Lith was sitting on a chair and sipping on tea while listening to music through his headphones. He was thinking of a few things while listening to music. After a few minutes of this process, he sighed and closed his eyes, fully focusing on the music and relaxing.
His thoughts from before were revolving around a question and that was wether to do good in the test and get a high rank or not. He had full confidence in himself that he could win the tournament by just using a few magic spells. From his first opponent he got a general idea on how strong the others were in this tournament.
The level of control of spiritual power, magical energy and spell casting was nothing but terrible in his eyes. Just one spell almost made his opponent use 5-10% of his total spiritual power, the magical energy around wasn’t channeled properly into the spell and the spell casting itself was stupidly complicated and terrible. The basic spell ‘Water Cage’ was chanted in such a complicated and terrible way.
Lith used his opponent as a benchmark and he made an assumption that the most elite among these one million candidates who are giving this test should not have prowess more than that of a rank 3. The highest one could be is probably around rank 4 and not more than that.
If he came across a person with rank 4 prowess, he would need to use atleast half of his potential to win and that was pretty much it. His spiritual power was very high. Having an all elemental affinity like his mother and big sister, he naturally had high spiritual power.
The more elemental affinity one had, the more their spiritual power. For example an elite rank 1 with 6 elemental affinities would have twice the spiritual power than a rank 1 with only 3 affinities. He may also have it much more higher than a rank 2 with only 3 affinities.
Same with Lith. Lith had twice the amount of spiritual power among the most elite in his own rank and his spiritual power could be rivalled amongst the average rank 4 or some low grade rank 5s. This meant, a battle of attrition would always be in Lith’s favor as long as he fought with people from his own rank. His spiritual power would never be exhausted before his opponent’s and he was for sure going to win in such a battle.
Anyway, though it seemed like such an easy win, in real fights, that is, outside in this world, things weren’t so easy. People had many artifacts and various hidden trump cards and winning a fight was never easy. Some might have an artifact that would constantly reimburse them with spiritual power and thus a battle of attrition would not be easy even for Lith.
Lith knew all of these facts but currently he was in the academy entrance test where one couldn’t use any form of artifact or external aid in the battle. It was only a test meant to be won by their own combat potential.
Thus, Lith had the confidence that he would for sure win the whole tournament if he wanted by only using half of his prowess.
In the end, Lith made up his mind to be in top 200. Top 200 meant that he would be in the top class of the whole Academy. There would be good benefits for him and he would also be allowed to skip classes. This was a good thing for him as classes which taught the basics were a waste of time for him. He could take up advance classes or just relax or wander around freely. He would also get more points per month and all in all, the benefits to be in the top class were the best.
Thus, he could either top the tournament or be in the top 200. He chose the latter as this would ensure that he didn’t have too much attention on him. Though being the most elite class, getting attention was inevitable but as long as there were 199 more of them apart from him, he could still lay low.
He rested for a while and started walking towards the arena F-9 where his next match was. Only 5 minutes were left and by walking at a leisurely pace, he could reach there on time.
…..
A beautiful lady with bluish silver hair and blue eyes that seemed to contain the sky and the ocean alike, came running in her casual outfit which revealed her toned abdomen which didn’t have abdominal muscles but was flat and fit looking with a little bit of lines indicating that more workout would eventually lead to the abs showing. She was a fit and lean lady with her curves not too big not too small and she was neither too thick nor too lean.
She had a very perfect body and if she were ever to post her pictures online with a public profile, she would become a goddess of beauty in the eyes of many men and women alike. She would also be featured in the top 10 beauties of all time magazine and would become a top idol for everyone.
Though that was the case, she was currently running towards yet another beauty who was on the same level as her if not above. The only difference being the other beauty had blonde hair and her overall curves were bigger than the silver haired lady and her blue eyes were a bit darker shade than the silver haired lady.
The bluish silver hair lady reached the blonde lady and gave her a tight hug and lifted her off the ground and made a few circles.
“Hey! Hey! Let me down! Let me down!” The blonde lady shouted.
“Waa Emmy, did you gain a bit of weight? You seemed a little heavy to lift.” The bluish silver haired lady said with a smile in a cheerful tone.
“Stupid Lizard! We only met a few hours ago and how can you make such a comment! Also, let me goooo!” The blonde lady, that is, Emilia, shouted yet again.
“Such a bore. Tsk. Anyway, has the match begun?” The stupid lizard, aka Arya, said in her usual jolly voice.
“No, miss Arya. The match will start in 5 minutes. He is on his way right now.” The light brown haired lady, Sel, with an average face and curves wearing round glasses like Emilia, said from the side.
“Woohoo! So nice! See Emmy, I’ve become punctual hahahaha!”
“It was nothing but a coincidence. Stop calling yourself punctual. It is an insult to all the actual punctual people out there.” Emilia retorted in her sweet and gentle voice with her brows a bit furrowed.
“So serious as always.” Arya said with a smile and wrapped her arms around Emilia like last time.
Emilia didn’t try to resist as she knew it would be futile. She could only blame herself for asking help from such an annoying person. She sighed thinking about it and couldn’t blame herself too much about it either. She was helpless as Arya was the only one who was the best person suitable for the job. She looked at her secretary, Sel and asked
“Who is the next opponent that he’ll be having a match with this time?”
“A demi-human of Tiger tribe.” Sel said with a neutral tone and straight to the point.
“I see. Every year there are some candidates from the tiger tribe and have a good overall physical build, thereby letting them have a physical advantage over their opponents and can take up those with weak builds easily.
They have the highest chances to get into the academy from the beastkin race but it seems that this year, the luck of this tiger tribe candidate is not good.” Emilia said and smiled.
“It is indeed his badluck. He would’ve gotten into top 10,000. An automatic matchmaking done using various complicated algorithms by the academy’s system which had around a million candidates registered, but still to get him as his opponent in his second match, it is truly a misfortune for him.” Sel said in her flat tone from the side.
“Yes. His luck seems very terrible. Also why was his second match so early?” Emilia asked from the side.
“No idea. But one thing is certain, his next match would be after a very long time. The system does this type of matchmaking many times and it has been a trend like that for a long time.” Sel added.
“I see.” Emilia said.
…..
Lith arrived at the stage on time. His opponent this time seemed to be a demi-human to him. He had a striped orange and black tail and ears and it definitely looked like he came from the tiger tribe of demi-humans in Elven Continent.
Lith’s general knowledge was very advanced and so he could easily tell who was from where with a single glance or if he was described their features. All these years of studying weren’t in vain.
He looked at the guy with a neutral expression. He calmy walked to his place and stood there. The refree looked at both the candidates and after ensuring both were ready he talked about the points like the previous refree and raised his hand and dropped it and said loudly
“FIGHT!”
The tiger tribe guy dashed towards Lith as he was very confident in his physical powers and capability. Lith thought on what he should do next. Should he fight with his own physical powers? No! Lith quickly made the decision and started to run away from the guy.
After having a big enough gap with his opponent, he casted a ‘Water Cage’ without chanting and trapped his opponent inside. He then casted another spell ‘Slow’ which was a time spell that slowed down one’s own perception of time with respect to the general time of the world.
A person could take one rank 1 spell all the way to an Emperor rank or above if he wanted to. Modifications were needed at every rank and it depended upon a person’s own intelligence and comprehension ability to be able to modify it accordingly.
Lith had not mastered rank 2 ‘Slow’ spell but he could still cast it with some modifications very easily. He had to chant a bit for the spell and after he did that, his opponent didn’t even have the ability to chant a defensive spell on himself.
One chantless spell trapped his opponent on the spot within a second and his opponent chanted an attack spell to be free from the cage while Lith too was chanting the ‘Slow’ spell. Lith was faster and before his opponent could cast his spell, Lith casted the ‘Slow’ spell on him.
His chants became inaudible murmurs and were not casted. Lith went near the cage and touched the water. He felt the magical energy around and willed some water to hit his opponent and do damage to him.
Only a bit of damage was done as Lith realised he mustn’t be too cruel on his opponent like the previous match. He went a bit overboard last time. He reflected back in the waiting room that as long as his own damage was less than that of his opponent, he would win.
So he casted a ‘Slow’ spell and time for his opponent slowed down for quite a bit. The damage done due to Water element from the surrounding wasn’t too much but it was more than the damage on Lith.
Lith had no damage done to himself and even a slight scratch on his opponent would make him win. He took advantage of that.
The tiger tribe candidate felt everything around him move at a much faster rate than what he could perceive. He realised even his chants didn’t work and he was unable to cast spells on him. He found himself slowed down but he was helpless as his thoughts too were slow. He put up a struggle against this spell which was casted on him but soon after only a minute, he found it undone. He sighed in relief and was about to attack Lith when he heard a whistle and a loud voice after that saying
“Lith Evure wins and advances to the next round.”
“WHAT?!!” The tiger guy shouted. How was this possible?
The refree looked at him and said with a neutral face
“Ten minutes have passed. The damage done on you is more than your opponent. Therefore, you lose.”
“HOW??!! NOOOooo..” the tiger tribe candidate yelled but midway he was teleported outside the stage and left behind a trail of his scream.
Lith looked at the refree and said thankyou and left once again.
He looked at his badge and saw there was 632,310 written on top and the time below was 13:23:57. He raised an eyebrow at it. His next turn was after a very long time but the time duration was only about 13 hours. His previous turn was only at 15,000 something and the time for his turn was only 13 hours like this one around.
He then shook his head and started walking out of the arena. He felt some fluctuations when he he entered the arena before and only now did he realise that time was accelerating inside as compared to the outside world. So it made sense on how his turn would come so early despite such a long number.
He made a guess that everyone was given around 12 hours to rest and recuperate no matter when their turn was. He was right about it. If they academy went according to the normal time of the world, each fight which took 10 minutes and only 200 at a time could fight, it would take years to complete the whole tournament.
Thus, the academy smartly made the time inside accelerate. The students due to their registration badge were protected from the time acceleration and didn’t age faster or exhaust their limited lifespan. The staff members of the academy were all high ranking officials and time acceleration didn’t have any effect on their lifespans or age.
Once one reaches half Saint rank their lifespan would be very long and once one reaches Saint rank, they would become true Immortals. Half Saint ranks were also called psuedo Immortals as they were the bridge which connected the mortal and the immortal realms together.
They weren’t Immortals, nor were they mortals. They had long lifespan but not never ending like that of an immortal. Thus, they were called pseudo immortals.
At Saint rank, one truly becomes an immortal with an inexhaustible lifespan. Thus, all the staff members inside the arenas which were casted with time acceleration circles were all above Saint rank. It didn’t matter if their lifespan accelerated due to the spell as it would mean nothing to them. Wether it accelerated or slowed down, it didn’t matter as it was inexhaustible.
Thus, the tournaments were usually done within a week. The top 10,000 students would compete for atleast 5-6 times with a gap of 12 hours everyday. The top 100 would do it for around 6-8 times and the top 10 would fight for around 8-10 rounds.
Lith had done two matches. He would need to do around 5-7 more to be in top 100. His goal was top 50 and so he was pretty relaxed.
He went to the waiting area once again and put on his headphones and started listening to music while closing his eyes.
…..
In a corner of arena F.
“I think he realised his mistake from before and held back his strength this time. He was very gentle in this match. He is very innocent and pure like I’ve said before. Arya, therefore I need him to be under you and for you to shape him well.” Emilia said while looking at Arya at her side.
“Hmm, if he was trained by me, he wouldn’t wait for 10 minutes like this and would’ve straight away gone for the kill just like his previous match.” Arya said in a serious tone unlike her previous self.
The talk was about her future student and she took everything related to it seriously. Though she never really had any student as her personal one, she still was serious when it came to teaching or the ‘last step’ that Emilia once talked about.
“Also Sel, you seem right about the Algorithm. His match number was 15,789 during the last time and now he is 632,310. It was indeed as you said, after a very long time. Good job.” Emilia said to Sel with a smile.
“Thankyou, madam.” Sel nudged her glasses and said in a flat tone.
“Alright you guys, I’ll be leaving once again. See ya!” Arya gave a kiss on Emilia’s cheeks and ran away.
“Argh, Stupid lizard.” Emilia said in a mosquito like voice. Her face flushed red and she looked down in embarrassment.
“It’s okay madam, Miss Arya is your bestfriend and you shouldn’t mind her being close to you.” Sel said in a neutral tone.
“Sel, stop believing in that stinky undead lizard. Whatever she says isn’t true. We are not bestfriends. It is only she who thinks she is my bestfriend and I do not reciprocate that.” Emilia said in an annoyed tone.
“Madam, Miss Arya is not an undead but a Death Dragon from the Death Dragon race. Also, you have miss Arya’s lipstick mark on your cheeks.” Sel said and removed a hand mirror our of nowhere and showed Emilia’s face to her.
Emilia became more embarrassed this time and she turned to the side and wiped her face. She then stood up and said while fuming in anger
“I’ll make sure to make that death lizard live upto it’s name.”
“What will you do madam?” Sel asked, a bit curious. She didn’t understand what her madam had said.
Emilia made a smile that was not a smile and said
“Make her dead!”