The first event in the Inter-Academy Festival was the Mana Fortress Defense.
This event required the sixty participating students to deal with coordinated attacks from beasts captured by the Academy for the event. The setting was spectacular—a massive arena transformed into a battlefield with ten separate fortresses, each allocated to a team of six students from mixed academies. The fortresses weren't mere physical structures but advanced constructs that responded to their defenders' actions, growing stronger or weaker based on how well the team functioned together.