Novel Full Chapter 213: Ending the day on a high note
Chapter 213: Ending the day on a high note
For several long seconds after the announcement, the entire coliseum remained frozen.
Then the silence broke.
The crowd erupted.
It was not just cheering anymore. It was a storm of sound. Thousands of voices shouted at once, people stood from their seats, nobles clapped, students whistled, and the entire arena trembled under the weight of the applause.
“XAVIER!”
“DAWNCREST!”
“MONSTER!”
Everyone looked stunned. Because what they had just witnessed was not simply a student match.
It had looked like the clash of two battlefield generals.
High above, the faculty balcony was filled with lively conversations.
Professor Halbrecht lowered himself back into his seat slowly, his eyes still fixed on the battlefield below.
The barrier he and the others had erected had completely shattered during the final collision, and yet even he did not seem upset.
Instead, there was a faint smile on his old face.
“That… was worth the effort,” he said quietly.
Beside him, another professor exhaled.
“They nearly destroyed the entire arena.”
“Nearly,” Halbrecht corrected calmly.
Further along the balcony, Duke Dawncrest sat with his hands folded in front of him. His expression had not changed throughout the entire fight.
But those who knew him well could see the slight glint of pride in his eyes.
Below him, his son was still standing in the center of the destroyed battlefield, breathing heavily while attendants rushed toward Evander’s unconscious body.
“Good,” the Duke murmured under his breath.
In another balcony, Patriarch Moon leaned back in his seat and laughed deeply.
“Well, well… what a spectacle.”
His wife covered her mouth with a small smile.
“That boy really is terrifying.”
Several merchants seated nearby were already whispering among themselves.
“That kind of gravity control…”
“Did you see how he reversed the stone rain?”
“Monster…”
Meanwhile, in the Adventurer’s Guild balcony, the woman in the red qipao rested her chin on her hand as she watched Xavier through narrowed eyes.
“That was… an impressive fight,” she admitted. Inwardly though, she was shocked beyond belief, ’Maybe, I really underestimated this place.’
One of the men behind her nodded.
“They are both already stronger than most of the very best S-rank veteran adventurers we have.”
She tapped the hilt of the saber resting across her lap.
“And they’re still just a pair of students.”
Back in the waiting room, the reaction was just as intense.
No one spoke for a while.
The room was filled only with the distant echo of the crowd and the soft hum of the arena screens.
Then Tessa finally exhaled.
“…What the hell was that?”
No one answered her.
Even Mira looked slightly pale.
“That didn’t look like students fighting,” she said quietly.
Isolde nodded slowly.
“It looked like… a fight between two titans.”
Aria glanced sideways at Elion.
He had not moved.
He was still staring at the screen where Xavier stood among the ruins. His mind was replaying the fight again and again.
The speed.
The control.
The power.
The way the arena itself had become meaningless once the two of them started flying. It had been on a completely different level.
He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a quiet breath. “I guess I still have a long way to go.”
Mira looked at him, and she laughed lightly. “You will get there, IN fact, you will fly right past that ceiling.” There was really no doubt in her mind.
If these two could be this powerful, her man could do it ten times better.
Elion chuckled dryly. “Your confidence in me is concerning, but thank you, Mira.”
Mira laughed. Elion leaned back slightly in his chair and looked at the screen again.
Evander was being carried away by several academy healers now, accompanied by Beatrice. His body was still smoking slightly from the final collision.
Xavier had finally sat down on a broken piece of stone while a healer examined his wounds. Both of them looked exhausted.
But that didn’t make them look weak.
Elion glanced toward the arena ceiling, where the last bits of dust were still drifting down.
“Still, if a hundred versions of me fought Evander… I’d probably still lose.”
Tessa raised an eyebrow.
“Why are you even making comparisons when you have only just started your journey as a mage? I don’t like it when people do that. Besides, isn’t a hundred a bit much?” She paused, “They are just a few years older than us.”
“Hundred is not much, really. Remember how your strength grows exponentially the higher up you go? So the difference only gets bigger. And then of course, we haven’t taken into consideration how much more experienced they are compared to us.” Elion said calmly.
He was not exaggerating. The difference in experience alone was enormous.
The man had been training and fighting for years longer than him. To Elion, who had gained so much strength in so little time, seven years felt like a whole lifetime to him now.
But strangely…
Elion did not feel discouraged. Instead, he felt something else.
Excitement.
His eyes slowly brightened.
“Anyway…” He stretched his shoulders slightly. “That just means I’ve got something to aim for.”
Mira smiled faintly. “That’s the spirit.”
On the screens, the hostess had returned to her floating platform.
Her voice rang through the arena again. “What an unbelievable fight!”
The crowd cheered again.
“And that!… Concludes the battles for Day One of the academy tournament!”
More cheering.
“Please rest well tonight, because tomorrow the tournament continues!”
The screens began shifting to show highlights of the day’s battles.
The golden glow of the late afternoon had turned softer, deeper. Long shadows stretched across the broken remains of the arena floor where the seventh-year battle had taken place.
The sunlight filtering through the open ceiling of the coliseum painted the ruined stone in warm orange and red tones.
It was clearly getting late.
Even through the screens in the waiting room, everyone could see the bright sun up high in the sky slowly receding.
The hostess’s voice came one last time through the arena’s amplifiers.
“Participants of the academy tournament, please take note!”
Several students in the waiting room paused as the announcement continued.
“For today, the matches have concluded. All participants are free to leave for the evening.”
A few students sighed in relief.
“Tomorrow morning, the updated match schedule will be made available for every participant to see.”
The large screens shifted briefly, showing a simple notice.
“This will allow participants to better organize their time. If you are not scheduled to fight at a certain hour, you are free to go about your day, rest, or enjoy watching other matches inside the arena.”
The announcement continued calmly.
“As the tournament progresses, the number of matches will increase, and battles will begin earlier and end later in the day.”
That made several students exchange looks.
People nodded knowingly. Today had been relatively relaxed.
Only a portion of the total fights had been held, and the pacing had been slow. The academy clearly did not want to overwhelm the audience or the participants on the very first day.
But in the coming days…
Things would become far more intense.
It was likely that each year would begin fighting multiple times per day once the tournament got fully underway.
The hostess finished with a cheerful tone.
“Thank you all for attending the opening day of the academy tournament! We hope to see you again tomorrow!”
The screens slowly dimmed.
Around the waiting room, students began standing up. Some people were talking excitedly about the fights they had seen.
Back in their little corner of the room, Elion stretched his arms behind his head.
“Well,” he said.
“That was a day.”
Mira chuckled lightly. “Not for you.”
“True.” Elion shrugged. “I mostly watched.”
Aria leaned against him, still holding the empty chocolate croissant wrapper she had refused to throw away.
“It still felt exciting, though.”
Isolde nodded with a soft smile.
“Especially that last fight.”
Tessa cracked her neck.
“Yeah… I’m not sleeping tonight after watching that.”
Elion stood up and dusted off his coat slightly.
Then he looked at the four girls.
“Alright.”
They all looked at him.
“Let’s go eat.”
Aria’s eyes immediately lit up.
“Yes!”
Elion grinned.
“And we should hurry before all the good places get filled.”
That was all it took.
Mira stood up immediately.
Isolde followed.
Even Tessa moved quickly.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Mira laughed.
The five of them started moving toward the exit with the rest of the participants.
But the moment they stepped outside the waiting room doors and into the large tunnel leading out of the coliseum—
Aria suddenly grabbed Elion’s arm.
“Run!”
“What?”
“RUN!”
And just like that, the group burst into motion.
They started running down the tunnel, laughing and pushing through the crowd of students who were slowly making their way out of the building.
“Move!”
“We need food!”
“Aria, slow down!”
“No!”
“Chocolate desserts first!”
Their voices echoed through the corridor as they rushed toward the exit.
Outside, the evening sky was turning purple and orange.