Tournament Part-2

"All the participants have arrived in the arena." After introducing us to the audience, the announcer started, "Each of them will be given a castle. All are basic castles, with two floors and cylindrical shape." the castle looked just as he described, each of us got one.

"You have thirty minutes to change the layout of the castle. setting traps and additional walls is allowed, as long as you use your mana to do so. your actions will be visible to the audience through the screens." each of us were shown alternatively in pairs on screen.

"For your convenience, a hundred sheets of each basic elemental circle are placed inside the castle, along with the flags. After the match starts, the first ten minutes will not be shown to anyone. three… two… one… GO!"

I used fire circles to burn the doors down. as both were made of mana, burning down took only a few minutes. I used that time to seal the windows all over the place. The sheets disappeared as soon as I put mana in the circle.

As the doors burned down, I used smoke as cover and used wind circles to surround the castle temporarily. As dad taught me, I set some circles that activate only when touched. some were set to draw mana and activate at the same time when the person touched them. these had given me a hard time when I was training, they were good traps. I went out and sealed the entry, then went to the top from outside.

"Ray is already outside, looks like he is done changing the insides. Is he out of ideas, or does he have a proper plan? Next, we can see Robin placing many circles outside his castle, what is he up to? next is.." announcer kept track of our actions.

I did little warm-ups and breathing exercises to ease my mind a little. I placed one flag on the castle's first floor and kept the other on my waist belt. time was almost up, others were also waiting for the signal.

"get ready. ten… nine… eight… seven… six…" I took a stance, "five… four… three… two… one… start." I flew straight up.

There were eight castles below. excluding mine, three looked normal, others were quite tampered with. Robin's looked normal for one second, the next second, it was surrounded in flames. He used fire and wind to make a fire vortex around the castle. {Impressive.} Tom had turned his castle into a conical shape, with water flowing from walls at high speeds and rock walls around the bottom. looks stupid. Both Harry and Emma had domes around theirs, Amber had put up walls, but tops were open, where she was flying. Eve was there, sitting on her castle roof. She also had no visible defenses, and her flag also wasn't visible. {She looks like bad news.} I chose to ignore her and attack the easy target, Amber.

"And Ray is the first one to attack. He's going for Amber's castle while he remains defenseless. Is this a sign of overconfidence?" Thanks, dude, now she knows what exactly is happening. {Can you shut up?}

I reached her castle, but she wasn't there. the flag was on the open roof for some stupid reason. Just as I was about to land, I stopped midair. {something isn't right, this is too easy.} I snatched the flag without stepping on her castle.

"Amber is headed to Ray's castle, did she use hers as a decoy? ray already has one flag, can amber recover from this loss?" {stop commenting like that, you sound like a weirdly desperate reporter.}

Amber was scouting my castle. She kept herself floating, and kept her distance from the walls.

"Looking for entries?" I called her out, "sorry, it doesn't have any."

"Then I'll make one myself," she replied.

"A direct confrontation! Ray and Amber are face to face, are they going to fight?"

"Can you stop shouting out Every action?" I shouted at the announcer, "I can't concentrate here."

"aren't you a little too confident? looking away while in a fight." Amber attacked me. {Cliché}

"Really?" I dodged and placed a sheet on her shirt. I took her flag and activated the circle. I saw her fall, but didn't bother to help, we weren't that high.

"What just happened? Amber is down, and Ray has both of her flags. when did that happen?"

"Can you stop pretending to not see anything? explain to them instead of shouting nonsense." I shouted again.

The announcer smiled, it was a little creepy to see him smile. "you're sharp kiddo. Alright, let me explain what just happened. Amber attacked Ray when he was talking to me. Ray dodged and placed a lightning circle on her shirt. after he took her flag, he activated her and now she is down." he explained it normally for once. "Now, as Ray has both her flags, Amber is out of the game."

I felt a tingle in my back, someone had entered my castle. I broke the wall and pulled out a floppy body.

"Ray is pulling out Harry's unconscious body from his castle. What happened you ask? Harry dug a tunnel from his castle to Ray's. He dug in and was caught in one of the numerous traps set inside. Now I can see why Ray was so confident in his defenses."

I took his flag, then repaired my castle. After that, I took over his castle as well. six should be enough. I sat down on the wall of my castle and focused on the commentary.

"We now have a fight between Robin and Emma. Emma managed to enter the vortex while avoiding burns. now they are fighting one on one, it is true hand to hand combat."

I heard something from my left. It was Tom, in Emma's castle. He saw me looking at him, gave a guilty smile, and jumped up. He landed on his own castle, with a new flag in his hand. I whistled loudly, it got commentator's attention and I pointed at Tom.

"Oh!" he noticed, "Tom has captured Emma's castle while she is fighting Robin. A truly cunning move." This was followed by a loud sound of someone falling hard. "Robin has managed to knock out distracted Emma. He has taken her flag, that means Emma is out of the game. only five minutes left, and five players fighting for flags. let's see how it goes."

The last five minutes were great, Irene got impatient and raided Tom. He threw her in the water and took both of her flags. The game ended with her castle going down. After we all got down, our points were shown. The main part was the number of circles used.

[Ray 107 total, 56 unused. (6 flags)]

[Tom total 76, 7 unused. (5 flags)]

[Robin total 88, 6 unused. (3 flags)]

[Eve total 5, 0 unused. (2 flags)]

Eve had no defenses, but survived through the game. She looked so confident that no one chose to attack her. She knows how the human psyche works. {I'll try not to mess with her.}

We were given our medals and titles along with them.

"1st position, Ray- the strongest air runner, who managed to capture all six flags on his own."

"1st runner-up, Tom- the one with impenetrable defense. no one was able to enter his castle even once, a feat even ray couldn't achieve. He also took the flag off an empty castle, making a total of five flags."

"2nd runner-up, Robin- best combatant, he was the only player whose face off could be considered a 'fight'. defeating his opponents using only his fighting skills, he has three flags."

"3rd runner-up, Eve- the trickster, she had such a confident smile on her face at all times, and didn't move at all. But it was all a ruse, which tricked everyone into leaving her alone, letting her keep her 2 flags."

After the air battle, there were other events like martial arts, race, mountain climbing, and a few mind games. In the end, there were also some recreational games too. These were free for all parents, teachers and students to enter. Tom and I competed with Robert and lost each game. He was just too good.

After everything was over, we headed to the changing rooms. Both of our families were waiting there.

"Ray!" Rita ran towards me, "I saw your match, you- you stink." she backed away, "take a bath, then we'll talk."

After changing, we all sat together in the cafeteria. I got three new pieces of info there. First, my family has been here since the start of the day and saw my match. Second, Tom is Robert's nephew and Robert is really 25 years old. Third, school was off for two days and we all had to head home with our families.

"How many years has it been since I last used a bus?" I never used the bus to go to school, the bus took longer to reach the collection rock than just flying to it.

After I hit the bed I slept for ten or more hours after getting home, as told by my mom. She tried waking me up a few times, but I didn't. {Sorry mom, but I needed the sleep.}