A few days after Kretos decided to be a student, he found out that the supposed tournament wasn"t happening anytime soon. The few weeks Mia was talking about was all wrong. So he needed to wait it out for the time being. After learning that he needed to wait for the tournament to happen, Kretos decided to learn more about it. He told Afeus to explain the details of the tournament. Unfortunately, Afeus had little to no knowledge about the said tournament. So instead he guided Kretos to the library and found the related books regarding the tournament.
The tournament used to be something else entirely a few centuries back. It began when the school was still, a single mage tower. There was only one person at that time that could teach higher level spells and it was the Grand Mage.
Knowing this and wanting only the finest disciple, the Grand Mage at the time held a tournament to receive the finest disciple. Only the most talented and strongest people could become the Grand Mage"s disciple, so he told the people that he would host a tournament, in which the winner will become his disciple. As for the losers depending on their performance, he would grant artifacts.
After the first Grand Mage of the kingdom did it, the next Grand Mage his successor did the same thing. The following Grand Mages followed with the same tradition. But as the mage tower grew in size, it was no longer a single mage"s tower, instead, it turned into a school.
This happened because of those who failed to become the Grand Mage"s disciples. Those that lost the tournament stayed near the mage"s tower hoping that the Grand Mage would change his mind and pick another disciple.
As the losers grew, they started to teach the newcomers about magic. Every now and then they would witness a spell from the mage"s towers and gain enlightenment. This trend continued for hundreds of years, until the single mage"s tower, turned into a few dozen. The surrounding area then turned into a fortress of a school.
Nowadays the tournament is held every time the current Grand Mage felt like it. It wasn"t every three years like Mia and Afeus said. It just turns out that the current Grand Mage likes hosting the tournament every three years. This was for the new students to get a chance to be given a private lesson from the current Grand Mage. The losers that showed promise the same as before were given mystical artifacts.
So the reason the tournament wasn"t happening in a few weeks, is because the Grand Mage hasn"t decided on the exact time for the tournament to be held. Though he did announce that he would be holding the tournament before winter.
This was information Kretos was able to gain from a wad of paper that the students received informing them about what was happening. It would seem that neither Afeus or Mia were able to read this paper, because they were heavily focused on their research at that time. Kretos continued to read the wad of paper. After a bit of reading, he finally knew what was happening.
So knowing how eccentric he was the other high-level mages were the ones who started preparing for the tournament. They made an announcement to all the kingdoms that were friendly with them. As per usual, the rules remained the same only students under the age of twenty-two may join the tournament.
Many of the students of the other kingdoms all wanted the chance to be thought by the Grand Mage even though it was just a single lesson, it was all worth it. Besides that, even if they lose as long as they show their stuff, they can gain artifacts. So even though the date for the start of the tournament wasn"t finalized, some of the representatives of the other kingdoms decided to immediately head to the Serbek Kingdom.
On, the other hand, the students of the mages school, Rulwarry, Inst.i.tute Of The Arcane. They weren"t that thrilled about the prospect of the tournament. For the last few decades, the students of the inst.i.tute and the nearby schools, have failed to win the tournament. They weren"t even good enough to receive the artifacts.
The reason for this was because the students were more focused on research and tearing the mask of the world to reveal its secrets. They had zero combat training and only knew how to cast big spells that take a lot of time to manifest.
After reading the wad of paper, Kretos was surprised. Whoever wrote this was writing in a way that could p.i.s.s off the other students. Kretos looked around and saw that though there were a lot of copies of this wad of paper, no one was reading it.
Everyone was too focused on what they were currently reading, and what the students in the library were reading were thick books that could take a few days to finish.
"These students do seem like all they care about is research... Then what"s with that noisy guy that was messing around with Afeus?" Kretos then remembered Evior and his group. Those guys didn"t seem like the same type as the other students. In fact, they didn"t even feel like mages, but hooligans instead.
"Well, whatever now that I know more about the tournament, I wonder what else I could do? Seeing as the students of this school are no threat to me. How about I gain more information about the other schools from the different kingdoms that will be joining the tournament. If I join this thing, then I"m going to win it all."
Kretos then felt a weird sort of excitement that made his heart beat faster, his blood boiling with antic.i.p.ation. He couldn"t help but smile a very vicious smile, as he thought about the battles he would have. He couldn"t understand why, but just thinking about the prospect of fighting strong foes, made his body tremble in exhilaration.