【Ding!】


  【Goddess of Fate’s Guidance:

  Do not reject Alicia Ascart’s request tonight.】


  “…”


  Do not reject Alicia’s request tonight? Hm?

  Looking at the System notification that abruptly came in, Roel’s mind was filled with question marks. He suddenly felt a little uncertain about following the Goddess of Fate’s Guidance.

  There had been nothing particularly problematic about the suggestions made by the Goddess of Fate thus far, but the same couldn’t be said about this one. It was still fresh in his mind how Alicia proposed for them to take a bath together not too long ago. What if she were to make such a suggestion once more?

  There was no way Roel could possibly accept that.

  It troubled him just to think about it.

  His eyes drifted over to the spectator stand, where a red-haired woman and a white-haired girl sat next to each other. He noticed Alicia waving happily at him, and he waved back at her.

  Forget it, no point worrying about it now. I’ll just see how it goes.

  The Goddess of Fate’s Guidance had already proven its effectiveness by this point. He decided not to think too much about it for now.

  The medic quickly led him out of the colosseum toward a medical examination room. He didn’t have any injuries since his substitution magic tool was still intact, so he was allowed to leave after a quick examination.

  As soon as he walked out of the medical examination room, he was welcomed by the warm applause of his faction members. The first thing he learned was that the payout for his victory had risen to an incredible level.

  Selina was the one who had clinched first place in their preliminary round group, and the chosen terrain, Forest of Eternal Night, was highly advantageous to her. In contrast, Roel had avoided revealing Artasia’s powers in the last two rounds. All of these factors led the crowd into believing that it was already a decided match, so they rushed to place their bets on Selina.

  As a result, the payout for Roel’s victory shot all the way up to 3.15 by the time the fight began.

  It was so skewed that Roel was dumbfounded when he heard about it. One must know that the usual payout for a seeded challenger like him was around 1.3. That was also the reason why he chose to bet on the duration of the duel instead of his own victory.

  He wasn’t confident about maneuvering the technicalities when dealing with Selina, so he got Alicia to buy on his victory instead. Ironically, it ended up maximizing his profit instead.

  Just like that, he successfully increased his capital to over 100,000 gold coins. At this rate, he might just be able to repay Charlotte before the end of the Challenger Cup!

  After resting for a while, Roel chose not to return to the academy right away. He stayed in the colosseum to watch the subsequent matches, hoping to gather some information on his competitors.

  The tournament had already proceeded in the top 32, but none of Roel’s friends and the transfer students had been eliminated yet. Even the weakest Paul was able to survive two rounds through summoning overpowered weapons and armor.

  Paul was lucky to encounter an Origin Level 5 transcendent in the first round, but his luck ran out in the second round when he was matched with an Origin Level 4 transcendent. Everyone, including Roel, thought that this was the end of Paul’s journey in the tournament.

  But, of all places, the terrain chosen as their battlefield ended up being the sea.

  Water terrains were usually viewed to be neutral toward all challengers since most people wouldn’t have experience fighting in water. The crowd thought that it would eventually boil down to a battle of sheer power.

  Yet, with a simple switch of armor, Paul gained the ability to freely maneuver around the terrain as if he was in his own home turf. Through his advantages in mobility, he was able to kite his opponent and slowly wear him down till death.

  Such a dramatic turnaround amazed the crowd. It further drove in the notion of how important the terrain was in a battle. That was probably part of the reason why everyone rushed to place their bets on Selina when it came to Roel’s battle.

  Roel could only say that Paul was incredibly lucky. This might just be what people commonly call the protagonist’s halo.

  In comparison, Geralt had a much tougher time. He managed to survive the last two rounds, but both had been difficult fights for him.

  As for Nora, Charlotte, and Lilian, those three basically crushed their opponents, especially Charlotte. Through her expertise in divination, she was able to predict not just the terrain but even her opponent’s weaknesses as well.

  It might not be as effective against stronger transcendents, but when it came to opponents of the same Origin Level, her thorough preparations were impossible to deal with.

  Take the previous round for example, Charlotte was fighting with a spellcaster known for his huge AOE spells in an urban environment. The spellcaster had a bloodline ability that allowed him to conceal his mana pulsation to a certain extent, making him a frightening sniper.

  The spellcaster learned before the battle that Charlotte’s Golden Soul was particularly adept in defense, so he decided to first bide his time to prepare a huge spell to blast through her Golden Soul, clinching the win in a single move.

  It would be an understatement to say that things didn’t go the way he expected.

  Amidst the hundreds of residences, Charlotte accurately predicted his location and decisively interrupted his spell channeling. From the moment his spell channeling was interrupted, his defeat was already sealed.

  Compared to Charlotte’s fanciful plays, Nora and Lilian’s battles were much more monotonous. They would simply crush their opponents with their sheer strength every single time.

  As for the transfer students, each of them had their own unique traits.

  Of them, the one who stood out the most was Teresa, who defeated her opponent with ease through her Hextongue.

  Perhaps out of worry that she would cause excessive damage through extreme words like ‘Die’, she was extremely careful with her choice of words. She would usually spend some time maneuvering around her opponent, slowly chipping off her opponent’s substitution magic tool.

  William’s fighting style was more simple, focused mainly on efficiency. He would swiftly close in on his enemy and decide the match in a single slash.

  This could very well be the most exciting Challenger Cup ever hosted.

  The First Graders, who were allowed to participate due to a special exception, had shown their worth in the tournament, taking over twenty slots in the top hundred. Even when they were now in the top 32, they were still occupying twelve places.

  This was an amazing result, to the point that the crowd was starting to dub the current First Graders of Saint Freya Academy as the golden generation. However, Roel knew that the truth was very different.

  While the seven transfer students were First Graders in name, the only one who could be truly considered to be a First Grader in terms of age was William.

  The education syllabi across different territories in the Sia Continent weren’t standardized. What was taught in the Knight Kingdom’s Saint Fran Academy and Brolne’s Saint Freya Academy were very different, which was why all seven transfer students had no choice but to start as First Graders. Otherwise, Kurt of the Giant Bloodline was already a Third Grader in Saint Fran Academy.

  It was really through faking their ages (kind of) that the transfer students stood out so much.

  The upper-grade students of Saint Freya Academy were pretty impressive too, such as the Greenrose Ringbearer of the Second Grade, Glint Doran, and the Grayrose Ringbearer of the Fourth Grade, Edward Potter. Of them, Edward Potter was said to be on the verge of a breakthrough to Origin Level 3.

  Prior to the enrollment of Roel and the others, these two Ringbearers had always viewed the Purplerose Ringbearer as their de facto leader.

  Glint was an Austinean who deeply believed in the Pure Bloodline Theory, so it was only normal for him to become Lilian’s stalwart supporter.

  Edward was from a minor country that served as a buffer state to the Austine Empire, so there was no way he would dare to defy the woman who could possibly become the empress of the Austine Empire.

  Roel had only met them a couple of times at the Rose Council, so his interactions with them were severely limited.

  His impression of Glint was that the man had a screw loose. Glint was a devout believer in the Pureblood Theory, which led to him taking a hostile attitude toward Roel and the others. As for Edward, he appeared to be a cordial person, just that he was often not in the academy so the two of them weren’t able to talk much.

  Both of them had advanced into the top 32 as well. Edward, in particular, was in second place of the seeded challenger ranking, and he was able to defeat his previous two opponents pretty easily. The crowd had high hopes for him.