"No matter how bad the empire's straits were, nor how dire the circumstances, the tournament never failed to happen every five years. Even during the fourth empire, when the empire was practically split into two, both sides held their own tournaments in their respective capitals.

In fact, it was when the newly crowned northern emperor decided to abolish the tournament to save costs that the end of the fourth Empire sounded.

We Elmaiyans can tolerate and stomach many things, but some things just crossed our bottom lines." - Excerpt from "History of the Elmaiyan Empires" by Detlev Fedorovich.

By the end of the day, the first day of the preliminaries came to an end as the sun began to set. In the end, all of Cal's students and nieces made it to the main tournament, which after watching the preliminaries, she thought was not unexpected.

The quality of most of the participants who signed up were definitely disappointing, while those that passed through the preliminaries were those that were noticeably better, for the most part.

Neither Ognar nor Giselle faced any issues, even fighting unarmored and only using half their magical reinforcements. Ognar just fought steadily and systematically, as he knocked one opponent after another out of the ring with a wooden club.

Giselle on the other hand gave a performance that reminded many of Vitali's earlier performance, if slower and easier to follow. Her lithe, graceful form seemed to dance around the stage, as any opponent she passed by fell clutching a torn hamstring or similar. She made the feat look effortless, which was a bit of showmanship Cal didn't mind.

Sidonie passes through her preliminaries by stalking around the stage. She hid herself from the view of others, using other's bodies as cover to hide behind, and efficiently dispatched them with a stab to the kidney. When the last three tried to gang up on her, that was when she revealed her magic, and made short work of them.

Fheeri feigned weakness, pretending to struggle against one opponent, until most of the others had been eliminated. Then she struck back, swiftly incapacitated her opponent, then took out the last two participants with her throwing knives as they fought each other.

All of them joined Cal as they watched the rest of the preliminaries over the next two days, seated leisurely and snacking on all sorts of delicacies as they watched. The three Edelstein siblings also joined them, as they grew interested when they heard Lazlo speaking about Cal's students' performances.

"You ought to have told us early if you were dropping someone of their caliber into the tourney," complained Azturia from her seat beside Cal with a dejected smile. "Could've put in bets when her odds were still lower if we knew."

"To be fair, I had no idea on the level of competence to expect from the tournament until that first day," Cal admitted in reply. "Placed some bets myself once I was clear on what to expect. She was still at ten for twenty five odds at the time. What's her odds now?"

"Ten for twelve," replied Azturia rather curtly. "That performance she gave must've really wowed the bookkeepers. It was ten for fifteen, but dropped after we placed our bets. Even then I'd bet that her odds weren't even worse only because she got several of the firm favorites in her block. One on her first match, even."

"Oh?"

"That Alexandrov kid's in her block, though on the other end of it," replied the quarter-therian woman. "Your other two kids are on the opposite block, so they ain't meeting till the finals. She drew Ursus in the first round though."

"Who?" Cal asked as she was unfamiliar with that name.

"Ursus Lebenswerk, he was a semi-finalist two tournaments ago, and one of the biggest favorites besides the Alexandrov kid," said Azturia in reply. "You ought to have seen him yesterday. Huge-ass guy, part bear, part orc, part dwarf."

"Oh, that guy. Yeah, I remember him," answered Cal, as one of the contestants from yesterday did fit that description. The man was positively massive, and more than half of the fighters on his preliminary stage groaned and left upon seeing him. The rest were thrown out forcibly.

"He's a blood mage too, you know?" added Zira from her seat beside her sister. "Real proud of his strength and all. Even nowadays he's somewhat famous amongst the imperial army."

"He is, now is he? said Cal as she thought she'd allow Willa to go all out in her fight the next day.

******************************

Willa's fight was one of the earlier fights of the next day's tournament. Out of ten thousand plus, only five hundred and twelve were left, and now they would eliminate one another in single combat until a final winner was decided.

Instead of nine stages, there were only eight stages in the arena now, while in the center were a group of adjudicators and healers on standby in case some participants got too heated and their interference were required.

The first batch of eight duels proceeded without incident, and as soon as one was finished, another pair of participants were called to take their place on the stage. The fights continued on, until around an hour later, Willa's name was read by the announcer.

"Willa Ulfsmund, Ursus Lebenswerk, to the seventh stage," said the announcer with even tones. Both Willa and her opponent walked out from the gates shortly after, to the deafening cheers of the watching crowd, and they stood across each other on the stage.

"Damn," said Willa as she eyed her opponent for the day. She had grown some more over the last few years, and now stood nearly half a head taller than Cal, yet her opponent made her feel small. "You're a big one."

Ursus Lebenswerk showed the best parts of his mixed heritage. The man was a veritable giant, nearly half again Willa's height, and almost twice as broad. His bulky frame rippled with powerful muscles underneath his short coat of brown fur.

Much like her, he wore no armor, as he only wore shorts that seemed stretched to the limit by his powerful thighs, and went entirely shirtless. She knew he was supposedly a blood mage as well, and was positively eager to tussle with him.

"Ye seemed pretty proud of yer strength, lassie," said Ursus before they began. "But I'mma show ye real strength now!"

With those words, Ursus rushed her way, without taking out a weapon, with both arms held wide as if he planned to grab and crush her in his embrace. Willa smiled, and met his charge, head-on.

Her hands grasped his and their fingers intertwined as they strived and pushed against one another, attempting to overpower the other with all the strength they could muster. The crowd gasped as they watched the clash of brute force, then cheered wildly.

Willa found that she actually had to give her all to match her opponent. Their feet slid backwards and dug grooves in the compacted soil of the stage, as they strained every muscle and every bit of mana.

She was pushed backwards for a step one moment, then held her ground, and pushed her opponent backwards in turn, but their stalemate seemed even for a while. Their strength matched each other well, and neither could gain an advantage over the other.

The situation changed after nearly ten minutes of wrangling, as Willa slowly, but surely began to push Ursus back. The far larger man seemed hard pressed to match her, as his fur was matted with sweat and he strained so hard one could see the blood vessels that lined his face.

"A shame… If only he had a good tutor when he was younger…" Cal sighed as she watched Willa gain the advantage in the fight. Next to her, Azturia glanced at Cal questioningly, indirectly asking what she meant.

"Blood magic can only amplify what is already there. That's why Willa is so much stronger than Ognar and Giselle. Her physiology coupled with her greater magic capacity meant that given equal competence, the two wouldn't ever match her," she explained to Azturia as Willa pushed harder and Ursus' knees started to buckle under the pressure. "That man, Ursus, has a far greater physique than Willa by far, but his achievements in blood magic are mediocre by comparison. I'm not certain if he's just using it poorly, or has low mana capacity."

As if to accentuate her words, Willa pushed Ursus down to one knee, even though the man still struggled mightily. Finally, she grasped his hands harder, and using them as the points of leverage, twisted her body around, throwing her opponent onto the ground with a mighty slam.

"If it was the latter case, then there would be little to be done, but if he simply lacked guidance…" lamented Cal. "He could have been a far stronger man than Willa ever could be, had his talent been found and groomed from early on."

The announcer declared Willa's victory, after her opponent remained on the ground and made no move to get up. Ursus dazedly stared into the sky with unbelieving eyes. He still found it hard to comprehend how he could have lost in strength against a girl half his size.