Auditorium, Main Building.
Lith, Ralph, and Dennis were sitting at the front, a few meters away from the stage. The seating arrangement of the auditorium was done just like the opening ceremony one as today almost every 1st-year student was present.
The announcement regarding the Survival Tournament had been made. The venue for it was some other dimension connected to the academy and before going there, the students had to attend a short seminar and for that, they were assembled here, in the auditorium.
Eric, with both hands intact, walked towards the podium placed at the center of the stage. Adjusting the mic a bit, he looked at the crowd of almost ten thousand students and said:
“Good morning, students. Before your tournament begins, let me quickly brief you about the rules. They are simple; you can do anything you want and there are no restrictions—scheme, plunder, kill… anything. Pills, potions, artifacts, etc. can all be used, so if you have any with you right now, good job, if not, better luck next time.”
The students clicked their tongues in annoyance as they heard such a thing. This was so unfair on the academy’s part. They should’ve at least informed them that taking external help was allowed and they would’ve purchased, rented, or borrowed a few resources from their connections.
“You may think it is unfair, and this is exactly our point to make. The tournament has unofficially begun already. You should learn a lesson from this; always be prepared, no matter what.” Eric justified the actions of the academy to the annoyed students.
Eric continued, “you all will be given one badge. It’s a simple identity badge that will have your spiritual power infused in it. This is an elimination tournament and all one needs to do is have the identity token of the other person. Infuse your own spiritual power into your opponent’s token and once successfully done, the opponent would be eliminated and sent out of the other dimension.”
The students nodded their heads in understanding. A simple tournament this time, it seems. They liked how the academy kept things simple.
Lith and Ralph however had other thoughts about this. This tournament seemed too simple in their opinions. There was surely more to it than how it was explained. Regardless of that, they were calm and listened to the instructions seriously.
Emilia, who was sitting beside Lith, was watching the reactions of Lith, Ralph, and Dennis as they listened to Eric’s speech. Looking at Dennis who was two seats away from her own, she knitted her brows slightly. An important announcement was going and Dennis wasn’t paying attention to it. She willed the wind elements around and said, “Dennis, pay attention to the announcement.”
She did it in such a way that only Dennis was able to listen and no one else.
Dennis immediately straightened his back as he heard this. It seems his slacking was caught. He turned to the source of the voice and found Emilia glaring in his direction. He broke eye contact with her and put on a serious listening expression as he watched Eric speak.
Emilia then looked at Ralph who was sitting one seat away from her and noticed that he was listening as well as making notes of a few things on a small notepad in his hand
She nodded in satisfaction. This was how a student was supposed to be.
Emilia then looked at Lith who was right beside her. He was deep in his thoughts as he listened to Eric. She didn’t know what he was thinking. She patted lightly on his hand and said with a smile:
“No need to overthink about this. There really isn’t anything complex in this tournament.” Of course, she said it in such a way that only Lith was able to hear.
Lith broke out of his thoughts and felt Emilia’s pats on his hand. He smiled and nodded to her indicating he understood and shifted his gaze back to look at Eric.
“The tournament would officially begin once everyone is teleported to the other dimension. There is no time limit and the tournament would go on until only one student is remaining, meaning, all of you are eliminated except this one student.” Eric said in a neutral tone.
The students were amazed to hear this. Though they knew about it beforehand, still getting informed about it once again right before the tournament made their blood boil in excitement. The prizes that would be given were already mentioned before and they were so hefty and lavish that recalling them made the students drool. It was no wonder that listening about how the winner would be declared made them amazed and excited.
Ji who was in the middle nodded his head and Sheng ignored Ojas and continued to listen to what Eric was saying. Ji nudged his elbow at Sheng to grab his attention and said, “oi dude, did you not listen?”
Sheng turned and looked indifferent at Ji and Ojas and said, “I heard it. It wasn’t anything useful that you said to have me bother replying to it.”
Sheng was a guy who was serious most of the time and only talked when he felt something important was going on.
Hearing Sheng’s response, Ji and Ojas sighed. This guy needs to understand that being serious all the time isn’t a good thing. They had such a thought but kept it to themselves.
The excited mood was ruined by Sheng and the two stopped conversing together and listened seriously to what Eric was saying.
“That’s about it. The tournament will start now. Good luck, students. Do your best.” Eric said and clapped his hands twice.
A black colored badge with words written in shiny golden color appeared on the lap of every student present. They knew it was the identity badge and were informed about it. Their names were already etched onto the badge and all they needed to do was infuse a bit of their spiritual power.
“All the best.” Emilia looked at Lith, Ralph, and Dennis and said, to which the three nodded in response and thanked her.
Lith infused a bit of his spiritual power in it and just as he finished doing so, space fluctuated around him and he vanished from the spot.
One by one, everyone present in the auditorium vanished, leaving behind the staff of the academy.
Eric walked down the stage and sat on a random seat present at the front and minded his own business and didn’t bother Emilia sitting a few seats away.
Noticing this, Emilia was surprised but happy that Eric was quiet and didn’t bother her and turned back to look at the stage.
There were only the staff members present in the auditorium now and everyone’s attention was on the stage, which was empty and only had a podium placed at the center.
Emilia clapped her hand once and the entire stage flipped to 180° and in its place was now an empty black wall. Emilia clapped her hands once again and thousands of small screens appeared on the wall.
Each screen displayed around five to ten students and if any mortal were to look at it, his head would spin and he wouldn’t be able to process anything that was happening.
Emilia clapped her hand once again and a 12-inch tablet screen appeared on the lap of every staff member present in the auditorium.
This tablet had the same thing displayed on it that was seen on the wall. The staff members could select any small screen they wanted and have a detailed look at a select few students instead of the thousands of them present.
They could also send a request to a moderator via their tablets to have one particular group of students get more focused on the wall ahead so that everyone else could see them.
Emilia didn’t need to send a request, she was the principal and could do anything. She tapped a few times on the tablet screen and the view in front changed and focused on Lith, the top student, ranking 1st in the academy,
…
Blue Haze World.
At the bank of a river, surrounding which was a dense jungle, space fluctuated and Lith teleported out of thin air. Before he could look around and see where he was…
BOOM!
An explosion occurred just beside Lith.
Lith quickly cast Short Jump when he felt the violent magical fluctuations when teleporting out and arriving at this place and dodged.
Turning towards the source of the explosion after arriving a few meters away, Lith saw a group of monkeys using a staff to cast explosion spells.
The teleportation spots were fixed and the monkeys were trained to cast explosion spells on the certain spot Lith was present. The monkeys noticed that someone had arrived from the place they were casting explosion spells and their gaze fell on Lith, who was only a few meters away.
The monkeys yelled loudly and ran towards Lith as they found him to be an outsider who intruded upon their territory.
Looking at a bunch of monkeys coming toward him, Lith had an indifferent expression and said in a neutral tone:
“I just arrived and now I have to deal with a bunch of monkeys. Wow.”
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