Harrison Reed clapped his hands to draw our attention toward him. I glanced up at the bright blue sky, admiring the awesome weather, before allowing my sight to be guided toward the row of buses parked outside the dormitories.

"Whoa, they are so extravagant," Dong Fang Yue Chu remarked as we followed the hundreds of students from all the different academies to line up beside the buses. "To think that they would give each team their own shuttle bus…"

Yeah, that would mean about five hundred buses, all catered just for the students partic.i.p.ating in the national tournament alone. The Federation certainly was not sparing any expense for this annual event. I had always been aware of the huge importance they placed on the tournaments and academy and student rankings, but this seemed like a huge waste of money to me. Well, the bus drivers had jobs and benefited from earning from this, so I couldn't complain.

As I boarded the bus, I noticed several students from a particular academy – Castian from Caliban Academy, to be specific – staring in our direction. It wasn't exactly hostile, and Castian wasn't staring at only us. He was sweeping a calculating gaze across the entire street, as far as he could see, taking note of students from Aurora Academy among others.

What? You think this was some stupid Chinese webnovel where the antagonists all had a hard-on for hating the protagonist and his team for no reason other than because he was a protagonist? Even though there were other teams who also rejected his offer and refused to partic.i.p.ate in his schemes, he was only going to hate and resent only the protagonist's team because…of protagonist power? That every single character in this world existed only to provoke and pick fights with the protagonist, solely because the author intended for him to slap their faces and humiliate them later on when they attempted their pathetic antics to bring down the main character?

That isn't how real life worked, dudes. The whole world isn't out to get you over something as petty as "not giving face" or some bulls.h.i.+t reason like that. Realistically speaking, most people had much better things to do with their time and energy than to pointlessly hold on to trivial grudges.

"Harrison," Yue Chu began nervously. Like me, he had caught Castian's stare and was feeling anxious over a possible backstabbing. "Since we rejected their proposal to cooperate against the higher-ranked teams, do you think those other teams will gang up on us?"

"Of course not." Harrison snorted. "We're not the only ones who rejected the proposal. There were plenty of other schools who refused to partic.i.p.ate in their nonsense. Are they going to target each and every academy who rejected them? They risk creating a greater enemy – they will inadvertently drive all the teams who rejected them to form a coalition to resist them. Also, why would they waste time with other low-ranked teams when their goal for teaming up is to defeat the higher-ranked teams in the first place? Where are they going to find the time and energy to target everyone? If they waste their time and resources backstabbing other low-ranked teams, they risk forfeiting their original objective of challenging the higher-ranked teams, and leave themselves open to counterattacks. The higher-ranked teams wouldn't care about their infighting or honor – if they see a lower-ranked team looking vulnerable after having exhausted themselves in defeating other low-ranked teams, they will definitely exploit that opportunity to erase one of their opponents."

"That's true," Craig agreed. "They have more important things to worry about, more important enemies to deal with than the likes of us."

Thank you for not spouting bulls.h.i.+t about how alliances built upon short-term benefits completely lacked trust and would tear themselves apart from infighting before attacking other people. That was the most naïve thing I had ever heard. Underestimating your enemy and a.s.suming that something wouldn't work without an actual basis or justification was a surefire way to suicide. But of course, the protagonist who waved that bulls.h.i.+t around was right because the author said so. That was the problem with Mary Sues. The authors simply couldn't conceive of a scenario where their protagonist makes mistakes or is wrong, and the world itself would warp just to fit the protagonist's view.

"Of course, I'm not naïve enough to dismiss them," Harrison added, almost as if he had read my mind. "They might try something funny. Although it's highly unlikely that they will waste their time on us because they will have to prioritize the higher-ranked teams, highly unlikely is not the same as impossible or will never happen. We should still be cautious. But…" he smiled. "We already know that, don't we? Every other team partic.i.p.ating in this tournament is a potential enemy. In the first place, the whole purpose of the qualifiers is for us to compete against each other. Of course we can't afford to underestimate the enemy and dismiss the threat they pose. Everyone, no matter which school they are from, is an opponent that we must eventually defeat. It shouldn't ome as a surprise that they will seize an advantage to eliminate a rival without any hesitation when they come across one."

Sheila Scarlet nodded. "That makes sense. So we should stay on our guard, regardless, and treat them like any other opponent."

"Correct."

"Fine by me." Lily leaned back against her seat. "If they come for us, I'll show them the extent of their folly."

"Harrison literally just told us that we can't afford to underestimate our opponents," Yue Chu reminded her dryly.

"That's right," Theodore Hammond agreed. "It doesn't matter what rank the opponent is. We can't let our guard down just because they're supposed to be low-ranked. We must offer our respect to everyone we fight against."

"Seconded," Harrison said with a smile.

"Oh…this is getting really exciting!" Pearl hugged herself, suppressing a s.h.i.+ver. "I can't believe that the tournament is already beginning!"

"Speaking of which, we're here." As silent as ever, Cody Crosby spoke up suddenly, surprising us with his rarely-heard voice. All of us eagerly gazed out of the bus window and gaped at a gigantic statue that stood proudly outside a vast stadium. Even though we weren't exactly late, we could already see countless students already gathered upon the steps leading up to the stadium proper, enthusiastically conversing and exchanging words.

"Whoa, there are so many people here!" Yue Chu almost pressed his face against the window to stare at the bustling crowd.

I stared at the statue for a moment, completely baffled by what I was seeing. Was it my imagination, or was that…?

"Why is the Statue of Liberty here?" I demanded in disbelief. "Did they bring the whole thing from New York and rebuild her here or something?"

Everyone stared at me.

"What are you talking about?" Bu Fan growled irritably. I pointed at the bluish statue standing tall outside the stadium.

"That! The Statue of Liberty! How the heck is it here!?"

"Never heard ot the Statue of Liberty," Bu Fan muttered. The rest of my friends also responded with blank stares. Seriously? The people of this time had never heard of the Statue of Liberty, and wasn't questioning why it was randomly appearing in the middle of a city that was clearly not New York?

Then I understood why. The manhua artist responsible for drawing the manhua adaptation couldn't be bothered to come up with and draw a proper original statue, and so just lazily used a photograph of the Statue of Liberty for the background.

Wow. Way to go, manhua artist.

The silver dome-shaped stadium was packed full of chattering students, filling out its vast, open expanse. They streamed toward their a.s.signed seats, which was pointed out to them through holographic screens and floating arrows.

The capacity of the stadium was fifty thousand, so it was usually more than enough to accommodate all of the students who sought to partic.i.p.ate in the national tournament. Yet, for some reason, the full stadium was filled to capacity. Perhaps there should be between five to ten thousand partic.i.p.ants, but the stadium was full…which meant, a good majority of the students present most likely were not partic.i.p.ating in the tournament, or there were a lot more of the teams and students involved than I previously thought.

Shortly after we had taken our seats, a familiar figure strolled arrogantly toward us. I recognized that spiky red hair immediately.

"Jing Tian Academy team! What a coincidence!"

Ding Ke Po from Divine Divination Academy grinned as he stared at us for a moment, even as his teammates strode past him to take their seats. For some reason, he was crowing triumphantly.

"I told you we would meet again, didn't I?"

"n.o.body said you were wrong," I pointed out dryly. Yue Chu nudged me.

"Don't pick a fight for the sake of it."

"However, this is quite strange," Ding Ke Po continued, ignoring us. "Why is a C-ranked team like you guys seated next to us?"

"Probably because the ranking system is bulls.h.i.+t, and the official school board doesn't use this arbitrary ranks that some idiot came up with?" I replied with a roll of my eyes. "You do realize that this stupid ranking system doesn't have any credibility at all?"

"Don't be obtuse!" Ding Ke Po snapped. "These ranking evaluations are based on the individual academy's results from the past years, as well as the quality of the members in the team. Therefore it can be considered accurate!"

"And who does the evaluations?" I responded coldly. "The Ministry of Education? Teachers? Or a bunch of students and fans with nothing better to do and too much time on their hands?"

I swear, they reminded me of football fans who love a.n.a.lyzing their teams and players and often thought they were better than the manager. A lot of these armchair managers arrogantly believed they could do better than the manager, and whenever their team lost a game, they would call for the manager to be sacked while declaring that their tactics would have won their team the game.

However, I didn't take their armchair a.n.a.lysis seriously. For one thing, they weren't on the field everyday overseeing the team's training or discussing the tactics. They thought it was so easy to manage a team, probably because they played too much Football Manager. Similarly, the people who came up with the ranking evaluation probably read too much manga and thought they could come up with a ranking list based off…I don't know, the "quality of the members in the team." If people like Harrison, Craig and Theodore were ranked C in their eyes, then I knew for certain that the evaluators were blind.

"Hmm…if this is the case, maybe the seating a.s.signments aren't based on rank?" Ding Ke Po mused, outright ignoring me now. I decided to return the favor and ignore him from now on as well. My teammates certainly were paying him no attention.

"h.e.l.lo, everyone! I am Melida Chao, and I will be your MC! First off, please give a round of applause to the pride of the Federation! The top 8 teams from last year will be entering the arena!"

I caught sight of Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy strolling into the center of the stadium, led by Cecili Stuart. She struck a regal figure at the front of her team. I also remembered Doug Daniels, who was part of the team as ever, as well as Nick and Chang Cheng, and a few other students I didn't recognize. Evidently there had been a shuffle in their roster. Hal Gunther was conspicuously missing, as was Elena. I wasn't surprised at Hal's exclusion. The guy was only going to be a liability, what with his arrogance and s.a.d.i.s.tic att.i.tude.

"Amazing…" Ding Ke Po was weeping. "d.a.m.n, I wish I could sit with the S-ranked G.o.ds. I'd be fine even with the ranked teams too…"

Dude…you're really pathetic, you know that? Plus I was finding his obsession over ranks annoying. Who cares about ranks? They were arbitrarily a.s.signed to us amd were not representative of our true strength or potential. What, did you think a rank C team would automatically roll over and fall the moment they faced a rank A or rank S team? If everything was based on ranks, why even have the tournament? You mght as well decide victories based on the teams' ranks and not bother with the trouble of actually fighting.

Honestly, all these stupid ranks were just a lazy plot device for the author to make his protagonist's team the underdog, only for them to surprise everyone by defeating teams that were supposed to be ranked levels above them, and thus rendering the whole ranking system utterly meaningless in the first place. Their protagonists were such a special snowflake that the rules did not apply to only them.

Speaking of which, it felt so long since I last team-killed the Crowley's Grand Arcane team. To think they were ranked among the top eight…I wondered if I could pull off another team kill of a supposedly high-ranking team and surprise everyone once again. That would be fun, but highly unlikely.

I tried to pay more attention to the actual announcement, especially when I saw an older man in his fifties come up to take Melida's place at the podium. Leaning into the microphone, he cleared his throat to gather everyone's attention.

"Ahem."

Immediately the chatter all died down and the students fell silent to listen to him attentively. Even though the guy seemed soft-spoken, his voice had a power that appeared to draw everyone in and captivate them.

"Thank you." the guy tilted his head, as if appreciating everyone's polite acquiescence. "I will now talk about the arrangements for the national tournament. I'm sure that by now, everyone has already familiarized themselves with the rules for the tournament, but this year…there has been a change. You probably know about that, what with the alterations to the format of this year's qualifiers. We will be splitting you up into five city districts, which have already been determined."

There was a soft buzz as everyone murmured to each other about having their suspicions confirmed, or their surprise at the change that they didn't antic.i.p.ate.

The middle-aged man smiled indulgently, and then raised his hand to gesture for silence once more. The moment the students complied, he began reading from a list. Behind him, a ma.s.sive holographic screen flashed into the background, displaying the various cities and the environments outside them, the environments they were most well known for.

"Tian San City Disctrict."

This was a city nestled within what seemed like barren mountains, filled with treacherous terrain and monsters.

"Aurora City District."

A city most well known for its winters and icy environments, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and often p.r.o.ne to blizzards. To make matters worse, the snow often served as home and camouflage for a myriad of monsters that had adapted to the extreme temperature and prospered by hunting unwitting explorers who carelessly wandered into the snow.

"Tallarab City District."

The city located in the middle of a desert, often bombarded by sandstorms and ferocious monsters. Of course, this wasn't as bad as it sounded, for the residents of the city itself had made great headway with land reclamation and the restoration of derelict land, and were able to turn parts of the former desert into flouris.h.i.+ng agricultural fields and pristine rivers. However, they left a portion of the desert untouched because they saw great importance in training their soldiers and mage students, and also because it was practically impossible to eliminate the powerful monsters lurking within the sand of those areas.

"Cerulean City District."

This city was situated right next to the sea, and boasted a lot of ports and s.h.i.+ps sailing through its position for business, cargo and leisure. What was of particular interest were the various coastal islands that dotted its sh.o.r.eline, and this was probably where the qualifiers were held. Needless to say, there were countless monsters swimming in the watery depths.

"And the Huang Wu City District."

Compared to the other cities, this particular city was located in a much milder environment, sprawling meadows and plains of green stretching across the broad expanse for as far as the eye could see. Of course, the gentle scenery was deceptive. There were monsters concealed within the tall gra.s.s, and unless you didn't have your own monster…sorry, I mean, unless you didn't have your own magic, it would be dangerous to venture out in the tall gra.s.s.

"Now, we shall announce the distribution of teams!" The middle-aged announcer beamed. "As you all know, your teams will be a.s.signed to one of these city districts for the qualifiers. Good luck!"

This was an opportune time for me to drift off until they announce my school and which district we would be a.s.signed to.