Free Web NovelChapter 325: Chapter 323: Is Crushing with Overwhelming Stats More Satisfying Than Fancy Techniques?
That night, the tournament committee issued an announcement stating that the truth had been determined—it was a problem with the stage’s array that had caused a leak of the XX potion, which was originally meant to stabilize contestants’ emotions, resulting in all participants being affected as soon as they used magic power.
As for why Northern Alliance contestants weren’t affected, it was because they were already used to this kind of potion, so it didn’t impact them.
As for yesterday morning’s match, a rematch has been confirmed, but considering that a rematch would be "unfair" to the Northern Alliance contestants, their win will still count as +1.
This behavior triggered quite a few protests from participating teams, but the protests were useless.
The tournament committee said you could file a complaint, and that they’d take it seriously.
Of course, taking it seriously doesn’t mean they’d change anything.
The other empires, along with the Elf Race and Beastman Empire, all made their own responses, but the contestants from the small duchies were in trouble—their assistants and representatives were all low-tier mages, no better than themselves, and if the other side struck again, they’d definitely all get hit.
Faced with the protests from the small duchies, the tournament committee gave them a cold reply: "You can withdraw from the tournament."
The next day, the matches proceeded as usual.
Hilia, for once, followed the team to the arena and sat at Ista’s exclusive spectator area, watching the match below.
The arena for the solo matches wasn’t the same as the one for team matches—it was next door, divided into multiple small dueling stages, allowing fifty contestants to battle at once.
Of course, since they divided up the stages, the spectator seats were divided too, especially the close-up viewing points.
But Hilia didn’t bother with any of the up-close seats, and instead chose a high-platform area where you could overlook the whole field.
It was pretty far from the live action, but you could see all the match stages—tested the spectators’ eyesight, that’s for sure.
But it was cheap!
Of course, as a contestant, Hilia had a ticket anyway.
Right now, she was watching Elina’s match.
The Elf maiden had come to compete too, and she was doing pretty well—except for losing unexpectedly a couple of days ago, she hadn’t lost again since then.
Still, Hilia was a little absent-minded during the match. Benovia, sitting beside her, noticed and smiled, "Got something on your mind, Hilia?"
Hilia shook her head, "Nope, what could I be thinking about. I just zoned out watching the match."
Doris, off to the side, pouted and said, "Your eyes aren’t even on the match."
Hilia shot her a look.
"Fine, I was thinking about those two incidents."
"By the way..." Encore glanced at her, asking, "I remember you found the Essence of the Dark Dream before that first event happened, and thanks to that, we made it through the first situation safely. Where did you find that thing?"
Hilia replied offhandedly, "Didn’t I tell you? I found it by accident while I was out goofing around. Later I figured out it was a small base of the Sect—Polar Blood Alliance. I casually wiped it out."
"So, both those incidents were done by the Sect, right?" Benovia asked.
Hilia nodded, "Yeah, for now we can confirm Polar Blood Alliance was involved. Whether other Sects were in on it, who knows. The useless Northern Alliance is absolutely no help, and we’re complete strangers in this place, so we can’t really investigate."
Doris huffed, saying, "Once I become Holy Daughter, taking the Northern Alliance back will be my first order of business!"
Hilia snapped, "Holy Daughter doesn’t control the Knight Order. What’re you gonna use to take it back?"
"Holy Daughter doesn’t have a Knight Order, but the bishops do! I’ll just persuade them."
"You’d have to persuade every bishop, archbishop, and the Holy Master."
"Hmph, that won’t stop me!"
"..."
After chatting with the other Holy Daughter candidates for a while, Hilia temporarily forgot her earlier gloominess.
Birthdays and all that, it’s really not a big deal anyway.
It’s absolutely not because I want a present from Rose.
After all, the birthday I acknowledge is September 4th—the day when Vanessa Mom carried me home!
Thinking like that, Hilia gradually tossed away her gloom and focused on Elina’s final match.
The Elf maiden didn’t have an easy win—it was tough. Hilia guessed she’d only entered Tier Three around the same time as herself.
But the girl got guidance from the Gods, so maybe she’ll make it to the end of this world-class tournament.
If she can grow stronger through battle...
Hilia looked at the other matches and noticed some real experts in the solo round—mages who couldn’t find a team or just didn’t like working with people. Some had been sitting at Tier Three for decades, others had already swept through every opponent at home.
Either way, their magic was ridiculously solid. They didn’t just rely on magic puppets to fight.
Hilia saw plenty of mages working with their magic puppets in perfect sync—not just supporting their puppets with beneficial skills, but attacking and defending together, really flexible. And most of all, the swordmasters, slipping in and out with such smooth cooperation, it was a pleasure to watch—like watching two people with their minds linked do battle as one.
The fights weren’t as flashy as the 5v5 team matches, but for mages of the same tier, they were actually more compelling than the team bracket.
"Come to think of it, all along I’ve relied on Mage’s Hand to micro-control spells, making my magic way more powerful than most, and just using a ton more magic power to suppress them. If things go wrong, I just call Rose for backup... If I had to fight them, unless I kept them on the back foot from start to finish, I might not win..."
So Hilia also started to really immerse herself in the matches, trying to learn from their tactics and strategies.
Rose laughed, "Normally, you don’t need to learn from them, because they’re swordmasters who focus on flexibility, while you’re a clumsy magic master. They have to get in close, dodge magic, and think about conserving energy at the same time; that’s why they need such complicated maneuvers."
Hilia blinked and thought to herself, "The synergy and flexibility between them and their puppets is miles ahead of mine. If I run into someone like that later, I might not even know how to handle them..."
Rose said, "Remember, your strengths are the big magic power foundation that Deep Divine Realm gave you, the precise spell control that Mage’s Hand brings, and combination skills—the flexibility of your magic makes you unbeatable in same-tier fights, because your enemies never know what form your spell will suddenly take or how it’ll attack. You’re way more of a hassle to deal with than them.
"Learning their thought process is fine, so when you run into their kind you can deal with it. But you don’t have to copy everything. Otherwise, you’ll end up doing a flurry of fancy operations for absolutely zero damage."
Hilia asked, "What if I run into someone whose Divine Realm depth matches mine?"
"No one’s deeper than you; if you do run into one, Mage’s Hand can break through."
"Then I’ll study how to use Mage’s Hand and my magic to crack their strategies!"
"Mm."
