The next week was enlightening, to say the least. When the Headmaster said that the Academy had extensive information on previous Tournaments, he was not kidding. Lily spent several days combing through records as fast as she could to find pertinent details. Then she and Caeden spent half a day optimizing their plans.

The main goal they were reaching for was achievements. The whole point of the Tournament of Powers was for nations to scout out the talents and weaknesses of their rivals. Normally everyone would be working to show their strength while holding something back so that all their hidden trump cards weren’t revealed. It was a delicate balance between looking too weak and revealing too much.

The CA’s current situation complicated that even further. The other nations already knew something had happened. The Revolution’s attacks were too much to hide completely. Fortunately, according to Damon, the Entropy Seat’s counter-intelligence unit had kept the information conflicting and vague, so no one knew the exact extent of the damage.

Which left the Tournament as their neighbor’s main avenue of information gathering. And Caeden’s team had been placed at the forefront of that effort. If the younger generation showed overwhelming power, then the nations would doubt any reports of severe instability. After all, if the CA was as damaged as some reports said, they would have difficulty supporting their youth.

That had actually played out. After all, the Council had reallocated resources that would have went to equipping and training them into repairs and defenses. The Academy had turned into a shell of itself as the staff was called on to fulfill duties elsewhere.

All of this meant that Caeden and his team would have been at an extreme disadvantage, undertrained and under-equipped compared to their peers. They had managed to side-step both problems through the resources they gained on the monster-hunting expedition. Both in personal power and equipment.

But that wasn’t the problem. They were currently set up in a position where they would have a good showing. Even an exceptional one, considering how powerful they were. But the other nations would have their own powerful youths, their own exceptions to the norm. And while Caeden and Lily were confident that they would win, that wasn’t the point. They didn’t just need to win. They needed to be overwhelming to the point of disbelief. And the only way they could do that was by going all out.

This was a delicate balance and the reverse of other nations’ problems. They wanted to stand strong while hiding their best moves. Caeden and co would need to use their best moves while pretending they still held back. They would need to make every win look easy. And making something difficult look easy was a hundred times harder than simply doing it well.

Adding to that, Lily found that the list of events the Headmaster gave at the initial meeting was an abbreviated one. In fact, there were many more challenges, trials, and tournaments in the Tournament of Powers than the ones he had described. Though the shroud fundamentals and combat tournament were definitely the main attractions.

All of this culminated in Caeden and Lily agreeing that their goal extended beyond the main events. After all, their objective was to show the strength of the CA’s next generation. They would work to stack up as many achievements as possible. And after half a day of tossing their ideas back and forth, they came up with a list of events that every member of the team would compete in.

All of them would participate in the one, three, and five-man combat tournaments, but that was the only event they would join. As far as the fundamentals went, Caeden and Lily would both be competing in the aura sense category, specifically investigative sense. Erik would also be competing but in the defensive sense category. Alongside that, Caeden would compete in the infusion/physical enhancement category, while Lily would compete in infusion/formshift.

Both of them agreed that outside of those subsets, their group was actually lacking in the fundamentals. Rather, they all had chosen to increase their skills in multiple aspects rather than focus on a single fundamental. Caeden would only compete in physical enhancement because his shroud gave him an overwhelming advantage, and Lily would only do formshifting because her skills with Cloud in that category were exceptional.

Cat had essentially no fundamentals to speak of since she had no access to them until just before her shroud was evolved. Even then, she could only use her Soul shroud’s aura. Infusion was still beyond her. She was making progress with Necromancy, but none of her skills were enough to compete on a national level.

Erik, outside defensive sense, had a decent level of competency in every fundamental but no outstanding examples. However, Caeden and Lily figured he could take the top spot in defensive sense, literally in his sleep. If he actually tried, he’d probably shame all his opponents into giving up. He was just far too skilled in that one aura sense.

Asherta was by far the least skilled among them. She hadn’t even known about the fundamentals until she came to the school. The language barrier was gradually being fixed, but it was a slow process. Well, slow on the timescale of less than a month, which was all the time they had, but incredibly fast compared to the norm. She was learning at an impressive pace, just not fast enough to even think about competing in the fundamentals.

When they had reached this conclusion, Caeden and Lily agreed that their showing in one of the two main events was lacking. They only had three examples of truly exceptional fundamentals. Lily’s Cloud frameshifting, Caeden’s physical enhancement, and Erik’s defensive sense. It was good, and they expected to easily win in those categories. But they agreed that they’d need to showcase more skills than that if they wanted to silence all dissent.

So, Lily spent some time compiling a list of all other events, and she and Caeden then went through it to find a few for each of them that could really showcase their skills.

“Look at this.” Lily turned her CV toward Caeden. “There’s an entire set of events specifically for minions. Whether they’re creatures or constructs.”

Caeden read the list, shaking his head. The number of events in the Tournament of Powers was staggering. Hundreds of different challenges taking place in the span of a few months. It was truly insane. There were dozens of events related to just those shrouded that used created creatures and constructs to fight for them. From challenges for who could create the most minions to creating the strongest single minion.

“Man, they’re all really desperate for something to watch, huh?” Caeden laughed. That was something he had Lily agreed on after seeing how many events there were. Though the nations' leaders used the Tournament of Powers to scout out enemy powerhouses, that didn’t justify this many events. There was an obvious reason why they did this.

Entertainment.

Caeden had been surprised to see how much more advanced the field of entertainment was among the shrouded compared to the unshrouded. Out in the continents, where few shrouded lived, a play once a month or some passing bards was the most anyone would ever see. And that was in cities. Small towns made do with nonsense games for children, while the adults were generally too busy to do more than throw some dice.

In comparison, the islands had an overflowing quantity of entertainment. Books, paintings, sculptures, live combat, board and card games of every description. Of course, ethertech had boosted the industry to a new level with CV shows, games, and interconnected devices that could communicate and connect those living far away. Though the limit of such devices, connected by the so-called ‘ethernet,’ was the landmass they were on. Communication across the Starry Sea was difficult because it interfered with Ki.

The Tournament of Powers, which happened once a decade or more, was obviously how the shrouded leaders who had lived more than tens of thousands of years chose to entertain themselves. For someone who had lived so long, once a decade must be the same as a show once a month for an unshrouded. Having so many events gave these powerful people many different things to see. It was basically a private festival put together just for the top of the top.

Not that Caeden cared. They could watch all they wanted. “Well, we know who to put in a few of these.”

Lily nodded. “I can’t imagine a series of events more perfectly suited for Cat. Though only the constructs. Or maybe creature? We’ll have to figure out what her undead qualify as. She’s summoning them from somewhere else, not making them. I don’t know if that fits the parameters.”

Caeden chuckled. “I think they’ll let her do what she wants. How often will they get to see a magic shroud in action? Even if it doesn’t fit the strictest definition of the events, they’ll definitely let it slide just for the opportunity to watch.”

“Ha! Good point. Dave will win any of the individual events handily. Oh, look here.” Lily pointed. “Bonded events. What are the odds Snowball and Sky could win?”

“High,” Caeden said, looking at the challenges. “I wonder if Noodle could do well.”

“He’s growing at a ridiculous pace.” Lily nodded. She stared at the list in contemplation. “It’s worth a shot.”

“We could have him do a mock fight with Snowball and Sky. If he doesn’t stack up, we won’t enter him.” Caeden suggested. He knew Lily was weighing the pros and cons of entering Noodle in. They needed to dominate whatever events they entered; the more events, the better. The balance between entering the most events possible while only taking on what they could excel in had consumed all of their time lately.

“That should work. If he’s not good enough, we’ll just leave it alone.” Lily nodded. They went back to planning.

Overall, they ended up putting Cat into several slots for the minion events, Erik into Ki and martial art events, as well as several obstacle course type events. With his high evasion and mobility, Erik could achieve a lot. Caeden was entered into those as well. Lily was placed into events for object shrouds centered around refined creation. Things like making an object with as much detail as possible, or making the smallest object that retained a certain shape, or making the most durable object. They felt confident that everyone would win comfortably in their fields.

Asherta was the one sticking point for them. She had little in the way of developed skills, so none of the events seemed to fit. Until they found an event that suited her perfectly. There was a three-day-long survival event where participants would be dropped onto an island that was filled with shroud-created monsters and forced to survive on their own the entire time. Victory was determined by how many monsters were killed in that period and how few injuries the contestant sustained.

Outside of these events were the craft skills, of which their team was only entering two. Caeden would take part in the ethersmithing challenge, and Erik would participate in the healer challenge. Considering both of their skills in their fields, being raised on them from a young age, and having shrouds well suited to their crafts, both would be hard-pressed to lose.

At the end of the week, the whole team breezed through their qualifications for every event, taking the top spot in every category. Immediately, they all went back into training, pushing themselves with the last three weeks they had left.

At the end of the second week, when Caeden stopped by the Hearthhome to visit Unc, he heard the words he’d been waiting for.

“Caeden, it’s time to see what you can do.”