“My dragon brethren!” a voice boomed loudly. “I am proud to announce the commencement of our 8th Dragon Tournament!”

Erebus plugged his ears as thunderous applause and cheering filled the volcano.

The Dragon Tournament was held inside of an extinct volcano. And thanks to Lisset, stands had been formed in the rocky walls. The stands were located around the entire perimeter of the volcano and mana stones were put into the walls to serve as the lighting for the otherwise mostly dark area.

A metal flooring was suspended over the chasm where lava used to exist. And at the four sides of the flooring, a metal bridge was connected that lead into a dark cave. The cave was where the competitors would enter and exit.

The members of the Council had the best seating in the entire place, they were only elevated slightly above the flooring where the other dragons would fight/compete.

A large portion of the tournament required actually (non-lethal) fighting between the opposing sides, but there were other games that involved no violence (it wasn’t against the rules to use violence in these games, though).

As usual, basically all of the dragons on the continent would come to the Tournament. It was a huge occasion in dragon tradition. For the dragons, strength was put in even heavier emphasis. The Tournament exemplified this. But you couldn’t win with brute strength, you had to be cunning, too.

The Tournament lasted for five days, the winners would receive a prize from the Dragon Council. The awards varied from time to time with what was most valuable and such.

Despite the fact that the Tournament was only five days long after a thousand years of waiting, it was supposedly ‘well worth’ it.

But Erebus had absolutely no interest in the Tournament. To him, it was pointless. To him, it wasn’t even entertaining. Where was the fun in watching other people fight or play games? It’d be far more entertaining if he could just join in.

Ah, he wanted to go home and take naps again in peace.

Well, ignoring the extremely eccentric people around him.

“Woah! Master Erebus, look at that guy,” Weryn said, pointing to a beefy looking man that was now staging on the metal floor. Across from him was an equally beefy looking man.

Their muscles had muscles.

“Why are they so disgustingly huge,” Azure complained next to Erebus. She shook her head.

“What is this event?” He had missed the announcement, more like, he had stopped listening and used his refined skill of ignoring everything around him.

“It’s the first day! They start to narrow down the crowd that joined the festival until they get down to the top one hundred. There are normally two hundred who passed preliminaries. This part last for two days,” Weryn explained.

Hey, hey! How much did this kid study?

“Is that so?” Erebus responded in an uninterested voice.

“Yeah!” Weryn clappsed his hands excitedly and whooped along with the crowd. “I’m really excited to see their fighting, I’ve never seen actually battles. They get to use their magic and everything!”

Erebus nodded uninterestedly.

He could honestly care less. He doubted these children would inspire any awe inside of him.

Well, he’d check it out.

Erebus lifted the eyepatch over his left eye and focused it on the two individuals. Weryn, upon seeing this, looked over in confusion.

White wisp were flowing out and in of their bodies. He couldn’t see their bodies but rather the mana inside that was shaped like their bodies. Everything else seemed to be blurred by a white fog that was flowing and moving. A normal person would have a hard time making out the differences, but Erebus had trained his eyes.

This substance was mana. It was typically invisible to the naked eye. Erebus’ ability was amazing, not only could he see mana, but he could differentiate between it, too.

The mana flow between the two of them wasn’t as high as Weryn’s. But then again, Weryn would be what they called a ‘natural-talent’. The two were about equal in their mana flow, so the superiority of magic power wouldn’t differ too much.

Hmm... maybe this could be interesting, Erebus thought. He had witnessed plenty of real life battles, but he had never bothered analyzing them.

“What was that?” Weryn asked curiously when Erebus let go of the eyepatch. He had seen Erebus lift his eyepatch revealing the emerald eye beneath, but he didn’t know why.

“Ah, it’s something that allows me to see mana.”

“See mana!” Weryn gasped, drawing the attention of the other Council members. Erebus had never explained his eye to them, even after thousands of years. He had only given them the vague answer of: it helps me with things.

They hadn’t really pressed for him to go into more detail.

Even the sharp-faced Lisset, who was normally uninterested in Erebus, was looking over curiously.

“What... why is everyone looking at me so intently?” Erebus asked. Not only was Lisset looking, but also Midrn. His golden-green eyes were filled with interest.

Even Massath and Dissolve! The renowned slackers were interested in the properties of Erebus’ eye.

“Your eye,” Rolut explained, he was seated between Azure and Lisset. “We’re interested.”

Erebus touched his eyepatch lightly. “For everyone to look at me like this, I think my heart’s beating a little faster.”

“Just explain it,” Lisset snapped.

Erebus raised his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay~” He tapped his chin. “Let’s see... I was born blind in one eye-”

“Seriously?” Weryn asked, cutting off Erebus.

The other dragons had known this piece of information already so they weren’t really surprised.

“Ah... this was a really long time ago. But when mana came into this world, I--”

“You were alive before mana came into existence?” Weryn gasped.

“My eye filled with mana. Like a mana stone of some sorts, I’m now able to see mana through it. Through many years of trial, I’m able to use my eye as a mana supplement.”

The Council members nodded their heads in acceptance, it was a rather useful tool. Weryn, on the other hand, his eyes were filled with pure admiration.

“So cool...” he said. His focus on the battle that had started during Erebus’ explanation had completely shifted.

It was almost amazing how a child’s mind works.

During his training sessions with Erebus, they could only go for so until Weryn was completely distracted and started slacking off.

Within a day or two, Weryn had more or less all of the basic magic. Well, the magic itself was extremely easy for the average person so a prodigy would have absolutely no difficulty in learning it after they got passed the first stages.

Once Weryn had broken down his barrier of forming magic, he was able to cast it effortlessly. It was still a little rough but it was still amazing.

Erebus genuinely thought Weryn would have a chance against a mage with high combat experience. He picked up things quickly.

Anyway, the battle between the two competitors was fierce. The speed that they were exchanging blows would be invisible to the human eye. But for the dragon race, they were mediocre. Slightly better than the rest, maybe.

The two clearly weren’t the cream of the crop.

One of the competitors had a bald head and the other had a golden mane of hair. They will now be affectionately known as Baldy and Goldie.

Baldy was currently attempting to back Goldie into a tough spot. But Goldie wasn’t having that.

Goldie didn’t allow Baldy to pin him into a corner where he could fall off of the arena. If he was pushed off the metal platform, it’d be an instant loss.

Baldy delivered a beautiful high kick but Goldie turned his body and blocked with both arms up. Goldie responded with two punches which Baldy, too, blocked.

It continued like this. They weren’t landing any hits on each other. The battle was at a stagnant, one of them would need to overwhelm the other in order to win.

Baldy and Goldie finally broke away from each other and started to circle each other. They were going to change tactics, it would seem.

Goldie was the one who charged first this time. He rapidly fired off bullets of earth magic with his left hand and wrapped the bullets with air magic from his right. The air magic increased the speed and piercing power of the bullets.

Solid tactic in order to pierce the other’s mana shield, Erebus thought as he watched this unfold.

Weryn, too, was watching this with interest. Even though he didn’t say it, his true intention was to gather information on how to use his magic offensively. It’s not like he could ask Erebus, a person who was specialized in magic he could never dream of using.

Erebus had helped him with the basics but that was all. He could teach Weryn physically combat. But... Weryn wasn’t really sure if he wanted to spar against Erebus.

Oh, didn’t Erebus have other servants? Weryn was coming with him to his castle under Rolut’s request (demand, he wanted to keep eyes on Erebus). Maybe they could teach him physical combat...

Weryn snapped himself out of his thoughts. He could worry about that later, right now, he had to focus on learning on how to fight with magic second-hand.

Baldy was losing. He wasn’t able to keep up with Goldie’s rapid fire. His magic was too slow to keep up.

Goldie finally knocked Baldy off of the arena, the other man fell and landed on the catch net underneath.

“Dammit!” Badly’s roar of frustration rung throughout the volcano.