Chapter 35: Invitation

As the year was coming to a close, the Martial faction closed their gates to the public. The members were in full training mode.

Classes also ended a month before the year ended. It was for students to get ready for the yearly rankings. This gave Teo a lot of time on his hands. He spend some of his time creating a small compartment in his newly purchased bag. The array book snugly fit inside it and no one could tell there was a hidden compartment unless they broke the entire bag.

Lia, although was still a new student, had to participate in the Martial faction's one month boot camp. So most of the time she could not hang out. As for Windle, Teo could not find him most of the time. It was as if he disappeared from the whole academy.

The trio submitted their newly selected courses for the next year at the start of the last month. Lia found out that Windle knew beforehand things about Dina but still guided both her and Teo to Dina's class. She was furious, but convinced Windle and Teo to change their general class to someone else. Windle did not oppose because Dina gave no special treatment to elementalists within her regular class. He wanted some benefits if it was possible but since there was none, the workload from her class was enough to make him switch.

At the start of the second year, every year, Dina's class would have 0 students. Unless some poor unfortunate student accidentally enroll in her class, no one else would.

The elementalist class also became less strict with the students. Once a student has reached the Manipulation stage, they can choose to attend class or skip it. The manipulation stage was the final stage for elementalists, and students could only improve their manipulation on their own. If they get stuck, they can attend class and ask Dina questions but other than that, Dina could no longer help them.

Teo used his alone time to practice drawing the basic arrays that he had learned. He had only learned a few of them, like his first array, the 'smoke generating array', 'fire producing array', 'water seal array', and the 'light producing array'.

These were the four arrays he had mastered. He created them with the help from the old man from previous bets.

As for medium ranked arrays, although Teo could make one, he would not know what the array would do. It was like an experiment, although he knew the function of each pieces, the result would be unknown. To clearly understand making a medium ranked array, he would have to completely understand the rest of the array book.

Teo could experiment basic arrays to figure the results in a brute force manner, but the main reason why he did not was because he could not bring elemental powder within the inner world. Arrays must be kept secret, so he decided that he would not experiment until his master came back or figured out how to bring elemental powder inside.

Although he could not experiment, he practiced drawing the arrays he knew until he could draw them perfectly at any time. He also practiced drawing each and every symbol and pattern with regular ink and burned papers after to leave no evidence.

….

The year finally ended.

Seniors who became were in their ninth year left the academy to complete their expedition years. Many new students enrolled into the academy and the yearly speech was given to the new students.

Teo who was bored went to the library and read a few books. The ranking tournament would be held today but Teo like last year was not interested.

As Teo's attention was all in the book he was reading, both his arms were grabbed from behind. He was lifted off his chair and when he finally noticed it, he saw both Windle and Lia.

“What's going on?” Teo asked

“Lets go watch the tournament” Lia said

Teo who wasn't interest should have resisted but he could tell they had a purpose for forcing him to watch it.

In fact Lia was asked by Gina and Windle was asked by Riss. It was the last ranking tournament that Rowen was going to participated in, so they wanted him to see Rowen's fight.

….

Northern part of the academy was filled with people. Students, teachers and even visitors from the outside all gathered towards the academy's arena.

The commercial district set up temporary stores around the area during the yearly ranking tournaments.

The arena was inside the very large Colosseum that easily hold 10,000 people. The seats were packed with excitement, everyone was awaiting for the tournament to begin.

Teo, Windle and Lia sat together surrounded by other students. The arena was divided into 5 sections, one for each year. The tournament ranking students of the same year was held during the first two weeks of the start of the school year. Each five section of the arena could hold 10 1-on-1 fights simultaneously. One section for each year, starting at the fourth year all the way up to the eighth years.

The first week was to weed out the top 128 of the students. The amount of students varied each year, it could go from between 400 students to 800 students a year. The second week was to rank these top 128 students. The top 16 students gained benefits in the academy while the rest could only be listed down in the academy rankings. As for the rest of the students who were not part of the 128, they would not be ranked.

The academy's purpose for these rankings were to encourage students to strengthen themselves and compete. Rewards were great motivation for them, but of course there were many students who did not wish to be combatants.

The matches could be as long as an hour to be as short as a minute. When a student wanted to forfeit, they would be forced to stay within the arena for at least a minute before they could resign. Students who wanted to participate in the ranking were encourage to knockout the students who did not want to participate by giving them points.

The points gave a minor benefit that if you gained more, you might get a bye or when there is a tie breaker, the student with the higher points became ranked higher. The points were tallied depending on the speed and strength that was used to defeat the other opponent.

If an opponent concede the match before they were tired it would yield 0 points. If they were forced out of the ring they would gain 1 point. If they made it so that the other opponent could no longer fight they would be given 2 points. If they knock out their opponents, they were given 3 points.

As for the speed part, 3 points were given if you could defeat the opponent within a minute. 2 points if under 5, and 1 point under 10. Anything longer than 10 minutes did not give extra points.

But in any case, the points only mattered in certain circumstances. If you had enough strength, you would not need to rely on points and just win through the tournament.

The rules of winning were simple. Knock out, exhaust, push them out of the ring or make them concede. Students kept their strengths in check so that they would not accidentally maim or kill their opponents. The judge presiding over the match could also call the match to end if he sensed that there was no hope for the other to turn the tide.

Hot blooded students would sometimes forget to restrict the strength of their blows so the judges were there to prevent them from overstepping their bounds.

….

Within a private room an old man was looking down towards the arena. If Teo saw this person, he would recognize him. This old man was the same old man who visited the Emerald Pavilion's third floor.

The guards stood at the back of the room, also waiting for the tournament to begin.

Seated at the old man's left side was a brown haired young man who was about 17 to 18 years old. He looked respectful towards the old man. At this youth's side was someone Teo could also recognize, it was Zachery.

On old man's right were 2 people that Teo also knew, they were William and Emily.

“When is your match Daniel?” the old man asked the brown haired youth

“Uncle, my first match will be held tomorrow” Daniel replied

“Good” Then he turned towards William and Emily and pulled swiftly pulled something out from thin air

The old man held a necklace with a dark violet gem

“Your grand uncle sends this to you, when you graduate you will be sent to our Imperial city, if not sooner” the old man gave the necklace towards Emily

Seeing the necklace, William's eyes widen, a hint of greed came to his eyes but quickly vanished

'A void jewelry!' the thought

“Thank you uncle”

“Thank you uncle”

Both siblings thanked the old man.

“Ha ha ha it is nothing, a precious elementalist born with Imperial blood is a treasure within the empire”

William knew that if Emily was not an elementalist they would get no attention from the main Imperial family. When he first found out of Emily's divination result he quickly traveled to Mirth academy and guarded her. He sent a letter to the main family to send news of it because he knew that Emily was his ticket to the Imperial City.

The Imperial family was a very large family, since their rule of the Empire was unshakable in the history of time. Thus many branch families emerged, they were sent off to different corners of the empire, and only the main blood line of the family was allowed within the Imperial City.

But of course there were exceptions. These exceptions were for the talented and geniuses of branch families of Imperial family. Emily, who was gifted from birth as being an elementalist, was naturally invited. Her close family would also be invited in the future and because of this, William treated her sister as an extremely precious treasure, even more important than the void jewelry that he just saw

The old man was of the Rizon main family sent by the Imperial family. The Rizon family also followed the Imperial family with inviting youths with talent to their main family. In fact, many families across the empire did this in order to strengthen their main family's position.

Zachery and Daniel were both elementalist with Rizon blood which is why they were called by the old man. Normally he would not come if it was just a few elementalist for his family. He would just send lower ranked members to invite Daniel and Zachery, but since he was personally asked by the Imperial family to go, he might as well meet Daniel and Zachery

The old man gave a warm smile to Emily as he knew that Emily's position could be above his in the future. Then he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, I heard that there was a pure generalist in this school”