“Please welcome our contestants!” Shouted the announcer with passion.

With the announcement, the gates at one edge of the stadium opened and out walked the participants. The cheering intensified, while I frowned.

‘Why are they all so ugly?’

It wouldn’t be an issue for any of them to become the prime exhibit of a freakshow. 23 out of the 29 participants had some sort of major abnormality with their body, some clearly visible behind the cloaks, hiding their appearance.

Some were short, while others were giant, several were missing limbs, had weird body proportions while there was even one with blue skin and… octopus tentacles coming out of his shoulder blades?

‘Must be a hatsu,’ I thought. Forceful aura awakening does leave some scars and deformities, but octopus tentacles shouldn’t be possible.

There were only 5 people, that could be said to be normal. And according to shonen logic, they were the elite. With a quick check, I was almost certain that was the case.

Some seconds later, they stood at the center, some even basking in the crowd’s gazes.

The commentator continued to ramble, while I tuned him out. There was something more important on my mind,

“What do you think of the blue guy with tentacles?” I asked Bolin.

“Oh him? I heard he is really powerful!”

“But don’t you think it is strange that the guy has tentacles?” I inquired.

But he only looked at me like I was the crazy one.

“What do you mean? There are tons of people like him!”

“No, there aren’t. I looked into it and couldn’t find more than a handful of examples and even those are suspected to be shapeshifters messing with humans.”

While shapeshifting magical beasts existed, their numbers were few and rarely would they appear in front of humans. There were only four publicly accepted species capable of altering their appearance to such a degree, Kiriko {1} being one of them. And seeing such a rare sight was certainly nothing to gloss over.

‘Strange. This is not how he usually acts. Usually, he would have pondered for some time and tried to come up with an answer. But this time, he just ignored the fact altogether. This isn’t like him…’

Two options came to mind to explain why he acted like this.

The first one being that speaking of the supernatural is some sort of a taboo. But if that were the case, he would have warned me or at least given me a clue to stop talking. Yet, that didn’t seem to be the case.

The other, much more likely option is the arena itself. It must have a way to hide the clearly impossible feats the participants are performing. And the only way I know how is through a nen ability. To confirm my suspicions, I turned around and asked the man sitting next to me. And his answer made it clear. Everyone else was incapable of finding the absurdness.

‘But why wasn’t I affected? I can still think clearly and see the strangeness…

… Maybe it is a condition of the ability? Something like: it only works on people that haven’t awakened their aura nodes? Or more likely, it only works on people who aren’t aware of nen. That must be the case!’

With a pounding heart, I continued watching. Knowing that it would be a problem if the organizers found out that I was a nen user, I pretended to be like the others and overlooked the things I found strange.

Suddenly, the announcer raised his voice beyond his usual level, which piqued my intrigue.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Hearing about their awesome strength is one thing, but witnessing it first hand is another! Seeing is believing after all. So don’t you think a demonstration is in order?”

The crowd erupted in cheers.

“How about some volunteers from the public?”

Hearing this, several people vied for the spot, but at the end, a tall and muscular man was chosen. He walked onto the stage, where several thick steel slabs and large cubes made of solid concrete were waiting, along with some ‘tools’.

After some words of encouragement, the man grabbed a sledge hammer, weighted it in his arms, before swinging it at the concrete block with considerable strength. But all that effort went to vain, as the concrete cube didn’t seem any worse for wear.

With veins visible on his face, he swung time and time again, but all that monumental effort achieved was the now slightly chipped brick.

Minutes passed, as the man was lying on the floor, panting. He tried everything he could and every tool he could find, but he made no progress. With a heavy heart, he gave up.

Hearing this, a competent sneered {2}, cracked his knuckles and walked to the brick.

The 4 meter tall giant easily held the 50x50x50 cm cube and grinned. Within a second, the previously undamaged brick turned to rubble as if it was a fragile piece of glass.

The eyes of the man, still lying on the floor, were in shock.

He just spent the last 5 minutes hammering away at the cube without any results, yet this guy didn’t even need 10 seconds to crush it between his hands!

The crowd exploded in applause. It was clear the giant loved the attention.

“And this is the mighty Henry! He has been the record holder of the MMA golden belt for 4 years straight. Nobody in the ligue has come even close to defeating him! He is truly unrivaled!”

Henry the giant only laughed and encouraged the public to scream their lungs out.

“Now, for the next test!”

“Here we have a 20 cm thick slab of cast steel!” Shouted the announcer.

With that, the events repeated, only this time, heavy weaponry was involved. Somehow, the organizers got the bright idea to involve an anti material rifle. But it too could do nothing against the invincible wall of pure steel, over 5 times thicker than its maximum penetration. And as expected, another contestant was called up.

This one’s title was William the brute.

Surprisingly, he was shorter, only about 2 meters tall. With some encouragement from the crowd, he slammed his fist into the slab, as it dented.

The stadium became quiet, before, seconds later, descending into chaos.

The previously mostly unharmed plate now had a 15 cm deep crater in the middle of it.

Seeing this, William cursed. He had expected to easily punch through the wall, but it didn’t happen. Sadly, it was too late to try again, so he returned to the others with a frown on his face.

And so, some other demonstrations were held, but none of them proved to be interesting. They were clearly only the appetizer for the main event, which started only after a full hour.

*

“The moment you’ve all been waiting for! The fights!”

The crowd cheered once more.

“But before all that, we will reveal the tournament bracket!”

“This is a double elimination tournament, therefore, a single loss doesn’t disqualify. Everyone has a second chance! So with that out of the way, let’s begin!”

Looking at the bracket, I wasn’t surprised. Since the number of competitors wasn’t a power of 2, it meant that some got a free pass. And lo and behold, the lucky ones were the guys that showed off in front of the public. Other than that, it was nothing special. The two chances to fight were there only to have more fights. From what I can sense, some fights won’t take more than a dozen seconds. So to give the audience more entertainment, people had a second shot. Then again, some deaths are bound to occur.

In any case, the first fight was about to begin!

{1} - The magical beasts in the hunter exam.

{2} - is this a Xianxia now?