during the second stage. I have no illusions about my chances during this fight,” the guy said with a disappointed flattening of his lips.

Julius held back a sigh. This was why he hated showing off his strength; it made people hesitant, and they would already give up before the match began. All he wanted was a good fight and perhaps learn some things.

“Don’t worry about stuff like that. Let’s just have a good fight, yeah?” Julius said with a calm expression.

“Very well, then, forgive me for going all out here,” the guy said with a polite nod, and before Julius could respond, he was already charging up some kind of technique.

Julius stood there, watching for a few moments. The technique was quite fascinating to examine. The guy clearly had some sort of metal affinity or earth affinity. The metallic material flowed upwards from his opponent’s feet and spun around in a delicate motion.

It was almost like the metal was liquid and formed around his opponent’s body like a suit of impressive-looking armor. Every inch of him was covered in this mysterious material, and Julius felt some powerful thrums of mana flow through the armored suit.

Still, Julius didn’t know what kind of metal it was, and wondered whether the guy could only use this type or if he could use other forms of metal as well.

He would have asked the guy, but unfortunately, Julius had to backstep and duck down to avoid the strike sailing over his head. He leaned away and smacked the other fist to the side, using his leg to kick the metallic warrior away from him.

However, the weight of his opponent was ridiculously heavy, and he didn’t put enough power behind his blows to actually move him. It was a small mistake, and Julius was forced to block an overhead fist with his own forearm.

The weight was extreme, and he felt the ground crack from the intense pressure. Before his opponent could attack again, he moved to the side and backed away, observing his opponent with a little more curiosity.

From how he made it sound, this Tier 3 didn’t think highly of his chances when fighting Julius. However, he sold himself short by a lot. He was clearly very powerful; each movement was refined and efficient. He was skilled, that much was obvious.

He hadn’t made it to the third stage by pure luck. He was very strong, definitely stronger than most of the people he had faced in the first and second stages.

Julius stood up straighter and decided to take it a little more seriously. He gathered more kinetic energy into his body. He even used his most recent skill, . A literal shell of kinetic energy formed around him and swirled with each breath he took.

He struggled to maintain control of it. The new skill wasn’t quite familiar to him yet, and he didn’t have the best understanding of the skill. This would only come in time, and to be honest, this might be the perfect chance for him to do so.

He rubbed his hands together as he prepared to gain some nice experience. This tournament provided the perfect opportunity to test his new abilities against skilled opponents. He didn’t really get this chance very often, and he was excited.