45th of Season of Air, 80th year of the 32nd cycle

  “Morning, Pumpkin.” Maelstrom waved at Newt and his group of ten elites as they approached the gathering spot. The Tidebreaker kingdom had twenty royalty and retainers present on the half-full square, meaning they outranked Explorer’s Gate by a large margin.

  “Why did she call you Pumpkin?” Rex whispered in Newt’s ear, intrigued by the beaming young woman. Doubly so because he knew her identity.

  “Some obscure folktale. Yesterday, she joked about having to return me to the inn before midnight, lest I turn into a pumpkin.”

  Rex nodded slowly, every bit as confused as Newt had been the previous evening.

  “Newstar!” Everlast from the Everfrost order waved and approached. “How have you been? We heard about what happened. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Greetings, Senior Sister.”

  Everlast was about to say he was overly formal, but Maelstrom spoke just as Everlast opened her mouth to speak.

  “You have friends at the Everfrost Order?” Maelstrom detached herself from her group, much to their supervisor’s dismay.

  “Everlast!” Dandelion’s shout made more than half the gathered participants turn around and focus on him. He promptly ignored them and approached the blushing woman. “How have you been? I have heard no news of your order, but I guess in our world no news is good news.”

  Newt noticed others greeting their acquaintances from other orders or royal and noble families, but their encounters were much colder, some mere posturing and taunts, completely different from the amicable atmosphere around Dandelion.

  In the corner of his eye, he spotted the royal official from the Tidebreaker kingdom casting a glance at the champion chaperoning the Everfrost Palace. It was a mix of pleading and threat, but before the woman could do anything, Dandelion spoke.

  “I think we need to break this up. Everyone should be with their organisation, we can get together for a drink after the first trial is over. Winner’s treat.”

  Everlast and Newt nodded, but Maelstrom pouted, pretending she could not see the frustrated royal official. As time passed, the crowd swelled until it reached twenty-six hundred fourth realm participants.

  Once everyone had gathered, a man wearing the green and gold of imperial servants appeared on the balcony high above them. The golden robe only had hints of green, meaning the man held an extremely high position, and while he remained a void in Newt’s mindcore, his experience with high realm awakened allowed him to guess the man was at the eighth or ninth realm.

  “Greetings, honored guests, loyal subjects of her imperial majesty the emperor.”

  Everyone bowed deeply and held the position for three seconds before standing straight again.

  “It is with great pleasure that I can announce the start of the Sage’s Realm tournament. While I know you all know the rules, it is my duty to repeat them. The tournament has four main events, with two-day breaks between each of them. The challenges are random, and your safety is assured. Should a challenge with rewards of resources or items appear, you are free to keep whatever you find. You are also free to fight over treasures. While death during the challenge isn’t permanent, the realm itself might eject you, and anything you may have gathered will remain behind, should you leave prematurely.”

  The man spoke without pausing for breath, his voice official, dignified, and yet completely monotone.

  “The Sage’s Realm also has challenges where mortal combat has lighter consequences. Should you die, you may suffer from impeded movement, vision, or other penalties; the realm may transfer you to an easier or more difficult stage of the same challenge.”

  The man spoke on, and the crowd listened, nervousness flaring as the official kept them away from the imminent challenge.

  Finally, the man showed mercy.

  “With all the basic rules explained, the realm spirits will divulge anything more specific. I wish you good luck.”

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  Space around Newt twisted, and he found himself in a ten-foot-wide white corridor, his fellow students around him, a wall behind their backs.

  “I bid you welcome to my realm,” an aged, matronly voice said. “Like many, I believe the best way to test one’s ability is through might and tactical thinking. Since the challenge I am supposed to set up revolves around teams, the rules are simple. You are inside a maze. Your group will face other, randomly chosen groups, depending on which path you take and which paths others take. Once you face a rival group, the paths leading to your group will close for others until the number of groups is halved. This will repeat until there is only one group. The losers will travel to the lower level, where the same challenge will take place, giving them a chance in case their elimination was due to poor luck.”

  Newt considered the rules. So far they sounded like a complicated way of drawing lots, with just as much luck involved in the process.

  “To prevent cheating, I shall obfuscate everyone’s robes and faces, and the only information you will have is the number of opponents and their relative strength. You will not have the same information about your teammates, if you have any, which brings us to the final portion of this introduction, the combat.”

  The voice paused to give everyone a chance to focus.

  “For combat, your group will choose a champion, and that champion will fight your opponents’ champion or champions until victory, replaced only upon defeat. Everyone who falls during the battle will be transported to a lower level, where they will have the chance to advance further, following the same process. The battles persist until one side is exterminated, or until the smaller group defeats twice its number of competitors from the opposing group. Any survivors from a defeated group will be transported to the lower level, where they will rejoin the rest of their team. The same champion cannot start two battles in a row, unless they are the sole member of your group. Choose your champions wisely.”

  The speech ended, and the corridor was silent.

  “I guess I’ll be our champion whenever possible?” Newt said, looking Rex and the others in the eye.

  “I’m not sure that’s wise, Senior Brother,” Redleaf said. “Whenever we encounter a team the Sage’s Realm considers a low threat, you should refrain from fighting, even if it’s your turn. That way, you can save your mana for tougher battles.”

  Newt wanted to argue. Given the number of participating teams and individuals, and with the challenge halving their number after each battle, it was impossible to fight more than nine battles; some might not even fight eight.

  But he wasn’t the only powerful member of his team. Rexheart and Emeraldstreak were both solid combatants, and Twochains, Loch, and Breeze were no slouches either. For a moment he waited for Rexheart to make the call, but the first student flourished his hand towards Newt.

  “Lady Woodhopper said this tournament will be your practice in decision-making.”

  Newt bit his lip, uncomfortable with the weight of responsibility.

  “I think my plan is sound. This challenge will have few battles, and even if we are unlucky and encounter a powerhouse who can defeat any of you without effort while I’m unavailable, I will simply fight second, and we will pass.”

  What do we do if we encounter Dandelion? No, there’s no if. It’s only a matter of when.

  “Did anyone bet on us winning this one?” he asked, and they all raised their hands, even Rexheart.

  “Did anyone bet on Dandelion?”

  Nobody said a word.

  “Well, I can tell you I split my manarium evenly between us. He has ten-to-one odds, while we have thirty-to-one.”

  Newt’s fellow students stared at him in confusion.

  Well, I guess that didn’t help raise their morale.

  “Let’s go, we’re wasting time.”

  The group advanced, and after a hundred feet, came to a fork. The path split in four, two gently rising slopes, and two gently sloping down. Newt took the leftmost path. Dandelion always went right, so if he kept taking the right path, they would certainly meet after a while, but if he took the left path, it all depended on where they were relative to Dandelion. If they were to the left, they would avoid him until the end. At least Newt hoped that logic would work.

  Every one hundred feet, the path split in four, until ten minutes later the path ended in a large circular chamber, a sandy arena at the center.

  “A dead end?” Redleaf said.

  Newt turned around, but the way back had vanished, replaced by a wall.

  “I guess we wait for our opponents here,” Rexheart said and stood at ease.

  The group looked around in confusion. With nothing to do, they could only wait for their opponents.

  Luckily, they did not keep them waiting for long. Half a minute later, a section of the wall disappeared, and a yellowish-orange outline entered the room. The awakened was alone and faced them.

  “Choose your representative. The threat is assessed by color. The spectrum starts with blue, moving through green, yellow, orange, red, and black.”

  Yellow, bordering on orange, that’s as close to middle as it can get.

  Newt looked at his teammates. They needed a way to estimate their ratings, and with him, they would not lose the round, even if they lost a member of the team.

  “Twochains, how about you take him on?” The man nodded and stepped towards the center of the room, around which a see-through wall rose from the ground, reaching the twenty-foot-high ceiling in two seconds.

  Newt thought his decision was correct. He estimated Twochains’s strength to be around the middle of their team. Newt himself, Rexheart, Emeraldstreak, and Flare were stronger, Loch and Breeze somewhere around Twochains’s level, but Newt considered them weaker in one-on-one combat.

  “Fight,” the long-dead matron gave the order, and Twochains’s kama flew towards his opponent.