Chapter 321 Mage Archery Tournament 2
"Waaaaahhhh!"
Seeing his son watch the arrow with the zoom trinket until it could no longer be seen, Norcet smiled and patted his head.
"it's just the beginning, son. Mage competitions are really a sight to behold. I'm telling you, half the people here bought tickets mainly to see the Mage tournaments."
"More than half."
Hearing the mage beside him say these words while looking at the ground with focused eyes, Norcet smiled even wider and said, "Yes, more than half. So who did you bet on?"
The question was addressed to his son, who grinned and said, "Lanthanor, of course! The kind man at the stall even said I would win big!"
"A-all of it?"
"Yup! All of it!"
The answer made both the mage and Norcet turn around and stare at the little kid, who didn't understand why they were looking at him so strangely.
Norcet had made the decision to give 50 Gold Lans to his son who had jumped up and down on seeing the advertisement before. His thought had been that he would be able to expose him to decision-making at an early age so that it would help him later on.
Yet, it seemed that the kid had gone and potentially wasted all that money.
"But son, didn't you see that the odds were against Lanthanor? Didn't your teacher teach you about odds?"
"I know, dad, but I believe in our King!"
"But Eldinor is the Kingdom with the most accomplished mages in the entire continent! Lanthanor might come second, but there's no way it will come first!"
"My teacher said so too, but I still believe in our King, dad! You should, too!"
Seeing the blind optimism in his son's eyes, Norcet sighed and gave up.
The Mage, on the other hand, smirked at Norcet, as if mocking him for making the decision to allow a young kid to bet.
Norcet also wondered whether he had made the wrong decision, but he decided that it would be a great opportunity to teach his son when he lost all the money.
All the analysis made so far pointed to Eldinor making a landslide victory in this stage, just like Axelor had in the previous one. Hence, the odds for Eldinor winning was 0.1-1, meaning that someone who bet 100 Gold Lans would only end up with a total of 110 Gold Lans if they won, making a profit of 10 Gold Lans in the process. Still, many had bet huge amounts of money in a bid to win big.
The odds for Lanthanor winning, on the other hand, were 3-1. So, Norcet's son had the chance of making a profit of 150 Gold Lans on his bet.
Of course, both Norcet and the mage knew that the chance of this happening was almost 0.
How much ever they respected King Daneel, they knew that he couldn't turn around the power of the Mage army in the few months that he was King.
Hence, both of them had already made their bets on Lanthanor coming second and Eldinor winning.
"Goooo Lanthanor!"
The shout from the kid interrupted their line of thought, making them focus on the ground again.
Sylvesto had already made his exit after announcing the main rule, which was that each mage only had 30 seconds to shoot the arrow forward since the moment they took it. Their next spell could be cast after the arrow hit the first target, but no spell could decrease
As the stadium had been built on the land of the Black Raven Kingdom, it was easiest for the citizens of this Kingdom to attend the event. Hence, among the spectators outside the stadium, the majority were supposed to belong to the Black Raven Kingdom itself.
Hence, bolstered by the home ground advantage, the mages of the Black Raven Kingdom put up an admirable performance.
There were a few techniques which were most commonly used by the Mages: either they formed isolated tunnels which the arrow in place before being propelled forward by a force from behind, or they would be thrown forward using telekinesis.
The former was still stronger than the latter, as more force could be used in this method.
Some mages also used special techniques such as casting wind spells to increase the speed of the arrows, but this also had the risk of pushing the arrow off-target.
The main problem was the limitation of time. If one wasn't adept or powerful enough to cast the strongest spell possible in 30 seconds, then they would inevitably fail.
After the Black Raven Kingdom came the Kingdom of Arafell, who had a much more consistent showing than the one before. Their team was almost completely comprised of humans, as it was said that giants who had talent as mages were few and far in between.
As the final score would be relative, it was still anyone's match.
Next was Eldinor, who showcased the arrogance that was their trademark.
Of course, their performance made everyone realize that at least in this stage of the tournament, they had every right to be arrogant.
Each and every elf who participated had top-tier talent and power which was leagues apart from the teams of the other two Kingdoms who had participated so far.
In the end, of the 50 top scores which were updated live on the large central display trinket, 38 belonged to the elves, which seemed to be a sign.
Seeing this, the crowd erupted in cheers, but everyone knew that they were cheering for the money that they hoped to win instead for Eldinor itself.
At this point, the team from Axelor walked up to the spot from where they were supposed to shoot the arrows one-by-one.
Unlike the others, these soldiers wore red robes with hoods that covered their faces.
The crowd, who had been cheering till now, calmed down for the most part, expecting a dismal performance due to the weak talent of Axelorian Mages.
Even the odds reflecting this, with a whopping 8-1 rate that had made many shake their heads.
Still, there were some who took the chance, knowing that they would win big if something unexpected happened.
Yet, as soldier after soldier started shooting the arrows, it started to become apparent that this wouldn't be the case.
The first 2-5 members of every team usually had the highest scores, as these were the commanders/top personnel of the army.
After that would come the elite soldiers, and then the regular ones.
So far, 30 soldiers had come and gone, but Axelor still only had 3 names on the rankings, who seemed to be the strongest among them.
Daneel, who was once again sitting with Faxul, had his elementary sight activated while watching the proceedings of the tournament.
So far, everything had been going as expected.
Yet, when the 31st soldier walked up to take an arrow, Daneel got a feeling that something was wrong.
Both the walking style and the body structure of this man were completely different from the soldiers who had come before. There was a certain…arrogance to the stride, as if the man was bestowing honor upon the earth just by walking on it.
After picking up the arrow, he started casting a spell, but suddenly stopped.
This had been so minute that no one had been able to detect that something was amiss.
However, Daneel, who had both the system and comprehension that exceeded the standards known to the Central Continent, knew that something was amiss.
The system confirmed his suspicion.
[Spell technique detected. Phenomenon was too short to analyze detailed information.]
Someone in the Axelorian army had a spell technique?!
Impossible.
As Daneel watched on with shock, this man cast a spell again, but this one was normal, with no hint of the spell technique he had used before.
However, his skill was something to behold.
The base of the spell was the same: a funnel was created, and a force was applied to the back of the arrow.
Yet, his funnel was longer than those formed by the others.
Also, as the crowd watched on with awe, a mini-tornado formed inside the funnel which accelerated the arrow and also gave it a rotational movement that increased its speed.
BANG
As it shot forward, it became clear that it would break most of the records so far.
Just a Daneel was about to teleport to Sister Xuan to take a second opinion about what was going on, she sent a message herself which made him stand up and put on an expression as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt.
"King Daneel! These…aren't people from the Central Continent! If I'm not wrong, they are disciples from one of the Big 4!"