The moment Osric stepped into the arena and people started noticing him—
The air inside shifted.
"That's Osric." Someone whispered.
"He came back already?"
"Not only did he have a brutal fight with Hugh yesterday, but he also killed someone."
"What did you expect? He's a dangerous guy, and this is still the arena we're talking about."
"That's true. Most fighters here have probably killed someone before, just not here."
Osric tuned them out.
This also made him realize that he could actually control his Heightened Senses.
He hadn't really noticed before, but it made sense. When he went to sleep at night, he just shut off his brain.
'Well it makes sense. If I couldn't even control my senses, it would be a terrible skill to have.'
By now he already knew the most practical timing to arrive in the arena, based on when the elite bracket fights usually start.
Of course it varied every night, based on how many fights were had before and how long they went.
Osric just showed up at a time where he had to wait less than an hour, sometimes less than ten minutes.
'Looks like tonight my timing's perfect.'
The last regular fight had just ended and the referee was about to call up the elite fighters.
"Alright everybody quiet down please!"
"Elite fighters please come down to the ring around the pit."
14 fighters, including Osric walked down.
Osric looked around and started observing them one by one. Most of them looked back at him, doing the same thing.
'So that's him?' One thought.
'He doesn't look that impressive.'
He was the only fighter here that hadn't seen Osric before.
And of the other twelve, seven had seen Osric kill someone yesterday.
'I hope I don't fight him.' One thought.
'Why are there so many high rankers here tonight?' Another wondered.
'I'm fucked.' A third fighter believed.
Osric had finished observing everyone and concluded that he had seen eleven of them fight before.
Nine of them he was confident against.
'I need to fight at least one high rankers tonight, and I know who I'll pick.'
'My last recruitment target here.'
The first fighter was picked and he in return picked someone to step into the pit with him.
While they started fighting, Osric was lost in thought and sighed.
'I have 48 hours to become a champion, but realistically I need to become one tomorrow night—
Because champion fights are last in the night and I need to challenge someone the night before, through the arena organizers, because the champions aren't around that much.'
'The only ways to become a champion is to either win against every elite fighter or win against one champion.'
'What a pain.'
'My challenge to a champion also won't be accepted if I'm not a high ranker. So tonight I need to really prove myself.'
'It's difficult because there aren't any official rankings, so both spectators and organizers just go by what the majority can agree on.'
'Although according to many I have proven myself by beating Alice and Adam, but that doesn't secure my position enough to challenge a champion, because I don't have many fights on my record.'
Osric was starting to get a headache.
'How can a place be so organized and unorganized at the same time?'
'There is also the fact that champions can decline the challenge, though that has practically never happened.'
'Still, the system really isn't making this easy. And those question marks for the reward aren't reassuring me at all.'
Even for someone as composed as Osric normally was, this was very frustrating.
But of the seven active champions, he already had someone in mind to challenge. It was the most logical choice based on his research.
'He's the most likely to accept my challenge out of the two guys I think I can beat. Two others I am confident I can't beat as I am now, and the remaining three I haven't seen fight before.'
Having seen four out of seven champions fight before was already impressive for Osric, because they didn't fight as often as the elite fighters.
The first elite fight came to an end after a long exchange of blows. Neither could continue as usual.
The next fight started quickly, and Osric wasn't chosen yet.
That fight ended more quickly with a clean knockout.
The winner stayed and chose a new opponent, but not Osric.
Unfortunately for him, he lost the second fight.
But the winner couldn't continue either.
A new fighter was called up and he didn't choose Osric either.
'I'm losing patience.'
Now there were seven fighters remaining that didn't step into the ring yet, including Osric.
After a long and intense fight that was between two clearly more skilled fighters than the ones before, one of them finally won. He couldn't continue either though.
Now it was finally getting closer.
The referee stepped up to choose someone new.
'Pick me.' They all thought.