Chapter 1177: High and Low, Noble and Base, Small Mythallar

Seventon, New City District, Great Arena.

A full year had passed since Xia Duo and Niya were last here; in this year, the Great Arena appeared unchanged, yet the people coming and going were no longer the same as before.

Looking at the tall, magnificent, light-cyan stone structure before him, Xia Duo truly felt as if a lifetime had passed.

In fact, because he had gone to the Projection Plane during this year and stayed for more than a year, in his perceived time, more than a year had indeed passed.

But thanks to the Memory Retrospection ability brought by his Bloodline Awakening, by tracing past memories, Xia Duo's memory of coming to watch the Snow Melting Competition last time was still so fresh and vivid.

It was as if everything had happened just yesterday.

Time, at this moment, seemed to cease to exist.

……

"What's wrong? Not going in?" Niya whispered a reminder.

The entrance to the Great Arena was naturally very spacious, but the two of them standing at the entrance was affecting the order of those entering normally.

The Ioun Stone constantly fluttering above their heads was the best proof of identity; the crowd around them automatically cleared a large space, like water flowing around a reef.

This made the originally quite spacious entrance not so spacious anymore, and even a little crowded.

"Mm, let's go in!"

Xia Duo noticed the expressions of awe, excitement, or nervousness among the surrounding crowd and sighed inwardly at the disparity in the status of spellcasters; he did not wish for the future magical civilization to have such distinctions of high and low, noble and base.

Whether one is noble or not should not be determined entirely by power, but rather by that person's character and contributions.

In Netheril, the factor of power carried too much weight; for example, Kangjienio, while indeed highly respected, if he were not a Great Arcanist, how could he possess such high prestige?

When Xia Duo was first enlightened at the beginning of his study of magic, he often read a book titled *Biography of Archmage Dasiruier* in order to familiarize himself with Netherese script.

Dasiruier was a figure from over two hundred years ago; he came from poverty and had been a farmer tilling the land until he was 30.

After coming into contact with magic, including learning the script, it took him only fifteen years to become an Archmage who mastered powerful strength.

But after becoming an Archmage, he did not continue to delve deeper along the path of magic, but instead chose to return to his hometown and protect it.

Until his death, he was either cultivating new spellcasters for his hometown or clearing out Orc threats.

Yet, few people today know the name of Dasiruier, and even at the time, what people talked about most was just the legendary story of how a farmer became an Archmage, not the various practical things he did for his hometown after returning.

In a world where great power belongs to the individual, how difficult it is to change this status quo, but if it is not changed, how can it be called a "civilization"?

It would be nothing more than a jungle of the law of the jungle.

The reason why humans are human, and why they are creatures of Wisdom, is precisely because they can, to a certain extent, cast off the drive of animal instincts and instead, through the values shaped by acquired experience, actively discover the world, understand the world, and transform the world.

……

Entering the arena, one first passes through a short passage, and then it opens up into a circular structure very similar to a modern stadium on Earth.

The seats are distributed all around, and the further out, the higher the seats.

The entrance direction is empty, as if the ring has a gap, and in the direction directly opposite the entrance, there are four seats placed high above, which are clearly the seats for the four parties representing the Snow Melting Competition this time.

The last Snow Melting Competition only had three.

Now that the Princess has achieved Ascension to Godhood and left the Main Plane, it is unknown who will represent Netheril and sit in that position this time.

Could it be that the Princess would specifically descend an avatar to watch a competition full of mortals?

Xia Duo pondered secretly in his heart and soon followed Niya's footsteps to the area where the Seven Towers Mages were located; although strictly speaking, he was not a member of the Seven Towers as a Mage Tower organization, he was at least a member of the Seven Towers in terms of faction.

Besides, Niya had not yet left Giles Tower, so sitting here was correct regardless.

……

After sitting down, Xia Duo responded one by one to the greetings of the surrounding Seven Towers Mages, and then began to look for Depake's figure in the arena.

Currently, the people in the arena had not all arrived, and people were still entering at the door, but there were already more than at the peak time last year.

Fortunately, the internal capacity of the arena was large enough, otherwise it would have been awkward; however, from the current look of it, except for those areas specifically reserved for Elves and Dwarves, the other areas were almost full.

"Depake, have you arrived?"

"We have, we just saw you come in; the three of us are now sitting in the second row of the second section to the right of the entrance!"

Upon receiving Depake's reply, Xia Duo immediately followed the information given in his Sending and looked toward the diagonal opposite side.

Sure enough, in a corner, he found Depake nodding and greeting him, as well as Jibusen and Halun, who were looking around with excited expressions.

"Watch the competition with peace of mind!"

After that, Xia Duo stopped replying and turned to observe the arena itself.

……

After becoming a Senior Arcanist, Xia Duo's vision was naturally different; looking at the Rhombus Battle Platform in the center of the arena now, it was not like when he came last year, when he couldn't see anything at all.

Now, he clearly knew that the essence of the battle platform was a Small Mythallar that completely overlapped with the Main Plane, with an internal area exceeding one hundred thousand square meters. (Much larger than the Yellow Sand Semi-Plane~)

Due to the special Magic Net environment after the reconstruction inside the arena, Xia Duo could even directly see the elemental roots of this plane to a certain extent.

Each element and energy was very balanced, or rather, balanced to an excessive degree; even the Main Plane did not have such an absolutely balanced Element Affinity.

This was clearly man-made.

Thus, Xia Duo became even more interested.

However, before continuing to delve into observing and studying the battle platform semi-plane, he prepared to first observe the Magic Net environment inside the arena.

When he came here last year, he discovered that the Magic Net environment inside the arena had been reconstructed, and this year compared to last year, there were some subtle changes.

But compared to not being very certain last time, this time he was very certain that it was a Mythallar, a Small Mythallar that only existed inside the arena!

As for last year, because he was unable to observe the Magic Net from a macroscopic perspective at that time, even if he could trace his memory, he could only confirm that the Magic Net had undergone reconstruction; as for whether it reached the level of a Mythallar, that was not very certain.

But judging from the fact that the Magic Net environment inside the arena had changed between this year and last year, perhaps the Mythallar was already under construction last year, and it was only completed by now this year!

……

Soon, Xia Duo noticed that the Magic Net Strings around him were vibrating; this was a sign of teleportation. Compared to last year when there were only a few fixed teleportation points, the teleportation points this year were much denser.

Some late Seven Towers Mages even teleported directly near the empty seats reserved for them; they didn't even have to walk once they arrived, they just sat down.

Xia Duo guessed that this might be related to the Mythallar; with the addition of a new participant in the Snow Melting Competition, the duration would be longer than last year, and he had plenty of time to study this.

Of course, that must only be done after finishing the research on the battle platform Semi-plane.