135 Arcane Link

Wallace sighed in relief after barely getting into the top three of this event. Although he wasn't heavily inclined in winning this competition, as a young and developing teenager, he still wanted to see his creation won the competition even just for the sake of his parents watching the event.

"That was close..." Jun said as he wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead. He was happy despite his Sword Slave being defeated.

"Someone had at least reached the top three from our team... That should be good enough." Sheryl nodded, agreeing with her senior.

"That's true."

"Luckily, your Sword Slave made it on time and assisted our War Beast."

After confirming the winner and announcing the end of today's competition, the audience left the arena accordingly with the help of the staffs.

While this is happening, on the platform where the twelve participants at, Renzo gloomily left as their Montego's team didn't bother to say a word or glance with the other participants.

Their team was expected to win the top three but only one of them managed to do so. It was a disappointing result especially in their case where almost all of them were annihilated even after revealing their capability to somehow use an Arcane Spell.

On the other hand, Olga, the leader of the Virgan's team, approached Wallace to congratulate him. The former made the Ratman who had also made it in to the top three.

"That was an incredibly powerful spell... What was that called?" Olga asked after greeting Wallace.

Olga's teammates also perked up their ears as they were curious about the spell. If they ever learned something like that, they would surely dominate their schoolmates once they returned.

"Your Ratman has amazing Flight Spell as well. Right, that magic spell my War Beast used was called Laser Focus. It's an original Magic Structure I made." Wallace answered. There is no harm giving the name of his Magic Structure. This Laser Focus was one of his land property's main defense system so he doesn't have any plans to sell it's magic structure.

"No wonder. I've never seen anything like that or rather... I've never seen a spell that possess that much power that can continuously be fired."

"Haha. You have an amazing automaton as well.. Something that could go underground, survive underwater, and could even fight in the air. Yours would surely caught everyone's attention." Wallace complimented Olga's creation as well thinking that the only thing left was whether his automaton could survive in outer space too.

Olga felt that Wallace knew how to talk nice since he wasn't just accepting praises but also knew how to compliment others. He felt that he could easily befriend the guy.

Of course, he was also proud of his creation because normally, automatons being used by Magicians would only have simple functions as the main force of power would still come from the magicians themselves. Automatons were only made to provide some assistance with Combat Magicians. Luckily, he had studied this automaton for months now.

This event surely broadened everyone's mind about the possible improvements they could do to automatons.

Especially the one that the participants in the first event fought. Those creations made by Julian Esmeria made them rethink about the usefulness of automatons.

As Wallace was about to leave, Khamir, the leader of Maja's team also approached him. His Fabled Ambush didn't managed to last that long against the three Helioses but Wallace's Red-Eyed War Beast managed to make the three helpless and almost won.

They also befriended Sheryl and Jun as they believed that someday, anyone from this group would be a prominent figure within the Magic Engineering field. Wallace's group were also thinking the same thing as they might also meet someday aside from this event.

***

Within the hidden room at the arena, there were six magicians that has been overseeing the fight and making sure the fairness of the competition.

They were now discussing the previous events because their home team were almost out of the picture. The rewards for this competition were too high that they had to make sure that everything works in their favor.

"We were almost defeated." One of the middle-aged woman frowningly said. She was one of the organizer of this event.

"Thank you for Sir Julian's action." An old man wearing a green laced robe showing the status of being a Magic Craftsman said. He was aiming to gain favor with the legendary Royal Court Magician within the room.

"That automaton's magic structure... did they managed to retrieve them?"

"I've already asked the officials to study that kid's magic structure." The female organizer said.

"Hmm.. Just get the cores and power source and I'll study them myself." Julian finally said after hearing his subordinate's words. Everyone nodded as one of them informed the Magic Engineers assigned in the field.

A few minutes had passed and the news came from the engineers.

"I'm sorry. Our engineers reported that the cores that were used had exploded after they tried removing it from the automaton."

"What? How foolish! Did they handled it properly? Who destroyed it?" The old man furiously asked.

"It was Sir Jackson himself." Answered timidly by the staff tasked to communicate with the engineers.

That person he was referring was the same leader of Magic Engineers who evaluated the twelve automatons prior to the Battle Royale. He was a trusted individual and they would have never thought that he'd failed in properly retrieving a core of an automaton that was made by a student. These participants doesn't even have licenses yet.

"What was his excuse?" Julian calmly asked. The other magicians were already fuming in anger at the news but he kept his cool and curiously probed the situation.

"They said that they found three cores within the automaton but after they sent their probing Mana to check their status, there has been some strange reaction--"

"Strange reaction?" Julian squinted his eyes as he wanted to clarify.

"Y-yes... They said that it vibrated for a bit then after that, when they removed the cores they found that all data was destroyed. Even the strange power source had also disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"It should be better to call it melted, sir." The staff explained after he remembered what Sir Jackson showed him a while ago.

"I understand. Nevermind investigating the automation since I'm only interested in it's power source anyway."

***

Within the hotel's reception, Wallace went with his teammates to have a dinner together. They were bound to do a small celebration after having a good performance in the first day of the competition.

A while ago he also called his parents briefly to tell them the news about the event.

He mentioned as well  that he might not want meet with Julian Esmeria and learn about their family's issue. Not because he wasn't interested in it but he doesn't want to confront someone he's unable comprehend. He mentioned that he'll only be comfortable about it once he further advanced in Mana Study and learned Arcane Link.

Wallace was sure that Julian or some other magician did something to his automaton before. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure about the details due to his ignorance about the Arcane Link at the moment. He would like to learn this mysterious ability first before meeting the man but he wasn't sure when he'd learn this as well.

"You all did an amazing job in your performance this day. I hope that everyone will continue doing their best in the following events whatever challenges you will face." Troy Webb announced before they dine. He was rarely giving speech in front of many people but he made an exception today as he realized the hardships that their participants had to endure.

As a Peak Adept Mage closely monitoring the events within the arena, he had already noticed some unusual arrangements but he couldn't do a thing. He was alone in a foreign country and although he was the strongest on their group, he had to still tread carefully and follow the 'rules' because if something happened to him, it would be a disaster for the whole country's team.

He could only encourage the team to do their best and even if they wouldn't be rewarded in this competition, they will be rewarded by their own country.

As everyone done eating their dinner, they went back to their room and have a good rest in preparation for their battle tomorrow. Now, Wallace have an ample amount of time to study the memory crystal he received. He reviewed the mission he received a while ago.

[ Attain Enlightenment ]

[ Any path that requires practicing of Mana must learn the core method of it's utilization.

Mission: Learn the Arcane Link.

Mission Item: Memory of Arcane Link Flow

Reward: Memory Crystal containing a Lost Technology ]

Wallace then tried checking the 'Memory of Arcane Link Flow'. He was surprised to see that this memory was his own memory when he watched Troy appraise his Magic Structure. But this time, there was a lot more information as if he could feel Troy's Mana flow within his body and how he mysteriously tries to connect to the surrounding mana.

'No! Arcane link isn't about connecting to surrounding mana. It seems everything was coming from his own body and the movement of the surrounding mana was only the byproduct of activating the Arcane Link... This is Mana Body." Wallace somehow realized that Adepts were no longer bound by just using their own Mana Pool. There was something more from it. He wanted to learn more.

It took him a long while to study it and after making a breakthrough and successfully learn this Arcane Link, he had passed out and woke up only after several days. It was already the Ending Ceremony of the international competition as Van had substituted him during his absence.