Chapter 2274 Straight to the Point
Norse region.
The city that usually is full of hustle and bustle is silent. Even if there are no commoners and there are only students, the number is in tens of thousands in one region. It should have been thriving. That was how it was when they came last time.
And now, instead of just freshmen tournament, it is a full tournament of the academies.
This is the biggest test the academies take and this basically decides their ranking among the hundred Divine Academies. So many people, the students from other regions, elders, commoners, outsiders, everyone should have visited this place.
But right now, there are barely any people in the city, except for the elders and the partic.i.p.ants that came to represent their academies.
"Why do I have to do this again?" Chorus lazily muttered his frustrations as they walked to their destination.
Paradise Inn.
The building that they stayed at when they came for the Freshman tournament. It has obviously changed owners. After learning of Ivar"s actions and his departure, the Thor academy quickly occupied this place.
So, it neither had the previous level of service nor it had the same majesty.
It looked pretty dull. There is definitely some serious lapses in maintenance. The building is still solid and the rooms are free and wide. Usually, with the increased number of contestants for this tournament, inns wouldn"t be sufficient.
After all, this time in particular, there are hundred academies partic.i.p.ating.
There is no way all of those people will fin in the inns, with each academy having more than a hundred people for all the compet.i.tions in all the graders combined. However, since most of the Norse region has been emptied out, there are a lot of buildings.
So, there is no trouble for occupancy. Everyone got their own room. Sam managed to get his old room at the paradise inn back. The room service is certainly lacking though. The opening ceremony is that evening and as usual, the auxiliary compet.i.tions will begin first.
The Dean did say that there will be some changes in the format, they will also be announced that evening.
Sam almost got bored waiting for the ceremony to begin.
Usually, this time gap is created so that people can socialize a bit. The different regions might have compet.i.tive agendas, but benefits can be increased by relationships like this. Students also take the opportunity to do so.
However, this time no one is in the mood for that.
Every region suffered a bit and the tensions are really high. Particularly the Olympian academies and some Sanatan academies. They faced the most losses, so both of them are especially vigilant.
At the evening, Sam followed the group of Gambler academy members to reach the Thor academy.
In the large open ground of the academy, all the partic.i.p.ants from various regions were seated along with the representative elders that came with them.
It was like a large open-air auditorium. Everyone got their own seat.
Olaf stood at the one and only stage, all alone as he addressed the people.
"Welcome everyone to the Annual Inter-academy tournament.
I believe that with everything that is going on, there is a lot of tension. But this tournament is our tradition and it represents the long standing survival and prosperity of the academy realm. So, I hope that all of you can find the lost vigor and excitement for this.
I am sure, a lot of young heroes are waiting to show off their skills.
So, I will keep the small talk to minimal and get straight to the point. As you might have been informed, a decision has been made to keep the format of the tournament a bit a different from the previous years. All hundred academies sent their representatives.
That is of course the biggest and the most notable change.
For that reason, the scale of the compet.i.tion will be a lot bigger than usual. Most of the compet.i.tions will remain same as well.
We are going to host the auxiliary compet.i.tions first before we go for the combat compet.i.tions.
Because of the high number of partic.i.p.ants most of the compet.i.tions might take longer than usual and there will be more layers to each of the compet.i.tion. They will be explained more when the compet.i.tions begin.
As you all know, these results will hold a significant weightage in your academy rankings, so I hope everyone can perform their best…"
Even though Olaf said that he will keep it short, his tirade went on for a while before he actually came to the point that Sam was most intrigued by.
"With the all the changes that I mentioned, there is one big change in the compet.i.tion. That is the Solo Combat.
Usually, there would have been a tournament style preliminary compet.i.tion until the 32 top partic.i.p.ants were selected before another tournament style compet.i.tion to decide the top 5 winners.
However, this time there are way too many partic.i.p.ants. So, we made a decision to make the preliminaries more interesting."
Olaf paused for a moment and continued.
"From the moment that you step out of the Thor academy gates after this opening ceremony, the preliminaries for the Solo Combat begins."
He paused once again as people became and started murmuring.
"What you heard is right, from the moment you step out of this place, the solo combat prelims will begin.
The whole city is your arena and the cultivators can fight their respective grade students in the city. Of course, there are a set of rules here.
Any compet.i.tor can track, ambush, challenge or even try to a.s.sa.s.sinate their fellow compet.i.tors of the same grade. However, you cannot team up, take the help of your seniors or elders and no external interference would be tolerated.
If you are helped by someone, your fellow peer or otherwise, you will be eliminated.
The fights can be done anywhere and anytime, except for when one of the partic.i.p.ants is also partic.i.p.ating in another compet.i.tion. Only in that time that partic.i.p.ant cannot be challenged or attacked.
Apart from that, the students can use any means.
You can attack your opponent when they are sleeping, or eating or just finished fighting another opponent.
Of course, there is also the problem with people trying to bend the rules and attacking an opponent together. But there is a rule to ensure that won"t happen. If two candidates are engaged, then those two candidates are not be engaged or attacked by anyone else.
The engagement could be a direct attack, a sneak attack, a verbal challenge from face to face, or even a sneaky poisonous attempt.
All the solo combat partic.i.p.ants will be given a special token that they have to attack to their clothes all the time.
By default it will show an yellow color, which indicates that you are neither engaged, nor eliminated. If the token turns green, that means you are engaged with another candidate and you are off limits for the rest.
The engagement no matter how small will always be detected. Even if you involuntarily taste the poison left behind by one of the other candidates, you will know. But you will not the name of your opponent.
Only that you have an opponent.
Of course, you might be thinking how can I ensure that you won"t be able to attack or get attacked when you are not supposed to.
Preparations have been made. The whole city, including the academy grounds have all been surrounded with a special formation. In this time, if you are attacked by someone or something while you are already engaging with some other partic.i.p.ant, you will be protected by this formation.
The formation will also not allow you to attack anyone else if you are already engaging with someone else.
The attacks could even be from a person at the level of the Dean or Grand elder, they will be defended completely.
Now, coming to the elimination criteria. It is very simple actually.
Death, and direct surrender. Those are the only two criteria. Even if you are unconscious, it wouldn"t matter. Your opponent can come and kill you. The only way to avoid death is to beat your opponent, surrender yourself, or in the nick of time, your elder has to notify the surrender in your behalf.
The formation will listen to you and protect you up on your surrender.
Also, the formation will strictly prohibit the usage of Divine artefacts that exceed the compet.i.tion limit. The partic.i.p.ants can use formations, inscriptions, etc. But they should also not exceed a certain range. The judgement will be left for the formation only.
As I said before.
Only sixteen people will remain at the end.
The remaining will be a normal tournament. I wish everyone all the luck in the world. Hope the best student wins."
With that Sam lost the interest again. There are some rules that were explained once again. However, no one is in a mood to listen.