Getting his name on the waiting list was relatively easy. But it was pretty exciting.

When he put his name on the list a new tag appeared on his Tamer ID.

It now listed an additional bit of information.

Gladiator rank: Rookie

Like every other rank, it went up. However, unlike the Delver rankings, it was more variable as it could go up or down depending on one’s successes and failures.

The system, as he understood it, worked something like this:

In each rank you could gain 100 points, every win gives you points and every loss takes away points. When you reach 100 points you need to return to the register to increase your rank and you can no longer gain points till you do so. Any additional points over 100 are taken away and you gain a rank. However, if your point total is at negative 20 points(losing can take you to the negatives) you will be automatically dropped a rank. Both of which prevented you from participating in further matches for the rest of the day.

He could understand why all that was done. It prevented Tamers from aggressively pushing into the ranks and maybe hurting themselves. Because he could imagine himself doing just that.

Also, it was ingenious how it controlled how it slowly guided a Tamer without actually giving advice.

There were a total of 9 ranks: rookie, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, epic, legendary and mythic

The smart thing about it was that in the rookie rank, every win gave you ten points and every loss took away 5 points. This made it so you rapidly went past this rank and had to take a break to come to grips with what you faced.

Simon knew this, though he could not remember just why. The slight hum of the buzzing made him stop trying to focus on it.

Instead, he thought of how in the bronze stage you would gain 9 points per win and still 5 points per loss. Not much of a difference but that was by design, it was not enough to hurt you adversely but was still significant enough for those with a keen eye to notice.

This continued, at silver one gained 8, at gold, it was 7, at platinum it was 6, at diamond it was 5, at epic it was 4, at legendary it was 3 and at mythic it was 2. The loss remained at a constant 5.

This made it so that anyone who gave a bit of effort would eventually reach the diamond rank. Coincidently, it was the minimum one needed to get weekly rewards during a yearly ‘season’. This left the last three ranks reserved for the truly strong. After all, in the last couple of ranks, one lost more points at every loss than they could gain at every win.

There was even a leaderboard that listed the top 100 gladiators for the season. With escalating rewards at every rank.

However, every year the slate was wiped clean and everyone was pushed back into the rookie ranks. Again, coincidentally at the same time, the seniors at the university graduated and usually moved on.

Simon was being facetious when he thought it was all a coincidence. This felt like a system carefully crafted and implemented to grow Tamers and keep them continually engaged. And he was sure it was an attempt to make Tamers more adaptive to combat in a relatively safe environment.

He thought that it might have been slightly backward that he got the more hardcore experience first(Delving) instead of this.

But later than never he supposed.

His ruminations came to an end when a ping went off in his Tamer ID along with mental directions to where he needed to go, which was essentially a teleportation circle near the edge of the amphitheater.

Upon stepping on it, there was the familiar sensation of warping through space. The next moment he was standing on a raised platform across an open field with another Tamer on the opposite end of the said field.

A giant holographic display appeared in the center.

Name: Simon

Gladiator rank: Rookie(0)

Highest rank: Rookie(0)

Monster Girls:

Amy-Tier 5-Greater Wolf

Stella-Tier 5-Cat maid(Epic)

Flora-Tier 5-Great Tree(Epic)

Total number of matches(season):N/A

Total number of matches(Liftetime):N/A

Longest win streak:N/A(Only applicable once Diamond rank is reached)

VS

Name: Albert

Gladiator rank: Rookie(70)

Highest rank: Diamond(45)

Monster Girls:

Tit-Tier 4-Minatour

Yellow Streak-Tier 5-Zephyr harpy

Darky-Tier 5-Shadow Witch

Bite-Tier 4-Lesser Vampire

Ooze-Tier 4-Poison Slime

Total number of matches(season):0

Total number of matches(Liftetime):259

Longest win streak:7

Simon’s superior hearing could pick up the mumblings of his opponent. Given the distance he did not think even his superior hearing should not have been able to do so. But he suspected there was some magic involved that allowed the tamers to communicate.

The words he picked up were not kind.

“A rookie Blessed one? Sweet! Beating one of those is automatic bragging right! They don’t need to know that it was his first match…”

His eyes narrowed at his challenger who looked back at him with an amiable grin. The Tamer probably did not realize his words were heard but before he could do so, a loud ringing came from the holographs.

BOTH TEAMS HAVE BEEN ASSESSED! MATCH TYPE: BEST OF THREE! ADDED CLAUSE: WIN OR LOSE THE SAME MONSTER GIRL MAY ONLY BE USED ONCE! ACTIVE TAMER PARTICIPATION NOT ALLOWED!

MATCH BEGINS IN:

                                                                                                                  3

                                                                                                                  2

                                                                                                                  1

                                                                                                             FIGHT!