My Joker System: From Low Mana Trash to the Mightiest Wizard!-Chapter 109: Arcana Primis Cup: Main Tournament

The opening ceremony only took half an hour.

From singing the Arcanum Imperium’s anthem to the announcement of the rules and brutal single-elimination tournament format, then to the speech that ignited not only the participants’ competitive spirits but also inspired the younger, aspiring wizards, despite not having awakened their mana yet, to reach greater heights.

Everyone was pumped, eager to know who would emerge as the top youngster of this batch.

Luckily, the organizers understood their hearts, shooting fireworks into the sky the next moment as a tall, bespectacled young woman in a long red dress with gold lining and a slit along the right leg, her fine curves evident, ascended the stage, smiling as she waved to the roaring crowd.

The Arcana Primis Cup really surprised them this time, hiring an expensive pop star as the event’s host.

Akari Aster was the main vocalist and the face of the rising pop group, the Aster Angels, with the entire group essentially built around her, the other members planned and positioned as mere backups.

"Hello, everyone! I’m your host for today, Akari Aster. Let’s have fun today, yeah? Aster... Kyuuu~~!!"

"UAAHH!!" the crowd roared in response as if struck by a bullet to the heart.

Hal furrowed his brows and shook his head at the sight, his heart grimacing due to an unknown feeling he had just discovered today.

What the hell was going on?

’Aihh... that older sister is pretty, but it’s clear she’s not too bright...’ he mused. ’A pity...’

He was from the border villages, so he wasn’t familiar with luxuries like attending a pop idol’s concert and thus had no idea who this overly enthusiastic woman was.

All he knew was that her actions made it seem like she was trying too hard to be cute, even though she already was, which only made her seem more dumb and immature in his eyes.

Why not act naturally when she’s already so beautiful?

Hal chose not to dwell on the matter, though, as Akari had already called the first two competitors, assigned them to one of the four minor arenas, and then moved on to calling two more.

This continued until the pop star host had called four pairs to fight in the four minor arenas and one pair, featuring the high-ranking 16th seed, to fight in the main arena.

There would be sixty-four matches in the first round, so they couldn’t realistically allow everyone to fight in the main arena, even if they wanted to, as the event would run longer than necessary.

This was a mere two-day event, and sadly not everyone was famous or skilled enough to deserve the limelight.

Only those who won would earn such exposure.

Seeing that all ten competitors were on the stages they had been assigned to, Akari made the announcement with enthusiasm as she descended from the main stage:

"Let the battles begin!"

That said, they didn’t begin at the same time, instead following a schedule where each match started fifteen seconds after the previous one.

The reason for this was to stagger the end times, allowing each winner a brief moment to shine, even with so many duels happening at once.

The first battle on the first minor stage soon began, just as a large, vivid holographic screen appeared a few meters above the main stage.

It displayed the brackets for the first five matches, ready to update in real-time.

Flames roared and winds howled as two young wizards fired projectiles at each other, dodged with skillful footwork and immaculately timed repositioning spells, and occasionally defended with barriers, slowly whittling down each other’s mana.

It was evident that the wind was slowly overpowering the flames in the fierce exchanges, however...

The matchups for the first round were the sixty-four seeded candidates against the 64 who made it out of the preliminaries.

This matchmaking format aimed to weed out the weaker participants early and encourage dark horses to emerge, making the event more exciting by managing the crowd’s expectations from the start.

If no one from the preliminaries managed a deep run, the arrangement would help onlookers adjust and shift their focus to the matchups between the seeded candidates, and if a dark horse did emerge, then all the better.

Unfortunately, the first five matches ended as expected. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

The five-star students of the academy, the disciple of a retired magna, and the heir of a prominent wizardry clan all emerged victorious.

They didn’t win as easily as they might have hoped, but they still steadily overwhelmed their opponents.

The same thing happened in the second batch of battles.

Liora defeated her opponent unexpectedly quickly, even faster than one of the sophomore five-stars of the academy, despite being a year younger.

She calmly dodged spells and reacted flawlessly to everything thrown her way, resulting in what appeared to be an aggressive advance.

In the end, she pierced her opponent’s forehead with a vicious ray of light, triggering the special protection barrier and momentarily knocking the poor guy unconscious in under a minute.

Her performance made the eyes of the observing higher-ups of the empire glitter with delight, compelling them to watch her battles a bit more closely than they had initially planned.

Who knows?

Perhaps the empire would have another Magna Prospect sooner than expected.

In the third batch of battles, however, one of the not-too-unexpected dark horses emerged.

Korren Neidisch, from the same Poporo Village as Hal and a four-star student of the Grand Magic Academy, defeated his opponent—a young female aristocrat who had chosen to study under a high-ranking wizard from her clan who shared her elemental path.

This decision seemed to backfire on the young woman, as it quickly became clear that she lacked combat experience.

Korren took advantage of this, claiming victory with a fierce water serpent that sent her crashing out of Minor Arena Three.

This earned the fake childhood friend some notable eyes.

To Hal’s amusement, Korren eagerly shot him a somewhat proud and disdainful look after his victory, making Hal chuckle inwardly.

According to the brackets, he would face the bastard in the second round, if he won his own match, of course.

The tournament inevitably proceeded, with a total of five dark horses managing upsets in the first round.

One of them even did so with surprising ease.

This spiced up the tournament more than even the organizers had hoped, the sponsors’ eyes glinting with the thought of gold coins.

Finally, Ennya’s batch wrapped up their battles, with the midget decimating her opponent using a single, massive fireball.

The first four matches of the final batch were then called onto the four minor arenas.

Then, somewhat unsurprisingly...

"Hal Fennec, 64th. Wolfe Greyhollow, 65th. Please proceed to the main stage."

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