After their morning chatter faded, Laia and Lyra were both summoned to the tournament registration hall, along with every other competing student. The inspection was mandatory—no proxies, no hidden trait-bearing units, no tricks of any kind. Every contestant had to open their kingdom for official verification.
Laia had run a quick internal sweep of her realm the night before, just to be safe. Out of all her subjects, barely three thousand qualified for the tournament. Almost everyone carried at least one trait, and her original six clans bore four apiece. She'd sighed about it for a full minute. It was what it was. She would work with what she had.
But this time, something else caught her eye. A new race had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere: slimes. And the farmlands, which had been stubbornly barren for as long as she could remember, were lush and green, heavy with grain and fruit. She'd blinked, confused. For years the soil had been too thin, too worn out to support decent crops, no matter how many times she'd tweaked the growing rules. Now everything was thriving. She'd shaken it off. Good news was good news. As long as her heathens stayed out of trouble, she'd take it.
Down in the dragon valleys, Vorath was far from grateful. He was this close to climbing the nearest mountain and roaring until his throat gave out.
The slimes were everywhere. They felt no pain. They had no cares. They were, in his professional opinion, catastrophically stupid. They ate everything: dirt, trees, grass, water, even molten rock from the volcanic vents. And whatever they ate, they took on its element.
The dragons had tried eating a few. Earth slimes tasted like packed mud. Fire slimes burned the tongue. Water and grass slimes were halfway decent, but that was not the point. The things split in two every time you turned around. You killed ten, twenty came back. Every time he tried to nap on his sunning rock, he'd wake up to a dozen squelching, bouncing slimes bumping into his tail. Gloop. Splort.
Vorath had dark circles under his eyes. He stared at a cluster of stone slimes bouncing across his valley, and felt his sanity fraying.
What in the void did that woman do now? he thought, grinding his teeth. Someone tell me how to get rid of a slime plague.
Beside him, the stonehide saurian clan he'd been put in charge of huddled miserably. They were the only other race that lived out in the open rock, and they were getting just as much of the slime nuisance as the dragons.
In the ancient forests, things could not have been more different.
The elves sang as they worked, and for good reason. The fruit trees had never borne more heavily. The grass grew thick and soft. And the little grass slimes had become everyone's favorite companions. They bounced along beside elven children, they polished the leaves of the oldest trees, and somehow, under their quiet influence, a handful of the oldest oaks had woken up, shifting into slow, gentle treants that stood guard over the groves.
Queen Elowen lay on a cushion of moss in her sun-dappled palace deep in the woods, listening to the wind rustle through the leaves, and smiled. They were such sweet little creatures. She was sure the other clans got along with them just as well.
They did seem to stop multiplying once they hit a certain number, which was a relief. But where had they come from, in the first place? She tilted her head, curious. Oh well. No point worrying about it. She wondered how the dragons were enjoying them.
She had no idea. Of all the clans, only the dragons and their saurian charges lived out in open caves and bare rock. Everyone else had walls, and halls, and sealed doors. Slimes only ate their own element, after all. They never damaged stone buildings, never broke down wooden doors, never bothered anyone who stayed inside.
Only the dragons had to deal with the bounce.
Outside the kingdom, in the sunlit registration hall, the senior examiners worked their way through the stack of contestants one by one. All of them were bound by the strictest oath of confidentiality. Not even a God Emperor could pry names out of them.
One examiner in particular was having a grand old time. Kaelen Shaw, a God Monarch from the main Shaw clan line, had volunteered for duty entirely for the gossip. Kingdom signatures told you everything—bloodline, heritage, talent, family secrets. Most deities inherited their alignment from their parents, after all. The Shaws had ruled ocean realms for generations. His own ancestor had married into a great land-aligned house to fix their weakness for dry ground. Now their kingdoms were still oceanic, but their armies could fight on land, sea, and air. Perfect balance.
He flipped to his nephew's entry first, and nodded, pleased. Soren Shaw, Third Rank mid-stage. Four subject races, all purple tier. Impressive for his age. The boy was doing well. These kids kept getting better every year.
He moved on, sipping his spiced herbal tea.
Liora Voss. Third Rank early stage. Main forces: forest elves, dryad sentinels, nightstalkers, glimmerguides.
Soren Shaw. Third Rank mid-stage. Main forces: deep sea wraiths, leviathan spawn, abyss watchers, drowned revenants.
Kaelen hummed. Strong entries, both of them. The Voss girl was the family prodigy, he knew that. His nephew would have his work cut out for him, but he had a shot. Still, first place was within reach.
He turned the page.
He took a slow, calm sip of tea.
Then he choked.
Tea sprayed all over the parchment.
Laia. Third Rank peak.
Main combat forces: Winter Reavers, Stonehide Drakes, Shadow Monarchs, Elemental Slimes.
The next entry down was even worse.
Murong Xue. Fourth Rank early stage.
Main combat forces: Holy Recluses, Lightwardens, Radiant Knights, Dawn Priests.
Kaelen set his teacup down very carefully. He wiped tea off his chin. He stared at the names.
What in the seven realms, he thought. Who let these two in?
He knew who Murong Xue was, of course. The imperial family. Murong. Fourth Rank at her age? Ridiculous. That alone would have turned the whole tournament on its head.
But this Laia? Nobody. No house name. No public record. And her subjects?
Elemental slimes did not just happen. You needed an innate alignment rating of at least SS, or you needed to absorb some kind of heaven-defying divine relic. That was common knowledge.
And the Winter Reavers? The Shadow Monarchs? Those were not races you bought from a market. There were no life-seeds, no oracle cards for them. Those were advanced evolutions, the kind that only happened when subjects had sky-high innate talent and spent decades mastering half a dozen different disciplines. They were supposed to be incredibly rare.
Kaelen leaned back in his chair, and sighed.
Well then. So much for his nephew taking first place.
He'd thought the boy had a real shot. But against a Fourth Rank imperial princess and some mystery girl with SS-tier alignment and evolved specialty races? Not a chance.
For about two seconds he felt bad for Soren. Then the gossip-lover in him woke right back up.
His eyes lit up.
This was going to be the best tournament in decades. The Shaw clan was stable enough. They did not need the first place prize. The Abyss could wait. Missing out on a little treasure was nothing.
But a tournament this stacked? With this many secrets and hidden powerhouses? You did not get drama like this every year.
He fumbled for his communication runestone at once. He was buying tickets. Front row seats. As many as he could get. He'd bring his wife. He'd bring his son. Teach the boy a lesson about the real world. Eighteen years old and still stuck at Second Rank peak, the lazy rascal. Let him see what real talent looked like.
Somewhere in the student dorms, Soren Shaw sneezed for no reason. He had a strange feeling he was being judged.
Kaelen tucked the parchment back into the stack, grinning like a man who had just found the best seat at the greatest show in the realm.
Let the games begin.