Taking the Mafia to the Magic World C.969 Sensation: Rain of Challenges

The next day...

Leaving his house this morning, Vicente faced a strange situation. Unlike the previous days, when he passed through the busy streets of this residential area with no one paying attention to him, today he came across a few glances in his direction.

Some of the same people he saw coming and going every day stared at him, as if they recognized him from somewhere.

"Prisiche..."

"Master?" She looked at him with the same smiling, available expression as always. "Why are they looking at me like that?" He showed to her, while she ignored the surroundings.

"Your fight against Disciple Xander has already reached 2.3 million views, master. Many people have seen your fight and will see it in the next few days." She imagined it was the reason for her master's questioning.

"Views?" Vicente stopped as he stared at her, open-mouthed. He hadn't expected to hear that term while he was in a magical world where people could cultivate immortality!

"Yes, besides broadcasting live matches, the Combat Center also makes a replay of fights available to its subscribers. However, I don't recommend that the master pay for the replay. Only live streaming gives you the chance to feel the fight and learn from it. The replay is merely illustrative and serves only as a visual memory of the matches."

He understood, but was still worried. "Is there some kind of social network here? Where are these reproductions available?" He asked.

"Social networks?" The term surprised her, but she imagined it was a Polaris Realm quirk. "The replays are available on the same equipment used to follow live fights. If you follow the step by step to turn off 'online' mode and use 'offline' mode, you can access recordings of previous fights. But I warn the master that there are a few free replays. You can see up to the last 100 official fights of each rank. Also, ordinary consumers don't have access to old fights. Only well-positioned members of the Combat Center can access old matches, and even they are not guaranteed to get such access. Fights that are more than a year old are mostly excluded. Only a few special fights are kept, but for more information, you'll have to go to the Combat Center, master."

'Still...' Vicente closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If anyone with access to that equipment he had bought with so few stone coins could see his fight, then the whole 'island' would soon know his existence.

'This is bad. It's much worse than I imagined!'

Amid his thoughts, he felt a hand touch one of his shoulders, making him wince slightly.

Fortunately, when he turned his face and looked back, he saw only Larissa standing there. "You're famous now..." She commented as she looked at the glances in their direction.

This world wasn't Earth. Vicente is a powerful Archmage and few in the surroundings had cultivation superior to his. No one invaded his space or tried to come and talk to him. People merely watched him with interest, curious about the story of this powerful magician.

"I didn't imagine it would be like this," he said to his partner.

"Neither did I... But seeing your magical configuration, there's not much you can do. Stonewall, after all, is considered a sect of the right path. And Light Cay is considered a stronghold of the followers of the light and the law. So the idea of hiding your powers is not so common here."

Vicente listened to her, but he wasn't in the mood to consider the 'silly' methods of this reality. "That's a load of nonsense. The sect doesn't rule without rivals. And they've revealed a point of attack by making it available to the whole 'island'. Why would they do that?"

Prisiche had several answers that could defend her sect's side. But before she could say anything, Larissa closed her eyes and said with a clever smile, "To control us?"

Vicente clenched his fists in realization. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

She continued, "Few things are worse than an unknown enemy with a lot of potential. As much as each ascended is a great asset, each of us is a great danger if left unchecked. Stonewall and other Anicane forces may see us as their members, and have their rivals, but they won't simply protect us from everything and worry only about the enemies they've known for millennia. Better to put ourselves in check, letting the enemies who want us dead know who we are, than to risk protecting ourselves completely and end up losing us later...

If we want security, we'll probably have to give guarantees to the sect. So it makes sense for them to make this move."

Larissa's explanation was sensible. There was a risk in showing its disciples' fights to the entire 'island'. But it seemed like a good way to get people like her and Vicente to give up certain things in order to have the sect's protection.

Vicente sighed. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to accept all the fame he would have from now on, as well as the problems it would bring him.

'The leaders of this sect are clever. Either I compromise with them, or they throw me to the lions. It really is a difficult situation to deal with.' He opened his eyes and started walking again, heading towards his plans for today.

"Speaking of which," Larissa gave him a peculiar look, following him. "How many challenges have you received?"

"What do you mean?" He looked at her doubtfully.

She laughed bitterly when she heard his question in response to hers. "Ask your artificial intelligence."

"Prisiche?"

"Master, you have some challenges for matches in the Combat Center. Would you like to accept one?" She asked innocently.

Prisiche could check various information related to her master, including accepting challenges on his behalf. Every artificial intelligence in this place could do this with Stonewall's disciples, which was why Xander had so quickly accepted Vicente's challenge earlier.

Vicente sensed a bad omen and asked, "How many challenges are available now?"

"45... Hmm, no 46, someone has just issued a new challenge."

The challenges had to be launched directly from the Combat Center, but they could be accepted from anywhere by the artificial intelligences connected to the sect.

"Should I accept a challenge? You'll have to fight twice more this month before being forced to fight again next month, master."

Vicente was shocked by the number of challenges, while Larissa saw she had still underestimated how much the Outer Disciples wanted to challenge someone as monstrous as Vicente.

Now that Vicente had shown what he was capable of, many people wanted the chance to defeat him and use him as a stepping stone to higher positions in the sect and on the 'island'!