"They're starting."
"Wah, the Seven Pillars are going on first."
"I can't believe I'll be able to witness them this soon."
The spectators were pumped for the first round of the qualifiers.
The 'Seven Pillars' was a nickname they had just come up with to cover the seven most talented students of the First Dawn Academy, or at least, the students the audience believed were the most talented. In truth though, the Seven Pillars were merely the direct descendants of the great families in the third-year division of the First Dawn Academy: Aurora, Lyn, and Wendel Castellan, Emma Saunters, Ashton Graham, Alexander Sutton, and Asher Arnhaunt.
"Who are you rooting for?" A commoner asked his friend sitting beside him.
"It's definitely the twin godsouls. Who else?" The friend replied as a matter of fact.
"Heh, no fun. Although the godsouls are ahead, the gap isn't so vast. My money's on lady Emma Saunters to finish first. You have to know that the mist technique of the Saunters is perverse. The unpredictability of the element is what makes them remain on top for all these years."
However, the friend of the commoner countered.
"True, but the twin princesses have their advantages, especially the older twin, Princess Aurora. Rumour has it that she wields the lightning element. She's surely going to finish faster than the rest and even win. I placed a ton of cash on her. Once the tournament is over, I'll take you out for a celebration fest, hehe."
Selling tickets was one way the First Dawn Academy decided to make profits but since the Second Dawn Academy would be participating in the event, the profits would have to be shared between the two. This would mean that their gains would be low, so to maximize them, the First Dawn Academy had also opened other side businesses for the tournament.
Food stands and souvenir stores were one, but their golden goose was a betting platform. The people were allowed to place bets on who they thought would win the tournament and take first place. They could also bet on which student would occupy a position at the end of the tournament or even on side events like the qualifiers. When the official tournament began, the audience could even place bets on who would win a match and so on.
This was the first time such was introduced and some of the merchants couldn't help but be in awe at how the First Dawn Academy thought of such.
"Shh. It's starting."
The spectators calmed down as they stared collectively at the huge screen floating above the stage. The 'screen' was actually a four-sided object with each side being an independent display board. All boards were the same, being divided into one hundred sections with each section showing the scene in one of the one hundred caves.
Ding.
A bell chime rang out in the South View mountain indicating the start of the first round of the qualifiers.
Almost immediately, the students within the mountain made their moves.
"Uwaaaa. Some are already done."
"So fast."
The spectators were shocked.
Barely two seconds after the bell chimed, some people noticed that a few of the students were already done. These students were those whose strength was considerably ahead of the puppets.
Aurora, Lyn, and Emma were part of this group. Surprisingly, Hanru from the Second Dawn Academy belonged here and this performance of his turned him into a dark horse in the eyes of the people. These four had taken down their opponents almost instantly and as such, attracted the most attention from both nobles and commoners.
"Such talent. This is a new golden generation." A viscount who was seating in the VIP section sighed.
A few seconds later, more students had completed their battles. These were the group slightly weaker than the former and were mostly the other members of the Seven Pillars with some other top geniuses at the peak of the second stage of the Guardian realm. Wendel Castellan, Ashton Graham, Koln, and Ethan Croft, who was a part of Aurora's team during the practical test at the Manchurian forest, were a few names among the group [1]. Alexander Sutton was also part of this group but he completed his battle slower than the others.
After these two groups, the other students took their time in facing their opponents. This was because compared to the students in the other two groups, the remaining students were weaker and below the peak of the second stage. Hence, facing off against four mid-rank second-stage Guardian mages, albeit puppets, would prove to be a difficult task for them.
Nonetheless, for the mid-rank second-stage students, it wasn't an impossible one, requiring only time and focus.
Those who completed their battles departed the cave and went to recuperate while some staff members moved in and cleared the place up, replacing the puppets with new ones.
"The Seven Pillars are pretty much done." A member of the spectators commented, still shocked by the speed it took them to be over.
"No. There's still one more." Someone by the side refuted.
"Huh? Who?" The man who spoke before was surprised.
"The son of the White Fox, Asher Arnhaunt."
The man looked through the sections and sure enough he found the view that belonged to Asher's cave.
"How come?"
The man wasn't the only one who was shocked as the other spectators who realized the same thing were stunned. They all had the same question in their heads; why was Asher still in there?
Unless Asher had purposely not taken down his opponents quickly, the only other explanation was that he was too weak to do so, and many of them refused to believe such.
The only son of the famed duke being weak? Absurd.
Even if he was, as long as he was fed with countless resources, there was no way that Asher would be weak at the early stage of his growth. Also, it was rumoured that he was academically among the top three best students, and was in the top ten overall. This meant that the qualifiers shouldn't be an issue for Asher.
Hence, the spectators began wondering if that wasn't the case, then for what reason did Asher refrain from taking his opponents down right away when the others did so?