Kaelen sheathed her short sword with a sharp click. The mana encasing her battle-staff faded, and she offered a hand to Lazlo, pulling the groaning Ranger to his feet.

“Good fight.”

she said simply.

“My bird hates you now,”

Lazlo grunted, rubbing his bruised chest, but he shook her hand with genuine respect.

“I didn’t expect you to make that move, Thorne.”

Kaelen did not respond and just turned to the crowd, acknowledging the roar of applause. But her eyes didn’t linger on the cheering students. She looked up toward the designated Participants Section.

There, sitting in the back row alongside Eliza and their fellow participants for their event, Ray Croft watched.

He didn’t cheer. He didn’t wave. He simply caught her eye and gave a small, slow nod.

Suddenly, Kaelen felt a mental sensation deep in her mind.

Good positioning.

Ray had used the Understudy Protocol’s ‘Resonant Communication Link’ and stripped the distance between them. Ray’s voice echoed clearly in Kaelen’s mind as if he was right in front of her.

You were able to control the tempo and end the fight decisively, well done.

Kaelen allowed herself a small, hidden smile. That quiet, technical validation was worth more than ten thousand screaming fans.

Thank you.

She thought back.

The link then faded, leaving her focused and grounded.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”

Bruce’s voice cut through the celebration, amplified to ear-shattering levels.

“Give a hand to our combatants! But do not go anywhere!”

Bruce glided over the sands, looking smug.

“Wasnt I right?!”

Bruce asked the crowd as he looked and pointed at the floating scrying artifacts.

“I told you the 3rd Level Group would bring the explosion! And indeed we started with a bang! But this is just the beginning, the other participants of the 3rd Level Group are sure to give us a more exciting fight!”

Bruce gestured to the screens as the next set of names flashed up.

“Coming up next! The Shadow of Statecraft, Dawn Moran the Rank 3 Deep Veil a favorite from the Minor College of Intelligence (Statecraft). Will her shadow arts match up to the sheer firepower of the Arcanum pyromancers or Valor spellswords? Let’s find out!”

The 1st Round continued at a breakneck pace. Dawn Moran proved why she was a Tier-3 Deep Veil operative, disappearing into the shadows and striking her opponent’s blind spot before they could finish a chant. The crowd roared, the healers ran, and the Main Qualifiers churned on.

Once the 1st Round of Dueling Event concluded, the arena shifted gears.

“And now!”

Bruce announced, wiping sweat from his brow.

“We trade swords for science! It’s time for the Alchemy & Potioneering Gauntlet!”

Twenty portable workstations were immediately set up in the arena, each equipped with identical cauldrons and a precise set of ingredients.

“This is not a freestyle event!”

Bruce explained, his voice echoing.

“This is a test of Precision. Every candidate must brew the Lumina-Draft Potion. The Proctors will judge the result based on Luminosity and Purity. A perfect brew shines like a star. A failure… well, it looks like swamp water.”

“Time starts… NOW!”

The alchemists began to chop, crush, and stir. The arena fell into a tense silence, broken only by the rhythmic bubbling of liquids. It wasn’t flashy combat, but the tension was palpable. One wrong stir, one degree too hot, and the potion would destabilize.

1 hour later, the proctors moved down the line holding their measuring crytals.

“Candidate 1: Dull. Disqualified.”

“Candidate 2: Cloudy. Disqualified.”

“Candidate 5: …Excellent. 95% Purity.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Then, they reached a 2nd-Circle Glass Vial student from the Minor College of Apothecaries (Arcanum). He was sweating profusely, his ladle shaking. He had added too much Sun-Root powder in a panic.

“Che..check mine please.”

The student stammered.

The proctor leaned in.

“It’s vibrating.”

FLASH.

The cauldron didn’t explode with fire; it detonated with a blinding flash of pure, uncontrolled light. The entire front row of the audience covered their eyes, blinded by the sudden

“Flash-Bang.”

“AHHH MY EYES!”

Bruce stumbled forward, blinking rapidly as tears streamed down his face. His professional announcer persona cracked for a split second, replaced by genuine annoyance. He grabbed the edge of the student’s workstation to steady himself, squinting through the spots in his vision at the terrified student.

He took a deep breath, smoothing his burgundy suit, trying to regain control of the show. He thrust the amplification crystal toward the student’s face.

“You!”

Bruce barked, his voice tight.

“You almost blinded the Golden Tongue! What is your name, candidate?!”

The student froze. He looked at the giant projected screen floating above his head, which clearly displayed all the participants name and rank. He looked back at the microphone shoved in his face. The pressure of the crowd, the explosion, and the angry announcer broke his brain.

He opened his mouth, his voice pitching up into a strangled, terrified squeak.

“My name Jeff!!!”

The arena went silent for a heartbeat.

Bruce stared at him. He blinked, his vision finally clearing. He looked at the student with utter disdain.

“Jeff???”

Bruce repeated flatly.

“What a stupid name.”

Bruce turned back to face the crowd, his showman smile snapping back into place.

“That is a disqualification, folks! He is supposed to bottle the light, not blind the judges! Get him out of here!”

The tense silence of the gauntlet shattered, as a wave of laughter rolled over the stands, washing away the lingering smell of ozone and the high-stakes pressure of the event.

As the Proctors moved in to escort the trembling student away, a lone, mocking voice shouted from the nosebleed seats:

“JEFF!”

Then another joined in. Then ten. Within seconds, the rhythmic thumping of feet hit the bleachers. The arena didn’t just laugh; it vibrated with a sarcastic, booming chant that drowned out the bubbling of the remaining cauldrons.

“JEFF! JEFF! JEFF!”

The high-stakes intensity of the Gauntlet was officially dead. Bruce stood center-stage, his smile twitching as he realized he’d lost control of the narrative to a 2nd-Circle student who couldn’t even brew a glow-stick. The Alchemical Gauntlet had transitioned from a test of prestige to a standing ovation for a disaster.

Bruce stood center-stage, his chest heaving as the echoes of ‘JEFF! JEFF!’ finally began to die down. He smoothed a stray hair back into place, his eyes darting toward the exit where the student had been dragged out. He needed a win. He needed something sophisticated, something loud, and most importantly something that didn’t involve the name Jeff.

“Alright, alright! Settle down, you vultures!”

Bruce said seriously, his voice cracking like a whip through the lingering laughter.

“We’ve had our fun with the… creative interpretations of alchemy. But now, we return to the realm of the high-mind! We return to the architects of our age!”

He paced the scorched sand, his boots crunching over the ‘Lumina-Draft’ residue.

“Next comes the Runic Engineering Event. Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Bruce, isn’t that just twenty minutes of watching nerds do math?'”

He paused, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

“In previous years? Yes. It was a dull written exam where the only sound was the scratching of quills and the soft snoring of the proctors. But this is Solhaven Academy!”

He threw his arms wide, the crystal projectors responding to his gesture by bathing the arena in a sharp, electric blue.

“We don’t just calculate! We compete! To keep the crowd from falling into a collective coma, the Academy has gamified the process! It’s time for… RUNIC CLASH!”

A pair of Artificers stood on raised platforms, looking less like scholars and more like gladiators in spectacles. Between them, a giant projection of a coin began to spin, casting gold and silver light across the sand.

Bruce pointed a finger at the candidate on the left.

“Call it!”

“Heads!”

The student shouted.

The holographic coin slowed, wobbled, and settled. Heads.

“The fates have spoken!”

Bruce spun on his heel toward the crowd.

“Heads means you are the Breaker! And that means…”

he pointed to the second participant,

“…you are the Defender! Thirty minutes on the clock! One seeks to hold the line, the other seeks to shatter it! You have thirty minutes. CONSTRUCT!”

The platforms became a blur of motion. This wasn’t just drawing; it was high-speed engraving. The Defender worked with frantic grace, his stylus carving glowing geometric wards into heavy obsidian plates. Across from them, the Breaker was assembling ‘Arcane-Lance Array’ but it was created in a rush and unstable, crystalline tubes designed to funnel raw magical pressure into a single, devastating point.

Sparks hissed as Runic ink hit the air. The silence of the previous event was replaced by the high-pitched whine of charging mana.

“Ten minutes remaining!”

Bruce prowled the arena floor.

“The Defender has opted for a standard ‘Shield Ward,’ sturdy, but predictable! But look at the Breaker! He’s building an ‘Arcane-Lance Array.’ If he doesn’t balance those rune-lines, that arcane-lance is going to bounce off his shield and take out the popcorn vendor in Row 4!”

The ‘clash’ was a battle of intellect made violent. When the timer hit zero, the Breaker triggered ‘Arcane-Lance Array.’ A concentrated beam of white-hot light slammed into the ‘Shield Ward’ of the Defender. The ward held for a few seconds before it shattered like glass, shards of crystallized mana flew.

“The winner for this match is the Breaker!”

Bruce announced, as if he already knew what was going to happen.

The arena became a rotating assembly line of magical destruction. Five more rounds followed in quick succession, each a frantic blur of glowing chalk and shrieking energy.

One by one, the pairs took their stands. The holographic coin flipped, the roles were cast, and the air filled with the smell of scorched ozone. It was a brutal efficiency; for every Defender who stood triumphant behind an unshaken ward, a Breaker walked away with a shattered lance and a bruised ego. Conversely, when a Breaker’s beam pierced through a defensive plate, it did so with a sound like a hammer hitting a mirror, leaving the Builder staring at the smoking ruins of their work.

“Next! Next! Next!”

Bruce’s voice never lost its edge, his excitement growing as the field narrowed.

The crowd roared with every successful ‘shatter’ and groaned with every failed ‘hold.’ By the time the final mana-lance flickered out, the dust on the arena floor was sparkling with Runic residue.

“And just like that,”

Bruce declared, walking over the scorched sand as assistants dragged the dented obsidian plates away.

“The math is simple, folks! Half of our engineers are heading to the showers, and the other half are heading to the next round! Give it up for our survivors!”

As the remaining participants wiped the sweat and soot from their faces, the holographic display overhead updated in a flash of blue light. The list of names shrank, the losers graying out and disappearing, leaving only the winners and the lucky to face whatever ordeal Solhaven Academy had planned next.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep