Cosmic Paragon-Chapter 103 - 102: The Rebirth of Paragon!

Drake stepped up into the booth and saw there was a woman; who looked like she was in her thirty’s, seated there.

She stared at Drake as he came up and immediately recognized that this was his first time in the Arena.

"Hello and welcome to the Arena! Our establishment excels in all forms of entertainment, recreation, auctions and trades. I’m Ruth, How can I help you." she said with her usual professional smile.

Drake asked, "That is quite the mouthful, do you always say that to all your customers?"

Ruth shook her head and replied, "No, not always, just to the new ones."

"You can tell that it’s my first time at the arena? What gave it away?" Drake raised an eyebrow and asked.

Ruth shrugged, "I’ve been working here for six years, that’s as long as this place has been open for. And in this time, you could say I’ve developed a kind of sense towards these things. Now I can tell a few things about the customer just from the small clues they unconsciously give off".

Drake nodded. It was natural for someone who had done this kind of work for a long time to develop such special senses or as someone else would say a Business man’s intuition.

Looking closely at Ruth, Drake could see that this lady was not a mage, the fact that she could see through him despite that made him have some more respect for her in his heart.

Not wasting time Drake directly stated his business. "I’m here to sign up for the Grand Mage Tournament."

Ruth nodded, "Registrations for the Grand Mage Tournament? You’re in the right place. The preliminaries start today. Who are you registering for?"

"Myself." Drake replied.

Ruth was surprised and asked "You... You’re a mage? What level?"

"I’m a 2 star mage." Drake nodded and activated his magic power. Magic energy fluctuations instantly surrounded him as his aura rose.

"2 star? But how come the magic energy detectors weren’t sensing any magic energy fluctuations from you?" Ruth asked puzzled. This was the first time she had run into a situation where the detectors could not detect any magic energy from a mage.

But Ruth did not know that this was thanks to the barrier sealing all of Drake’s magic power. All magic energy in Drake’s body was constantly being sucked into the seal leaving not even a smidgen behind. And once magic energy was within the seal it becomes virtually undetectable.

With the seals power, unless Drake himself told you that he was a mage and exposed his magic energy, nobody would be capable of detecting anything.

Drake thought ’If Queen, who was a top notch Telepath was unable to detect any magic energy from me thanks to the seals effect, then your puny detectors can forget about ever finding anything without my permission’

Drake smiled and said with a smile on his face, "Let’s just say that it’s a special property of my magic power; which is to hide all traces." He did not elaborate any more than that.

Ruth just nodded and left it alone. As far as she was concerned, there were all kinds of magic powers out there, and one more advanced concealment ability was nothing strange.

Ruth fished out a HOLO-PAD from her desk drawer and handed it to Drake. "You will have to fill this before you can officially be registered; it’s just some basic information." she said.

Drake nodded, "Alright"

Drake took the HOLO-PAD from her and started filling the form. Like she had said it was all just some basic information, so he had no problems filling it."

Ruth had just let another customer off when Drake returned with the form completely filled in, except for some parts that required her to personally fill in. She caught sight of something in the form Drake was filling and she exclaimed. "You are only sixteen? You only just joined a mage academy?"

Drake nodded. "Yes."

"And you want to sign up for the Grand Mage Tournament?" She inquired.

"Sure why not?" he responded.

Ruth stared at him and asked. "You realize that the Arena is no laughing matter right, you could be traumatized by the fights in there." Her face had a bit of worry etched.

Drake replied, "I understand."

Ruth felt like Drake did not understand the gravity of what he was doing. "You understand that ’The Arena’ is a licensed establishment recognized by the Imperial power and ’The Tribunal’. And that we will not be held responsible if you incur any irreversible mental trauma, you may face in the fights of the Arena?" She explained

"Yes." he responded again firmly.

Ruth stared into his eyes for a few seconds, but there was no hesitation in them instead his heart was steady and he was resolved.

Ruth shook her head and sighed, "Alright then you’re a man. You know the consequences of your actions; you can make your own decisions. I should really just mind my own business.

The Arena was an establishment owned by the Obsidian Palace. And the first rule in the book that Obsidian Palace gave was ’Treat the customer like you would your close family.’ This was a rule, but it was also more of a slogan in Obsidian Palace.

The next rule was that all staff hired must not be arrogant or dismissive to the customers. Instead they must be welcoming and show concern.

After doing this for so many years, Ruth had seen a few young mages at Drake’s age go into the Arena and come out scared for life. Even Telepaths were unable to help some of them cure the trauma.

Ruth wanted to protect Drake from that fate, but it looked like her persuasion was useless.

Drake smiled softly at her, "No, it’s alright. I actually appreciate it. Thanks for being protective, it made me feel like I had a big sister looking out for me. I’ve never had a big sister before." he said.

Ruth raised her head to face Drake and dissuaded again, "If you really feel like I am your big sister, then listen to your big sisters advice. Don’t join the Grand Mage Tournament!" she was doing her best to discourage this decision.

Drake shook his head at this, "I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I need to join the Grand Mage Tournament, it’s something I have to do."

Ruth gave a rueful smile and sighed, ’That’s what the other guy said. Looks like my persuasion skills are still trash.’ she remembered five years ago, another youngster had also tried joining the Grand Mage Tournament.

Just like now, at that time Ruth had tried to dissuade that young man from enrolling into the Grand Mage Tournament, but she had failed.

Though yes, even though that young man had gone and done something big and gotten into the top three of the Tournament, and she was happy for him at the time. Ruth had taken it as a failure on her part that she had failed to dissuade him.

Now a similar situation was presented and she was still unable to sway this young man’s decision.

Shaking her head Ruth returned to her business mode. "What’s the name or moniker you will be using?" she asked.

"Paragon!" Drake replied straight.

"Do you have a battle record we can record?" Ruth asked again as she worked on her computer.

Drake thought about it then gave her his record from Alpha academy for clearing the training wheels stage. Since it was also credited under his moniker, he believed there was no harm.

Ruth was a bit surprised by this and it served some consolation for her. She recalled that the young man five years ago had also had the same training wheel record.

’I guess, if he has a record like this, then at least he should be able to take a hit.’ she thought.

Ruth completed the submission then turned to Drake, "Alright your registration is complete! That is the door for participants. You can go in that way and head on upstairs to the changing and waiting room. Now that you are on the list, you will have to fight at least ten battles everyday for the next three months. There are too many people trying to get into the tournament and these three months will weed out all the weaker ones."

Then she added, "You can directly challenge at anytime and when there’s a challenge you’ll receive an alert on your Skylink. If you do receive a challenge you will have an hour to accept and another hour to get into the Battle zone or you will lose by default. Alright, that’s it, you can read the remaining rules yourself. Now off you go, Good luck and may God be with you."

"Thank you." Drake nodded and walked away heading resolutely towards the door.

"Next!" She called out.

Ruth stared at Drake’s departing back as he left and mumbled. "Since I couldn’t change your mind, then I guess the best I can do for you is to support you."

Ruth then returned to her work.

...

Drake went upstairs and soon arrived at the waiting room.

There were many others that were here either for the Grand Mage Tournament or because of how much fights they took path in the Arena, it was now more like a job to them. They felt like watching the fights from the waiting room rather than up in the seats.

The waiting room was more like a lobby with a bar for refreshments and large HOLO-Screens showing the fights currently going on.

Drake didn’t need to look around for too long before he found the changing area.

He went in and found a long hallway with several changing room doors lining the walls. The first room on the right of this hallway was an armory where mages could rent or purchase equipment.

There were armors, weapons both cold and hot and all kinds of stuff.

Drake’s eyes glowed at the fine assortment of gear available.

"These look good!" he said after a short look around.

Drake directly picked up a set of nice glistening black arm and leg guards along with and upper body armor that shaped like a vest with a pouncing roaring lion printed on the chest. The lion looked like it was jumping out of the chest plate, towards whoever was looking at it from the front.

Next, he picked out a black sleeveless long robe with a hood.

Drake was satisfied. The gear he had picked did not look too flashy nor did they look too low tier. They were not weak that any arrow or knife could easily pierce through them and they weren’t too heavy so they did not restrict his movements. They were just perfect for what he wanted.

He turned to leave the armory and that was when he saw something that drew his eye.

Masks!

The masks were all in a show glass and each had a label with a name on it. One among them, particularly drew his attention. It was a black mask called ’Black Scorpion’.

The Black scorpion was shaped like the masks Scorpion and Sub-zero wore in the Mortal Kombat franchise. Drake immediately fell for it and picked it out.

Anyone who wore these could easily blend into any crowd. It was the perfect get-up for an assassin or someone who engaged in close combat.

When Drake had all the gear in his hands he nodded.

"You shall be the rebirth of Paragon!"

The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr(e)𝒆novelkiss