In terms of resources, none of the other schools could compete with Ace Academy. Ace Academy came first in the last Tournament Of Academies and won rights over many resources.
They easily spend many resources in order to reward the students with good achievements. They had no problem going overboard with their rewards.
As the days went by, the time for the Tournament Of Academies was getting closer than ever.
Ace Academy had its selection of participants for the Tournament Of Academies. As before, they had a big mass elimination match, keeping only about 100 students.
Then based on their strength, they are separated into 10 groups, so that strong students would not face each other. 2 students from each group would be selected as the participant in the Tournament Of Academies.
Ace Academy’s selection was as fierce as always with many showing incredible potential. However, only 20 students were to be selected.
Naturally, Hiro, Lisa, Sylvia, Misha, and Zion were selected. They were all separated from each other and had won in their respective group.
Yui and Elysia had also been selected, though barely. Yui was in a group with Misha and lost to her in the final while Elysia was with Zion where she was easily defeated in the final.
Unusual thing was that the least number of participants were from the third year. It was not that Ace Academy’s third-year students were not talented or that the professor’s teaching was lacking but because many talented third-year students had run away to other schools.
After the Devil’s Invasion, most of the talented students from third-year decided to run away to another school. The reason was of course because of safety but there was another reason and that was that their juniors were more powerful than them.
Many could tell that they would have no chance against their juniors and they would lose their qualification to participate in the Tournament Of Academies. As the final-year student, it would be their last chance to appeal to a high-ranking guild and if they were to lose that chance, they would either need to join a low-ranking guild or work in some mediocre place.
As talented students, they don’t want that and choose to transfer to another school where they would have a greater chance of being chosen as participants in the Tournament Of Academies.
Despite Hiro and their generation being called the Golden Generation, other students of the same year were not as powerful as the students from Ace Academy. This was the reason that they decided to move to another school. At least at the other academies, they would get the chance to participate in the Tournament Of Academies.
In any case, that was not going to change the power of Ace Academy participants. It was already revealed last year that Ace Academy’s main forces were Hiro and other first-year students at that time.
Even though Lisanna and other third-year students were there to help them, Hiro and others didn’t fall behind them even though they were just first year at the time. They already showed that they were capable of taking the geniuses in their first year.
Now that they were second-year, no one doubted that Ace Academy aces would be them. However, other schools were not going to just admit their defeat and let them win easily.
*****
Other Academies were eager to take on Ace Academy and take the title of the best school in Edolas. Defeating Ace Academy which had been undefeated for decades would be the greatest achievement for any school.
However, none of the schools were as eager to dethrone Ace Academy as the former Top-5 Academy. They had been stripped of their title as Top-5 Academy and their resources were reduced due to Ace Academy kicking them out of the Tournament.
Zero, himself took out most of the aces of former Top-5 academy out of the tournament. If he were to participate this year, they might have tried everything to kill him.
Well, Zero was not there and it was known to other schools as well. Therefore, their focus was on Hiro Ernest, who is their biggest enemy to dethrone Ace Academy.
“As planned, we are going to eliminate Hiro and Ace Academy and claim back our position as the Top-5 Academy.”
The Ace of Arcane Academy, Landon Wright said. He is one of the strongest from Arcane Academy and the leader to carry out the plan to defeat Ace Academy.
He gathered every academy participant who was working with them to eliminate Ace Academy. They discussed various tactics to take out Ace Academy and their primary target was Hiro who was their biggest obstacle.
They also had an advantage due to many students fleeing from Ace Academy. They could gather as much intel as they want from the former Ace Academy and learn the power of Ace Academy.
“Hey, Ren Dreyar, you should give us more intel.”
One of the Arcane Academy students said angrily.
Ren Dreyar, the former number one student in the second year of Ace Academy transferred to Arcane Academy because he felt that he was being shadowed in Ace Academy by Hiro.
In the Last Tournament Of Academies, even though he was one of the geniuses and strongest in his year, he didn’t get a chance to showcase his talent. Everyone was only talking about first-year students of Ace Academy, especially Hiro Ernest.
Hiro even hailed as being stronger than him which infuriated him. However, the reality was that Hiro was indeed stronger than him and he could not defeat him at that time. That’s why he transferred schools so that he could defeat Hiro and show the world that he is the one who deserved to be called the number one genius.
Even though he had greater strength than Landon Wright, he was treated badly by other fellow students because he is from Ace Academy. Arcane Academy hates Ace Academy more than anything. Because of Ace Academy, None of the Arcane Academy students made it to even Top-10 in the last Tournament Of Academies and lost a lot of resources.
Ren Dreyar being a former Ace Academy student meant that hatred is being given to him. He is only allowed to participate as an Arcane Academy student because his strength was the real deal.
“I already told everything that I know.”
Ren replied. Despite the student’s rude tone, Ren didn’t show any emotion on his face and casually replied.
He was focused on only defeating Hiro and claiming what is rightfully his. He didn’t care what others thought about and even if they had problems with him, the reality was that they could not defeat him.
Ren Dreyar only thought of them as insignificant people who can’t do anything but scheme. He thought that he didn’t need to rely on anything other than strength to achieve what he wanted. Anyway, since his goal was also to defeat Hiro, he didn’t mind what they were doing and going along with it.
“Humph! Pretentious bastard!”
Said one of the students from Arcane Academy. He was angry at Ren Dreyar because he didn’t respect Landon Wright and also because Ren Dreyar was more valued by the professors at Arcane Academy.
“You are just a coward who fled because of Hiro Ernest. Don’t think you are anything special.”
He continued.
“Hah?”
Ren Dreyar didn’t care much about him but told him that he was scared of Hiro crossing the line. He immediately placed his hand on his sword.
Landon told, trying to defuse the situation. It is not that he respects Ren or anything that he told that. He would also like nothing more than for the Ace Academy students to suffer even if they had transferred schools.
However, he did that because many of the participants are former Ace Academy. The image of one of them being bullied would not be good for their cooperation and the strength of former Ace Academy students is also great.
He knew that he would need their cooperation in order for his plan to succeed. Therefore, in order to leave a good image to the other former Ace Academy student, he did that.
And it worked!
Many third-year students abandoned Ace Academy and came to other schools and became participants for their school. As the students of Ace Academy, they were stronger than other school students and could easily qualify to become participants for the school.
However, this caused anger from the students who failed to become participants for the Tournament Of Academies. They would always berate them and call them cowards and betrayers.
Seeing someone who defended one of them, they felt more inclined to help Landon Wright with their plan.
Well, even if he didn’t do anything like this, they would have cooperated with him though. They also endured all the humiliation because they wanted to show the world how strong they were.
They can’t wait to wash away the humiliation that they faced!