1st December, Year WB 10.
The Rising Star Tournament had officially begun. The tournament committee was made up of the leaders of the top ten guilds, GAA, and Earth Union.
The total number of Silver-rank Adventurers who registered reached 113,202 by the last day of November. It was a big number. To eliminate the majority of them, the tournament committee came up with a mass test.
The participants were gathered at a large open ground with several aircraft flying above, recording the participants and streaming live for the people of the world.
Almond, Lily, and Natalia were also among them.
“Almond, do you know what’s it gonna be?” Natalia asked.
“No idea,” Almond shook his head. “I went to GAA two days ago and asked Admiral about the first round, but he didn’t know since he is not a part of the committee.”
“They’d need to eliminate a lot of people. There are too many Silver ranks to hold in the grand arena set up for this tournament,” Lily said.
Suddenly, a sharp sound spread from the sky as everyone looked up and saw a giant screen materializing.
A person also floated above them while his figure was clearly visible on the screen for everyone to see. Spiky yellow hair, chad-jawline, and a goofy vibe.
He was a rather famous Adventurer, ranked 19th on the Global Leaderboard—Gelato Shen, a member of the Proximax Guild, the current no.1 guild. He was also an Adventurer with most subscribers to his channel as he live-streamed many of his dungeon raids.
“Participants! Welcome to the Rising Star Tournament. I know you all bear hope and desire to get recognition and rewards, but you are too many for now, so we need to shave off the numbers until only 100 of you remain.”
“…”
“I think this was where you all get heated up and shout, you know? I heard a few of you, though, so it’s fine. Let’s move on! The first round is simple. You need to remain standing!”
Right as he finished speaking, all participants felt a slight pressure from above and a pull from below.
“That’s right! You’re all standing within a massive magic formation crafted by some of the finest experts—myself included, of course. The rules are simple: stay on your feet! To pass this round, you must be one of the last hundred remaining standing!”
“The pressure will increase every 10 seconds, so you won’t have much time to adjust! Be the last among the one hundred standing and win!”
As he finished speaking, the pressure increased as round 1 officially began.
Everyone managed to hold on for a solid two minutes, but soon after, they began to fall one by one, like dominoes.
Using skills was allowed, and using techniques was allowed.
But as the pressure increased, their control wavered, and their Mana consumption increased.
During the next minute, 90% of the participants fell.
“That’s a rather good idea coming from you, Nat,” Almond commented in surprise as he saw Natalia using soft sound waves around her that mitigated the pressure from her.
“Humph, it was I who managed to get affinity on a Sound element by myself,” Natalia snorted, nose raised pridefully. “I am awesome.”
Indeed, Natalia had actually managed to get two affinities. D-rank Light elemental mastery with the help of Lady Aria and C-rank Sound elemental mastery by herself. It appeared that she was naturally talented for Sound element thanks to her specialized class.
On the other hand, Lily was doing fine as well, her eyes closed in focus as she was only using Fortification to keep her body stiff and straight, but half a minute, she used darkness-style Body Enfold at a low cost/low effectiveness to absorb the pressure and mitigating it away from her.
She had a high natural affinity with Darkness, so her progress regarding the Darkness attribute was smooth from the start.
But she entered the Darkness-attributed dungeon with Lady Aria and trained there, she naturally triggered the enlightenment state due to her affinity and hard work.
Almond created conditions and forcefully acquired the insight despite not having a natural Lightning affinity and reached S-rank in it.
On the other hand, Lily naturally had the affinity, so when she entered enlightenment state, she reached S-rank in Darkness elemental mastery as well. Enjoy new chapters from empire
Darkness had multiple strong properties due to its characteristics, and it was considered one of the more powerful elements.
It could absorb Light, just like how Light could erase Darkness. But on top of that, Darkness could absorb energies, strength, and even emotions, at higher mastery.
If the Light element’s properties could strengthen and empower, then Darkness could absorb and weaken.
Aside from that, Darkness users could manipulate shadows as well. It also had properties to bring out deception and illusion in mental regards, bringing fear and terror, mostly negativity, just like how the Light element could create deception and illusion in physical regard and cleanse things of negativity.
Although Lily didn’t have a Darkness Variant like how Almond got a Lightning Variant, her mastery of Darkness was still S-rank, making her way stronger than other Silver-rank Adventurers here.
By now, five minutes had passed by and only around two-hundred participants remained standing.
But most of them were also wobbly, on the verge of kneeling.
At one part of the ground was Xavier, his fiery eyes on Almond. ‘I won’t go down before defeating you, Almond!’
There were other notable figures standing with relative ease just like Almond, Lily, and Natalia—the so-called Super Rookies.
In the end, participants were dropping fast and in the next thirty seconds, over a hundred of them dropped on the ground, leaving the one hundred winners standing.
Round 1 for the Silver-rank bracket was over.
“Congratulations to the winners! You can take some rest if you want to and watch the Gold-rank Adventurers’ first round or leave in the flying ships departing every ten minutes. Your first day at the tournament is officially over along with the first round!”
“Let’s leave. We can watch round 1 from home anyway,” Almond said as the group began walking towards the temporary airship station. “I also want to get the last seven Super-rank items to sacrifice. The sales were good yesterday, and this morning, I was getting notifications, so everything’s sold by now.”
“I am still feeling mentally sore because of you,” Natalia snorted. “You clear dungeons, and Lily also insists on clearing dungeons and taking me with her. Gaahh!”
“But you got stronger, so it’s worth it,” Lily grinned. “Anyway, we won’t be training today and just chill, okay?”
“We better just chill!”
***
[A/N: The winner of the event is Nick_Kendall 🙂 Give your preferences for the 9th Spirit Wraith in the comment section.]