With Lumia out of the way, it was Yadour's turn. The challengers, two demons, two humans, and one elf approached my four apprentices with solemn expressions. The elf chose, Halbor, one of the demons chose Wane, and the other chose Jon. While the two humans chose Morena.

I watched on in curiosity as the group paid their respect to my apprentices and then to me.

"We ask for the lord's blessings!" Their voices resounded through the arena. I nodded to indicate my confirmation.

As the process began, my eyes were settled on the Demons. I already knew of the process with the humans, and then with the elves, but I never saw it with a demon, hence why I was curious.

The two demons, one male, and the other female looked like siblings. They both had silver hair and dark obsidian horns that curved to the back of their heads. Their skin was pale, and their eyes were violet. A few scales could be seen on their arms.

The male picked Wane, while the female, picked Jon. I watched in interest as the mana slowly seeped inside their bodies. Surprisingly, the demons' constitution seemed oddly similar to that of the humans. They weren't particularly stronger than them. So in the end, it all came down to the affinities.

The strand of mana circled inside their bodies as they began to search for a place to settle and create the core. The process, however, took longer than any of the other groups. The two humans survived, but the elf surprisingly passed away. His body was unable to handle the torture of the mana and directly exploded.

Halbor watched the scene with a downcast expression and simply shook his head with a sigh. The demons, on the other hand, continued with their ceremony, after a while, the mana slowly settled inside their head, similar to the process with the elves.

This surprised me a bit, I was kind of expecting it to be similar to the elves, but was still intrigued when it actually happened. Why were the humans different? What exactly set them apart from the other races? Not to mention, the aura in their hearts, the one the knights seem to use, appeared to be stronger than the one the elves or demons did.

When it came to magical affinity, however, the elves and demons had them beaten. But this did not mean that the humans were inferior, quite the opposite. Their core structure was somewhat similar to ours. If anything, the odd ones out we're the elves and demons for having a core inside their heads.

The entire thing only served to confuse, but intrigue me even further. What did it mean exactly? Or was I simply overthinking everything?

As I was lost in my own thoughts, the booth of the Yadour empire turned noisy. I could hear and see their celebrations, as the crowd in the arena began to cheer. Two humans, and two demons. They had four people, already surpassing the number-one empire, Lumia.

I nodded silently, it seemed like the tides of change were turning. There was still the Zasal dynasty, not to mention the actual tournament, so it was still too early to tell. But so far, things were indeed looking up for the Yadour empire.

On the other hand, Lumia's empire had a solemn expression on his face, he turned to glance at his ascended mages and asked, "Are you confident in beating the Yadour trash?"

The two humans and the elf saluted the king before answering, "Please ease your worries, your honor, they are not our match," the one to reply was the elf, and the humans nodded by his sides. This seemed to ease the emperor's worries as he silently nodded and turned his attention to the next set of challengers.

The ones that followed this time were none other than the group that belonged to the Zasal dynasty. Although in standing, it looked like the dynasty was weaker than the two empires, I knew that that was not the case. It was similar if not a bit stronger than Yadour, though still lacking against Lumia. The emperess was a shrewd person, she played her cards well in an attempt to make the others underestimate her strength.

The challengers were four women and one man, all of them humans. As soon as they arrived, light gaps and whispering began to spread amongst the stands. The reason was simple, the ladies that joined the challenge were extremely beautiful by human standards.

I did not care for their appearance and was instead curious about their affinities. Surprisingly, Zasal seemed to follow a different strategy, instead of spreading their challengers amongst the apprentices, they ought to send them all to one.

I turned to glance at the booth of Zasal, only to find the empress already looking at me with a sweet smile. She gave me a deep bow, to which I nodded and looked back at the stage. All of the challengers were standing in front of Morena, the only water mage.

A chuckle escaped my mouth, was she trying to play on the fact that Morena had a similar affinity to me? They must have already figured out that the affinity had nothing to do with the apprentices, it had everything to do with the challenger. Just because they chose Morena, did not mean that the element that will fill their core would be a water element.

Still, an interesting tactic, and I was curious to see how it would play out. The first challenger was a mature lady with soft brown hair. She was already a mage, so it was clear that she had an affinity for the mana. The only thing that remained to be seen was whether or not she had the will to back that affinity.

It didn't take long before the lady proved that her will was indeed just as strong as her affinity. She raised her palm and summoned a small water ball that floated above her hands. After which, she turned toward me and gave me a bow before speaking, "Thank you for your blessings, my lord."

I couldn't help but smile before nodding. The empress was an interesting person, that's for sure. The crowd quickly went wild as the first water mage appeared. This had a special meaning since I myself was a water dragon first.