The 7 monarchs and their respective assistants (the serpentines) sat around Arthur’s round table ready, to discuss the progress of the candidate tournament.

Arthur was the first ever Monarch that ascended to the Upper realm and gathered other monarchs to lead the first generation. During a time of crisis Arthur left his home and ascended in hope of seizing control over the lower realms from above but this led to a great revolt from the other races, they forced him to let one candidate from each race to ascend and occupy a seat of the monarchs. He made sure to pick a monarch from each race minimum to avoid a revolution of any kind again and to form a balance.

Arthur being human meant that he was at an incredible disadvantage, due to humans being the weakest of all races, soon a grand civil war took place, some siding in favour of Arthur leading the Monarchs, and some following the side that a more powerful race should lead the monarchs. The 10 year civil war ended in Arthur’s loss and since then there hasn’t been a single human monarch; human candidates are either targeted early in the candidate games by the other races or are picked due to the monarchs making foolish bets. Humans were weak.

However, pushing aside their poor battle prowess, they were second to none in terms of advancements in magic and technology. The human civilisation was more advanced than any other race. Only the Dwarven and the Elven Kingdoms coming close to the humans. The human Kingdom, Vrimion, was the largest of all and was protected by an almost unbreakable barrier, that was made by High grade runes in ancient times after Arthur’s fall and the humans’ loss.

Now in this day and age, the prejudice and distaste against humans has almost gone and is a thing of the past. All races now have learnt to coexist with each other leaving disputing days in the past.

“Lightning Monarch, did you pick a good human candidate?” the Monarch of Darkness chuckled, and everyone joined mockingly.

“You guys still hold prejudice against the human kind, remember my candidate is not a human from this world but a human from a different world. Plus I hand picked him myself, so there shouldn’t be any issues, he will definitely reign at the top if he can take my seat respectively.” the lightning Monarch replied.

“I actually think my candidate has the highest chance of claiming all the seats.” the monarch of fire spoke arrogantly. The Monarchs giggled in response.

“What did you say?” the monarch of light mocked, laughing uncontrollably. They all knew the fire monarch was all fists and no brain. The fire monarch pouted in annoyance and crossed his arms.

“I actually picked a candidate from the demon race, he’s from an elite bloodline.” the shadow monarch spoke up boasting.

“I thought the demon race was independent and didn’t like our rules.” the monarch of beasts spoke up, frowning.

“You’re right about that, but I have my ways you see.” the darkness monarch replied. Everyone was in a good mood as the official start of the tournament would be soon.

The candidate tournament had rules that weren’t officially revealed to the candidates themselves yet, since the official start of the tournament hadn’t been announced. The rules and objective of the tournament was simple, climb the tower of truth and ascend to the upper realm, challenge the monarchs for their seats, once that’s done, a battle royale will take place to see the power ranking of the monarchs and the hierarchy.

However, this couldn’t happen until all candidates reached the minimum age of 12. There was one problem though, a type of flaw in the rules. Candidates were allowed to kill other candidates in the lower realms, and take their chance at challenging their monarch, that way the candidate could occupy more seats, giving them more political power. The tournament had 4 official stages:

1) The Growth Period – This lasted 10 years from the announcement of the tournament, this short period let the candidates climb the ranks to S rank.

2) The Tower of Truth – This 100 floor tower allowed the candidates to become ascenders and provided extra entertainment to the watchers in the Upper realm. Candidates were allowed to bring up to 4 companions with them.

3)Challenges with the Monarch – Just as it sounds, each candidate has to have a battle to the death with their respective monarchs.

4)Monarch Games – The final stage, where the ultimate battle royale of the monarchs took place to determine the rankings and hierarchy.

“Let the growth period begin!” the Lightning monarch announced and all the monarchs grabbed their glasses of wine and lifted them up to a toast.