Volume 2: Empire Chapter 194 Hercules Arena
When Luke lined up to lift the stone pillar to get into the game, the Hercules Arena was already full of spectators. The rough style of Tedejia Hill was fully released here, the audience shouted loudly, and some barbarians beat their chests and roared like gorillas.
The game has not even started yet, but the atmosphere continues to rise.
The East Stand of the Arena is more decorated than the other stands. There are stone pillars with totems carved under the stands, and beast sculptures symbolizing bravery above the stands. The area below the beast sculptures is where only people of noble status can get seats. Most of them are barbarians in gorgeous clothes. Only under the wolf statue is a group of humans sitting.
Baron Sergei sat in the middle of this group of humans, showing his special status among the people of Tedega Hills.
Baron Sergei has fiery red hair and a partly barbarian bloodline that makes him tall and straight. His narrow cheeks make him look less strong than he actually is, and his wolf-like eyes scan every contestant in the field.
Almost all the players waiting for the official competition to begin were barbarians. This was the innate advantage of the race. Humans were much weaker than barbarians in terms of absolute strength. However, there were still human players in the arena, but they all had some barbarian blood.
Baron Sergei quickly focused his attention on several human contestants who had qualified for the competition. He also said to the people around him, "The Duke has allowed the establishment of a human city militia brigade, with me as the brigade leader. I must make the human brigade form combat effectiveness as soon as possible to win the Duke's support in expanding the size of the human army. These humans who are qualified to participate in the strongman competition will help improve the external image of the human brigade. After the competition, you should communicate with them and try to get them all to join the city militia."
"Yes, sir. But strength is not a skill that humans are good at. If the Baron wants to improve the combat effectiveness of the human brigade as soon as possible, he should follow the example of the Imperial Army, increase the number of magicians accompanying the army, and equip the soldiers with better armor and weapons."
At this point, the registration phase for the strongman competition ends and the official competition begins.
It is estimated that there are three hundred players who are qualified to participate in the official competition. They are crowded around the outer circle of the stadium, waiting for the organizer to call out their names so that they can go to the middle of the stadium to compete with their opponents in strength.
The competition is very simple. The prop is a long metal pole similar to a seesaw. Two contestants stand at both ends of the pole. When one end of the pole rises, the other end falls. The contestant wins by lifting his own section of the pole to the specified height with pure strength without using any skills or magic.
In the initial stage of the competition, five groups competed at the same time, and the schedule was very fast. When entering the final stage, it was changed to a single group competition, allowing the audience to fully enjoy the excitement brought by the strongman wrestling.
Baron Sergei watched the game nonchalantly, seemingly not very interested in this primitive competition of strength. In response to the advice of his confidants, he replied: "I also want to increase the number of accompanying mages and equip my soldiers with the best weapons, but this requires money. The finances of Tedega Hill are very tight now, and the Duke will not give me too much money to equip a city militia brigade.
I need to prepare my money for when the factory restrictions are lifted. Ordering machines has used up all my savings, but it is still far from enough.
I didn’t expect these iron lumps to be so expensive!”
"Although the machines are expensive when purchased, once they are running, the production speed is dozens or even hundreds of times faster than that of an excellent craftsman. The money you invested will be fully earned back soon. This time, the human merchants were able to seize the opportunity, and everyone will be grateful to you, sir."
Speaking of factories, Sergei couldn't help but reveal a proud look: "Those barbarian nobles have been obstructing the lifting of the factory ban. They only care about the tiny profits of small workshops, and even say that only pseudo-nobles will open factories.
But our Duke is no longer the Duke he used to be. The war with the Empire made him completely sober. The Blade Brotherhood is unreliable, and the Abyss Temple is unreliable. Only his own strength is reliable.
Facing a northern army composed of human beings, the barbarian army was beaten and could only defend. If the Duke wants to defend the Tedega Hills, he has to change and rely on us humans. "
The human nobles on the other side couldn't help but sigh: "In the past, although we humans were rich, we had no status. This time, the Duke privately discussed with us about lifting the factory ban and made an exception to recruit human soldiers. From now on, we humans will be able to compete with the barbarians in the Tedega Hills."
Another human noble echoed, "Yes! This is a rare opportunity for us humans in Tedega Hill. We must unite and help Baron Sergei to form a human brigade of city militias, and build more factories to make more money.
I suggest that we organize a donation and call on all the people in the Holy Mountain to contribute, so that His Excellency the Duke can see the powerful fighting power of the human brigade."
The human dignitaries present all expressed their support for organizing donations. They all knew that if they wanted to keep their wealth after they had more money, they would need an army.
Baron Sergei smiled with satisfaction.
At this time, a man dressed in servant clothes hurried over and whispered something in Baron Sergei's ear.
Baron Sergei showed surprise on his face: "Really? Where did she get so much money?"
"My Lord, I don't know about that."
"Go down and continue to send people to get information."
"Yes, sir."
The entourage left.
Someone curiously asked Baron Sergei: "Sir, has anything important happened?"
Sergei answered easily, "It's nothing serious. Mrs. Fekochik just suddenly gathered all the merchants on the street at the same time and proposed to buy their shops and workshops. I happen to have five shops on that street."
Mrs. Fekochik is now very famous in the business circle of the Holy Mountain. She has been buying shops non-stop in the past two years and is now the second person with the most shops in the Holy Mountain. Although the number of shops she owns is still a little behind Baron Sergei, one has to admit that the Fekochik family is really rich, and Fekochik is also a barbarian.
It's just that Mrs. Fecochek used to buy shops after careful selection, but she didn't expect that this time she would buy an entire street at once. You know, there are good and bad shops on a street. Does Mrs. Fecochek buy both good and bad shops now?
With this as an excuse, everyone started talking about Madam Fekechik. During this period, Madam Fekechik helped the human merchants a lot. They were originally worried about how to sell their shops as soon as possible to recover their funds, but Madam Fekechik waved a lot of money and bought all their shops.
Mrs. Fechik has made an indispensable contribution to the fact that we can now raise funds and order the machines needed for the factory so smoothly.
Some people began to laugh at Mrs. Fekochik for being a spendthrift. When their factory was built and the workshops went bankrupt one after another, they wondered what expression the barbarian merchant Fekochik would have when he returned.
Although Sergei acted nonchalant, he still had some doubts and concerns about Mrs. Fekochik's sudden and unusual behavior.
Mrs. Fecochek likes to buy shops, but she is not stupid and has a good eye for choosing shops. She wants to buy a whole street of shops at once today... Did she get some inside information?
Fechik is a member of the barbarian Stone Family, and the Stone Family has a very loud voice in the Duke's Castle.
As long as the factory restrictions are not lifted, there is a possibility of changes.
If the Celtic Duke could not withstand the pressure from the conservative barbarians and continued to enforce the factory ban, then these human merchants would really be cheated and lose all their money.
The more Baron Sergei thought about it, the less he wanted to watch the game. He was about to go to the Duke's Castle to meet with the Grand Duke of Celtic and try to lift the factory ban as soon as possible.
But before Baron Sergei could stand up, his human colleagues around him all stood up and cheered loudly regardless of their status.
"Look! He won again! He made it to the finals!"
"Let's cheer for our human strongman! No human has ever made it to the finals here!"
"Amazing! I've watched every one of his matches. No barbarian was his match. He never defeated a barbarian in less than ten seconds."
"Does anyone know his name? I must invite him to my house after the game."
…
Amid the cheers of the people around him, Baron Sergei, who had not been watching the game seriously from the beginning, finally understood what was happening.
A human actually defeated the barbarians in a row in the strongman competition and advanced all the way to the finals. This had never happened before. Even if a human strongman could pass the preliminaries, he would be eliminated early.
Now, among a group of barbarians who were about to start the final battle, there stood a human being all alone.
It's hard not to become the focus of the audience.
The human spectators in the entire Hercules Arena were cheering for their fellow human who had entered the finals.
As the host of the competition read out the name of this human strongman, all the humans in the audience shouted in unison: "Strongman Luke! Strongman Luke!..."
Luke stood up and waved to the humans who cheered for him, as well as the barbarians of the Stone Family who were even louder. Coconut was with the Stone Barbarians, and when she saw Luke enter the finals, she jumped and shouted with excitement.
One more step will allow you to win and then challenge for the championship.
At the same time, Luke also noticed the group of humans under the Gray Wolf statue on the main stand. Their clothes showed that they had a higher status than ordinary people. On the main stand full of barbarians, they looked even more unique when gathered together.
Luke waved at them and immediately received an even more enthusiastic response from the humans under the Gray Wolf.
The strongman finals begins.
Luke only needs to defeat two more opponents to win the championship.
While waiting for the competition, a young barbarian walked up to Luke and held out his hand to him: "My name is Cato, I come from the Stone-Breaking Tribe of Mount Misimu, and I am glad to participate in the strongman competition of the Holy Mountain with you...human."
Luke shook hands with Cato the Barbarian in a friendly manner and took note of his physique.
A very powerful barbarian.
Cato was about 2.2 meters tall, which was not considered tall among the barbarians, but the muscles on Cato's body were very powerful, giving people a sense of pressure as if they were facing a mountain. However, Cato's clothes were very worn out, with holes full of worms on the hard cowhide armor, and the linen lining inside was also tattered.
He was not wearing shoes, but a pair of open-toed boots tied together with shoelaces and hung around his neck. He was probably afraid that he would break his only pair of boots if he exerted too much force during the competition.
Luke said, "I've heard about the Stone Crushing Tribe of the Misimu Mountain. You have been collecting stones for generations, and you are a tribe that produces many strong men."
Hearing that the other party actually knew his small tribe, Cato was very happy: "Human, I really hope to invite you to visit Misimu Mountain, but we are too poor. If I can win, I can get a bonus. Can I treat you to a meal? I really want to hear stories from the outside world... I forgot to mention that outside the arena, I heard from your barbarian friend that you are an adventurer.
You must have been to a lot of places!"
Luke finally understood why the young barbarian was looking for him.
Barbarians do not have a strong sense of adventure, and many of them may never leave the mountainous area where their tribes are located in their entire lives. But there are exceptions to everything, and there are still many barbarians who are curious about the outside world and bravely go out.
Fekochik is one.
It seems that the same is true for this barbarian named Cato.
Luke has a good impression of the barbarian Cato. He is very shy, but in order to understand the outside world, he overcomes his psychological barriers and takes the initiative to talk to a stranger human. At the same time, he is also very polite and has a delicateness that most barbarians do not have.
"Of course." Luke agreed readily: "As a qualified adventurer, the first thing you need to learn is to make friends. After the game, let's find a place to have a good drink, and I will tell you how wonderful the world outside is."
Cato touched the back of his head and said naively, "Thank you, human. When I get the prize, we'll go drink."
Luke smiled and said, "Are you confident that you can win the prize?"
Kato said firmly: "The tribe gave me all their money as travel expenses so that I could come to the Holy Mountain to participate in the strongman competition. I must win the prize and bring the money back to the tribe."
Luke didn't expect that the barbarian Cato was actually the hope of the whole village. He encouraged him, "I believe you will definitely win..."
But before Luke could finish his words, his name was read out by the host.
It was also specially emphasized: "The only human strongman in this game...Luke."
The human race in the entire audience once again burst into cheers.
Then the host read out the name of Luke's opponent in this competition.
"A barbarian boy from the Stone-Breaking Tribe of Mount Misimu... Cato."
Cato didn't expect that his first opponent in the finals would be Luke.
Luke was also surprised by this coincidence. He patted Cato on the shoulder and said, "I take it back. Let's go and compete!"
