848 Moments Before The Tournament

[A Few Days Later]

"Alright, everyone… how are you feeling?"

The five Class1-A students within the dedicated training hall stared at the man who asked the question—their temporary instructor—and as much as they wanted to respond immediately, they had to take a few breaths.

O'jog had been working them to the bone ever since he became their instructor, and all of it was for the special event that was coming up soon.

… Very soon.

"The preliminaries for the Academy Tournament Event is tomorrow. I have to know if you're all ready." He pushed once again, his cheerful face seemingly oblivious of the plight of the five Newts in front of him.

They were all within a blank white room that was just used for intensive training. This had been their schedule for days now, and they practically spent all their time practicing and learning all kinds of things from O'jog.

He wasn't the strongest for nothing.

Due to his position, however, he was very harsh on them.

"You have to win, okay? Failure isn't an option!" He would always say anytime he pushed them, completely numb to the pain they felt.

Perhaps this was what they needed… but it was hella painful.

"Haa… haa…"

"Y-yeah… we're ready."

"Yep…"

Slowly, the five students rose to their feet and arranged themselves in a straight line as they presented themselves to their Instructor.

Mi'ja. Ad'oni, Cyn'dy, R'ai, and Luc'ia: all determined to win.

"Good… good."

O'jog's lip spread over his face as he proudly looked at his students. "As you know, this year's event will be much different from the previous ones."

This was due to the overall smaller number of students participating in it. Rather than even calling it the Inter-Class Exchange, it had been rebranded into the Academy Tournament Event.

"I have the Roster here with me, so I guess your positions and opponents have been decided." O'jog brought out a tablet and looked at it with an amused smile.

He could definitely sense the palpable tension that his students had, but he couldn't help but get a little from feeling the unease and anxiety that seeped into each Newt.

Finally, after a few seconds, he spoke up.

"Of the 106 students that currently exist in the Academy, only 96 were eligible to participate. The students have been separated into preliminary fighting groups of three." He paused his reading and looked at the five at this point.

"You know what that means, right?"

They all nodded.

There would be a total of thirty-two groups—each of which would only need one winner from the three fighting in the group.

"Thirty-two students will be making it into the main event." He grinned.

All of this seemed very amusing for him, but it was the students that had plenty to worry about.

After all… they were at a heavy disadvantage.

Most of the surviving students participating in the Academy Tournament Event were seniors—particularly those in Stage 3. As a result, it was possible for the group of three to contain two seniors and just one junior.

If that was the case, it meant an automatic loss for the least experienced.

"There's no need to be too worried." O'jog grinned, folding his hands in the most relaxed manner possible. "I've trained you all, and I even encouraged you, so you should be fine."

Everyone nodded the moment they heard this.

—Rey and Lucielle included.

'I'm not sure what he expects a few days of training to do, but… I still don't plan on losing.' The former thought to himself as he stole a glance at the rest of his classmates.

'I can say the rest have the same resolve, but I only need Lucielle's victory.'

Speaking of Lucielle, he and her were scheduled for another session after the training… and he was pretty excited about it.

Ever since Rey suggested helping Lucielle with her research, the two of them had been spending a lot of time together—in her room, or in his—and she had been carrying out all sorts of experiments using his Skills.

'I initially thought they would get bothersome, but it turned out to be the opposite.'

He was really enjoying their time together.

'In any case, we still have some time until the prelims. That should be spent doing the most productive thing we can.'

He glanced at Cyn'dy for a second, and he found her gaze focused on O'jog while her face depicted utter seriousness.

'I feel a little guilty for relegating her to the side like this, but it's good that she isn't taking any of this badly.'

He had already told Cyn'dy that they needed to focus on the Prelims and so they couldn't hang out as much anymore. Of course, he spent all of this free time with Lucielle, but it seemed she took his counsel and remained extremely focused.

'I've never seen her so serious about school stuff.'

It wasn't just her, either.

Adonis and Mi'ja were also having the most honest looks of determination, and it was clear that they all wanted to win very badly.

'I suppose we're all going to give it our all.'

****************

The day finally arrived.

The auditorium seats were filled up by Dragons—old and young—who had come from all sorts of places to witness this special event of the Imperial Dragon Academy.

Since this Tournament was open to the public—as a special way to entice more people to apply to the Academy, since they were very short on students—the crowd of Dragons that occupied the seats felt unreal.

Thousands upon thousands of them watched the massive stage beneath them—almost like the place was a colosseum, or a gladiator ring.

Then, once a bright light echoed from beneath the stage and all of the participating students, as well as the Tournament Officials, appeared due to Teleportation Magic, everyone in the audience went crazy.

"WOHOOOOOOO!!!"

A lot of them had to be friends and families of respective students, so they had to give their hardest cheer possible.

One of the officials suddenly rose above the platform, flapping his wings powerfully as he activated Sound Magic and addressed everyone presently in the massive hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen… we shall now begin the Tournament Preliminaries!"

*

*

*

Thanks for reading!

Well… this should be fun. I appreciate everyone's support!