406 Chapter 406: Calm before the storm

When I woke up later that night, I saw several messages waiting for me in my smartphone. Fumbling with it, I switched it on and saw that they were all from Harrison. He was updating me on the results of today's match.

\"Pendragon Academy won their match today,\" he informed me via text message. \"That means, if we beat Saint Teresa Academy tomorrow, we'll be facing them in the semifinals.\"

Of course, we had to beat Saint Teresa Academy first before we could think of facing Pendragon Academy. Last year's finalists were the favorites to win this year. Hey, weren't they the champion last year as well, now that I thought about it? I couldn't remember (I was very certain they made it all the way to the finals, though), but a quick Google search showed that they did indeed won last year's championship. Charles Lacroix in particular was a formidable swordsman who surpassed even the Sword Saint, Kureha Franklin, and he beat her in the captain's match last year.

As expected of the man known as the King of Knights. Or was it Prince of Knights? I can't remember, and seriously, all these titles were too cheesy for me to memorize anyway.

There were plenty of articles and posts online from students who were talking about how Kureha was looking forward to a rematch, or the spectators looking forward to seeing the rematch between the two. Naturally Saint Teresa Academy was the favorites to win tomorrow's match, and most of the students had already assumed that they would win and proceed to the semifinals ahead of us. Lots of them bemoaned that these two prestigious schools would be facing each other in the semfinals instead of the finals. It was a pity, because such a matchup was worthy of being the finals.

Unfortunately, real life didn't work that way. You didn't just happen to have the two strongest teams show up and fight each other in the finals…luck and probability tended to screw up such romantic matchups.

I wasn't offended that the vast majority of the Global Federation had written my school off. Obviously Jing Tian Academy would be seen as underdogs, and we had surpassed all expectations by getting this far in the first place. Our ranking had risen tremendously since last year, which meant that we had already achieved the goal that Principal Vincent Violet had set us. Furthermore, most pundits had described our progress as a fairy tale run, and many were impressed enough to acknowledge us as dark horses capable of pulling off an upset.

That was more than enough. Of course, our dark horse status also meant that we were the underdogs in this matchup, and understandably that meant our chances of winning were fairly low.

Nonetheless, that didn't mean we intended to give up and go down without a fight. Just like any underdogs, we planned to give our best and pull an upset. If we lost, we wouldn't have any regrets because we had clearly given our all, and if we won, that would be a super-sweet bonus that we would celebrate.

I wasn't arrogant enough to think our victory was guaranteed, or take it for granted that my protagonist status would cement our advancement to the next round. This was reality, and not everyone could win. This wasn't a fairy tale story about me winning tournaments. I was not Wang Zhong, I couldn't engineer a win all the way to the finals and then slap the faces of the Stuart family or the ten Great Families who looked down on me and my team. I wasn't a genius who could wield every single weapon in existence – come on, it was impressive enough that I could learn swordsmanship and handle a bow (again, my accuracy was horrible, and I relied more on immense firepower than precision – think of my arrows more of a rocket that blew everything up rather than a sniper round that could land a headshot). Were you expecting me to wield daggers, crosswheels, barehanded close combat techniques, spears or other weapons?

Also, it was already a strain for me to learn five different elements. Like hell I was going to start learning more advanced and sophisticated magic types like healing magic. stop pestering me about this, readers – it's bloody unrealistic and impossible. One does not simply learn healing magic just because the readers want him to. It required a completely different field of knowledge and a totally separate set of skills and tehcniques that were mutually exclusive from the basic five elements. Otherwise everyone would just learn healing magic as their secondary healing magic, and there wouldn't be a need for specialized healers.

By the way, this was also why I remained shortsighted – sophisticated healing magic that restored my eyesight to perfection vision was only mastered by very few people and they were often in high demand. Want to get rid of your glasses? Pay up. You could complain that they were committing daylight robbery and charging exorbitant prices all you want, but that didn't change the fact that what they were doing wasn't illegal in a capitalistic society like the Global Federation. Additionally, the industry that manufactured glasses and lenses had a vested interest in maintaining their monopoly on producing glasses for the shortsighted, and they encouraged the exorbitant prices just so they could sell their products as cheaper alternatives.

I was sure people would condemn them as greedy and despicable, but that was how capitalism worked. That was how reality worked. What, were you expecting healers to do charity? You were expecting the factory workers and company executives to give up their jobs and wages just so myopia could be entirely eradicated? Fat hope. As long as myopia was not a life-threatening disease or fatal condition, they had no reason to provide such services freely.

Anyway, learning the basic spells of five elements was my limit, I couldn't learn anything else except to progress a bit more with my advanced ice spells. Hell, even my wood spells had reached a ceiling, and my progress was stunted at Hundred Colored Flowers. I found that I couldn't progress any further than that. Unlike Cecilia, I didn't have a natural affinity or talent for wood magic. Everything I had achieved was through hard work and sheer effort, not to mention determination. Hopefully I wouldn't hit the same restrictions in ice magic, or I might just fall into despair. For now, fortunately, it seemed that I did have a bit better affinity with ice magic than I did with wood magic.

Speaking of Cecilia Stuart…

\"Cecilia lost to Kureha, huh?\"

Taking a deep breath, I closed the text messages windows and conjured a holographic window to play a video of Cecilia's match with Kureha. Countless Sakura petals clashed against the majestic burst of golden mana before Kureha overwhelmed Cecilia's advanced wood magic with brute force. The entire arena vanished in a gigantic explosion.

\"Scary.\" I whistled, impressed. Obviously such an ultimate technique would require a lot of mana and time to cast. Probably five minutes, just like my Celestial Guardians, but the moment she cast it, she would obliterate anything in her path, even my Celestial Guardians. Even my Black Tortoise, with his water sphere and defensive spells, wouldn't be able to withstand a direct hit from Kureha's Excalibur (I decided to just call it that for now, for a lack of an actual name).

As expected of a Rank A anti-fortress Noble Phantasm…ahem, I mean a top-ranked ultimate spell. It was considered to be the same level as my strategic-level spells, and I was sure it was capable of nuking an entire city (hence its nature as anti-fortress). I had to be very careful when dealing with her, otherwise I would be screwed.

Me and all of my Constellation spirits.

I gulped.

\"??\"

That was when my smartphone rang. Harrison somehow knew that I was finally awake (was he spying on me or something?) and was calling me. I frowned, and swiped at the green icon to pick up his call.

\"I sensed a disturbance in the force…ahem, I mean, I sensed your mana fluctuating and rising. I'm assuming you're awake?\"

\"No, I'm somehow answering your call while I'm still asleep. Assume that I'm sleeptalking.\"

Harrison chuckled from the other end of the phone, not at all offended by my sarcasm. He didn't spend too much time on small talk and plunged straight into the topic.

\"Sorry…I know you're still resting after the strenuous battle with the Frenzor Assassin…\"

\"How do you know about that?\" I asked, unable to conceal the surprise from my voice. I hadn't told him or anyone else about it…more because I went straight to bed and fell asleep for most of the day. That meant…

\"Harvey told me everything, as did the people from Silver Wolves. They apologized for the trouble they caused.\" There was a slight moment of hesitation, and then Harrison continued. \"If you don't feel up to participating in the match tomorrow, let me know. I won't force you. Your well-being is more important than the tournament.\"

\"Hell, no. I'm in. I can guarantee I'll be back to full health tomorrow. You know how mages work. A good night's sleep is all we need to recover all of our mana.\" Yeah, that was pretty game-like – just like in any decent role-playing game, all you needed was a good night's sleep and your HP and MP would be restored. It mostly worked that way for us…mostly. Unless you did something as stupid and reckless as casting a nuke spell. Then you would need between five days and a full week to recover all your mana.

Absolute Zero, while almost on the same scale, did not require nearly as much mana. For one thing, my nuke spells were just basic spells infused with tremendous amounts of mana, and thus were super inefficient and mana draining. Absolute Zero was an advanced spell and was more efficient, and thus was not as taxing on my mana and body as my nuke spells were.

\"I'll be fine. Use me however you see fit. You can send me against the whole team if you want.\"

I could almost see Harrison smiling on the other end of the phone at my joke, and he returned with one of his own. \"I'll take you up on that offer then.\"

\"Try not to, or Craig and the others will complain about me stealing all the credit.\"

\"There's still the team match, and I plan to make use of them there.\" Harrison took a deep breath. \"But for now, if you can, I want you to watch and review the matches for these few members of the Saint Teresa Academy team. These are the core members that Kureha will be sure to send against us tomorrow in the individual match. I want you to familiarize yourself with them, just in case.\"

\"Sure.\" I had already did that over the last few days, and Harrison was giving me a last minute reminder, to ask me to do some last minute reviewing of these core members before I went to nbed again. \"I'll check them out again before I sleep.\"

\"Excellent. I'll be counting on you then. I've send you a copy of their files and data, so just glance through them and prepare for tomorrow.\"

\"Roger that, Captain.\"

The moment Harrison hung up, I received a notification informing that I had received a few files and documents, which included dossiers and videos. I opened them up into multiple holographic windows and studied the floating screens in front of me.

Other than Kureha Franklin, the captain of the Saint Teresa Academy team, who served as a paladin, there was Eliza Franklin, a branch family member who also claimed to be a paladin. There was Rossetti Picket, who was the team's maiden or dancer, a red-haired girl with a friendly deposition. Then there was Lute Dragoon, who was the team's dragoon…which meant he was a summoner like me, who summoned a Soul Beast to ride upon so that he could serve a cavalry role. The fifth member was Miura La Noir, a Diabolos or black mage, who specialized in dark magic such as curses and other creepy techniques. Maybe summoning and necromancy, if I wasn't mistaken. The sixth core member was Kufa Van Peer, who was a samurai.

Out of these six, five of them would be chosen for the individual matches. The rest were mostly reserve members who were rarely selected for both team and individual matches. From the data, they were inexperienced second year students who had not even fought once throughout the entire tournament.

\"Phew…\" I exhaled wearily as I went through the six core members' files and information, making sure I was familiar enough with their fighting style, magic and techniques. Miura La Noir in particular was going to be a handful. \"This is going to be…interesting, to say the least.\"

Shutting off the windows, I smiled to myself. Despite the massive odds stacked against my team, I was actually looking forward to the match tomorrow. Leaning back on my bed, I stared up at the ceiling.

\"This is so going to be fun.\"