As soon as Azzy blurted out Neal's rank, he immediately shut his mouth tightly and scolded inwardly, "Staying with this troublesome cousin even influenced me to the extent of getting my tongue loose. Anyway, it doesn't matter if I just ignore it."
"Mid-rank-7? What are you talking about?" Barbara asked him curiously.
"Not important, Just remembered something." Azzy shook his head and looked away.
Meanwhile, Neal, upon realizing that his soul rank was revealed to a person of lower ranks, frowned while staring at Azzy.
Since Azzy refused to speak further, Neal too stayed silent on the matter.
Just then, Exea announced the start of the 254th Annual Tournament as Leonard finished with the pledging ceremony.
After Leo went back to his place, she then took out a card and activated it before placing it on the ground.
All of a sudden, a 30meter*30meter*1meter platform rose from the ground, startling the students who are standing right above it.
And it isn't just a simple platform made with stone. There's also some kind of barrier placed around it.
It is something they have specially created just for this tournament to attract the attention of the talents.
Usually, the teachers will unleash a barrier together on the day of the tournament. However, from now onwards, with this unique battleground card, they wouldn't need to do it, anymore.
Looking at the students, Exea spoke in a serious tone, "A new rule has been added to the tournament, which is the battleground restriction. If any of you land outside of the barrier, even if you don't touch the ground, it will be declared as your defeat.
Just in case, let me remind all of you that all the item cards except for storage cards are prohibited to use during the battle. You also cannot use any kind of treasure. Break the rules and you will be disqualified."
She then moved her eyes from the students to the audience and instantly changed her expression. With a smile on her face, she announced, "Let's start with single matches.
The first match, Gideon of Grade -8, Elite division and Silvester Stripes of Grade-9, Soul plant division… aside from these two, the rest of the participants, clear the space."
As the rest of the participants left the barrier, Uphiar and another rank-6 expert entered the stadium. While the hired expert stayed with the students, Uphiar climbed the platform.
Exea left the place saying goodbye to the audience and Uphiar took the mic from her.
Many of her fans screamed in unison, "Goddess Exea, please don't leave..." However, she just smiled and waved her hands while leaving.
Meanwhile, Uphiar introduced himself as the proctor for the tournament. Well, he received many boos from the audience because of his appearance and Exea's absence but he didn't care about it and raised the ruby-eyed cobra-headed staff.
Looking at Gideon on the stage, Barbara asked, "Azrael, is this the guy?" This time, she was able to hold her tongue.
Azzy nodded in response. A day earlier, while returning to the academy, he told her about a guy from her clan who is his classmate.
Upon hearing it, at first, she was tempted to meet him to get back home but then, upon Azzy's reminder of her promise that she made to him, Barbara didn't meet him.
Not to mention, he's just some insignificant branch family member to her. However, he didn't expect this guy turned out to be a peak-rank-4.
She wondered why she hasn't heard of him, then. If Gideon is a genius who was able to reach peak-rank-4 by the age of 13 or 14, after 27 years, shouldn't he be atleast rank-6?
If that's the case, he would have been known within the clan. Azzy had seen him in the clan. That would mean he wasn't expelled from the clan either.
Then, how come he was unknown. Questions appeared in her head.
She didn't know that he was originally fated to breaking through to rank-4 by killing a weaker Galarian beast, which in turn make his Arcana spirit stay at gold grade.
However, with Azzy's intervention, Leo was forced to choose a mutated beast for him before trying to ambush Azzy.
After his Arcana spirit mutated once, his progress really became fast.
Combining with Azzy's help as a shield, he was able to hunt down the beasts in Arcana world at a faster pace and rose to peak-rank-4 within just 8 months.
As Barbara got confused with Gideon's current soul rank, Azzy mumbled, "Good luck, Gideon."
His words brought her to reality and her entire attention was placed on the platform in the middle of the arena.
As Uphiar raised the staff, the eyes of the cobra turned red while he muttered, pointing it towards the both of them,<strong> "Seal of Equality."</strong>
Within a second, Gideon felt some kind of chain on his soul orb, restricting a part of his soul energy.
"Get ready," Uphiar spoke. "Remember, the time limit is 15 minutes."
The both of them summoned the soul cards. Gideon found out that his soul power is reduced from 96227 to 71981.
This is the Seal of Fairness which will equalize the amount of soul power of two people.
"Come out, Raiga." Gideon summoned his mutated gold-grade lightning sword while his opponent summoned a tree monster.
*zzz*zzz*
A sword appeared in his hands with lightning sparks all over its blade.
Without even wasting any time, he took out a four-star skill card. However, the stars aren't in black but in silver color, which indicates that it is an intermediate level.
He activated it.<strong> "Activate Skill card, Thunder steps."</strong>
As soon as the card disappears, in the next second, everyone saw lightning sparks on his legs.
Silvester's face turned serious and ordered his tree monster to get ready for battle.
Right then, he saw Gideon suddenly disappeared and reappeared just a foot away from his Arcana spirit.
Before he was able to react, the tree monster was slashed several times in different directions.
"Holly…" Silvester screamed as he saw his Arcana spirit ended up killed.
Meanwhile, the entire audience was shocked to see his performance. Except for those who are of rank- and above, no one even saw Gideon until his reappearance.
Even Rank-5 experts only saw a blurry figure of him, except for Azzy who was used to that kind of speed.
The guests from the other academies noted his name in their minds. As for the scouts, they still didn't think much of him as Gideon used a skill card. It's not his power. Not to mention, his opponent is also a weakling.
In their eyes, only rank-5 students are worthy to pay attention to.
On other hand, Barbara exclaimed, "He's really fast. I barely saw him slashing at him, three times."
"Five." Azzy and Neal said at the same time. "Hmm?" Both of them looked at each other before Azzy looked away.
Meanwhile, Barbara turned her head towards Neal in surprise, "five times? Were you also able to see it, Mister?"
Neal shrugged his shoulders, "Once you have enough battle experience, you will be accustomed to such things."
He wasn't bothered by his tongue slip as he was saying the truth. It's not because of his level he was able to see the attacks. Neal was confident that he would still be able to see it even if he were a rank-4.
This was the reason he was surprised when Azzy pointed out the same. Recalling Barbara's statement about Azzy's participation, Neal wondered whether it is because of sufficient battle experience, this kid's master isn't letting him participating in the tournament.
Meanwhile, Uphiar announced Gideon's victory. The audience erupted in cheers.
Gideon waved his hands to the audience with a grin on his face as he got down from the platform.
One after another, single matches proceeded. There aren't that many participants in singles due to the presence of Leonard and other tenth grades with 5-star soul rank. Even if they get to finals, they knew it would be useless. So, most of them seemed to choose the duo battles category.
The rest of the nine single battles were completed within 2 hours, and Uphiar announced a 15-min break. "The battles ended up quicker than I expected," Uphiar mumbled to himself.
Barbara took out some snacks from the storage card and shared them with Azzy. Out of consideration, she also gave a couple of them to Neal, which he didn't refuse.
After the break is over, duo battles were started.
This content is taken from freewebnove(l).com