After the Holy Day, all of the students doubled down on their preparations for the end of semester competitions. For the students in the Mage College and Magic Warrior College this largely meant preparing for the Spring Tournament. For the Magic Schema College, Alchemy College, and Rune Smithing College it meant getting into the best state possible for their appropriate crafting challenges. While their competition would not be as confrontational as the Tournament, it would still be highly competitive.

The crafting colleges would all hold their competitions in their college buildings. The competitors would be given a day to complete the best item they could with the resources available. Their completed product would then be judged for quality and inventiveness. They would then be ranked first by grade year then the winners of each grade would be compared to the others. The top ten in each year would be granted prizes to encourage growth with greater prizes going to those who achieved the most in comparison with the other grades.

While this method did favor the older students, there would sometimes be young geniuses that would win the overall prize at younger ages. Enabling the younger students to compete against their seniors allowed them to have targets to strive for. Meanwhile, the older students were encouraged to improve so as not to lose face in front of their juniors. The end goal was to foster a competitive environment that would encourage further growth in all of the students and to showcase the Academy’s ability to grow young talents in front of the masses.

Unlike the crafting competitions the Spring Tournament was a whole different beast. Students from each year would compete with each other in a double elimination competition in the training yards until there were only two left. The remaining matches would be held in the Arena in front of all of the students, faculty, families, and other assorted guests. The Arena could hold forty thousand people and would be packed tight for these final matches.

Once the champion for each grade year had been selected, the final competition would be held at the Colosseum. There another double elimination tournament would be held to determine the true Champion of the Spring Tournament. As with the other competitions, the top ten in each year would be granted prizes with the greatest prizes going to those who performed most admirably in the second part of the competition.

None of the students dared let up on their practice. Derek and his dorm mates practiced and sparred every day in an attempt to improve their odds. Finally, the day before the competition, the details of the competitions were released along with the names of the students selected to participate in the first round.

Of the roughly three hundred first year students, two hundred and thirteen were from the two combat focused colleges. Forty three randomly selected competitors received a bye in the first round and automatically advanced to the round of one hundred and twenty eight. Of their dorm only Desmond was one of these lucky people.

“Haha, guess my luck finally turned around! I will be rooting for you guys from the sidelines the first round.” Desmond was naturally pleased and couldn’t help but gloat. The others could only shake their heads about this.

Tristan thought about it for a moment before speaking up, “It shouldn’t be that bad for us. Most of our competition is made up of tier zeroes. Eighty percent of our classmates have yet to class up after all. Due to that, our first two or three rounds should be the easiest for us. The worst draw out of all of ours would be Derek’s. He pulled a tier two princeling from the south, Prince Sid of Ancrest. I hear that guy’s got quite the ego and has been making a name for himself around here by beating several upperclassmen.”

The others all looked at Derek with pity in their eyes. Derek laughed, “Don’t worry about it, worst case I take a loss and move to the lower bracket. As far as I know, there are only four tier twos participating in our year. Odds are, I won’t see another for three to four more fights after that.”

Tristan nodded, “I have seen the guy fight, he relies on his attributes too much. I don’t think you will have much trouble. The next tough situation is Garrett, with your recent schema reset are you sure you can compete?”

It was the other three’s turn to laugh when he said this. Garrett shook his head, “Don’t worry about me. After my new schema was inscribed, my base attributes were already almost where they were when I joined the academy and my Earth and Fire attributes improved. After the last month of training I am certain I can go toe to toe with most of the tier ones in our year, much less the tier zeroes. With Derek drawing one of the only tier twos that means one less of those for me to worry about until I end up in the loser’s bracket. No, I should be pretty good for a few matches.”

Nodding, Tristan smiled, “Good, my matchup is against someone much weaker than me, so the only one out of all of us we have to worry about in the morning matches is Derek. How do the girls look?”

Derek looked up when he heard this, “Alicia’s in the Schema competition tomorrow and Ronelle’s in the Alchemy competition the day after. Lynette got matched up with a tier zero from the Magic Warrior college so she should be successful in that match. Looks like Monica got a bye as well.”

Tristan thought for a moment before continuing, “Good, good. We should reduce our practice and rest up during the next few days. Today is the Rune Smithing competition. Do you guys want to go see it?”

This got a shrug out of Desmond but Garrett and Derek both affirmed their desire to see it. Derek spoke for both of them, “Yeah, I would like to see this competition. Also, if we go, we will get to sit with the judges since my grandfather and a few other acquaintances of mine will be judging. As long as we don’t disrupt anything we should be able to get the best seats in the house. Same goes for the Schema competition later this week, my mom will be judging that one. The Alchemy competition might be hard to get good seats for, but maybe Garrett can snag us a place considering he knows most of those instructors on a first name basis now.”

Garrett scratched his head, “I think I can do something about seats, but are you sure you want to do all of the crafting competitions? They can be pretty dry. I only want to go to the Alchemy one because Ronelle asked me to.”

Derek laughed at that, “I don’t mind the Smithing competition, I could watch that any day. The other two though, we have friends competing in those, so we should definitely go if only to root them on.”

Desmond nodded, “If any, I would want to dip out on the Smithing competition. Lynette’s making me go to the other two. Issue is I don’t want to be the only one conspicuously missing during the Smithing competition. That old fart might make me work it off later.”

Derek glanced at Tristan, “What about you?”

Tristan shrugged, “It will be interesting to see how people do in all of these. If you guys go, I will go.”

Derek smiled, “Then it’s settled. I will talk to my mom and grandfather this afternoon when we go to dinner about reserving us spots. Garrett, it’s on you whether we get good seats at the Alchemy competition or not so no pressure.”

The others laughed at this before breaking up to do their remaining preparations. Derek was already done with his so he went for a walk around the campus. For a while he watched the steady stream of carriages flowing in and out of the grounds of the campus. These brought the families of the other students or their representatives. There were also dignitaries from neighboring hegemons and representatives of other families that were considering sending students to the Academy. All of these people were housed in hotels around the campus grounds.

After growing bored from watching the new arrivals, Derek made his way back to his mother’s house. He was surprised to see a carriage pulled up in front of it when he arrived. Going inside, he saw his mother and Alicia meeting with several people.

The group consisted of a woman a little older than Derek’s mother, a young man in his mid twenties, and a smattering of guards and maids. The woman was seated on a sedan with Alicia and they appeared quite intimate, while the young man sat beside them on a chair. Derek’s mother was seated opposite the man and was speaking with the woman in the sedan.

When Derek approached, Eona stood up. “Therese, I am sure you remember my son, Derek. He is also going to school here. Derek, This is Queen Therese Telis. The last time you would have seen her was when she brought Alicia to us to study all those years ago. This young man is Blake Elnon. He is the Prince of Elnon and now he is Alicia’s fiance.”

Derek smiled and bowed politely to Therese before nodding to Blake. “How do you do. It is a pleasure to see you again. I am sure Alicia is quite happy to see you here in time for the Spring Competition. I have it on good authority that she is expected to place quite well in the Runic Schema competition.”

Therese seemed happy to hear this and responded, “Of course she will. We would expect nothing less after all these years. Eona, I am so happy at how much she has progressed. I knew I could count on you to teach her.”

Eona smiled and patted the other woman’s hand, “Oh no, Therese, your daughter’s success is largely due to her own hard work. She has been the ideal student, the best I could have asked for.”

Derek smiled and took a seat. The three women spent the next hour catching up before finally it was time for dinner. As the usual crowd arrived, they were all introduced to the two new guests and everyone was seated for dinner.

It was then that Blake finally decided to speak up, “Derek, since you have lived with my fiance all this time. What can you tell me about her.”

Derek sensed something in his undertone that he found odd, so he thought a moment before responding, “She is a diligent student and a hard worker. She often stays up late studying or practicing.”

The guy seemed stumped after that, but quickly recovered. “Surely there’s more, you have known her for so long. What are her likes and interests? How does she spend her time?”

Derek looked at the man for a moment, before nodding to him and returning to his eating. “Oh I see. Yes, she likes learning about magic. She spends her time studying and practicing.”

There were a few people in the room suppressing a laugh. They had heard similar from Derek when he had just moved to the city. Back then he had been utterly clueless when it came to relationships. Now, he had definitely improved, but still he chose to answer in the same old way.

With this, the man stared at Derek for a minute, before thinking of something. A calculating look crossed his face before he turned to speak to the other guests. Derek smiled as he traded his dessert for Alicia’s bread.