The remaining matches for First Celestial were also as quick, if not quicker.
They also maintained their humiliating tactic of defeating their enemies with as few contracts revealed as possible.
While for the 3-vs-3 they had to send up 3 participants to the stage, each member of First Celestial only summoned one contract each, while their opponents summoned 3 each.
However, even despite the severe numerical disadvantage of 3-vs-9, First Celestial still won overwhelmingly.
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And because they won the first two matches, there was no need for the 5-vs-5, therefore the two strongest members of the top 5 first years at the College were still not revealed.
The pattern remained the same for the upper years as well. The 1-vs-1 battle winning with only one contract revealed, and then winning with only 3 contracts against the opponent 9, for the 3-vs-3. Not a single year level had to participate in a 5-vs-5 battle.
However, it was while watching the higher year levels that Kain made a discovery. Perhaps because the National Tournament is one of the most watched event in the Empire, the professors did not waste time explaining the obvious larger rules of the competition, and instead spent time clarifying some of the smaller rules that viewers at home would likely not even be aware of.
For example, the rule that for a poison to be used in competition, an antidote must be provided, or that only beast-tamers can wear equipment for protection and not the spiritual beasts.
However, there was one super obvious rule that nobody had bothered explaining to Kain—regardless of level, only a maximum of 3 contracts could be summoned by a beast-tamer at any given time.
Which was why, despite there being many 5-star beast-tamers among the upper years, they still only used 3 contracts each. Kain had thought the second-years, who were the ones who had mostly been responsible for helping them train, had limited themselves to only 3 contracts each in order to level the playing field with the first-years, who had at most 3 contracts.
Therefore, for those with more than 3 contracts, a lot of strategy went into which ones to use for each opponent, and the possible lineup combinations were endless.
After making this discovery, Kain honestly felt like an idiot. Yes, he’d never had the privilege of watching the tournament before, but if each side had been able to summon all of their contracts in a 5 vs 5 match, there could have ended up being more that 50 contracts on the arena stage at a given time.
The stage, although massive and the size of multiple football fields placed together would have felt crowded with over 50 ginormous green-grade spiritual creatures on the field at once.
Kain, couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. Even with the shield around the stage to protect the audience from becoming casualties of skills flying off the stage, it’d be hard-pressed to withstand the attacks of 50 mid-level spiritual creatures at once.
To ensure that there were no accidents, every match in both the main and smaller arenas would probably require at least an 8-star beast-tamer to preside over it, and considering individuals at that level are the most powerful, and busy, in the Empire, it’d be a complete waste of their time.
All of First Celestial’s matches across all year levels ended in less than half an hour, therefore the stage was quickly taken over by another top 5 college—Starfire College.
From what Kain had seen of the schedule the first round of matches would extend over 2 days, and Dark Moon was scheduled to have its first match today and then rest tomorrow. Supernova and Frozen Sun College would be having their first matches tomorrow. freeweɓnvel.com
Considering that they needed to fill up several hours each day with matches, and that most matches featuring a College in the top 20 were eligible to be on the main arena stage, they probably divided up the top 5 colleges who would draw in the most viewers between the 2 days.
Otherwise, if all of the top colleges appeared in a row, viewers would probably tune out the second that all 5 colleges finished their matches unless they were tuning in due to a personal connection with a college outside of the top 5.
Starfire College adopted a similar strategy to First Celestial, whether that was planned in advance or adopted after seeing First Celestial’s match out of pride like Soren, Kain didn’t know.
Their matches ended even faster than First Celestial’s, not because they seemed stronger, but because their opponent was that weak.
They were facing a College ranked in the low 80s. It was the type of College that students would only go to if they were a (1) a local and (2) had an affinity so poor that they couldn’t get in anywhere else.
Unsurprising, all of the representatives of that school were still 2-star beast tamers, and even the highest level fourth-year at that college was only a 3-star beast-tamer. Not a single representative, regardless off year level had a contract stronger than orange-grade.
It was at that moment that Kain realized the unrealistic expectations of cultivation speed Kain had for those in his age range.
Even the lowest ranked student among the first years, Aria, had an orange-grade contract and would probably break through to being a 3-star beast tamer before the school year started again. Not to mention that she also had a pretty useful gift.
But when looking at the Empire as a whole, the strength of students at the top 5 colleges was completely abnormal.
In Kain’s hometown, the strongest individuals in the entire city were several times Kain’s age but were only 4-star beast tamers.
The average student Kain’s age with a C or D affinity and only a bronze or silver quality contract would probably be considered as quite talented if they already became a 2-star beast-tamer at this age.
‘The fact that Aria would be considered a genius at most schools is a tragedy…’ Kain thought, in pity at the dismal talent supply at most schools.