“Are you telling you don't know about the end of year tournament which every school in the pronvince competes in?” Mary Saint Cloud was shocked by Lee's lack of knowledge.

“No, I've never heard of it. Is it really that big of a deal?” Lee asked.

“Yes, it's the single most important magical event of the entire continent!”

“But most of the students here are not yet qualified to be true wizards. Why would a contest involving students be so important?” Lee was confused by how this could be so.

“It's a tournemnt to measure the strength of each province compared to the others. It allows each province to know where they stand as far as overall power and influence in the continent. The reason they do it with students and not their A or S ranked wizards is so their top wizards do not risk losing face. Such a loss would be much more embarrassing for a province.

While the people who compete are only students, talented individuals will always be talented. It's a fairly reliable indicator of your provinces wizarding power in the near future. Usually it's difficult for first year students to represent their school in the tournament. Each school is only allowed to send 5 students and most of them end up being 3rd and 2nd years” Mary gave a huff of frustration.

“I plan to be a representative of this school, and I expect you'll be too. As a Saint Cloud even as a first year it'll be expected of me to be on the team. That's why I'm so insistent on this training. It's true there's no shame for the current me being overwhelmed by an A rank wizard; but the fact I needed help to defeat a lowly C rank is simply not good enough!” This was something she would have decided even without the tournament of course.

“The ranked you were able to beat that A ranked wizard.... I have never heard of a first year able to accomplish such a feat.” She gave Lee a long look of suspicion and curiousity.

“Well, it wasn't like he was at his absolute best either. Like I said, he had used the majority of his mana before fighting me. Even with that being the case it wasn't like I was able to win easily. In a completely even fight I don't know if I would have won.” Lee was trying very hard to be dismissive of his accomplishment so as to attract a little less suspicion.

“!hat doen't mattee!” Mary felt the need to be particularly clear on her point. “Don't try to downplay what you did. If you can fight against an A rank then there is no reason I shouldn't be able to do the same. I won't rest until I have surpassed your level.”

“So how are we selected to be on the school tournament and what happens if we get on?” River didn't like the way this discussion was going. He decided to change the talk back to the tournament.

“The selection is based solely on power. There will be a tournament held for every student in the school who wishes to enter. Most of the students will find it pointless and decide not to even try but a fair amount will. Some just to test their power.

As you know, the school will drop students out if they are not powerful enough to move up in grade by the years end. That means there are less upper classmen but they are all pretty strong. As of now, there are 117 first years, 75 second years and 41 thrid years. It is not uncommon for the nearly every 3rd year to compete. Probably a dozen second years who think they have a chance will try as well. Maybe 3 or 4 first years but usually they have no chance.”

“So it should work out to a near 64 person tournament with maybe a few byes thrown in to make it work?” River did the math in his head quickly. It was always something he was pretty good with.

“That would be my guess.” Mary considered the odds and the difficultly.

River considered not entering the tournament at all for a moment. It seemed like a rather big hassle. Then he recalled the mission the old man gave him to try to find disciples of the old man's other students. If this tournament truly brought together the most talented youngsters in all the continent surely there was no better chance to fine disciples of those students. It may blow his cover but he knew it was a risk he had to take.

“Okay, I'll get into the tournament as well. Tell me, what are our schools odds of making it deep into this tournament?” Lee knew to see the most students possible it would be best to go as deep as they could.

“Honestly, not very good. While most hate to admit it; zero province has been one of the weakest for a while. It can't be helped, the population here is smaller than any other province and so the pool of wizards is naturally smaller too. The reputation of the school itself has not been good even within the province itself. The last 2 years this school didn't even win the right to reprsent zero province.

That is very abnormal as this school traditionally is suppose to be the flag ship school of the province and attract the best wizards. In recent years many other good young wizards have opted to go to other schools. There was serious talk in my family if I should attend here even though the Saint Cloud family has a long tradition dating back hundreds of year of going to this school”.

“They went to a great deal of trouble to recruite me in hopes I would be a genius to bring them back to the formor glory they held. Also, my family thought doing just that would go a long way to showing the greatness of our house.” Mary said this part in particular with pride.

“So first we need to fight to be selected to represent the school, then we need to fight to represent the province and then we fight the other provinces representatives. Is that correct?” Lee wanted to be sure this was the case. It seemed fair straight forward to him when put that way.

Mary nodded that was the case. Lee didn't like hearing this school was so behind others. He knew to have the best chance to meet other disciples that could lead him to formor students of his master he needed to go as deep as possible. He wasn't sure how the matches would work. Even if he could always win his fights that may not be enough. He had to make sure he had a team that would allow him to go far. He walked up to Mary with excitement.

“Not only are we both going to enter that tournament. We're going to win. It would be more accurate to say we can't afford to lose.” Mary wondered what he meant by that last part. She also noticed when he was this close how big and well built he was. She thought it would be very easy for him to reach out and pull her close and.... no, what was she thinking? She had to focus on more important things!

“We will win for sure! Once I'm stronger we'll have a great chance!” Mary looked away and blushed while she said this; but she managed to get the words out.

Lee thought for a moment. If they absolutely had to win, then best chance was to train most of the students that would compete personally to raise them up to a good level. By now he'd realized the magic ability of students in this school was a few notches below what he expected coming in. He figured it be safe to assume he was the strongest at the entire school out of all the students and maybe most of the teachers too. It was time to tell Mary his plan.

“I'm going to tell Hill, Clover and Rain about what happened when that wizard I fought. I'm going to give them and Tom Sky a chance to join our training sessions if they want. I hope they do, if not I'd have to find some way to convince them.” River hoped that was not the case.

“Didn't you say you didn't want it getting out how strong you were? Weren't you worried it might make people ask questions about you?” To be honest Mary had wondered this too. Was he just a once in a century type genius or was he taught by some particularly powerful wizard? She decided not to ask as she knew it's a subject he wouldn't discuss most likely in any case.

“Well I'll be getting a good amount of attention anyway when I make the school team. Hopefully I won't need to reveal my full ability in this tournamnt. As far as them knowing the truth about that; I know them well enough to be sure I can trust them not to tell if I ask. It'll be okay.” Lee said this with full confidence. Even if not, what option did he have. The barrier would not wait forever.

The next day Lee gathered his fellow class 5 friends together to discuss the truth about what happened with the wizard and his hope for the school to win the entire tournament at the end of the year. All of them agreed to join the training sessions in an attempt to gain more power.

“Well, how does the schedule for all this work? It seems kind of big for all that fighting to happen at once.” Derrick Hill was the firt to ask about the tournament

“It'll take place in stages. A month before the school year ends we will have our matches to decided who represents the school. All schools have their own timeline but generally they like to know what their roster is a good deal in advance. The rest of the school year those students are given time off to either train with the school's teachers or their own private tutors.” Mary explain for all of them who didn't know. Tom and David knew of course but listened quietly.

“After the school year ends, the schools in each province fight in their own tournament to decide the province representative. After that, there's a rest period for a week. Then we'll travel to the continent's capital where fight to determine the strongest in the continent.” Mary made sure to think if she wa leaving any important information out.

“I would love to train for this and get stronger. But do you really think we as mere first years can really hope to get stronger than the 2nd and 3rd year students in a single year?” David Rain asked Lee.

“Most of the students here have been receiving great training before they even to the school and top notch instruction for over 2 years. We have only been here a few weeks. Can we will catch up and surpass them?” Amanda Clover was very concerned about this point. Derrick shared those concerns too.

“I think we have a good chance. They have trained longer but we'll train smarter. When it comes to training, the quality of ours will be better. We can make up for the extra years they have trained most likely.” Lee said thi wanting to assure Amanda and Derrick.

“I woulld say that it will be harder for Amanda and Derrick to catch up. Unlike Sky, Cloud and Rain they didn't have as strong a foundation built up before coming here. It's still possible and might even be better to start from mostly scratch.” Lee didn't want them dicouraged.

Rain was sad to see Amanda's face with this comment. He had always felt it was his birthright to receive the best training and more resources than the lowly commoners before coming to this school. To be honestly, these were the most interaction he had had with commoners in his life in just the past few days. His thoughts and beliefs were changing.

“We can not help what is. If Hill and Clover are behind then we will just need to do all we can to help them catch up. This will be hard enough to do even with Myself, Cloud and Rain. If winning this is as important as you say then we can't afford to slow down for them if they can't catch up. Hopefully that won't be the case' but if it is do you have a way to help them catch up with us after all this is over?” Tom wanted to back up River but also wanted to looked practical towards the future.

“I'm pretty sure I know someone who can help. He was hesitant at first when I wrote to him; but he agreed that at the end of the school year with that month break we could all go to meet him and train. If they are still behind they will be allowed to stay and train while we fight in the tournament. Believe me, if I know him the way I think I do they will pass us if we slack off too much”. Lee said this with a mind to be as encouragin as possible. He firmly believe positive attitudes helped training. When asked who he was speaking about, Lee gave no other details.

“For now don't worry about that and lets just focus on our training. It'll focus a number things, like making sure all your magic is being done without speaking, speed of casting and mana control. Expect to have to train those things and much more!” With that said, they went on to set a training schedule.

*****

The Zero Province Dragon Academy.

At another school in the zero province, preperations by the students and teachers were under way. The teacher spoke to the headmaster as he trained the students. The crop this year was good but not as good as last year he thought.

“I hope this year we won't have any slip ups. We have represented zero province 2 times in a row but we still have not made it past the first round of the conitent tournament.” The teacher felt great frustration and knew blame was being linked to his teaching of the students.

“It's true we've only managed to get so far the past few year but this year will be different. With our new notariety of being on the verge of becoming the premier school in zero province we've been able to attach new students and houses we could not before. Did you not hear about the recent transfer students we will be getting?” The headmaster asked this very sure he had not heard. He just wanted to build up the importance of his announcement to the teacher for fun.

I 've heard of no such transfer students. What are you talking about headmaster?”

“I've only confirmed it from a letter in the past few minutes. It appears the Star house has taken notice of us and will be sending over some of their most promising youngsters from their branch houses as well as one from the main house!” A larger ugly smiled formed on the headmaster's face.

“A main house Star is coming here? Why here though? They tend to stick to provinces 3 and 4 don't they?”

“The Star house is part of the big houses 3 along with the Sun and Cloud house. The most powerful housed in the currently continent. You're correct they have generally sent their main and branch house members to mostly province 3 and 4. To send house members to province 0 which is the heart of the Cloud terroritory can only mean one thing.” The headmaster paused to let this sink in for the teacher.

“They believe the Cloud family is in decline and want to expand their influence!” The thought was unheard of to the teacher. None of the large houses had tried such a bold move in the past 100 years. Each tend to stick to their area of influence and left well enough alone believing conflict would only weaken them and even if they achieved victory it would be a pyrrhic one.

I believe that is the case as well. Seeing Zero province academy yet again get another main house Cloud child even with our recent success was frustrating for me personally. The Sky house will now be using a lot of their influence in this area to show themselves as superior to declining Clouds. If they can absorb the Cloud's influence and power even the mighty Sun house would not be their eqaul.” The headmaster smiled ad took delight at the thought of the Cloud house which has slighted his school all these year falling.

“Accepting a Star house memeber here is a slap in the face of the Cloud house! When they hear about it they'll use their power to crush our school.” The teacher felt a shake in his knees. To simply cross the Cloud house in their own backyard was a terrifying thought.

“That will be an issue only if the Cloud house still has the power to do anything, If the Star house wins then the Clouds will lose face and many branch families and sworn houses will see the Cloud's weakness and side with Sky house. If we win then we will be rewarded greatly by the Stars for backing them and taking the risk!” The headmaster saw imagines of his school standing above all others. He may even be able to be the defacto leader of zero province. The Star's were none for being generous to those loyal to them.

“I'm confident we'll win of course, but to bet so much and take such a risk seems....” The teacher too knew the benefits of victory. But the Cloud family had stayed in power in part for being vicious to those who stepped out of line.

“Our students are already strong. Add into that the 3rd year Star boy and we will very possibly win the entire tournamnt. Zero province is all but won already.” The headmaster's smile get even wider. He had saved this part for last. The reason for his total confidence.

“So who is this secret weapon?”

“Vladimir Star, grandson of the head of the house and 2nd in line behind his older brother to lead after his father is made the head of the Star house.” Nothing else need to be said. The name was too well known for further talk to be needed.

“They would go so far to send us such a talent? He just entered his 3rd year is already known to be an A rank wizard.” The teacher was shocked. For the Star house to send their prized student here was bold even for them.

“Exactly. The Cloud house has only the 1st year girl, even if shes a genius like they say she can't compete. She is talented but unseasoned and young. They have no one to match him. All the same, we should keep a watch on their school and keep this under wraps as long as we can. I have learned to be cautious even if I believe victory is sure.” The headmaster was ruthless and calculating. Even with a sure victory he would leave nothing to chance. No act of God was to be permitted to make failure even a dream.

“And what do we do if we get any reports from Zero Province Acamedy that a student or two of theirs could be a problem?” The teacher believed he knew the answer to this question. Too much was at stake. Still, he needed to be sure that if he acted he would be safe from retribution.

“There will be no problems permitted to exist.” The tone the headmaster spoke in was unmistakable. He would not say it outloud ever. He was too clever for that, but the meaning was clear.

“Yes sir, I understand.”