Chapter 640: Tournament Groups
The learning of the four elemental swordsmanship styles went very smoothly. Xiao Lin was already very familiar with all of them after just half a month. Other than his talent, the elemental compression he had learned before helped a lot as well. Ever since he entered the academy, the things Xiao Lin had learned were rather scattered, but it felt like he had managed to piece all of it together.
After that, Xiao Lin then spent a week trying to learn Starburst. Starburst was a fusion of all four swordsmanship styles, and used a combination of the four elements. It gained its name because the sword aura it produced gleamed like the stars.
At the last moments, Xiao Lin also learned a few other basic skills, but most of them were just Black Iron-ranked skills. Those skills might not be that strong, but Xiao Lin still noticed that skills were not just limited to how destructive they were. There were many skills with utility that could not be replaced.
For instance, the Black Iron-ranked slow fall spell, delay spell and stealth detection spells — those spells all did not have high requirements to learn them, and were quite easy. Even if they did not learn them, after they entered the second year and everyone’s Basic Meditation was at a solid level, the academy would teach it to all of them. So, Xiao Lin had merely fast-forwarded his schedule by over half a year.
Of course, Chen Dao and the other monitors that focused on magic had also looked for books in the library. It was not just Xiao Lin who thought this way, but in terms of the number of spells learned, they would not be able to compete with Xiao Lin. Even when it came to low-level utility spells, there were hundreds or even thousands of them.
Xiao Lin had initially just picked up a few at random to learn, but he quickly realized that most of the spells were very useful, such as healing spells and lumination spells. Those spells might just be low-level incantations, but because it required combining elements, they were second- or third-year subjects.
However, to Xiao Lin, they were not difficult at all. Combining elements was something he had already grasped when he started compressing the elements.
Combining elements could be called difficult, but could be called simple as well. Planet Norma was filled with the four basic elements, and the basic elements were the cradle of birth in the world. However, with the constant development of the world, even more elements were born, and those elements were all born from the basic elements.
For instance, once the density of water elements reached a certain level, they would turn into the ice element, and when water and wind elements reached a certain level of integration, it turned into the thunder element.
Combining elements required a very high degree of control of the elements, and was quite similar to compressing elements, which also needed a very high sense and mastery of the elements.
Academic Genius’s pa.s.sive skill was slowly becoming more and more important. Each skill he mastered saved Xiao Lin no short amount of time. Acc.u.mulating it all together revealed a very shocking amount of time. Some of the subjects Xiao Lin approached were those that only third years would touch. Now, he not only far exceeded the first years, he was even beginning to catch up or exceed the second-year students.
The month felt a bit too short to Xiao Lin. After he calmed down and threw himself into his studies, he could not stop himself from feeling a sense of regret when he received the notification from Yu Mei that the tournament was about to start. If he had even more time, he could definitely master even more.
Xiao Lin could not help but admit that he had wasted too much time on things unrelated to his studies before, such as being sent to the New World for tasks a few times. No wonder the old dean, the president, and even Song Junlang had reminded him before that he should not be meddling in too many affairs at his stage. The tournament was a reason, but more importantly was the new dean’s restrictions on Xiao Lin, causing him to be unable to head to the New World anyway, which actually led to him being able to focus on his studies.
No matter what, the Inter-academy Tournament was finally about to start.
Based on the tournament regulations, the final stage of the tournament would feature eight academies, and Dawn Academy, Judge Academy, Sainte Académie, and Voyna Akademiya had all been seeded into it as members of the Supreme Council. The other academies would go through a series of matches to determine the last three spots.
The fights had already been concluded during that month. Yu Mei told the monitors that the final three spots had been won by the j.a.panese, German, and Turkish academies. They would join the five big academies in this Inter-academy Tournament.
“The eight academies will be split into two groups, and then will compete in home and away matches, using the number of wins to determine the standing in the groups. The top two in the standings will advance, while the other two will be eliminated. The elimination matches will no longer use home and away matches, so in the interest of fairness, the matches will be held on the New World.
“The group stage draws have already concluded yesterday. Our president was in charge of drawing, so he is not here today. The ones in our group are j.a.pan, Turkey, and America.”
After gathering everyone in the training hall, Yu Mei announced it to everyone. At the same time, she sent the general tournament schedule to everyone. Xiao Lin quickly browsed through it. Based on the schedule, their first opponents would be Judge Academy. After that, they would face the Turkish academy, followed by the j.a.panese academy. In the first round, other than the match against Judge Academy being an away match, they would host the other two, and the second round was the reverse.
They would host two of the matches in the first round, which was quite a big advantage. It was obvious that it was a special treatment toward the main academies because they would need to go through Earth from the spatial corridor back to their own countries before flying to the other country and heading to the opponent’s academy. Putting aside how tiring the journey was, the tournament maps would be decided by the other party, which was definitely a huge advantage. So, the group stages were done in two rounds to protect the weaker academies.
The monitors looked at the schedule, and each of them had their own opinions. Cheng Ming said first, “According to power levels, Judge Academy should be our strongest opponents.”
“j.a.pan is actually in the same group as us. Yes, we’ll need to trounce them!” The young Chen Dao had some impulsive thoughts.
“The Turkish academy should be the weakest. I remember they were the latest academy to colonize the New World along with Argentina, so their foundations can’t compare to ours.”
“So our only worthy rival is basically the Americans?”
“The first two in the standing will advance anyway, so it should be fine, even if we lose to Judge Academy.”