The final stage was here. With the addition of Emil, we had thirteen finalists.

Ricard and his gang made it to the staircase first.

Just as Pewterschmidt said, they could feel gravity increasing with every step they took.

Team play was over at this point.

Each casting their own spells, they started sprinting towards the top.

Ricard, much like Alfred, could only cast one spell.

He couldn't use Air and Water element at the same time, Mage Apprentices simply weren't strong enough yet.

Nevertheless, the fact that he was an elemental saint meant his magic power was superior in every aspect, hence, it was unsurprising for him to get a major lead over the others.

Alfred was following him at the back, and just a few feet behind him was Max, who was competing with Eric.

Eric had reached the trio shortly after, and started running up the stairs after augmenting his body.

However, his physical prowess seemed slightly stronger than Max's, judging by how he was catching up, soon to surpass him.

"Ricard Burton, the brightest talent of the generation has taken the lead! Followed closely by Alfred the Fireblaster, Eric Ead and Max The-!"

Pewterschmidt swallowed his own words, almost making a mistake by saying Max's nickname out loud.

This detail didn't escape anyone's ears, but they didn't pay attention to it.

The match was about to end and the hype was at its peak.

The audience was going crazy yelling and cheering on the participants.

Mostly girls who were yelling Ricard's name, with the exception of a few people yelling their own friends' names.

One such exception was a group of three people at the corner, two girls and one boy.

"Eric! Eric! Eric!"

The two sisters, one of whom Emil would recognize, and another boy with them.

With the way things were, Eric had no chances of getting first place.

What he could do however, was getting third place.

He was approaching Max ever so quickly and would soon take over.

At this point, all the finalists had made it to the final stage and were running up the stairs.

The staircase wasn't that long, about a hundred steps perhaps.

But those hundred steps were more difficult to scale than any other stage.

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The gravitational force on the earlier steps wasn't too powerful, participants could run through.

But once they got to the middle steps, they had to slow down more and more until eventually, their initial vigorous run turned into and arduous and snail-paced crawl.

No one was an exception to this rule, even Ricard, specially since he was ahead of everyone else.

In fact, he was so ahead he was only a dozen steps away from reaching the top of the mountain.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems like the winner of the competition is set in stone.

Will anyone be able to overtake Ricard's position at this point? It's highly doubtful!"

The audience had calmed down since earlier, all watching in silent anticipation for the first person to pass through the staircase.

At this moment, the last screen within the square lit up, showing Emil's image.

He'd made it to the sixth stage.

Emil looked on, and with a single glance, could more or less tell his chances of winning.

He knew it was impossible, no amount of luck or trickery could get him through anymore.

But that didn't deter him.

The fact that over a hundred other people, each stronger than him were eliminated, yet he was standing here, was proof of his tenacity.

He had a good run. It was a shame that he couldn't win the Bone Tempering Elixir but he didn't regret anything.

Besides, the match wasn't over yet.

He couldn't get first place no, but he could still aim for the top ten.

The top ten were rewarded with merit points, if he could get a position there then he wouldn't walk out of the competition empty-handed.

And also...

"That son of a bitch."

Emil barked through his gritted teeth as he looked at Ricard crawling his way to victory.

The only thing shown on the screen was his image, no one could hear what he said.

What they could tell based on that image though, was that Emil was fired up, more so than any other stage.

"Attash Shamshir."

Under the eyes of hundreds of spectators and the Judges, Emil cast Fire Sword and began running upwards.

"Heh, that trash thinks he has a chance just cause he got lucky and made it to the sixth stage."

"I bet my left nut he won't make it past the 30th step."

"Your left nut? What am I gonna do with that?

I bet 50 Merit points he won't make it past the 25th step."

"Hmph, you guys are dumbasses.

I bet 100 Merit points he makes it past the 40th step."

"Did you seriously just call us dumbasses? 100 Merit points on that trash? Where do you get the confidence from?"

"Yeah i called you a dumbass cause you are.

If you watched the match at all you could tell. while everyone else was exhausting their mana getting through the past five stages, the trash only used his body.

He didn't cast any spells, and by the looks of it he wasn't augmenting either.

Even if he's trash he still wouldn't be that weak after augmenting. I don't know what his motive was, maybe he was saving up for the last stage, that is assuming he could make it, but either way, his plan seems to have worked."

The interlocutors had no response.

The boy's words made sense, and easy to confirm, too.

Looking up, they could see Emil's running figure on the screen.

He ran through the first thirty steps at max speed while slowing down a little after that point.

In the process, he'd already overtaken two people, putting himself just one step away from reaching the top ten.

Soon enough, he passed through the fortieth, fiftieth, and even sixtieth step before his run turned into a walk.

He was now within the top ten.

"The Madman, Emil Ashdown does it again! He's storming through the steps and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon despite already making it to the top ten!"

The announcer's eyes were glued to the screen, much like everyone else's, barely paying attention to the spectators anymore.

If he kept going at this rate...

But there was no way!

Emil, unaware of the fire he had set off in the square, was using every ounce of his strength to keep moving.

His full concentration was on his spell.

The added gravity made it difficult for him to focus, his spell would break off with the slightest of mistakes.

With all his energy and concentration focused on the spell, and his body automatically moving forward, he was yet to realize he made it to the top ten.

All he could think of was climbing higher, everything else but the staircase had been blurred out of his vision.

With his body under extreme pressure and his mana running dry, one step at a time, he trudged his way to victory.