Over 1000 participants from all the different schools gathered in the stadium that will host the final round of the competition.

The front row of the participants were the students from Top-5 Academy followed by the students from other schools.

‘Ace Academy! Win the tournament!’

‘Omar Noel! Crush those ants’

‘Demacia Academy! Show us the pride of the Knight!’

The audience’s cheers filled the stadium with their excitement. I looked at where the audience was and tried to look for my parents. However, in a place filled with thousands of people, it was not possible to easily spot them.

I turned around and looked at the participants. I could see the nervousness in the faces of the participants, especially the students from schools other than Top-5 Academy.

Most participants from Top-5 schools were already very famous and were not intimidated by the huge audience. The other school though seemed to be experiencing this kind of atmosphere for the first time.

At this particular moment, thousands of students were gathered in the arena. They all looked at the audience with nervousness, excitement, and awe.

Anyone would be excited when it came to joining the tournament, knowing their rise in fame was just around the corner, as long as they perform well. And they were nervous as well at the thought of losing miserably.

The first round of the tournament was going to be chaotic as hell as there will be thousands of students taking part at the same time.

“Unbreakable Guardian has arrived!”

Nock Fletcher, known as the ‘Unbreakable Guardian,’ is the hero with unmatched defense. He is ranked among the world’s top 5 heroes and is serving The Authority.

His title of Unbreakable Guardian was not for show either. Even Multiple Rank-S Heroes failed to leave a scratch on him when they were sparring.

Nock Fletcher was followed by other heroes from The Authority. However, the majesty aura of Nock Fletcher was enough to show who the main character was among them.

Many students as well as the audience were excited to find that the one presiding over the tournament was the Unbreakable Guardian. It was not every day that you got to meet one of the Rank-SS Heroes, not to mention Nock Fletcher was the 5th strongest human in the world.

“Welcome! We are fortunate to be able to witness the talent of our future generation. This is the 67th Tournament of Academies and we sincerely hope that the students will perform well in this tournament”

The presentation began with Nock Fletcher congratulating and filling the audience and students with excitement. He didn’t just start off by starting the tournament. He made it a point to try and relax the student first, which was an excellent move on his part.

He also shared his worries and how the current situation in the world is dangerous, especially for humans. He also emphasizes that people who have power and talent should protect the weaker ones and try to maintain peace.

It was the type of speech that would be greatly appreciated by people like Hiro Ernest who are aiming to become a righteous heroes. However, for some others like Omar Noel, who only follows the rule of survival of the fittest, it was complete bullsh*t.

Even I might fall into the second category as I did not believe in the words of Nock Fletcher. While protecting the weak sounds cool and admirable, when facing true disaster, 99 % of the human population falls into that weak category.

Who could save all of them? It was rather better to prepare yourself and work hard to become powerful. Ultimately, one’s own power is the greatest reliance. The weak can only blame themselves for getting killed.

Nock Fletcher addressed all the points he wanted to convey to the students and audience before moving on to the topic at hand, which was the tournament.

“As you know, the Tournament of Academies has always been conducted in different areas with rules always changing accordingly. This year to pass the second round, the rules are quite simple.”

Nock Fletcher then took out something from his pocket.

“You see this? Each of the participants will be given this token. To move on to the next round, the participants will need to collect at least 10 tokens by the end of the tournament. No participants will be eliminated until the end of the tournament.”

Nock Fletcher said in a loud and clear voice.

As he said, the rules were pretty simple. To steal tokens from other students and keep the tokens with you until the tournament ends.

But the problem was,

’10 Tokens?’

‘That means only a hundred of us will be able to move to the next round!’

‘Oh, God! Why must you be so cruel?’

The students started to panic after hearing the rules.

This rule guarantees that only 10 % of the students move to the next round. In fact, if the participants obtain more tokens than they need, then they may reduce the number of opponents for the next round.

This means that people like Omar Noel, Lisanna, and Hiro may be able to eliminate tens and hundreds of students in this round. If the time permits, maybe one student could even try to win the whole tournament in this first round.

However, just losing a token does not mean that the participants are disqualified. As long as they gather 10 tokens before the tournament ends, they can advance to the next round.

One of the most advantageous or disadvantageous things about this rule is that if your school is strong, you might be able to collect tokens for letting your friends pass. In other words, a stronger school will have more participants in the next round, which will give them an edge.

The students can pass even if they are weak, as long as another schoolmate helps them to get the token.

This is extremely disadvantageous for those students who are strong by themselves. It means that the chance of them getting disqualified would be higher than in a typical one-on-one match.

Even if Omar Noel is the strongest, as long as 10 strong students surround and fight with him, he is bound to lose.

As for me? Fighting with several opponents has always been my strong point.

As long as my opponents are below Rank-C -, I could easily handle them with my Cryomancy Art.

( With Cryomancy Art, victory in this round is inevitable! )