End of the Fall Tournaments

The second day of the festival started much earlier than the first. Nurse Rouse didn't even have to kick Aayla out this time. Jacki dragged her out of bed before that. Dormi may or may not have played a small role in that by letting Jacki into the building.

The duels started around dawn. This time, both the second and third rounds would be held in one day. The top 100 would be knocked down to the top 50 and then to the top 25. The tournament still followed the single knock-out elimination format. Matches were still restricted to 15 minutes for the second round, and 30 minutes for the third.

The second round was still a breeze for Daren and Chris. There were absolutely no surprises. Both elite students barely took five minutes each for their matches. The third round was a bit more intense. With more competitive students, the battles took longer, even for Daren and Chris. Nafriton students weren't pushovers after all.

As she watched the duels during the past couple of days, Aayla slowly got a sense of what dueling was like. With the restricted regulations, students would take turns attacking each other and only fight until their outer safety barrier cracked. Each student would stand in a marked area far apart from each other for the entire match. Spells over the basic level were banned, in addition to other power output regulations. The rules in the restricted regulations rivaled the number of words in the dictionary. Essentially, the duelists can't play any tricks and just blasted away at each other.

Each duel left Aayla more bored than the last. Each duel seemed to have the same flow, and each duelist seemed to have a bad case of Eighth Grader Syndrome flare up. They looked so serious chanting, but the trash talk made her cringe. Jacki told her spell names and translated a few of the chants every so often, which only made Aayla cringe even worse. Aayla was deeply embarrassed on the duelists' behalf.

Aayla really started missing the fantasy movies and regular sports from Terra. The duels here just seemed a bit fake overall, like they were set up for certain people to win. After hearing the Halcyon students talk about each competitor, she could easily predict who would win.

This way of dueling, with restricted or student regulations, was common around the world not only for teaching but official duels as well. Magic could easily go out of control for lower ranked users when emotions ran high. The number of deaths and amount of property damage caused by duels was innumerable over the thousands of years of known history. Overtime, this has become the 'civilized' way of magical dueling.

Honestly, the rules were highly restrictive and totally overkill in terms of safety. Though a bit boring for Aayla after the first couple of matches, the students around her seemed to really enjoy the duels. Even as she walked around with Jacki and the other Halcyon students, they could not stop excitedly discussing the duels. To them, wizards were supposed to maintain their distance, put up shields and aim to overwhelm the opponent. The level of flashiness and complexity indicated creativity.

Unlike restricted dueling, normal dueling had much fewer regulations. Unrestricted or normal dueling used to be the norm thousands of years ago, but as time passed wizards, governments and the general public grew sick of constantly cleaning up after duels. This version of dueling was more akin to actual combat. If restricted dueling was a turn-based card game, then normal dueling was like a complex, real-time action RPG video game. There were still rules, but they were much looser.

Normal duels were typically used in the most difficult competitions, military training and select university training curriculums. Very few organizations could provide the necessary equipment for safe normal duels. Nafriton University was one of the few non-military universities that provided dueling opportunities for students, though these opportunities were restricted to third-years and above.

At last, the final day arrived. All three tournaments would wrap up that day, with the school wide top 50 tournament between the third- and fourth-years held the next morning. Aayla gathered with Jacki and the Halcyon students before dawn. Even for the second-year tournament, the excitement was palpable in the air.

The fourth and final round would reduce the top 25 down to the final rankings. This round was a double-elimination style tournament with 30-minute matches. The finals and semi-finals would be held that afternoon. Before the tournament began, the finalists paraded around the field to the cheering of the adoring crowd. Daren and Chris were particularly popular amongst the remaining competitors.

Each match was more heated than the last. If only Aayla could understand what exactly was happening. The crowd would 'ooh' and 'aah' when the duelists cast their spells. Aayla tried her best to keep an excited look on her face but the cringe factor just got so much worse for this round. Yesterday's duels at least maintained some resemblance of mysticism and seriousness. Today's just seemed like stimulated toddlers throwing fire at each other.

Everyone else was too distracted by the duels to notice her awkwardness. Jacki would often squeal in excitement and squeeze Aayla's arm, which started to go numb.

"Take this! My ultimate spell! Devastation of the Sun!"

"Hah! You call that a spell? Now this is a spell! Scorching Flame Tycoon!"

"You utter fools can bow down before me! Ice Mirage Blast!"

(Author's note: spell chants omitted for brevity.)

Aayla prayed to whatever deities that Tellus had that the matches would be over soon.

The flashing lights were spectacular, she'd give them that, but the names needed work. Was it really that necessary to scream the spell name and chants out loud? Aayla flushed in embarrassment from the trash talk. It was all so… cheesy. Horrendous. Gag inducing. Sheer torture.

Aayla hid her face in her hands several times. Many of the worst trash talkers were borderline painful to listen to. They were that impressive in their own awful way. If Aayla dueled with them she would surrender just to stop the trash talk. Today she learned that wizards can be highly excitable in a not so exciting way.

At last, the semifinals were set to begin after a long lunch. Loud shrieks rose from the audience when the finalists entered, especially from The Butterflies. Only four students were left. Two from the winner's bracket and two from the loser's bracket. They would determine the top four spots and the top four strongest wizards among the second years. Various recruiters greedily examined the contestants, trying to determine how to pull them into their own groups. Most eyes roamed towards Daren and Chris, the expected winners of the competition.

Daren solemnly stood on his stage while Chris pranced up onto his own. Fortunately, each would face off against one of the losers in the semifinals. Despite Chris' cheerful expression, he actually exuded a slightly dangerous feeling, much more so than Daren. Apparently, Chris was actually taking these matches seriously unlike the previous matches.

Aayla wasn't sure which one to watch, but someone helped make that decision for her. Vanessa cheerfully threw a handkerchief down towards the field. It flew towards Daren as if carried by an invisible wind.

"GOODLUCK MY DARLING FIANCE!"

Aayla could have sworn that she saw Daren shudder. Chris glared at Vanessa across the field. The handkerchief almost immediately disappeared. Hidden speakers crackled to life.

"Vanessa Landrienne, one warning for illegal interference with a tournament competitor. Any further attempts to access the field or interfere with the competitor will result in a permanent mark on your record and immediate removal from the competition grounds."

The young lady furiously gnashed her teeth. She started arguing with the nearest referee. How dare they ruin her perfect display of support and affection for HER fiancé! Those stupid referees should know who they've now deeply offended. When the referee gave her another warning, the rest of The Butterflies joined in berating her. Soon, security forcibly escorted Vanessa and her entourage out of the area.

While The Butterflies were being removed, the referees started the other match. Chris immediately went on the attack. His opponent barely fended him off. Chris quickly tore through his opponent's shields. Ultimately, Chris won the match but not before his opponent got a few good hits in. Daren cautiously wore down his opponent after his match started minutes later. Daren took almost the entire allotted time to wear his opponent down, but never took a hit to his own shields.

Several minutes of rest later, the final matches began. The losers competed amongst themselves for third and fourth place while Daren and Chris competed for first and second. Naturally, most of the attention was on the duel for first place.

Neither young wizard held back against the other. Their spells were spectacular. The crowd hushed in awe. Silence reigned aside from low incantations. Unlike most of the other wizards, Daren rarely trash talked. Chris was completely serious this time and ditched his own trash talk. They focused completely on casting spell after spell as quickly as possible.

Second years had never seen dueling like this. With nothing but incantations and bursts of light, the duel was transfixing. The referees and staff nodded in approval. These two second-years were taking their duels much more seriously than the rest.

Chris had the edge in experience, but Daren had advantages in knowledge and patience. Long after the other duel finished, Daren finally beat out Chris for first place. The audience burst into applause. This year's finale was beyond exciting for the second years.