Are you sure about this, Jake?” Owen asked with genuine worry as they walked back to the Colosseum the next day. ”You should at least go to the crafters before the match… Maybe you see something you like and decide to buy it, right?””It’ll be fine,” Jake said, waving him off. ”I will go check out the crafters afterwards.””But… if you lose the match, you risk getting demoted and will have a harder time rising to higher ranks. And that’s assuming you don’t die or lose a limb. You mentioned that you wanted better equipment at some point, so why wait?””Let me ask you this, Owen,” Jake said. ”That spear of yours—will you keep using that even when you become a Gladiator? Assuming you become a Gladiator, that is. Which you really should be able to, considering… you know.””Probably not?” Owen admitted, totally ignoring that last part of what Jake said.”So at that point, when you buy a new weapon, the spear would just be a bunch of wasted points, as you can only sell stuff back for half o

Jake was truly a genius. Why hadn’t he thought of using Polly earlier? It was such an obvious solution! Sure, he could also have asked Owen, but Polly had been keen on finding some way to help him for a while, and this was such a prime opportunity.After he had gotten his clothing situation fixed through Polly—partly by cleaning it, partly by buying some new stuff—he headed straight back to a small townhouse that served as housing for Gladiators. Later on, he met back up with Owen and Polly to eat before going home and to bed. When he woke up and opened the door to the small house, he saw his clothes there, neatly packaged by the professional cleaning company.What? He hadn’t actually made Polly clean them. With her whole young-mistress vibe, she clearly never washed her own clothes either, so Jake had asked her where she got her clothes washed and had her escort him there. It was quite the high-end place, based on what Jake could gather, specializing in cleaning armor and weapons for

Jake barely managed to drag himself out of the arena. Nearly every one of his ribs was broken, and he had enough internal damage to kill most people. Had he not been a system-changed creature, he would have been dead already.After stumbling out of the arena, medical staff came. Sadly for Jake, they only checked if he would live, and while Jake was in horrid condition, his life was not in danger. Seeing no other real choice, Jake bought a healing potion from one of the staff members for 100 Colosseum Points to try and at least recover a little. Instinctively, he identified it when the medical staff happily sold it.[Colosseum of Mortals Recovery Potion (Unique)] – A potion from the Colosseum of Mortals. This potion will restore a small amount of health to stabilize the condition of anyone who consumes it while boosting the natural recovery rate of all resources for a day (24 hours). This effect only works out of combat. You can only consume one recovery potion a day.It was a potion t

Jake was not the only one experiencing the Colosseum of Mortals—or who had at least experienced it at some point, for that matter. There was, of course, the Sword Saint, who was also hard at work, and as a far wiser man, he had heeded the warning upon being confronted with the Benevolent Monk. He had responded by buying a good sword as well as some basic equipment, which had ended with him drawing blood early on in the fight without taking any major damage himself. This didn’t mean the fight had been easy… just that he’d had offensive prowess that allowed him to deftly bypass the challenge.Carmen had also chosen to enter the Colosseum, as that appealed to her far more than any of the other Challenge Dungeons. Losing her variant human race and becoming a G-grade once more did shock her at first, as suddenly becoming a soft shell of her former self was difficult to accept… but then she adapted.She had been an okay boxer before the system arrived, acceptable for her age group and weigh

Outside Nevermore, in the Order of the Malefic Viper, the old mansion that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper used to live in looked much the same as before he’d gone to the World Wonder. Despite not really having permission, Meira and the others kept using the place for all of their meetups, and Meira lived there full-time. It was simply the best meeting spot, even if the majority of the library was locked off to them.This wasn’t because Meira didn’t have her own place now; it was more that she only really ever felt at home within the mansion. Whatever bad memories she had from the place had long since been replaced with good ones. Besides, she had taken care of parts of Jake’s garden for a long while and had several experiments ongoing there, so moving would really be a hassle.Teacher also said it was fine to stay, and Meira saw no reason to question that.By now, it had been a few months since she evolved to C-grade and threw off the last traces of her former identity as a slave. Sh