1 Year Later:
In the last 15 days, tens of powerful figures carried in land and flying carriages pulled by horses, bulls, lower and celestial beasts, have made their way towards the Academy of Celestial Students for Intense Learning (ACSIL)—the most prestigious educational institution in Lusitania.
In their sights is the end of year tournament, an event that despite its annual occurrence, has often been highly anticipated.
In the last fortnight, while students sat their written exams, the capital of Lusitania received about 50 thousand visitors. This happened, because in addition to tourists, it was common for influential figures to travel in groups with about 15 other members, including their bodyguards, assistants, and sometimes their families.
However, this was no small matter as the capital’s population was composed of about 350 thousand people, of which about 200 thousand were either commoners or inhabitants that were not magic knights.
Consequently, the capital was in high spirits as people made the necessary preparations to receive all of those revered travelers.
The stone pavement of every street was cleaned until it shined and the posts of every street light were adorned with flags.
Hotels and taverns were full. The old, medieval-looking city was brimming with life.
In fact, this mass movement of people was happening all throughout the light side of the world (name used to refer to the human-dominated area of the central continent). Large crowds moved to the various capitals in order to witness the tournaments held by every nation’s most powerful schools.
This might seem weird at first, afterall, the students of these schools would get to be universally assessed and compared in 2 years in the International Guild exams (IG) . However, those examinations were not open to the public and, as such, the best chances for parents and guild recruiters to witness the children’s abilities was by attending the current events.
A big problem posed by these and other celebrations was that many human countries lost their strongest fighters. This would be a mortal problem were it not for the Zenithyan Empire, the largest and most powerful nation in the light side.
It was the only country that had a direct border with the land of the continent occupied by the ecthroy. As a result, its forces were the main combatants concerned with protecting the 200 mile long border between human countries and ecthroy dominated land, keeping the enemy at bay. This was also the reason why they chose to be the only ones not participating in the International Guild (IG) exams taken by students in grade 12, instead having their own form of evaluations which were held in different times of the year, and consisted of evaluating a smaller number of students at a time, this way guaranteeing that there are enough powerful magic knights in the border at all times.
…
Among the numerous figures traveling to see the Academy’s tournament was an old man. He appeared to be somewhere in his late 60s, he wore a long silver cape, a brown sweatshirt, casual black pants and a straw hat that together with the angle of his head, prevented anyone from seeing his face. Despite his fame, this figure decided to stay in a rather obscure inn outside of town, a mundane choice if compared to all of the guild leaders that had booked the best suites in the best hotels the capital had to offer.
At 8 Am of morning of the 13th of May, he, just like other 25 thousand people, headed towards the colosseum arena where the competition would be held.
As the public sat in the colosseum at 8:45 they were given a flier with the schedule of the event. The tournament would begin at 9 in the morning sharp, with the 6th graders first ‘performing’.
It would start with a battle royale consisting of the 50+ people in the entire grade. The fighting would take place in a 2 meters tall, circular platform with a radius of 50 meters. To make it to the next phase, students would have to knock each other off the platform into the sand around it, or make their peers unable to battle any longer.
The 25 students remaining progressed to the next phase of individual battles, where they would be divided into 5 groups of 5 students each. Then, they were required to fight among each other until the top 3 moved on to the 3rd round. The 10 eliminated students that stayed in the last two of their groups achieve a in-class ranking in between 25th-16th depending on the audience's votes regarding their strength.
The remaining 15 students would then fight 1 on 1 with each other once. Ultimately, the 10 students with the most wins would progress to the final and 4th phase. The others would then compose the ranking according to their number of wins and losses (occupying the 15th through 10th places).
Finally, the remaining 10 would also be ranked according to their wins and losses unless they chose to challenge another member of the top 10 for a second time. Although this rarely happened, since most students accepted their defeats, the Academy decided to make this rule in order to ensure the utmost fairness and give credibility to the resulting rankings.
Every challenge throughout history had proved to be very entertaining. Even so, each student could only challenge others 3 times, saving time and preventing some sore losers from abusing the rule. The 6th grade will then be followed by the 7th, 8th, 9th, and finally the 10th, all following the same rules. According to the flier, the competition was expected to end at 8:30 in the evening. Despite this, the 10th graders would still fight with natural light on, as the location of the capital meant that during the summer there was sunlight until 10 at night.
…
As the clock hit 6:55PM and the 9th graders’ competition ended, more powerful and imposing figures started to enter through the main doors of the colosseum.
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Younger students would have other occasions to show their prowess, but for 10th graders, this was their last tournament before their formal IG evaluations in 12th grade. Appropriately, their fights were the main event.
As if according to their power, the first VIP guests to show up were the Blazing Salamander, Fay Silver Lady, and Azure Kirin, the masters of the three most powerful guilds in the world. All of them were exploration or slaying Guilds, meaning that they were responsible for the most risky adventures and missions requested.
As awesome as they were, these were not their real names but their aliases. An alias was the second name given to Magic Knights once they joined a guild. It could change according to a person’s achievements as well as the position they occupied inside of the guild. It was ultimately up to others to decide, but in some circumstances the person could decide for themselves what they want to be called.
As the first knight, Leonard Lucius Alf, the Guild Master of the Hartford Knights Guild was leaving the tunnel and stepping into the arena his voice sounded to those besides him, “I can’t believe I have been sent to this corner of the world to see this obscure and useless competition. Compared to those in the Zenithyan Empire these are second rate and there is rarely anyone with enough talent to join our Guild. The only reason I came was because my subordinates kept insisting that I should take a break from exploration and killing beasts. What a waste! That said, the students here must be good enough for you guys and your second tier guilds hahaha!”
Despite their great friendship, the other leaders did not like the cheeky comment and one immediately intervened “What do you mean second tier guilds? Do you forget that not long ago your Hartford Knights Guild was behind both our Oxfort Paladins and Stamfort Republic? I guess that a good memory cannot be expected from a fire lizard that kills beasts all day long hahaha, right Xenia?” exclaimed Xiu Long (alias:Azure Kirin).
Meanwhile onlookers could not believe who they were seeing. A Guild Master of a S-Ranked Guild was a rare and lofty existence often heard about in children’s stories and studied in history books. With a population of 1 billion humans, witnessing such a glorious existence would be something most could not dream of, never mind witnessing 3 of the 10 existing S Guild Masters.
Behind them, Magnus Klein, Master of the Wihago Phoenixes Guild and Alexander Gilihad, the Master of the Gilihad’s National Guild followed.
The admiration in the air was palpable, people commented amongst themselves, the colosseum that had been silent out of respect suddenly erupted with admiration, chants, and conversations by the awestruck spectators.
Three S-Guild masters could only be seen together with three AA-guild masters in fairy tales. To add to the joy, another 3 of the 20 A-Ranking Guilds’ Masters had also been invited, representing the King’s Guild, the Flaming Blazers of Honour, and the National Treasure-Hunters Association.
They were then followed by 10 or so leaders of B-ranking Guilds and about 15 masters of C-ranked Guilds.
In a normal year, even having a single AA-Ranked Guild Masters would be cause for great joy, as most personalities attending usually came from C, B, and A-ranked Guilds, nevermind the roster of powerful people now present at the Academy’s event.
AA-Guilds were usually institutions that were perhaps as good as the S-ranked ones, but focused on tasks other than exploration and slaying.
In the days prior to the tournament, some rumors circulated about a super-secret meeting among the top guilds which was to be held in a small nation far from the major powers and their interests.
This atypical roster of powerful guildmasters seemed to corroborate such stories. Albeit some regarded these rumors as nothing more than speculation raised by the other top schools in order to reduce the value of what was happening.
Quickly but without being noticed Mr. Chapman, the director of ACSIL, transformed and made his way to the center of the arena, there he gave the warmest welcome to the VIP guests, guiding them to their seats in a special area of the central stand of the colosseum.
There, every leader had a king-like chair made in gold and with red pillows where their name had been inscribed—a display of the academy’s wealth.
Yet, looking at the rows, no one was sitting in the chair in the middle of the top row.
The seat was vacated, looking closer, this VIP seat was not like the others, instead of a red pillow, this one was purple.
While most people could see the vacancy, it was not long before everyone understood, no, rather, saw who that seat was for.
The atmosphere became heavy and the crowd went dead-silent as deafening dragon roar was heard. The noise was so powerful that even some of the A-Ranked Guild masters seemed to be losing their composure as they gulped like they were preparing for a life-defining battle.
Just then, a purple ray scraped the skies, crashing down on the center of the arena.
Most people were stunned.
Out of it followed an old man with violet hair and violet eyes which quickly became gray hair and blue eyes.
His name could be said to rival those of legends as his power surpassed even that of those occupying the red seats.
His name was Marcellus N. Weiss.
After his landing, 3 other figures whose power could be said to rival that of an A-Ranked guild master hurried after him, the women in the middle saying in a worried tone “your excellence! Please refrain from flying so fast, we cannot keep up and protecting you becomes impossible. Why are you always like this?"
The old man smiled saying “Sorry Vanessa, it just felt good to be back in my country, and I just can’t wait to see how strong grandchildren have become, especially my grandson, he might be as strong as me you know hahaha”.
ACSIL’s director wanted to go personally thank the final guest for his presence, but he did not find enough time to do so, as a couple of breaths was all that it took the 11th saint to find his purple chair with his name and sit on it.
Before anyone could make a move, his party had already been sitting, including his personal security.
In the audience, another big commotion began.
“Is that man who I think he is?” asked one man to another.
“Yes, he is the individual who most recently achieved the position of Saint, being one of the 12 most powerful Magic Knights of the entire world” the other answered.
“While he is only the 11th, he still composes the Light Council responsible for protecting us all from the ecthroy and deciding the fate of the entire humanity”, said another woman.
“What weapon does he use? What is his Celestial Beast?” some kids enquired.
Their parents promptly responded “his excellency’s Celestial Beast is a one-of-a-kind Crystal Wyvern, it was the one responsible for the loud noise you just heard, as for his class, I think that Mr. Weiss is a Magic Swordsman, meaning that his weapon is a sword.”
“A one handed sword!” another man intervened.
As the Guild Masters and Saint greeted each other with great respect, for many of the S-Ranked Guild Masters were not necessarily any weaker than a Saint, simply having different interests, the director made an introductory speech and the event soon started.