Mordred pulled his senses back, the strands of his consciousness lifting away from the immediate battlefield so he could focus on looking back over all of the other combatants. It was going to be horribly embarrassing if he only managed to return with information on a single opponent. He somehow doubted Spider’s group would be thrilled with that, no matter how interesting the person may have been.

Some people had no drive to discover new knowledge whatsoever.

But there was no shortage of interesting magic here. None at all. All throughout the arena, mages at the peak of their Ranks were locked in combat. Mordred was unsurprised to find that the groups were definitely having the most success. The bigger they were, the fewer people tried to challenge them and the less losses they took.

He was slightly surprised to find that the combatants having the worst luck weren’t actually the ones on their own. That misfortune was granted to the mages that had only managed to build small groups of three or four people. It wasn’t too long before Mordred realized exactly why that was the case.

Some of the solo mages were weak or entirely without social skill… but something around twenty or thirty percent of them were hidden monsters. Mages so powerful that they didn’t give the slightest shit about teaming up with anyone else. And when you were up against someone that dangerous, the chances of them taking out a few members of your group — no matter how big it was — grew exponentially larger.

The same couldn’t be said for the smaller groups of mages. While some of them were definitely skilled and a few groups had clearly fought together before, the vast majority of them were simply mediocre mages that had banded together in a desperate attempt to increase their chances of making it into the next round of the tournament.

And, unfortunately for them, being in a smaller group set a target on their back for just about everyone. The big groups targeted them because they were less likely to have a hidden master lurking within their ranks, and the solo mages targeted them because it was much easier to wipe out three people than ten or twenty.

Mordred’s consciousness flitted through all 5 of the arenas the tournament was currently unfolding through as he mentally took notes on everyone that held any real interest to him. He didn’t let himself focus too closely on any individual mages anymore. Instead, he opted to try and get as much information as possible.

Though it was tempting to hyperfocus, this strategy was the one most likely to be effective for the later stages of the tournament. That much was obvious to him purely from how it had been structured. There were 5 arenas, each of them massive and stuffed to the brim with only the gods knew how many mages.

Given the number of combatants participating, there would doubtlessly be dozens — if not more — of rounds similar to the ones currently unfolding around him. That would still be far too many mages to bother letting do normal one on one combat. Too many uninteresting mages would be able to make it through this round. More would have to be filtered.

The mages that made it through this round included those lucky enough to throw their lot in with the right group or those who knew how to stay out of the way. Only after the next round would things be filtered down to the point where Mordered’s information would actually be useful.

Furthermore, a lot of the truly powerful mages were very likely restraining their abilities right now. Revealing the full extent of what one could do so early into a tournament was usually a poor idea. Unless someone was completely confident that they had absolutely no chances of losing against anyone in their bracket, winning by a thin margin was going to be the safest strategy they could take.

Mordred’s only goal at the moment was to try and figure out who was best to focus on in the future. This was just building a preliminary network. But even still, he couldn’t help but find his attention getting snagged a bit more than ideal.

The first thing that really pulled him from his work after Bird was a scene unfolding in an entirely different arena. His senses prickled a warning as someone drew on a surprisingly large amount of magical energy. His attention darted over to it, only to find himself looking down upon what must have been one of the largest groups he’d seen yet.

There were easily 30 mages that had formed into a cluster at the center of their arena. All the other groups were battling around them, but nobody was stupid or brave enough to try and go for the massive pack. The group just sat and watched everyone else battling for their life, a few of them occasionally taking pot shots at the fighting groups from the safety of their numbers.

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Mordered’s lips would have thinned were he physically present. This wasn’t the point of the tournament at all. Forming into a huge clump like this and just sitting around doing nothing… it defeated the purpose. Such a thing proved nothing.

Why did I feel so much magical power coming from this area? Nobody here is doing anything interesting at all.

He was about to pull back when he caught a flicker of white dancing through the air in the very center of the large group of mages. It almost looked like a mirage. There was a faint, distant click, like the sound of flint striking steel.

A haze warped the air all around the massive gathering of combatants. Mordred’s brow furrowed. The haze itself wasn’t actually magical as far as he could tell. It was simply the air warping under extreme—

Mordred’s eyes widened.

A massive whoomp rolled through the air as brilliant white flame erupted in the very center of the mages. It expanded outward in an instant with a crackling roar, furious tongues of near-silver magic swallowing the entire group within an instant.

Bodies warped. Flesh practically exploded, torn away in chunks and melted to cinders before it could even hit the ground. The sheer force of the magic threw a number of other mages that had been unlucky enough to be anywhere near the blast site from their feet.

Dozens of yellow beams crashed down from the sky before the angry white fire even had a moment to dissipate. But, when it did, all that remained was a huge ring of blackened ground surrounding a lone woman. Her long blonde hair fluttered in a manner eerily similar to the white fire still licking across her fingers.

There was a crazed grin pulled across her lips, made wider still by a burn scar on the right side of her face. A chunk of the flesh near her lips had been lost in some accident, leaving two extra columns of teeth visible where they should have been covered by her cheek.

Gods. I highly doubt all of those mages survived that. No. Forget that. I doubt most of them did. That was not a Rank 5 spell. She’s Rank 6. Peak of it. Even I might have been vaporized if I was close to her. What is someone like that doing in this round? I was almost certain the Prophet would have separated out the weaker mages to avoid situations exactly like this!

“Whoo!” The woman let out a delighted laugh, spinning in a circle and holding her hands out like a little girl dancing in the snow. Motes of ash danced in her wake. “That felt great! Gods, it’s been far too long. This tournament was just what I needed to blow off a bit of steam.”

One of the mages that had been knocked to his backside by her magic scrambled upright, the hems of his clothes still smoldering. He stared at her in horror, likely realizing that he had very heavily overestimated his abilities. His hands lifted into the air.

“I sur—”

A gout of white flame exploded out from the woman’s palm. Mordred could have sworn he spotted furious red light burning like the eyes of an angered dragon deep within the magic. Almost as if it was alive.

The streak of molten magic crashed down on the man with an earth-shaking hiss, and his words were swallowed by a terrified scream. The magic enveloped him, scorching the ground black in a large circle around where he’d been sitting.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m monologuing,” the woman said, the grin never leaving her lips. She closed her hands, dismissing the molten white fire.

Then the smile slipped from her lips.

A circular wall of ice glistened before the man, who had screwed his eyes shut and lifted his hands desperately before himself in terror. Water dripped from it in thick rivers as the magic melted away, but it had completely stopped the attack.

And standing behind the man, her hand raised, was a woman clad in frosty silver and white armor patterned and embossed with a scene of falling snow. Tendrils of ice twisted in the air around her as white frost spread beneath her feet. Her breath came out in faint puffs of white mist that did nothing to conceal the scorn carved into her sharp features. Even the woman’s eyes were flat and the color of glaciers.

“Finish your line,” the woman barked. Her voice was that of someone who didn’t just expect to be obeyed but knew that they wouldbe. “You are too weak to remain here.”

The man’s eyes opened. He stared at the ice creeping across the ground around him, then glanced to the woman that had nearly flash-fried him. Then he snapped to his senses.

“I surrender!” The man yelped.

A beam of yellow light flashed down, swallowing and whisking the man away from the arena.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The fire mage asked, her scarred smile now nothing but a memory. “This is a tournament. He’s your enemy. Why get in my way?”

“Because you disgust me.” The frost-covered woman pressed her palms together, then pulled them apart. Frost gathered into the shape of a wicked-looking sword in the air before her. She grabbed the weapon and readied it before herself.

“Oh? Crying about fighting when you’re participating in the tournament? That’s cute. I haven’t fought an ice mage in a while. Your lot is always fun. Most other mages just die too fast. Just keep your mouth shut while we fight. I don’t want to hear a bunch of virtue whinging about how people who came to fight in a tournament deserve to be babied. They came here to fight. This is what they signed up for.”

“Why would I care about people too weak to defend themselves, especially ones stupid enough to let a traitor into their group?” The armor-clad woman lowered her stance. Coils of frost twisted through the air all around her as she drew deeper on her runes. Ice stretched across the ground before sizzling as it met the hazy, heat-warped air surrounding her opponent. “I’m dealing with you for one reason alone. Your magic tastes like ash — and I do not abide by things I despise.”