The rest of the banquet passed by without a hitch for Leo and Su Yang, who kept chuckling from time to time at nothing in particular.
The duo garnered a lot of side-eyed gazes from the crowd, who would often talk in hushed tones behind their backs, however, neither Leo nor Su Yang let that affect themselves.
Already accustomed to the back-talk in school, the duo felt right at home in the banquet, which they completed without any incidents, before returning back to the villa.
—----------
(The Rodova Team Villa, 5:00 pm)
It was 5 PM when the team gathered in the villa's spacious living room for their final strategy meeting.
Tomorrow marked the beginning of the Circuits' most notorious phase— the Preliminary Elimination Round.
With over 2,000 teams participating, it was simply impossible to allow every academy to compete in the formal tournament bracket, which is why the participant pool was mercilessly cut down to just 64 teams through a brutal and unforgiving preliminary round — a trial dreaded by all mid seeded teams.
The rules were straightforward, but the execution was anything but.
All 2,001 teams were seeded into four groups — A, B, C, and D — based on their academy's standing from the previous year, with only the top 16 teams from each group advancing to the main tournament.
Each group was assigned one of the Sky-God Arena's classic battle layouts: the Forest, Desert, Tundra, or Flat Plain — each terrain designed to test not just strength, but adaptability and strategy.
The objective was equally simple on paper — eliminate as many opponents as possible within a one-hour timeframe, with every opponent defeated awarding one point.
Above the battlefield, live rankings would be projected onto massive screens for all to see, constantly updating as teams fought tooth and nail to climb into the top sixteen.
This was also the only round where all ten members of every team fought simultaneously, creating a chaotic, all-out battlefield where alliances were formed and broken in seconds, and where underdogs often pulled off shocking upsets.
For many mid seeded academies, this was not just a test of skill — but the most dangerous gamble of the entire tournament, as just the difference in prize pool for academies that made it to the top64 and the academies that did not, was a MASSIVE 25 million MP.
For most mid-sized academies, the entire goal of the circuits was to get to the round of 64 and get the 25 million MP reward to improve their facilities.
However, for Rodova it was nothing to write home about
"We have an alliance with the Nature Military Academy and the Sapphire Academy for the first round, so nobody kill their students.
Is that clear?" Yu Shen said, as he presented a strategy map on the living room monitor.
"We are in group B and the battle-map assigned to us is the Forest Map, which means there will be plenty of places for our enemies to hide and set up ambushes.
Forest is one of those maps where hunting alone can cost you dearly, however, we are Rodova Military Academy, and we can't go around like bitches either, so we will move in packs of two.
I'll go with Boxer.
Minerva with DP
Su Yang with Drake
Du Plessis with Kohli
And Leo you go with Enzo—" Yu Shen instructed, as everyone nodded in acknowledgement.
"The goal is to not let your partner get killed and score as many points as you can in the 60 minutes allotted for this stage.
There will be 5000 contestants in our pool, 4990 of them enemies, and as per previous year averages, you need to score at least 200 points to qualify.
But we are Rodova and we aim for the number one spot, so we are aiming for 500 eliminations.
That comes to 100 eliminations per team, which everyone must complete—" Yu Shen instructed, as he left no room for arguments or self-doubt.
To be fair 500 eliminations was a very tall target to achieve in under 60 mins, however, Yu Shen believed in the philosophy of 'Aim Small, Miss Small', which was why he believed that if he gave the team a 500 kill target to achieve, they may end up reaching 450.
However, if he gave them a target of 450, they may only reach 400.
"Su Yang and Leo. The two of you need to be careful of what skills you put out tomorrow—
You're both a blank slate for many, and if you can hide your skills in this preliminary round, it will be useful for you when the real difficult rounds begin, however, it's always more important to live in the present, so if you find yourself in a pinch, use it but don't get eliminated.
Got it?" Yu Shen said, as both Leo and Su Yang nodded.
"Finally and most importantly. USE YOUR HEADS.
There's no point walking into ego-traps here.
If some area feels shady.
If something smells of foul play or ambush.
Avoid it.
Don't waste time falling into a stupid trap that will waste time for you and the team, costing us all points.
Because I swear if I replay the tapes tomorrow night and watch any of you commit some sort of braindead fuckery, I will bench you for the next three fights.
And won't call on you even if we are losing— Got it?" Yu Shen said, as the entire team replied in unison with a "Yes, Captain!"
"Good. Now let's huddle up and conclude the meeting. You're all free to spend the rest of your day as you like.
But I expect you to be ready in your uniforms at 6:00 am tomorrow morning, as although our match starts at 8:00, we will arrive at 6:00 and watch group A's match in full—" Yu shen said, as he gestured the team for a huddle, as on his count they all chanted at once—
"Strength above all! Heart beyond strength! Rodova Forever!"