Chapter 530: Picking Up Leaks, The Situation Is Not Good

The third day of May is also the final day of the Snow Melting Competition 【Spell Duel】 event.

Early in the morning, Xia Duo and Niya went out early. On the third day of the Snow Melting Competition, there were even more visitors in Seventon than the previous two days, especially around the Arena, where it was almost shoulder-to-shoulder.

If it weren't for the fact that they couldn't squeeze into the Teleportation Array, Xia Duo would not have wanted to pass through here; Niya, however, had the opportunity to take the Teleportation Array but still chose to walk over with him.

Fortunately, neither of them were ordinary Spellcasters. Those who could enter Seventon at this time had at least some discernment. Wherever Xia Duo and Niya walked, a blank space would appear, and even the noise would quiet down significantly.

Xia Duo never encountered a situation like Padike blocking the street again after that.

However, he would sometimes stop in front of an Adventurer's temporary stall to buy some so-called relic treasure. Today, he also made a move to acquire a "Mithril Component."

After entering the Arena and taking their seats, Niya whispered a reminder, "That ornament is not Mithril at all!"

"I know."

"You know? Then why—" Niya did not finish the rest of her sentence, but she was truly very puzzled.

Xia Duo smiled, took out the "Mithril Component" directly, and handed it to Niya, "Look closely, is this not the equivalent mapping of the double-overlap elements of the Magic Net String of the Fifth Layer of the Weave within a Mithril Component?"

"This—"

Niya took the "Mithril Component" and observed it from multiple angles, only then realizing, "It really is!"

However, at the same time, Niya was also surprised by Xia Duo's keen identification. In terms of achieving Advanced Rank, she had done so much earlier than Xia Duo, yet she only discovered it after Xia Duo pointed it out.

Thus, she silently made up her mind to continue her studies. After returning the "Mithril Component" to Xia Duo, Niya asked, "Do you have a plan?"

"After the competition ends, I will go over there again. That Adventurer must have had a reference target to know the design of this 'Mithril Component.' Perhaps he really discovered the wreckage of an Ancient Magic Artifact in some ruin. If that is truly the case, then we will have materials for bridging practice."

"Mm."

After the small interlude, the competition began.

Thanks to the special settings of the Semi-plane battle space, the audience could clearly see all the operations of both sides regarding the Magic Net Strings, even across a space.

Of course, the more layers of the Magic Net a Spellcaster could access, the more complete the battle situation they could see.

Although he could only access the Fifth Layer of the Weave, Xia Duo still observed everything within the Semi-plane battle space almost greedily. Meanwhile, during the intervals of the competition, he would use his Personal Space to control the paper and pen inside to record some key operations for organization after returning.

The situation of today's competition was similar to the previous two days; both the Yierlan and Cormanthor sides were desperately targeting the Netheril side, while their duels with each other were all fake fights.

Not a single one was a real contest.

Moreover, Xia Duo could also see that on the Elf side, whichever contestant won a match against Netheril, the other side would directly throw the match during their duel, allowing one side's contestant to easily achieve two wins.

And only two wins could be counted for points.

This operation by the Elves was no longer just match-fixing; it was blatant cheating and mockery.

By the third day, the Dwarves also saw it. Whenever two Elf Mages dueled, they didn't make a sound, and they didn't even drink their ale.

Clearly, the actions of Yierlan and Cormanthor had made the Dwarves somewhat dissatisfied as well.

And the observation group from Illefarn would mock them loudly whenever the two Elf Mages were fake fighting. The scene of such indignation made Xia Duo feel that they were more like Netherese than the Netherese themselves.

He estimated that if not for the presence of a crowd of Great Arcanists and high-level Mages, these Gold Elves from Illefarn might have directly started fighting their compatriots who also possessed golden skin.

If they really started fighting, that would be interesting.

As the competition neared its end, everyone, including Xia Duo, was silently tallying all the previous wins. The situation was very unfavorable; the Netheril side had only won 8 matches.

It seemed decent, but one had to know there were 30 matches in total, and only two wins counted for points.

After calculating, Xia Duo discovered that only three Arcanists on the Netheril side had achieved two wins. In other words, the Netheril side was out of the running for the championship.

Of course, whether it was the championship probably didn't have much meaning; the key was to look at the points. Otherwise, just ranking first, second, and third wouldn't show the gap at all; it would be too simple.

"Snow Melting Competition 【Spell Duel】 match twenty-eight, Selina, wins!"

As the result of the third-to-last match appeared, most of the Netherese Mages in the Arena couldn't help but feel their hearts sink. This match was the Netheril side challenging the Yierlan side, and the Netheril side lost.

Following this, there were two more matches: one was the Elves' fake fight, and one was the Cormanthor side challenging the Netheril side.

If they could win the last match, the Netheril side could achieve 4 double-wins. Even if they lost, it wouldn't be an ugly loss. Considering the actions of Cormanthor and Yierlan, it could actually be considered a win.

And for the final match, up to now, there was only one Arcanist on the Netheril side who had only played once—

Stuart.

In this atmosphere, even Xia Duo couldn't help but cast a look of expectation at him, while simultaneously nudging Niya's arm and talking to himself, "Niya, do you think Stuart can win?"

Niya did not answer, but having seen Stuart's performance in the first match, Xia Duo knew it was very precarious.

Because it was a cycle of challenges starting from the Netheril side in the order of "Netheril-Yierlan-Cormanthor-Netheril," and the Elves were match-fixing, this meant that the Netherese Arcanists were always revealing their combat power in advance.

Although starting from the second day, every Arcanist fought two consecutive matches to minimize the time for the Elves to study them, at least three matches were separated by a long time.

Especially Stuart; his first match and his last match—he was almost going to be studied through by the Elves, right?

Of course, from another perspective, Stuart also had sufficient time to reformulate his strategy, but as the saying goes, looking at his performance in the first match, it had only been two days, so it was very difficult for any qualitative change to occur.

There were not a few people who had the same thought as Xia Duo; even Stuart himself did not have much confidence. Xia Duo could clearly see the nervous expression of Stuart, who was sitting not far from him.

If this was also a strategy, then Xia Duo would really have to believe his nonsense!

Soon, the fake fight where the two Elf Mages were putting on a show ended. The Cormanthor Mage won as expected, and there was a chorus of boos in the arena.

But this was where the "cultivation" of the Cormanthor Elves showed; they remained calm and maintained an elegant posture, even chuckling occasionally while talking to their companions, as if the mockery and boos in the arena had nothing to do with them.

The Yierlan Elves, however, were somewhat uneasy, especially those Moon Elves and Wood Elves, who all kept their heads down, seemingly feeling somewhat ashamed.

And the host of the Snow Melting Competition, Senior Arcanist Elkamon, did not immediately announce the start of the final duel, letting the clamor in the arena continue for a good while.

It wasn't until the noise grew louder and louder that Princess Xiya spoke to stop it, "Quiet!"

It seemed to be a large-scale silence spell; the arena instantly became quiet.

Elkamon announced at the right moment: "Snow Melting Competition 【Spell Duel】 match thirty, both sides enter the arena!"