Cosmic Paragon

Somewhere in the spectators stands two people were staring at the spot where Paragon had just vanished from.

"He called that skill ''Earth pulse'. Right?" one of them asked.

The other nodded from beside him and replied. "Yes brother."

"Also, unless I was imagining things, he seems capable of using multiple elements including that Violet energy and Star like power." The first one questioned again.

"Yes brother, It was not your imagination." His brother still nodded.

"I think I also heard him call that speed multiplier skill 'Infinity'. Isn't our Space-time skill also called 'Infinity'? The two skills are also very similar. It couldn't just be a coincidence right?"

"No brother, it is not a coincidence. The two skills are the exact same 'Infinity' skill. I could clearly see the space and time powers intertwined so it is definitely not just a coincidence." said the brother firmly.

These two brothers were of course the twins of the Obsidian palace; Peter and Paul.

The brothers had come here today because they had wanted to see the guy that had defeated the Illusion King.

The two brothers exchanged glances at each other.

There was only one person that should know 'Infinity' apart from the two of them. And that person was their boss, Drake.

"You think it's him?" Peter asked.

Paul shook his head and said firmly. "I don't need to think. I know!"

"Let's go find out." Peter nodded then squinted his eyes and said, "I think I know exactly where he will be at this moment."

The two brothers immediately left the Arena.

Drake finally left the Arena.

"I'm hungry." muttered Drake to himself.

It had taken only a few seconds to completely recover from his injuries, but he still felt a lot of fatigue. This was as a result of overexertion on his body's cells.

Drake's cells had been running on overdrive through all the fights he had been in. He had been battered and healed so many times that the strain had been too much for his body to bear. Even though he had been completely restored by the Arena's healing system, it was still not able to get rid of the fatigue backlash.

It was like a rubber band that had been stretched. Just because you stopped pulling on it does not mean it will return to exactly the way it was originally.

Drake stretched and cracking sounds were made by his bones and muscles. Just as he stepped foot outside the Arena however, he stopped abruptly at the sight of two people that were standing outside staring right at him.

It was the twins Peter and Paul.

"Hi Boss," Peter and Paul greeted.

Drake's face quickly recovered. " it's you guys, what are you doing here?" He asked.

The twins just smiled and replied. "We came out to have some fun."

Then Peter asked. "What are you doing at the Arena? You look like you just finished a marathon."

"Who me?" Drake said "I had some business to take care of that's all."

"Oh you had some business to attended to huh?" Paul squinted his eyes and questioned.

Drake felt like something was off and inquired. "Why are you looking at me like I'm some kind of convict?

"Convict, why would we look at you like a convict?" Paul waved his had dismissively "Convicts are guilty people. You're not guilty of anything are you Boss?"

"Tell us the truth, are you Paragon?"

"Uh, that was me the last time I checked. I don't know whether there's anyone else who's using that name now though. So, you kind of need to be more specific." Drake was a bit confused about their behaviour. It's almost As if they did not know and were just finding out.

The twins were surprised by his quick admittance and it threw them off. "You're really Paragon?"

They asked for confirmation.

"Drake frowned and replied. "Of course I am. You're making it sound like you're just finding out about it."

"Damn it, you're Paragon and you didn't tell us." Peter flared feeling frustrated that he did not get the reaction he was expecting out of Drake.

He had been expecting Drake to deny, then they would show him that they had already Caught him red-handed unfortunately he did not play according to the script.

"Hold on, wait a minute you guys didn't know? Anna didn't tell you?* Drake asked his voice laced with confusion.

"Mom?"

...

"Ah fuck! You could have told us something sooner" Peter shouted

"Yeah, we could have come to all your fights. Now we've missed all the live performances." Paul said regretfully.

After Drake explained, they finally understood everything about his Paragon identity. And it turns out, Anna had hidden this from everyone, including them.

The twins lamented painfully.

"He he, my Boss is the Paragon. This is so freaking awesome." Paul suddenly sniggered.

"Please there is nothing special about it.

"Are you freaking kidding? Paragon is like a legend. Not to forget he had defeated two of the 10 Kings."

As they said this, they pulled up a catalog on their skylinks showing Drake just

Peter pulled up a page for the top trending stuff and showed Drake. "You have like hundreds of thousands of views And countless fans."

"Really?" Drake raised an eyebrow on surprise.

He had not expected that he had gotten so popular that he had his own fanclub.

Drake could not resist a grin that crept up on his lips feeling a bit proud. Even he did not realize the sudden surge of pride he felt within. After all, this was the first time he was having people his age admire him.

For Drake, this was a new feeling that even he didn't know and he had to admit, it felt quite good. He started having thoughts of maybe taking Black Scorpion off for his next fight. But Peter and Paul quickly dissuaded him from doing that.

Apparently, the mask helped in boosting his mysteriousness and raised peoples curiosity towards Paragon. The elusive hidden identity only added more flavor to him so he should not reveal his identity yet.

Drake accepted. Though he thought it was a bit of a shame that no one would know it was him, since the praise did not go to his face but a mask, he still let it go telling himself that it made no difference.

Drake and the twins were just about to leave the Arena when an alert suddenly sounded from Drake's wrist.

What now?

Drake's brows creased slightly as he checked his skylink.

"Congratulations Paragon!" the systems feminine voice sounded. "You have ascended to 'Rank Number 20' on the 'Earth rankings'."

Peter and Paul also heard the message and they two of them froze in shock.

Drake was confused by the sudden appearance of some rankings he had never heard of.

"Earth Rankings, What's that?" He blinked and glaced at Peter and Paul.

The twins stared at him with odd looks on their faces. It was like they were looking at an idiot, and it made Drake feel uncomfortable.

"Hey why are you looking at me like I'm some kind of alien?"

Paul could not help but ask Drake. "You have never heard of the Earth Rankings before?"

Drake shook his head. "Nope!"

Peter was about to say something, but stopped himself halfway and instead asked. "Do you know what the requirements are for you to qualify for the Grand mage tournament?"

"Isn't the requirement to have the quota from an institution?" Drake said matter of fact.

Hering this question, Paul inquired. "Is that all you know of the qualification requirements?"

Puzzled Drake asked. "Is there more?" He started getting the feeling that he was missing something.

Peter finally could not take It anymore and snapped. "Have you been living under a rock all your life or something? How do you know all that stuff about fighting styles and all the unnecessary theory stuff but you don't know the important stuff? Everybody in the younger generation or at least all young mages and aspiring mages know about the four ranking systems."

Paul quickly held his brother back. He also thought this sounded stupid but he still explained patiently. "It's true that a requirements is for the mage to have a quota. But do you yourself believe that it is possible that everyone participating in the tournament got a quota? The answer is no."

Peter chimed in. "If that was it then why do you think there are preliminaries? A lot of us want to be in the Grand mage tournament, but there aren't enough quotas. There are only a thousand quotas so everyone is competing for these spots."

Paul nodded then continued. "That's right, but apart from these quotas, some people can directly qualify for the tournament and even if they receive a quota from their respective institutions, they can choose to give their quotas away and still have a spot thanks to special privileges. These people are those on the four ranking lists."

These rankings were the Mortal, Earth, Heaven and Celestial Rankings.

As long as you could beat someone on the rankings you could take their place on the list.

The Mortal Rankings were for 2 Star to 3 Star mages, Earth rankings were for 3 Star to 4 Star mages and 4 Star to 5 Star mages took up the Heaven Rankings. Though it was practically monopolized by the 5 Star mages since they were just too strong when their powers were compared to the 4 Star mages.

As for the Celestial Rankings, let's just say it was comprised mainly of 6 Star mages.

Anybody that was on any of the four ranking lists was the cream of the crop of that cultivation level. And these lists were extremely popular.

"There is such a thing?" Drake was surprised that the Earth Rankings were so popular and the thought of there being three others just as popular as the Earth Rankings.

Peter grinned and added, "Another perk that comes with being on this list is that, they served as an extra life. Which means if you lost against someone in the arena during the preliminaries, you would still be able to participate in the main tournament."