Chương 61: Friends I didn't want to make along the way

They say people flock to the strong. June held his pamphlet with trembling hands as he watched the two-person camp become a small encampment. He was tempted to crumple the pamphlet in his pained disbelief.

'42 people….'

'That is…. 42 people.'

'Forty-Two.' June let out a shaky sigh.

'42 God damn people.'

'42'"…"

'220, 000 out of 580, 000''That…. that's…. why?' Leo walked over with a bowl of fowl stew. June gently took the bowl and thanked Leo with a curt nod. People in the virtual colosseum did not need to eat; to the outside world, the tourney qualifiers only lasted about twelve hours, but to the gladiators fighting within the virtual realm, days or months could pass. The Gladiators wouldn't need to eat at all, but a well-fed Gladiator also meant one with high morale.

So there were some virtual wildlife that could be hunted and eaten, there were virtual herbs and spices that could be foraged, and they tasted real as well.

'These damn figments, these damn people, nothing makes sense here.' June scarfed down the surprisingly good stew despite his bated breaths. After he completed his meal, he just stared blankly at the bottom of the empty bowl.

'Why? No, how? Did I end up with 42 people following me?' Despite the fact that June no longer emanated the alluring aura of a Dreamer, people still constantly looked at him with awe and emotions he personally could not understand as to why they were aimed at him. June felt the stone bowl in his hands and looked around to see several people with similar bowls.

'Did someone bring cutlery in too?'

"Leo" Leo was sitting beside June with an oversized spoon in his hand.

"Yeah, June." June tapped the side of the bowl with a resonating clack.

"Who brought these bowls?" Leo pointed his spoon towards a small cohort operating a soup kitchen.

"The mage of that group made them with magic." June let out a grunt as he stood up.

"Thanks, Leo, I'm gonna…. yeah." June's head was pounding; he expected to be killed in his sleep, in fact, that is the entire reason he slept out in the open, and by the time he woke up, expecting to be home, he ended up waking up surrounded by a makeshift encampment. He walked over to the mage operating the soup kitchen with his cohort and placed the bowl on the stone slab, also presumably made of magic. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"So this is earth magic? How does it work?" June had a sudden feeling that he had opened Pandora's box with that question. The mage wore pristine robes made of silk; they had a scholar's soft cap on, and they were tall and thin, they had long, pointed ears, and milky white, unblemished skin. Their hair was hidden within their cap, but their eyebrows were blonde, they had no facial hair, and their irises were a light green.

'Are they like an elf or something?'

"Lord Light, Yes! It is earthen magic, it works by channeling mana into the world around you and... ….." June looked like he was paying attention, well, other than the fact that his eyes were closed.

'Shit, I definitely just said their sleeper phrase.' Despite his split thoughts, June did listen to the tall man's hyperfixation monologue for several minutes. He was a good listener, even though June primarily was the type to learn through action instead of theory, but either way, he did enjoy hearing theory.

'This is a good chance to pick up a new skill.'

"Mage, person….. what's your name?" The Mage's eyes lit up for some reason.

"My name is Leonard." June almost let his incredulous feeling show on his face.

'Leo & Leonard, both are mages'"Leonard, would you mind teaching me magic? Earth magic seems to have its uses." June was expecting a resounding no, but to his surprise, asking someone to teach another about their hyperfixation often leads to positive outcomes.

It has been two days since Leonard agreed to teach June about magic. No new altercations have happened.

'Probably because our group is so big.' A few new people ended up joining the encampment and were getting along with the others. In the past few days, only 12, 000 were taken out, bringing the survivor count to around 208, 000. Leo, the short one, filled June in on some of the gaps in the knowledge the pamphlet didn't elaborate on.

'Maybe there was a pamphlet designed just for the tourney.' In short, every three years, the coalition families make the trek to Lengue, and one of the primary events of the coalition meet is the colosseum. The colosseum is several kilometers wide, even though the gladiators fight in a virtual arena based on several continents; in fact, the virtual arena that the gladiators fight in is as big as several mega-continents.

People from several countries are able to buy devices that let them attend remotely, but the prices of said devices are typically exorbitant. Attending to the Lengue colosseum itself, on the other hand, is way cheaper, but at the same time, travelling to the continent was a perilous and long journey in most cases. So most fighters were either incredibly rich, incredibly powerful, lived in Lengue beforehand, or were students at some institutions like Leo, his cohort, and Leonard were.

It also turns out that faction wars often occur during the tourney more often than not, people usually fight aggressively for the first few days before forming factions, and the occasional royal, noble, or person who already had their own faction would join with their entire entourage.

'Meaning, that the only reason we haven't gotten in any fights yet, is because we haven't encountered another faction yet.' Leonard shouted.

"FOCUS." Leonard and Leo started instructing June on how to harness magic. June was currently sitting in a dark Tipi that one of the cohorts created. He had to meditate for a while to form a magical nexus. A magical nexus takes time to be formed, months, years, sometimes decades.

'Lilia said she was able to do it in two weeks.' Leo shouted.

"FOCUS." June sat with his legs crossed in the quiet Tipi. The way a nexus was formed was by gathering raw magic in the air and luring it into his body, and then, after he got it into his body, he needed to convince it into a spherical crystal. If he failed to harness the raw magic in time, it would start to ravage his organs depending on the strongest source element nearby.

'I wouldn't want a tree to start growing in me.' Leonard and Leo both shouted.

"FOCUS." Leonard and Leo were talented mages; Leo was able to use gravity magic, which was an exceedingly difficult aspect to learn, and Leonard used earth magic at an incredibly high level. June sat quietly. He was tempted to use his will to bend the earth mana into a crystal. In fact, he was probably capable of using an imitation of magic with how potent his will was.

Unfortunately, Leonard and Leo both said that to use magic, or to even create a magical nexus, one needed to learn how to accept the world for what it was and live with it in cohesion. The only reason June was going this far during such an inopportune time was so that he could impress Lilia with a magic nexus when he came out of the virtual tourney.

To the outside world, he would have formed a magical core in twelve hours, which was an unprecedented feat, but within the simulation, time passed faster; days or months could pass. Leonard patted June on the shoulder.

"Alright, that's enough for today." June stood up, then helicoptered both his arms, stretched back with a few cracks, and then kicked his legs out.

"Same time tomorrow?" Leo entered the Tipi with a sour face. Unlike Leonard, who handled the soup kitchen and was June's primary magic teacher, Leo was significantly busier since he was the one who handled general management of the camp; his gravity magic made it significantly easier for tasks like transport as well, so he was often busy. June looked at Leo; his eyes were closed, but he could smell an emotion coming off him.

"June, we've been attacked."