The first tournament had nothing much of interest. Only one round of battles would be held, and the winners would be eligible to move on immediately. In fact, the only thing that was interesting was the sight of two boys slugging it out with each other — their cultivations were too low, and for some reason, none of them were using artefacts. Their fists seemed to have some magical attraction to their opponent’s face, and it didn’t take long before one of them decided that their skin was on the verge of permanent disfiguration.

And with that, the winner was showered with enormous applause. Not because it was a good fight, but rather, the two had taken up fifteen minutes that could have been better spent in looking at grass.

“That was probably the most anti-climactic fight in the history of Orb,” Isabelle muttered.

“That’s how most fights on Earth go, though,” Gaius said.

“I can see why the Cardinal Champions loved it here, then,” Isabelle replied. “Earth is a really boring place, if even you say something like that. Though…in that case, it should be quite peaceful there, right? No one has the ability to kill people in massive numbers instantly, right?”

Gaius thought back to the countless wars that had occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and then briefly debated if he should pop that little bubble of hers. “Let’s put it this way. There was this thing called World War One, and at least sixteen million died there. Around twenty years later, give or take, World War Two happened, killing at least fifty-six million there.”

Isabelle blinked. “That’s…quite a lot of people.”

“Exactly. Just because Earth doesn’t have mystical things doesn’t mean that they can’t kill people quickly and rapidly,” said Gaius. “Admittedly, however, people on Earth tend to be more fragile than the people of Orb, so that’s that.”

Gaius looked up. “Alright, Nakama. Your turn to shine. Remember what I told you, and it will work out perfectly.”

“Okay!” Nakama skipped off, heading towards the ring closest to them. She was soon joined by a boy that looked around seventeen, whose first reaction upon seeing the little Nakama was to rub his eyes, before grinning foolishly.

Some of the others in the adjacent rings gritted their teeth or shot looks of presumably envy at the boy, but Gaius was looking forward to the beatdown.

“How long do you think the boy will last, Isabelle?”

“Ten seconds, tops.”

“We can’t bet if we both think the same thing,” Gaius replied. “Fine. Let’s just watch her hilariously overpowered artefacts take the stage.”

After a few more minutes, the fights started. Almost immediately, Nakama activated a Palisade, tossed out Lightning and Stone, and then watched as the boy’s charge was met with a floating knife. Blood splattered onto the Palisade’s projected barrier — Stone had stabbed into the boy’s right leg, ending his charge prematurely.

Lightning, who was hovering beside Nakama, hadn’t moved at all, but the battle was over. The medic had stopped the battle, and after sparing some odd glances at the clearly cheerful knife, began to nurse the poor boy back to health.

“How sad,” Isabelle murmured. “I hope the next one will be more interesting.”

Gaius didn’t find it in himself to agree. He had the feeling that Nakama’s victim was going to be traumatised for some time after this. There was nothing more horrible than being attacked by a floating knife, if his first dreams about artefacts were of any indication — Gaius himself had nightmares of a knife chasing his back long ago.

The second round began without much ado. This time, however, Lightning apparently wanted to take the spotlight — the azure crystal immediately blasted a small hole through their opponent’s shoulder, ending the battle instantly. The brilliant blue had garnered the attention of the audience, but they could only stew in their curiosity. Nakama had left the ring immediately afterwards, having obtained her proof of victory.

“That’s how you do it,” said Gaius. “How does it feel, using overpowered artefacts to defeat an opponent?”

Nakama tilted her head. “It feels…good?”

“Exactly. This is how you’re going to fight, where possible. Of course, you should start cultivating soon, but always fight with as much advantages as possible,” said Gaius. He turned to Isabelle, who was staring at Lightning. “Isabelle, I’ll leave that to you.”

“Of course.” Isabelle squeezed Nakama’s cheeks. “Good fight out there.”

“Ehehe.”

“You’re up next, Isabelle,” said Gaius. “Three rounds for you. Don’t get careless.”

She nodded. Instead of walking down the steps, however, Isabelle took to the skies, and gasps echoed around the amphitheatre as the Knight no longer held her cultivation back. Floating idly, she descended onto the same ring that Nakama chose earlier on, and then drew out the rapier she’d obtained from Solaris’ tomb.

On cue, the others began to descend, but after waiting helplessly for five minutes, the medic-slash-judge could only inform her that she was given a bye, since no one dared to fight her. She would move on to round two, where she would face a battle…

Or not.

Round two came, but rather than fighting Isabelle, the poor kid, who had lost in this weird variant of musical chairs where winning was choosing an opponent that wasn’t called Isabelle, decided to forfeit. And by now, Gaius could tell why. There were only six prospective students who had at least Knight-class strength — Gaius himself and Isabelle included.

And it seemed that all of them were aiming to enter through the fourth tournament, other than Isabelle. And with that, the Knight clinched an effortless victory, where the only thing she did was to watch the others fight it out helplessly.

“Nicely done,” said Gaius. “How does it feel, using your cultivation to scare away your opponents?”

Isabelle pouted, and then began to chat with Nakama, ignoring Gaius deliberately. The boy laughed, and then went down the steps slowly. The fourth tournament was beginning, and as he stepped down slowly, he noticed that there were far less individuals this round.

The reason?

Four Knights, following Isabelle’s example, had flew down to a ring of their choosing. It was painfully evident that they too used Engines, and this extravagant display was more than enough to deter a huge chunk of people from participating at all. In fact, there were only twelve people, Gaius included, with the four Knights given a pass directly.

All things considered, this was a rather odd format.

Gaius’ opponent wasn’t anyone he knew, but there sure was someone he knew, standing around quietly. If he hadn’t come down then, he wouldn’t have noticed that one of those Knights who had made a grand entrance earlier was someone from the Eastern Territories — and the only reason he knew that was because the fella had travelled with him to the North in the first place.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to his opponent, a youth in metal armour. It reminded him of a European man-at-arms, and with a jolt, Gaius realised that this person was someone who came with that Countess Reinford earlier. It would seem that she wasn’t the only one from the Western Holdings that was aiming to enter the Phrontistery of Scientific Reasoning.

This is really an international school, eh? Gaius shook his head and extended his right hand. There was a distance of ten metres between him and the opponent, and the moment the battle started, qi gushed out from his body, forming a solid blade twenty metres long that towered into the sky.

Gaius saw his opponent falter as a massive current of energy extended out of his hand and into the sky. Without much ado, he flicked his wrist downwards. Metal shrieked as Gaius’ casual attack slammed his opponent down onto the floor, leaving a twitching body behind.

“Don’t worry,” said Gaius, “he’s still very much alive. You might want to remove the metal on him, though.”

The medic glanced at him, a hint of fear in his eyes, and then scurried over to the poor man. Gaius could feel a whole bunch of gazes falling on him, which was to be expected, and after grabbing his proof of victory, the boy walked back to the stands. The four rounds for this tournament had been cut down to just one, since few Squires dared to tangle with the number of Knights that had shown up.

“Nicely done,” said Isabelle. “Was that a new move you came up with?”

“Some time ago, when fighting against the Lifespring’s forces. I needed a mid-range attack,” said Gaius. “I can’t make it any longer than twenty metres, though.”

“I don’t think I can make something as strong as yours and have it a single metre long,” said Isabelle. “Who are you comparing against?”

“Lords and Paragons?”

Isabelle reached out towards Gaius and began to knead his head with her knuckles.

“Hey, stop it!” Gaius twisted, but he didn’t dare to do anything to her. His body was too strong — a careless twist might hurt her — and eventually, Isabelle let up, but not after a few admiring gazes came their way.

“Mm. That felt much better,” said Isabelle. “It’s almost time for us to go down.”

“Go ahead, I’ll walk,” said Gaius. “I feel like being low-profile for once.”

Nakama blinked. “But you just used a giant blade of qi.”

“That’s different,” Gaius replied. “It’s hard to explain, but you’ll get it eventually.”

The little girl looked at him, doubt on her face, but Gaius wasn’t going to delve deep into his psyche and explain the difference here. Getting up, the two walked down the steps together.

The rules of the tournament actually worked on a rather odd mechanism, despite his words earlier. The qualified from the first tournament would duke it out, and the winners would challenge the qualified from the second tournament. The winners of that clash would then go up against the qualified from the third, and so on.

It looked good on paper, but Gaius wasn’t too sure what such a format did. What were the organisers thinking when they created such a format?

Before long, thirty-two people had fallen, and the winners moved on. Gaius kept an eye out on Nakama, who promptly blasted her incoming opponent into oblivion seconds later with the help of Lightning. She had some trouble with her next opponent, a woman with a tower shield who tanked quite a few shots, but Stone, a sentient knife whose sharpness rivalled Gaius’ own Terminus, sliced through it handily.

On Isabelle’s side, she had dispatched her opponent with a single blow. There was nothing to it — she’d glided smoothly forward, and wielding the rapier she chose from Solaris’ tomb, she shattered metal, energy and bone with a single flick.

And with that, the top sixteen had been decided. At this point, dropping out wouldn’t be an issue, but as luck would have it, Nakama was Gaius’ next opponent. The two stared at each other helplessly, and Gaius was on the verge of conceding when Nakama skipped off the stage.

“Girl, you’re not fighting?” A judge asked, his wrinkled eyes on her artefacts.

“Not anymore!”

The judge turned to Gaius. “Well then, you get a bye for the top eight.”

Before he could continue his words, however, Gaius interrupted and said, “She’s my little sister. No, those artefacts are hers. No, I don’t know where she got them. Anything else?”

The old man opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, and then turned away from him. Chuckling, Gaius turned to watch Isabelle as she went up against one of the Knights that had appeared in the fourth tournament. Silver danced between the two of them — both of them were rapier users — and from the looks of it, they actually knew each other. Isabelle’s lips were moving, talking to the teenage boy. Unfortunately, the boy couldn’t hear what the two were saying, but it seemed that Isabelle’s opponent was also a House of the Southern Assembly.

The boy said something back, and Isabelle’s lips twisted. Her expression uncharacteristically furious, her rapier swept out, shattering her opponent’s weapon. He stumbled, but a glinting point had rested itself on his neck before he could recover.

There’s something fishy going on, thought Gaius. Didn’t that orderly say that students from the South are very rare?