“Mr. Guiles!”

Cadmus was ripped from his thoughts when he heard his name being called. It took him a second to remember that he was still in Professor Mackenzie’s Magic Fundamentals class, and it took him another second to realize that it had been Professor Mackenzie herself who had called his name.

She was glaring at him, an annoyed expression clear on her face.

“Yes?” He asked politely.

The class laughed a little for some reason, and Professor Mackenzie smirked—although, there was still a tightness in her face that led Cadmus to believe that she was still annoyed,

“Glad to have you back in class, Mr. Guiles. Now, as I was saying, I have an important announcement for you all. This year, our city of Anguis will be hosting the annual ‘Twin Peaks Magical Tournament’. So, next week, we’ll be allowing the students from the Carmenian Institute of Sorcery to stay in our dorms. You will all be representing our distinguished Academy, so I expect you all to be on your best behaviour! Dismissed!”

The students slowly got up from their seats, all talking excitedly with each other about this tournament that Professor Mackenzie had just mentioned. It seemed to be somewhat of a thrilling event—judging by everyone’s tone—but Cadmus had never heard of it. He was about to ask Oliver, but then, he saw Professor Mackenzie motioning for him to come to her.

He complied, Oliver following curiously behind him.

“Here you go,” Professor Mackenzie said, handing him a certificate and a small parcel, “After fiftieth place, every time you move up ten ranks, you get five-hundred more units of laurite. Since you made it to twenty-second place, and you’ve already gotten the five-hundred units from reaching fiftieth place before, you will be rewarded with one-thousand units of laurite—five-hundred units for surpassing fortieth, and five-hundred units for surpassing thirtieth. Once you make it to twentieth place, you’ll receive five-hundred units more.”

Cadmus looked down at the small parcel in his hands, “This doesn’t look like one-thousand units…”

“It isn’t,” Professor Mackenzie said, “I’m not just going to hand you one-thousand units of laurite out in the open. That’s only two-hundred units. If you need more, show that certificate to any of the teachers, and we’ll give you more. Don’t worry, we’ll keep a track of how much more laurite you can withdraw.”

“What if I lose the certificate?” Cadmus asked.

Professor Mackenzie shrugged, “It’s not a big deal. If you lose it, just come to me and I’ll make you a new one. The certificate just makes things easier for everyone.” She grinned at him, “Anyway, one-thousand units of laurite, huh? You’re moving up in the world! How much do you have now?”

Cadmus tilted his head confusedly, “…One-thousand?”

Professor Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, “Huh? What about the five-hundred you got for reaching fiftieth place? Surely you have some left over?”

Cadmus shook his head, “No, I used all of it to develop my [dead puppetry] formula.”

Professor Mackenzie’s eyebrows climbed higher in clear surprise, “Seriously!? That was five-hundred units! And you used it all to develop just one formula!?”

Cadmus shrugged, “Unfortunately, it seems that magic involving life takes a lot of mana, so I ended up using it all. I doubt these one-thousand units will last long as well.”

Professor Mackenzie palmed her face and sighed, “A person could make five-hundred units of laurite last a year while developing their formulas, and you say that even one-thousand units won’t take long to deplete? You’ve really chosen a hell of a field of study, haven’t you?”

Cadmus smiled, “Indeed.”

Professor Mackenzie sighed again, “Well, whatever. Run along now, I’ve got a bunch of work to do.”

She ushered him and Oliver out, and shut the door behind them. Cadmus stared blankly at the door before deciding to leave her to it. He had no more business with her anyway.

And so, he and Oliver began walking down the hallway. As they did so, Cadmus noticed that they, and many of the other first years as well, were receiving a lot of stares and whispers from the other students.

Oliver, having perhaps noticed the curiosity on his face, answered without any prompting,

“The whole school is being flooded by rumours about how we were attacked. So, we’re the hot new topic now. It’s a mess outside of school as well.”

Cadmus gave him a curious look, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean, a lot of nobles attend this school as well, so when their parents heard that their precious children were attacked…” Oliver gave a sympathetic wince, “Well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. There were a bunch of meetings with the headmaster and professors, and there were a whole lot of political problems as well. Some people even suggested shutting down the Academy altogether.”

Cadmus blinked. He hadn’t expected there to be such a severe response…

“Weren’t the attackers at fault though?” He asked, “Why blame the Academy?”

“Because the Academy is responsible for us,” Oliver explained, “Even if we were attacked by an outside force, it was the Academy’s responsibility to ensure that we never got to such a point in the first place. In the end though, since no one was hurt too badly, the Academy was able to use that as a defense to stop any complaints lodged against them. They even went as far as to say that, only the first years and the staff knew where we were going for our training, and yet the attackers clearly knew where we were going to be. And since the staff has proven itself to be worthy of trust for several years now, it was most likely one of the students who spread the information and put us all in danger.”

“That doesn’t sound like a politically wise move…” Cadmus mused. To be fair though, he wasn’t really well-versed in politics, so this was just an opinion based on limited knowledge.

Oliver nodded, “It usually wouldn’t be, but Headmaster Capitis is one of the most influential nobles of Laurucium as well, so he’s allowed to do stuff like that. And because of the stance he’s taken, they’ve now begun a huge investigation to find out who it was that leaked the information on where we were going to be.”

Alice popped her head out of his breast pocket and gave Oliver a curious look,

“Wait… with all these problems going on, is hosting a tournament and allowing students from a foreign school to stay here really the best idea right now?”

Oliver gave her a shrug, “I don’t know. But, the rumour is that the Academy and the government haven’t changed the schedule for the tournament because they don’t want to give away any signs of weakness. I guess it kinda makes sense…”

Cadmus walked in silence for a few seconds to digest Oliver’s words, before asking,

“This tournament—what exactly is it?”

Oliver looked surprised, “Wait… you don’t know what the Twin Peaks Magical Tournament is? Didn’t you used to live in Anguis when you were young?”

Cadmus tried to remember if he’d ever heard that name before, but came up with a blank. He did, however, remember a few tournaments that he had watched when he was young. It had been always ended up being a pretty flashy event, from what he could remember, and nearly the whole city always came to watch.

“My… sister participated in a tournament every year…” Cadmus said slowly, straining his mind to see if he could recall anything else, “I never checked what the tournament was called because I was a kid, but I do remember that my sister ended up winning every single one.”

“Was she attending the Academy at the time?” Oliver asked.

Cadmus nodded unsurely, “I think so, yes.”

“Then yeah, what you saw was probably the Twin Peaks Magical Tournament.” Oliver said. He gave Cadmus an impressed look, “I did some research since I knew that this year’s tournament was coming soon, and yeah, Ember Guiles was the only person in the world to win the tournament four years in a row. Talk about amazing!”

Cadmus couldn’t deny that he felt proud of his sister. But, ever since his confrontation with Everett, there was a curiosity in him. Why? What had pushed Ember to such lengths that she had sharpened her skills to such a point that she was able to win this tournament for four years in a row?

Or perhaps, was the tournament just too easy? He didn’t know anything about it after all.

So he asked, “Oliver, what kind of tournament is this? I remember watching my sister fight other people, but that’s it. Is fighting all there is to it? And can anyone sign up?”

Oliver shook his head, “Nah, it’s a tournament between our school and the Carmenian Institute of Sorcery. The premise is that the Larucian Academy of Magic is the best school of magic on the continent of Terra, and the Carmenian Institute of Sorcery is the best school magic on the continent of Gaia, so this tournament is a way to see which school between the two is the better one.”

Cadmus blinked. So this was just a tournament between schools? Had he remembered wrongly when he had recalled that most of the city had come to watch? After all, why would the whole city be excited to watch a tournament composed of only students?

“Is this tournament popular?” Cadmus asked.

“‘Is this tournament popular’!?” Oliver laughed, “It’s one of the most anticipated events of every year. The only problem is that the tournament alternates every year between being held here and being held all the way over in Carmenia. Even then, people try to save up as much money as they can in order to travel to the site of the tournament. It’s that popular!”

Cadmus felt confused, “But… it’s just a tournament between students, right?”

Oliver nodded, “Yeah, but we’re not just ordinary students. We’re students of the greatest schools of magic in both continents, and our performance in the tournaments reflect that. Oh man, the magic thrown around in the Twin Peaks Magical Tournaments is all kinds of awesome. I’ve been to a few, and seeing those guys is one of the reasons I wanted to become a mage in the first place!”

There were stars in his eyes that showed just how highly he thought of this tournament.

Cadmus, on the other hand, couldn’t help but remember how most of his first years hadn’t even known what laurite was until today.

“…Really?”

Oliver seemed to catch on to what he was thinking about,

“Of course, there’re gonna be a lot of qualifier rounds. Only the best of the best will get to stand in the coliseum, where people from all over will watch them fight.”

Cadmus supposed that made sense… but even so…

“If only the best of the best are selected, then won’t the tournament end up with mostly fourth-year students?” He asked.

Oliver shook his head, “No, it works like this, see? Both schools have the same four-year system, so they have first-years face first-years, second-years face second-years, and so on. It’s kinda like watching four tournaments, so people definitely get their money’s worth! The tournaments go in order of the year, so we first-years will be going first. This way, the tournament will have the most exciting fourth-year matches last.”

Cadmus raised an eyebrow, “Is it interesting to see the first-years fight as well? Most of the first years in this Academy didn’t even know much about magic when they first arrived—and I assume that’s the norm every year. People like Regis and Pendragon seem to be anomalies, so I doubt even the best of the best of the first years are skilled enough to entertain every single year.”

Oliver smirked, raising an educational finger and pretending as though he was one of the professors,

“And that’s where you’re wrong, young student. This Academy gets at least a few scholarship students every year, so there’s almost always a few decently skilled people among the first years. More importantly though, you really don’t understand the appeal of these kinds of tournaments, do you? Yeah, the matches are exciting, but it’s also just as exciting to watch someone you’re a fan of grow as a mage. It’s kinda like watching an exciting story. Watching the growth of your favourite mage is like following a protagonist through a really awesome book! You just can’t beat that feeling!”

Cadmus didn’t understand, but he figured that it was probably something only people who watched tournaments and stuff would understand.

“I-is that so…?”

Oliver gave him a curious look, “Speaking of, are you going to join as well? The sign-up forms are about to be handed to us soon.”

Cadmus gave it some thought, though he already knew his answer. To be honest, he didn’t really care for flashy events like these. Now that he had come into one-thousand units of laurite, he would rather just spend those units trying to create new formulas and researching his main goal of perfect necromancy, instead of wasting his time participating in boring tournaments—

“I guess your answer will probably be yes,” Oliver said, unknowing of his thoughts, “I’ve heard that, other than duelling, winning the Twin Peaks Magical Tournament is the best way to earn the most points in a single go.”

Cadmus paused.

Well.

That changed everything, didn’t it?