Ian found himself standing outside of the portal, with Tram and Lana standing with a group of six very familiar people—the party that had killed them. They were staring up at a giant display and talking. When Lana saw him staring at them, she quickly ran over and gave him a hug. Returning it, he looked around as she led him over to the group.

"Where are Claire and Nia?" he asked.

"Claire's almost completely out of mana and is playing dead, and it's hella convincing," Tram said as he continued to watch the display. "Nia will probably be joining us in a moment. I think she's eliminated half of this group on her own, and if they didn't have the archers, she would probably get even more of them."

"Are you alright?" Lana asked quietly as she began leading him over to the display.

"I really didn't enjoy that," he said with a shudder.

"Wasn't really my thing either, but we can talk about it later."

He nodded at her as they turned to see people finally closing in on Selenia. He saw the hand gesture, and a wall of ice sprouted in the group. The adventurers screamed in terror as they began running. They only made it a few steps before it exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere and pulverizing another six of them.

"I am so glad she didn't do that to us," said the man in plate mail.

Ian snorted. "I'm not sure it would have done a huge amount to you, to be honest."

"Not to me, but that will shred anyone without a full set of dungeon-spawned armor in our level range," he said with a frown.

"Screw that," said the man he recognized as the earth mage. "Her magic regeneration, capacity, and power are off the chart for her level. I'd bet she has a higher intelligence stat than I do, plus she's dual casting. I've gotta admit, she's damn impressive. I wouldn't trust your armor against her magic, Jace."

"Ian, these are the members of Gathering Waves," Lana said. "They are one of the top parties in the mid-tier, and members of the Spartans."

"It's good to meet you, the name's Ian, but most adventurers call me Zero," Ian said with a smile as he watched the enemies regroup to attack Selenia. "I ran into Vex's party, Rising Tides, a few weeks ago. Nice group of friendly people."

"She mentioned meeting you. I'm Jace," said the big man with a nod. "The grumpy-looking caster next to me is Jared. He's an Earth Mage. The two women there who look like they could be sisters are Velna and Velma. Velna is our archer, she's the one in leathers, and the healer in robes next to her is Velma."

"We are sisters," said Velma, rolling her eyes before giving Ian a wink.

"And more than a handful," Jace said with a chuckle. "Jordan and Kyle are the two standing behind them, and they are the other members of our front line. They specialize in high damage output using sword skills."

"Very proficient with them, too," Tram said with a chuckle. "I didn't stand a chance."

"We should have gone after your other teammates," Kyle said with a sigh, getting a nod from the rest of his team. "Who knew that pretty lady over there had that kind of spell power? I didn't even know what happened, both Jordan and I just appeared next to the portal with Tram calling us over to watch the fight with him."

Lana smiled as she wrapped her arm around Ian's and leaned into him. Ian couldn't help but notice the small sigh the action drew from Velma as she turned her attention away, or the shrug and nod he got from Jace as the man chuckled.

"Here it comes," Tram said, drawing everyone's attention back to the screen.

The last ten members of their team spread out wide behind the trees. The two archers were watching both sides of the tree as their eight other members all prepared to charge Selenia. When she went to pop her head out, she barely missed being hit by an arrow, causing her to duck back into cover. Realizing this was their chance, the rest of the adventurers charged.

Ian knew Selenia was on borrowed time, and as she stepped out from cover and started dual-casting ice spears at the oncoming attackers, it was obvious she knew it as well. She managed to eliminate three of her attackers before the first arrow hit her, causing Ian to grimace at the pain he saw on her face. However, she kept casting, hitting two more enemies before a second arrow hit her a moment before the first enemy closed the distance.

Ian closed his eyes for a moment, so he didn't have to watch them kill his friend.

"It's moved on now to follow the survivors," Lana whispered.

Opening his eyes, he saw there were only five members of the horde remaining. One of the men Selenia had hit was still in the process of dying, but suddenly disappeared.

"Stupid guy just gave up all of his potential bonuses," Kyle said.

"Eh?" Ian asked.

Kyle looked over at him. "Oh, I guess you guys weren't old enough for the last one. If they surrender without being completely defeated in the mid-tier or higher, they don't get any bonuses from the system."

"Can't say I blame him, though," Velna said with a grimace. "It took me almost twenty seconds to bleed out once her ice spear blew out my entire hip."

Ian turned to see Selenia appear. Unlike him, she immediately began skipping towards them with a huge grin on her face.

"Did you see that!" Selenia asked, her voice filled to the brim with energy. "There couldn't have been more than half a dozen or so left. From sixty or so to just a handful! And I think Claire has something planned."

Turning back to the screen, the group of enemies began to move toward the river.

"Can't believe those six are actually the surviving members of four different groups," Tram said with a frown. "I don't know they managed to get so many people working together."

"Indoasian Alliance," Jace answered. "They make up almost a quarter of the groups currently competing in this bracket. The majority of their folks spend eight hours a day farming dungeons in the same manner many of the popular lower-level streamers do. Mass farming monsters that barely give experience, so they can stockpile the drops. So, their average levels are low, but they all work together towards a common goal."

"Yeah, you almost never see them above the mid-tier," Jared added. "The highest-level adventurers on their side tend to retire and work for their governments after a time."

Ian nodded at the information as he watched the group come up to the tree line in front of the river. As they turned to talk amongst themselves, glowing purple daggers flew through the air and hit three of them. Only one died instantly, the dagger shooting through his heart, but the two others were suddenly screaming as the daggers exited and continued flying around.

"How is she doing that?" Jared asked, eyes wide in shock.

The daggers came back towards the team, but only one of them took any additional damage. Claire had shakily gotten to her feet as she began to bring her daggers back around. Just as she sent them flying at her targets, one of the survivors came from behind a tree and shot an arrow at her.

Ian winced when she didn't even try to dodge, getting hit in the chest. She brought her daggers around one last time as she coughed up blood. Her daggers began to wobble, and half of them dropped out of the air as the archer pulled another arrow from their quiver. Claire smiled as a dagger came in from the left and cut deep into the archer's neck.

Claire blinked again as she fell forward, the arrows sticking out of her causing more damage as she died.

"How did she do that?" Jared asked again. "Now there are only two left!"

Tram typed something into the tablet, and the camera suddenly switched to see Ashlyn crouched behind a tree near the edge of the forest, looking out into an open meadow.

"She has the ability to move the daggers," Selenia said before running over and giving Claire a hug when she appeared.

Jared just whistled. "If I didn't know better, I would say that was space magic and not telekinesis."

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"It is space magic," Claire said, being dragged over by Selenia. "My adventuring alias is Clarity."

Jace began chuckling. "Yeah, we made a mistake coming up on you all, though we didn't have too much of a choice with that group coming up behind us."

"Fair," Tram said, giving the other man a smirk. "What doesn't kill you, weakens you enough that the next thing might. Am I right?"

"Definitely not wrong," Velma said with a chuckle.

"Now that young woman is terrifying," Velna said, pushing past her sister and Jace to stand next to Tram as he watched. "I'll be 36 this year, and I've never seen an adventurer use a bow like she does. She can shoot more arrows in a minute than I can at twice her level. I'd believe it was a skill if I didn't do some research and watch her matches back in high school."

"Still 31 more teams to be completely eliminated before this is over," Claire said.

Ian turned to find her staring at him with her eyebrow arched. Looking over, he saw Lana still had her arm loosely wrapped around his. He shrugged, causing her to roll her eyes. Looking over, it seemed like Lana's eyes were glued to the display.

"You're the same Lana who used to be a member of Peerless, right?" Velna asked, glancing over.

"Yeah," she said with a grimace. "But it got me here, so I'm not unhappy with the way things worked out."

Ashlyn was quickly moving along the edge of the forest, chasing something only she could see. Without any noticeable change in her surroundings, she suddenly stopped and seemingly fired a spirit arrow blindly up into one of the trees in front of her. A moment later, a corpse fell out of it.

"Now only 26 teams left," Tram said with a chuckle. "Her and Mara are terrifying together. This is going to take a while, but almost every team is down to just a couple of members remaining."

"I don't think there is anyone in the match left who can beat her, especially now that she is focused," Ian said.

Almost an hour later, Ashlyn shot a concussive arrow into a cave to finish off the last member of a team, bringing the total number of teams remaining to 64 and ending the match.

*~*~*

"My sister is going to be even more jealous of my poster after she sees this highlight reel," Diana exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Ashlyn. "You were so good! Not only that, but you are also credited with the final elimination of thirteen parties on your own."

Ian snorted when he saw nearly every spot on his sofas was filled. With their match being first thing in the morning, they still had to wait an hour to grab lunch at the cafeteria. When Diana had stormed into the portal center, she had caused a big stir with the other party who were waiting there with Ian's group. Tram had even had to nudge Jace to help the man regain his composure.

"Don't worry, Dia," Ashlyn said with a grin. "I'll tell Ivy it was a limited edition."

"Savage," Tram said, toggling the display to show different statistics from the fight. "I am kinda let down we didn't earn any rewards from the match, though. The members of Gathering Waves gained nearly thirty levels each from the match, and they only defeated three parties before they found us."

"You won't get anything until you are eliminated from the tournament," Diana said offhandedly. "Giving teams their rewards as they go could push people out of the level range or drastically change a team's power. Other than the way you all quickly level, nobody else is going to see any real increases in power outside of gear upgrades. It makes me wonder if you all plan on running a dungeon tonight?"

"No," Claire answered with a sigh. "We were asked by Mavis to, and I quote, 'simmer the fuck down until the tournament is over' or she would be upset with us. I think she was worried Ian would go crazy and jump an entire tier and cause issues."

Diana looked over at Ian, giving him a smirk. "Now, why would you ever go and do a thing like that?"

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this tournament is up Ian's wheelhouse," Claire said, no hint of humor in her voice. "You weren't your normal self in there."

Ian grimaced when he looked over at Tram and Lana. He had seen his friend's corpse, and he didn't even want to imagine Lana's. Thankfully, the highlight clips had skipped the aftermath of her self-sacrificing kinetic blast because it had been too gruesome for television.

"I…don't like fighting people," Ian admitted. "And I hated seeing everyone get hurt even more. It bothers me that I killed people, even if I know it wasn't real. It felt real. But at the end of the day, seeing Tram die and hearing Lana blow herself up. I…" Ian shook his head while he grappled with the memories. "I don't want to ever fight people again after this."

"Good, you shouldn't," Diana responded, no hints of mockery in her tone. "The majority of adventurers aren't built that way. Our goal is to help people and overcome challenges, not fight those who should be our friends and allies. Too many people forget that we are all in this together at the end of the day. I know you've already met a few of them."

"Fucking Chet," Ashlyn said with a savage grin. "I can't believe he tried to monologue during a tournament. Turns out his group killed exactly zero people before we ran into them, and they got nothing from the tournament. After asking some of my friends on the AO staff, they all but ran out of the facility after they respawned."

"Chet is a nobody in the grand scheme of things," Diana said with a lazy wave of her hand. "You're just lucky there were only a couple of teams from Threshold in there."

"I thought they liked us, though?" Ian asked.

"Oh, they think you are the chosen one," she said with a teasing giggle. "Nobody was really talking about them before you signed up because they outright refused to support these tournaments in the past because the essence stones used to create it don't help our ambient mana levels. This also means they think you are wasting time on this tournament.

"Which caused an even greater shock when nearly every one of their mid-tier teams joined, and they are by far the strongest guild in your bracket. They are one of the few large international guilds, and the only one to focus entirely on dungeon diving."

"Aren't they also wasting their efforts by being in there now?" Selenia asked, chiming in from where she was snuggling with Mara.

"Definitely," Diana answered. "However, they'll suffer significant penalties if their guild fails to provide the number of parties they registered. The financial hit if they failed to show up…it would bankrupt a small country."

Tram whistled. "How many are we talking?"

"Just south of three hundred parties worldwide."

"You're fucking with us." Tram shot back.

Diana just smiled as she shook her head in response.

"What are they likely to do?" Ian asked. "Some of them are definitely going to make it to the final bracket."

"The ones who do will be their best. I'm not sure if they plan on wiping you out as soon as possible, or if they are just planning on giving you a greater challenge to make the tournament worthwhile for you in their leader's eyes. It is really hard to figure them out. You have to understand that they seem normal on the outside, but they really are fanatical in accomplishing their goals. Their entire focus is on increasing the ambient mana to match that of a mid-tier dungeon.

"I can guarantee you their leadership already has a complete breakdown on you, with analysts dissecting every bit of footage to determine the best way to help you grow with every fight if they can't eliminate you early. They won't care about how it will appear to the masses if it is obvious they aren't embracing the spirit of the competition; they will just push towards whatever they think is right. If they are the only ones left with you in the semi finals, it wouldn't surprise me if they all quit to get you back into the dungeon faster—penalties be damned."

"So, we need to start planning out how we are going to handle their teams when we run into them," Ian said with a small nod. He still remembered Point's very real threat to Chet, and he had no desire to be on the receiving end of that kind of crazy.

"I'll look into some things and see what I can find about our opponents," Claire said, giving him a knowing look.

"Now I feel like I need a drink," Tram grumbled. "Politics and conspiracies make me feel dirty."

Ashlyn jumped to her feet. "I'm glad you brought it up! It's time for us to head downstairs before my stomach starts eating my beauty away."

Ian looked at her and rolled her eyes.

"You may not be aware of this, oh brother dearest, but I am one hell of a hot commodity. I even have posters that my fans keep on their bedroom walls. How many posters of you are there on people's walls?"

Diana snorted as she looked at Claire. "Do you want me to tell her, or do you want to crush her delusions of grandeur?"

"I'll do it!" Tram said, cutting in with a grin. "Why don't we head on over to Lana's room and see what she has on her wall?"

"God damn it, Tram!" Lana screamed. "You're such an asshole!"

Everyone turned to Lana, who started punching Tram on the shoulder and arm as her face turned scarlet. Even though Lana wasn't pulling her punches, Tram just chuckled to himself.

Ashlyn started looking around in shock. "Are you telling me that they sell posters of my brother?"

"Uh, your brother is about to get his first set of royalties from the merch I set up for him before we started running together," Claire said with a giggle. "It was part of our contract…as well as the contract I have with all of you. I feel like maybe none of you actually read it?"

"Too long," Ashlyn grumbled.

"Didn't read." Tram finished getting a high five from the archer.

"Alright, let me put it in quick terms," Claire said, smirking at their antics. "Ian pretty much begged me for help saying, 'I just want to hide in a dungeon killing monsters, so please save me from living a life of poverty as a filthy, uncultured murderhobo, Claire. You are my only hope!' So, I set up all the merchandising for his brand and launched it a couple of days after he broke the original records," Claire said with a shrug.

"First off, I don't sound like that," Ian said with a chuckle. "Second, what does this all mean?"

"It means that you are bringing in more from merchandising than most small clans—and some large ones," she said with a grin. "It also means that all of us are about to be very wealthy individuals because everyone else's product lines are a couple of weeks behind yours. Plus, we have the one for the entire party."

An idea began to form in Ian's head. "How much money are we talking about here, Claire?"

"Yours alone is projected in the hundreds of thousands for your first check since everything is flying off the shelves. That's after taxes and paying off the original loans required to get them started, of course. It will drop some unless we keep putting out new merch, which I have stuff already in the works to release quarterly over the next year, so you are probably looking at high six to low seven figures a month starting next month.

"That projection is without entering into any big sponsorships. You could be bringing in stupid amounts of money with the right sponsorships, but it would greatly cut back on your dungeon time."

"Yeah, screw that," he said, instantly rejecting the idea.

"Yo, less talky-talk, and more walky-walk!" Ashlyn exclaimed, beckoning everyone towards the door. "We need to go get food before I starve to death." She stepped out only to pop her head back in. "Also, we need to grab a poster of me for Lana's room to go with the one she keeps to worship my brother."

"Ash, I swear to—" Lana said, chasing Ashlyn out the door.

"She's pretty pissed at you right now, isn't she?" Ian asked Tram when they were the last people in the room.

"Totally worth it," he said, giving Ian a big shit eating grin. "You don't seem to mind it too much either."

"Man, my ego is so huge right now. You'll probably have to help pull me through the door, and I have no idea how we are going to get past the elevator."

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