In the blink of an eye, two days passed.

Erzi and the rest of the group played through the first nine events of the school sports meet at a frequency of four matches per day.

By the third day, they finally arrived at the site of the very last competition.

"This is the last of the ten major athletic events for this sports meet: the Individual Combat Tournament!"

The Individual Combat Tournament was the most popular event in the entire sports meet, and also the one with the highest number of registrants.

The rules for this competition were simple: Wizards engage in 1v1 frontal battles, and rankings are determined by combat strength. The person who takes first place will be the "Chief" of Fairy Academy for the next four years.

The last person to claim the title of chief was Ultear, but that was already four years ago when she was only in the fifth grade of primary school.

Now, not only have Erzi, Gray, Lyon, and the others grown up, but the academy has also added a crowd of new students like Natsu, Gajeel, Mira, and Brandish, with exchange students from the Royal Capital Magic Academy watching greedily from the sidelines.

Every one of these people possessed formidable strength, and most had highly competitive personalities, making Ultear’s "Chief" title appear precarious.

"Individual combat—this is the place where we can truly have a fair fight!"

Looking at the arena stage that had been set up, Natsu and the others had a gleam in their eyes: "Why don’t we just use this competition to settle our score once and for all?"

"My thoughts exactly!"

"I have no objection!"

"Whatever works!"

Gajeel and the others agreed one after another, but Cana, standing to the side, was bewildered: "Huh? Use this to settle it? Then what were the past two days of competitions for?"

"Well... let’s just say we were having fun!"

"...Whatever you guys want! I’m tired of being the ’referee’ anyway."

Cana said as she carried her drinks to the side, drinking by herself.

Soon, everyone finished registering and received their respective sequence numbers from the organizers.

"Area A, No. 39?"

Erzi held her number plate, lost in thought.

Since there were many students signed up for the "Individual Combat Tournament," the school had to divide the venue into four areas to ensure the rankings were finalized before the end of the sports meet. The four arenas were labeled A, B, C, and D; they were close to each other for easy management but far enough apart not to interfere with one another.

"I’m Area B, No. 52."

"What bad luck, I’m in Area C!"

"Looks like everyone’s split up; I’m D."

"That happens when you sign up together. After all, they have to prevent match-fixing. But there are five of us, so at least two will be in the same arena... Just right, I’m also in Area C."

Among the five, Erzi and Gray were assigned to Area A, while the remaining three were assigned to B, C, and D accordingly.

"And then, where is my opponent?"

Natsu and the others looked toward the staff members impatiently.

The staff were not from outside the school but were students from the Fairy Academy "Student Union." This person had clearly recognized this group as the "Fairy Princess" and her companions who had caused such a stir a few days ago. While answering patiently, there was a touch of curious observation in their eyes.

"The process for this ’Individual Combat Tournament’ is as follows: first, collect your number plate to confirm your arena. This plate is only valid for this sports meet."

"Before the end of the fourth day, contestants will be randomly assigned opponents in a ’1v1’ format for a knockout tournament until only one person remains. Then, on the fifth day, the top four survivors from the arena phases will have their opponents determined by drawing lots to hold the semifinals and finals."

"As of now, 44 people have been eliminated in Area A, with 35 waiting; 46 eliminated in Area B, with 40 waiting..."

The group generally understood the rules.

"Hearing it like that, doesn’t it mean it’s more advantageous the later you go up to fight?"

"Not necessarily. We won’t allow contestants to go on stage repeatedly in a short amount of time, and the ’waiting for the enemy at leisure’ strategy won’t work here."

Gray asked curiously: "If there are too many participants or the matches are slow, what happens if the top four aren’t decided by the end of the fourth day?"

"We won’t let that happen," the staff member replied. "Registration ends today precisely to prevent the situation you described. Then, if by tomorrow afternoon the number of waiting people in an arena is still high, we will ’reduce’ and ’fix’ the time for each match."

"When time is up, if a winner hasn’t been decided, both sides will be eliminated together!"

Hearing this, several people took half a step back in shock. They didn’t want to finally make it to the end only to be eliminated because of insufficient combat time!

"The situation is clear now. We just need to defeat the opponents in our respective arenas and meet in the top four!"

"Right. So... you guys better not get defeated by anyone else first."

"You’d better worry about yourself first!"

After a few brief "blessings," the group dispersed.

Gray led Erzi toward the Area A arena, suggesting on the way: "Since both of us are in Area A, it means we’re destined to be rivals. How about... you just forfeit now?"

Erzi refused flatly: "Huh? On what grounds? No way!"

Gray blinked: "Come to think of it, I signed up because of Lyon’s pestering and because I wanted to settle things with him, but why did you join? Don’t tell me it’s because Natsu forced you. If you really didn’t want to play, you could have backed out."

Erzi chuckled: "The reason for participating? To become the academy’s ’Chief,’ of course!"

Gray’s eyes widened in surprise: "For real? How come I never noticed you had that kind of ambition before?"

Erzi and Gray had grown up together. The former was the daughter of Descartes and Layla, while the latter was the son of Silver and Ur. Their parents were best friends, so the two could be considered childhood sweethearts.

In Gray’s eyes, Erzi had always been a carefree and naturally lazy person, and that carefreeness and laziness all stemmed from her family. As the only daughter of the Lagrange family, Erzi not only had an excellent family background but also inherited the brilliant magic talent of her ancestors. Things that normal people need to work half their lives or even a lifetime for, she had from birth.

Because of this, Erzi never had any grand ambitions. This was the first time Gray had heard Erzi say she wanted to be the chief, which was particularly surprising.

"What’s with that look?"

Seeing Gray’s "seeing a ghost" expression, Erzi couldn’t help but complain: "Can’t I have high ambitions?"

"I want to make progress too!"