Being one of the participants Ajax got a really good seat to watch as the main tournament got underway. The first match would see the king’s oldest son competing with one of the elven champions. All three elves were mages, as they were naturally inclined towards magic. The Republic was fielding a hybrid in Shadow and a mostly physical fighter in a dwarf. Besides the Prince Gryndor was fielding a mage and a mostly physical fighter in the leader of the first squad.

“What are the expectations?” Ajax asked as he took a seat in Gryndor’s section of the stands.

“We got lucky with the draw.” the crown prince said. “Neither Shadow nor Arnor picked my brother or the leader of the first. All four matches should be fairly one sided.”

The discussion cut off there as the prince walked onto the sands decked out in his black gear mired in colorful runes. His opponent looked almost equally impressive as Ajax’s mana sense could feel the enchantments all but bursting from his gear. Most eyecatching however was that this mage wasn’t wearing a mouthguard.

“I thought all mage’s wore mouthguards?” Ajax asked.

“Not once you get [Chanting] past 75.” Xavier answered. “There is an upgrade there that lets you shorten the cast by skipping words. It not only removes the need for mouthguards but also makes hybrid chanters viable.”

For the sake of fairness the start of the fight was marked with a thrown stone. Neither fighter could do anything before the stone hit the ground but both tensed in preparation as the announcer threw it up in the air. Unlike the other tournaments this one didn’t have referee’s and would be taken on good faith of the participants and the people actually able to see what was going on.

The moment the rock landed on the ground Ajax didn’t even get to hear the sound it made as the prince sprung into action. Ajax felt a good number of the runes on his armor light up as he pumped them with almost as much mana as Ajax had in his entire mana pool. Ajax's eyes could barely track the black blur that charged towards the elf, yet he could keep focused only on the prince.

The elf had already started chanting the instant the stone hit the ground. Independently from that however he also slammed the butt of his staff into the group. Everyone in attendance was forced to cover their ears from the sonic attack despite the dampeners and protective wards that surrounded the field. This was the first time Ajax saw such a pure sound based attack.

The initial vibrations seemed to be powerful enough that they managed to stop the prince in his tracks. Slowing down Ajax could once again make out the details of the armor adorning the prince’s body as different runes activated. Oddly enough however while Ajax could tell that different runes were activated he saw the same ones light up. Was this a defensive measure, was this an advanced runic formation. He didn’t know what to think.

Whatever it was it clearly seemed to have worked as the prince was once again on the move, the distance between the two fighters less than twenty paces now. Ajax was actually starting to worry about the amount of mana the elf was chanting as it was closing in on twice his mana pool.

Unfortunately the elf wouldn’t get a chance to use it as a shadow spike took him in the shoulder. The attack had come from behind the elf and Ajax hadn’t even felt the mana being sent out by the rune when the prince first started his charge. The surprise attack from behind wasn’t enough to end the match but it was more than enough to let the prince skewer the mage straight through the stomach with his sword.

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Just like that the match was over. It could have hardly been more than a few seconds since the start. Ajax had barely been able to process everything he was seeing and that was with [Sense Mana] at seventy one and almost three hundred points in Perception.

“What happened?” Xavier had, unfortunately for himself, closed his eyes when he covered his ears in reaction to the sound attack and missed the rest of the fight. “Is it over already?”

“It is, son.” the crown prince nodded.

“But he didn’t do anything.” It was a good thing there was a privacy barrier around the royal family's balcony or Xavier's observation would have been very rude.

“I told you before, the outcome of these matches are all but known.” Xavier’s mother chided him. “The mage was clearly banking on his big spell as his only way of victory, he just didn’t get to cast it.”

Healers were inside the arena in moments, they healed both the shoulder and around the sword while the prince was slowly pulling the weapon out of his opponent. The elf didn’t seem to be all that bothered by the wounds anymore, clearly some form of pain nullification skill or spell, if anything he looked as bothered by his defeat as Xavier was to have missed his uncle's whole fight.

Once the wounds were patched up everybody cleared the field of the arena. It took barely any time at all as the arena not only started to mend itself but was actively changing the layout of the field. Gone was the sandy gladiator field, in its stead there were two small hills separated by a small river.

“How does that work?” Ajax asked as he started at the field.

“We don’t know.” the king answered. “And the damn council refuses to share.” Clearly he was a little peeved about that.

Once the arena finished establishing itself the second set of competitors stepped out onto the field. Despite winning the first match everyone in the royal family’s section could only look at the two figures with helplessness. Gryndor’s mage combatant stood on one of the hills staring across at Shadow, the beastkin was this time covered head to toe in leathers so black they seemed to draw in the light.

Much as the prince was all but sure to win this next fight Ajax was pretty sure Shadow had even better odds to win his match. “This won’t be pretty will it?” Ajax asked as he looked out at the field.

“No it won’t.” The king’s oldest son had managed to already make his way to the seating. He was now out of his armor as he was finished for the day but he looked just as serious as he observed the match.

As the referee threw the stone into the air Ajax watched both combatants tense up. As soon as the stone plopped into the water however, Shadow’s figure dispersed like a mirage. Ajax wasted no time as he pushed every one of his sense and detection skills to their limit yet he got nothing in return. If he didn’t know for sure this wasn’t the case he would have thought that the Shadow standing there second before was an illusion that was simply dispelled.

Unlike almost everyone in the stands the mage already started chanting and quickly released a weak fire nova. The idea of trying to locate the assassin was clear. As the nova was halfway across the arena Ajax’s senses were finally able to pinpoint something, more than that however they managed to find two things.

The first was a dagger that went straight through the fire nova and headed towards the mage at a speed Ajax wasn’t even able to track. The second however was Shadow as he dashed straight through the fire nova before once again dissolving into thin air.

The mage had managed to use his staff’s defensive enchantments to swat the knife out of the air but he hadn’t managed to do anything else in the brief moment Shadow was visible. Undeterred by the first failure the mage quickly chanted and released a second nova.

“It’s over.” Ajax barely heard the prince’s comment as he felt Shadow appear once more, this time much closer to the mage at the edge of the nova. More surprising than that however was the fact that Ajax was sensing a decent amount of mana being expended by Shadow. He estimated it to be around four hundred which was a pretty big chunk to use all at once for a mainly physical fighter.

In the next instant Shadow wasn’t on the edge of the nova, he had appeared from the mages own shadow as his dagger left a splatter of gore on the burned grass as it cut six inches deep into the mages shoulder.

It was only now that Ajax actually noticed the mage’s shadow had elongated. Whatever magic Shadow had used clearly needed there to be a direct path through the shadows, so it wasn’t direct teleportation but it was obviously a close second.

Ajax had barely gotten the chance to think that mages seemed to be as disadvantaged by this format as they were in the youth tournament before the prince not only guessed his thoughts but brought them up short. “ Mages do just fine, you’ll get to see it in the next match.”

The next match would have the strongest elven competitor, the one who was favored to win the whole thing taking the field against the physically focused dwarf.