Reincarnated as the fourth son of a noble and tamed an SS-rank dragon-Chapter 64: The Witch’s Gravitational Pull
On the second day of the tournament, there were only the best of the best, the previous day’s competition had only chosen the eight best in each category, except for the archers, who had already been chosen.
Although there were still doubts as to whether or not all the archers should be hired, Cassandra wanted to, but Zai and Celene thought it risky to hire everyone, it was better to hire those who were at least in the top ten, they thought.
But since the majority thought the opposite, they didn’t insist so much. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
Darius was also worried about the idea of considering the sixteen archers, because he would give them an extra prize, even though Lucian paid their salaries.
In a few days he went from being a very wealthy merchant to a bankrupt one, but all because of his lack of control over his spending. At one point he started spending all the money he was earning and ended up with a negative balance.
The weak man was in a fight against a woman, she wore a witch’s outfit and was known for her dark magic, she controlled gravity and her magic could crush and kill any enemy, as the competition forbade assassinations, she was controlling herself and so the damage she caused was minimal compared to all the damage she could cause if she left her magic unlocked.
The weak man was moving so fast that he might be able to dodge her attacks.
"He’ll lose, but he’s already on the roster," Cassandra said before the match began.
In the previous fight the witch defeated her opponent in less than two seconds, even if the weak man is fast, it’s unlikely that he’ll dodge all her magic.
The fight began, the witch was moving slowly, her movements were so slow that it took her more than two minutes to start casting her magic, she didn’t seem to notice that her movements were slowing down.
"What did he do?" Kaly asked.
"I think I understand, at no point did he move fast, he cast magic on everyone and moved normally since everyone was moving at a slow speed, that explains his magic a bit," Darius said.
Kaly repeated the hypothesis, but the man laughed and denied it.
"I move fast, but I can also use dark magic and I developed this spell, so imagine me at super speed against an enemy who is moving at her speed. The damage would be too great, don’t you agree?" He shouted.
"Now that’s what I call a show," Cassandra said as she ate a piece of cake. "The best thing about the tournament is that everyone is demonstrating all the skills they have, so the fights are taking their time and aren’t boring like other tournaments, but this effort on their part could be in vain if they just stand around like this without showing results."
Some competitors were just showing off their skills, but some weren’t useful in battle, like a mage who set off fireworks with fire magic and synthesis alchemy. He created gunpowder, which left him with less mana, then used fire magic and created a beautiful display. However, he was defeated by simple wind magic.
The display of skills was important in deciding who would be hired, but some asked for it and ended up just putting on a show and not showing their skills in combat.
The tournament itself is a representation of a part of war, where both sides fight and the most skillful, not the strongest, wins.
"Then show me where this skill will be useful in combat," Cassandra shouted.
The witch continued to move slowly, the weak man began to attack several times, he was at normal speed, each sphere of fire hit the woman, on the last one he undid the slow spell and the witch used the magic, but she used it when the man was no longer in the place she was aiming at. The floor was shattered by the gravitational force she had created. The man was sure to be badly hurt.
"She didn’t hold back in the end," Zai said.
"I think she did, but from the time she spent preparing, maybe the magic’s timing was normal and she accumulated a lot more mana than she intended," Cassandra said as she looked at the woman lying on the ground.
"What makes you say that?"
"She’s hurt, but do you think she’d faint from those fireballs?"
Darius and the others stared at the woman and then at the man.
"You’re right, one of the spheres hit the wall and the crystal didn’t register it as an attack."
"He wanted her to attack, but somehow he controlled the timing so that she spent more time using mana for the attack, so she passed out from exhaustion."
"He’s a threat, but on our side, he’d be very useful."
"You were smart, Darius. Putting all that money into the prize pool has paid off, the other tournaments don’t have such strong people, sometimes they even take part, but only when they’re in town. The prizes don’t usually attract that many people, many stay working for the rulers, or landlords who are very rich."
The man approached the witch and began to use magic on her, he used magic similar to what Kaly used, but in this case he gave part of his mana to her.
The weak man was declared the winner.
"He can donate his mana to other mages, that’s very useful, if we use mana potions on him, he would be able to send mana to other mages in combat," Kaly said looking at Cassandra, who was eating.
"I agree, that sounds very useful, we have many ways to make the army even stronger and with that, we will take the crown. I’m kidding about the last part."
No one really wanted to take the crown, but speaking it out loud was not looked upon favorably, as it could be considered a form of treason, the penalty for treason being death. Not just of the traitor, but of the whole family up to the third line.
This happened because of some people who lived for a long time, like dragons who live for centuries, or elves and dwarves. With the advancement of potions, humans and beastpeople began to live longer, it was common to find people of these races over 100 years old, so this law was created to prevent any descendants from living too long and holding a grudge.
If the traitor was noble, the title and possessions would be taken away. It’s an appropriate form of punishment, since the traitor, being dead, would no longer need the property. In addition, the other members of the family would be left without anything of the traitor’s, which was another reason, since it was not desirable for the traitor’s money to be used in some rebellion or something similar.
That day they decided who would go through to the semi-final, which would take place the following day along with the final.
To ensure that all the competitors were in good condition for two fights, they were all given energy and healing potions, as well as mana potions and food, which helped their mana recover naturally. That’s why Darius managed to finish the tournament in three days without any problems.
Every day the arena was packed and everyone was somehow consuming the food he sold, so he made more money. But he was still a long way from being as rich as before, even more so because of the prize money, which would leave him even more broke.
As much as he had infinite money, he didn’t like the idea of always having to resort to it, it was too easy a route and that’s why he disliked it.
He was bored of having everything so easily, working hard to get what he wanted seemed more fun, although it also made him a little anxious, but it was part of what he called the ’game of life’.
All the contestants were in the arena, the first four would receive the money, a weapon and the request to work for Lucian, they wouldn’t be obliged to accept, but it would be a great honor to accept the request to work for a Count, but if the person already worked for some noble with a higher title, in that case it didn’t make sense to accept the request.
Darius and the evaluators went down to the center of the arena. Kaly used earth magic to make the concrete soft and then molded it into a higher structure, where they could climb up the ladders.
On the platform, Darius pulled out a table and on it, he placed all the prizes, eight large coin purses, four medium coin purses, and four small coin purses. Plus the weapons.
He took out another table and placed twenty-six coin purses, these were smaller and each contained 100 gold coins.
In the large bags there were four bags with 3,000 gold coins and in the other four there were 2,000 gold coins. In the medium bags there were 1,000 gold coins and in the small bags there were 500 gold coins.
These bags alone contained 28,000 gold coins. That would be equivalent to the profit an average city could make in taxes in one year.
