Europa was yet another of the six original grand-continents of Agartha with the other five being Tri-America, Sino-Europe, Afro-Arabia, Eastern Asgard and Luna.

Each continent being named for the old earth faction that settled it. As for why the Europans called themselves as such rather than as European or as Unified Europe, that all likely had something to do with the ill feelings the inhabitants of the original Europeans of the old earth held against a large portion of their former countrymen.

When half the EU defected and aligned themselves with Sino-Russian confederation to form Sino-Europe and kick start the Earth’s fifth world war, it suffices to say that a great grudge was formed. One that lasted well into the second century of mankind's meander through the great void of space. With an unease between the two factions remaining even after mankind had settled in its new home. Creating an atmosphere similar to that which had existed between the old United States and the SSR during the post-cold war era.

Of course the purging fires of the nuclear war that wiped out most of Agarthan civilization several millennia ago, had burnt away most of this grudge, but there were still a few AIs and immortals who vaguely remembered.

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The Dusk-Sea Academy sat on the low eastern coast of Europa in an area known to the locals as the Hollowmont region. The school was bit near the shore of a Red-Pacific Sea. A vast body of water that was formerly named as such due to the seasonal orange and red algae blooms.

As was the case for most of the other grand continents, Europa in general looked like big mishmash of all the former homelands of all its members. Frozen in the north. Balmy in the south. With an endless expanse of rolling emerald hills and cliffs. It was a temperate land of forests and magic. And well favored by many of the fae races that started appearing shortly after the bombs dropped and civilization had to start over.

Perhaps it was for this very reason and some quiet bias of the fae that the more prettily built, and longer lived machinegun were the most populous variation of man present on the continent. Outnumbering the vanilla humans and the bestial humankin by a ratio of three to two.

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The Hollowmont region was made up of five great Duchies that were held by two different kingdoms. The first kingdom was the Alden Kingdom that was founded on the northern part of the region and held the duchies of Blakeslee and Clarke. The second kingdom was Clayton Kingdom of the south that held the duchies of Comstock, Dawson, and Daugherty.

Naturally behind these kingdoms, would be some sects and schools.

As the Hollowmont region was not especially well known for having treasures or great resources that would be of interest to mages, cultivators or levellers of any kind, the only sorts of sects and schools that could be found in the region were of a humble sort. Ranging from small but elite establishments to larger groups that were more or less indistinguishable from your average mercenary company or gang of rogues.

Even then these groups could still be counted as proper sects and school, each of them holding power over multiple cities even if they still had to share their power over the two nations between them.

As is the case with any small pond with many mid-sized fish swimming within it, disputes were inevitable. Open warfare between the sects and schools would be calamitous for the common folk, as fights between levellers tended to be large scale and end in heavy in collateral damage.

Most importantly it would come at the disastrous cost of the lives of their seniors and treasured powerhouses.

Thus to avoid such misfortune, it had always been the tradition for sects and schools both on and off the continent to settle most of their differences through the tournaments they held for their juniors.

The Dusk-Sea Academy was no different.

Thus it was, months after the academy’s yearly sorting chosen ones and commoners it came time for the five year inter-school tournaments where the schools and sects of the region would begin preparing to compare their harvests from the last half-decade. Seeing how many of their jewels were really jewels and which ones were just useless shiny stones.