Still, it would be quite some time before I would have to do that.

He still needed to get through the qualifiers and the Heri rankings.

Which made me focus once again. My current mentors had given me two different tasks.

The captain had asked all of the team to evaluate the Highest ranking teams, formulate tactics to defeat them, and best matchups on our team with enemy members.

So that was a full-on written report that we had to have in 24 hours after the final members are revealed.

Unusu, on the other hand, was a lot more particular with my task. I would have to come up with a plan to defeat every summon summoned throughout the competition. Both one on one, also I would have to create a working plan for coming out on top if all the summons came at me at once.

So if there were only a few summonses, then that would be easy enough. I wouldn't say I would be so lucky.

The matches soon began, with it my hopes for an easier assignment. There were no summoners in the first few seeds of the matches.

The winning teams within their fights were still far weaker than anything I had to worry about.

The first team, the competition staff marked as favourites were coming up soon.

So I would get a true taste of the cream of the crop in the Heri groupings.

The confidence they had as they came up to the arena was a lesson learned in itself. There mindset and focus was also something to be admired. I wasn't sure we would completely match up in terms of mindset. Mage on mage, I wouldn't say we would.

Obviously the natives were very confident in themselves. However, the outsiders were still feeling a little sorry for themselves and weren't too confident in their abilities so far.

The true battle will help with that.

I know that because it helped me. Without It, I would be a lot more nervous and a lot less experienced.

On the other hand, the opposing team was in a terrible state so that it wouldn't be a true display of the skill of the favourites.

A mixed team with a terrible overall framework. Forced into far too much defense speciality, which could be fine if you had one or two juggernauts focused on offense. They did not. They did have a summoner, though. So it would be the start of both my assignments.

The favourites didn't have a summoner on their side, so it would be interesting to see if they would make use of the summoner's unique skill set in the battle scenario.

Stolen novel; please report.

Judging from their stance and combat forms, I wouldn't say they would get the chance to work that advantage to their favour.

The match began, and so did the massacre.

The mixed team hadn't even put up a solid defense before two mages from the favourites team were in their midst, taking them out in the close range.

After that, they fell apart quickly. The summoner couldn't do anything of value. His speciality seemed to be some form of water elementals, which were quickly taken apart by some of the offensive specialists, shooting rays of fire and Ice, beams of darkness and Light joined them. I had to say they had more elemental range than we did as a team.

Still, we were far stronger. Adrian would be easily able to take down the fast-moving close combat mages or keep them busy enough for the rest of us to take them down easily.

Like that, Team 6 moved on. We were told that we were going to be given team names after the Culling. Until that point, we would simply be numbered. It seemed their system was much the same.

Our numbers only went up to 15. They had up to the high hundreds. There was a large difference between the quality as well, which I was pretty confident wouldn't be the same story in the Huti Culling. Every battle would be all or nothing.

Even now, I could see the other teams in their Huti robes, observing the battles and doing similar exercises. It looked like most natives didn't have the same task. Because all I could see was obvious outsiders doing the watching.

Still, it was quite enjoyable to watch the matches.

It also seemed like a quiet year for summoners, as there were only two more for the next few battles, one a plant summoner, whose summons, at least for now, could only heal. Another who spawned some floating orbs that could fire lasers. They were quite potent but ultimately couldn't get past the proper shielding of tier 3.

It was the next battle I was looking forward to the most for today.

Two native favourite teams battling it out.

Both had summoners. One team had two, in fact.

So I could hopefully learn a lot from this fight, watch how talented other summoners truly fight. Urtil's steamrolling of all competition hadn't exactly been the basis for the best learning opportunities.

They got to the arena, filled with an attitude for war, neither willing to back down in the standoff before the match.

The start of the match began with fireworks.

It seemed both teams strongest were offensive specialists.

They immediately shot into action, streams of fire, meeting and coalescing in the centre of the arena, all around them, engagements breaking out, between all manner of combatants. I was mostly focused on the summoners who had all taken to a passive role with their summons.

The singular Summoner had created some small imp-like creatures who were hurling all manner of low-level magic at the enemy, all while harassing them with other actions.

The summoner duo, bot had similar styles, similar to Urtil they both summoned golems, one an impressive magma golem, whos combination of attack mixed with defense was an incredibly strong summon, the others simple Air elemental was even more effective however, as it flew up into the sky, taking out imps and enemies with equally effective bursts of air, as well as the more lethal air slashes.

I could only keep track of it with mana sight, to any other vision it was near invisible.

Those two powerful summoners played little part in the grand match.

The imps were far more effective compared to the other elementals' slower form of attack, that still couldn't do the damage others could.

So with the distractions caused by the imps, the other team started to make greater and greater mistakes, it wasn't long before the entire team fell apart.

Giving me quite a few ideas about how to use my summons.