The matches for the rest of the day weren't anywhere near as interesting. There were very few summoners as well. So my tactics were fairly straight forward. I was very confident I would be able to take on all the summoners today one on one. All at once would be a little harder, but still very doable.

Looking at the rest of the matches for the next few days, there seemed to be a pretty even spread of summoners, around six per day.

They were very rare, it seems.

Ben would not be fighting until the end of the last day. So it would take some time before I would see him in action.

I had to complete all training as usual on top of this battle appraising homework. So the next two weeks were going to be very tiring.

The next few days passed in a blur. Training seemed to have an even greater effect, though, my bottleneck was feeling looser and looser, overblowing my mind, constantly working on physical and mental problems allowed me to grow very quickly.

The others weren't making as good progress, the exhaustion seeming to have an opposite effect on a lot of my team members.

The outsiders seemed to become demotivated. They were working seemingly ten times as hard as the Natives but with none of the payoff. I knew from Iirin that that certainly was not the case. All the natives would have extra training on top of their army mandated training.

They had focused and extremely pertinent information constantly fed to them.

We would have the privilege of finding it out for yourself.

I had to completely come up with my own tactics and foundational ideas for my summoning practice. In contrast, Urtil would have been given several masters made paths that he could mix and match, which would guarantee an immensely varied and strong summoning ability.

If I didn't have the grove-tenders, I would be completely lost when It came to that.

Luckily they were masters of their craft.

My land and summons were well cared for. Everyone has grown to their full potential. Without them, I would have had to have given a huge amount of time caring for my Inner world and my summons. Something Urtil frequently complained about. More to show off his impressive capabilities, but still, it was a worry for him. My inner world now worked for me instead of me working for it.

My lineage helped me far more than anything else. It was the only reason I was coping as well as I was.

Our training continued, the formations slowly building up in proficiency.

We were allowed to create some of our own tactics to face the favourites of the Heri competition.

It was up to the captain's decision whether we would actually implement them, but that was one thing that raised the spirits of my fellow outsiders.

It was finally the day I would see Ben fight. I was looking forward to seeing his progress.

I knew the training for the mixed teams were worse in Heri training, Huti apparently not having the same discrimination. I doubted, but Unusu did seem very happy with the Captain's teachings so far.

So the fact that his team had managed to rise and become part of the favourites was very impressive.

His match wouldn't be until the end of the day.

Once these qualifiers would be finished, it would move on to the next round.

A giant arena each day, with 100 teams placed in it. The ten teams to end the round with the most kills and points through various methods would go through to the quarter-finals. Which was changed every year? I had to say I was looking forward to the free for all.

The matches continued throughout the day. I learned as much as I could. Mixed between reading about tactics and creating plans to defeat each winning team.

I had managed to get it down to an art of a few words for each of the winning teams.

It was only the more complicated and powerful favourite teams and a few others that surprised me, that I had to write more than a few words.

Ben looked serious, getting up into the arena. The screens showing all the hopeful faces as per usual. It was the third to last match of the day, so the crowd wasn't what it was initially, even for a matchup between two strong teams.

So they geared up and got ready for the fight.

I also got a little help with viewing the fight. Something that wasn't strictly allowed, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind by this point in the qualifiers. I summoned a few creatures I gained when I reached Tier 3. They were scouting summons, meaning I could see and hear through them. They were tiny and almost translucent, making them incredibly useful for viewing anything from any distance.

So I quietly summoned a few of them. There was a general damper on the crowded seats, but for a little few summonses like this, it took very little mana.

When they got down to the arena floor, I was quite surprised by what I heard.

Ben's team leader was just slurring him and the other outsiders, with grave threats if they were not to win.

It really didn't seem like a fun environment.

Urtil was an asshole, self-obsessed, and really didn't care about any of us, but he didn't promise bodily harm and a violent death if we failed. He put pressure on all of us, natives and outsiders alike.

Ben's captain seemed more like a horrible asshole more than anything else.

Still, Ben had his game face on. A similar look in his eye to when I saw him after I had been captured on the day our lives changed forever.

Ben was here to win. I don't think even an asshole leader was going to change that.