Chapter 561: Gnome Contestants, Diamond-shaped Crystal

The Main Plane, the tenth day of May.

The Snow Melting Competition has reached its final event—the 【Grand Illusion】 proposed by the Elves, which in a sense is not an Arcane Competition, but an art competition.

This day, Xia Duo arrived at the Arena early with Niya; having spent an additional ten days in the 【Annihilation Plane】, he always felt that time had already exceeded May, a feeling somewhat similar to the sense of space-time disorientation one gets after returning from a Projection Plane.

But regardless of the time flow in other planes, time on the Main Plane flowed quietly, just as it always had.

As the number of spectators in the Arena increased, members of the Seven Towers and foreign guests also began to enter one after another, and the Arena was filling up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Huh—" Xia Duo suddenly looked at Niya, and Niya happened to look at him as well; both of their eyes were filled with surprise.

Xia Duo pointed at the small figures who had just walked out of the Teleportation Array and asked in an uncertain tone: "Those are Gnomes, right?"

In fact, he had seen Gnomes with his own eyes, right in the Savile Territory; at the far west of the territory there was an open-pit mine, and, speaking of which, it should have been the lord from two generations ago—that is, the generation of Niya's grandfather—who bought a tribe of hundreds of Gnomes and placed them there to mine.

To this day, it can still produce some low-grade Iron Mine and a small amount of broken Gemstone every year.

Additionally, occasionally some Gnomes would appear in the town area as commodities, with prices about 3 to 4 times that of human Slave, and they were basically bought by the Town Hall and then sent to the mine in the west.

And according to Xia Duo's understanding, in Netheril, anyone can capture, buy, sell, or even kill Gnomes without a master at will, just like wild vegetables in the field; no one cares and no one asks.

But now, a group of Gnomes had actually walked out of the Teleportation Array in broad daylight, and under the noses of hundreds of Netherese Mage, they sat in the contestant seats—and they were the seats for the Netherese contestants at that.

Xia Duo had neither malice nor goodwill toward Gnomes, but this abnormal phenomenon made his imagination run wild.

It was not just him; the human Mage in the arena probably did not expect such a situation to occur, and some were already shouting to capture them as Slave, with the atmosphere in the arena visibly heading toward chaos.

Several Great Arcanist appeared on the Teleportation Array, and the scene that was about to descend into chaos suddenly fell silent, followed by the Holy Hammer Warrior of the Dwarf and the high-level Mage of the Elf, all appearing one by one.

Once everyone was seated, Elkamon emerged from nowhere and suddenly appeared in the center of the Arena; by this time, the Semi-plane in the center of the Arena had long been hidden, and a diamond-shaped Crystal half a person's height had appeared in its place.

It was supported by no external force, with one long tip pointing up and the other down, just quietly hovering there, and the downward-pointing tip seemed to be stained a deep red by something.

But looking closely, it had no color at all.

This diamond-shaped Crystal appeared together with Elkamon, and perhaps seeing the confusion of the crowd, Elkamon immediately said:

"Today is the final event of the Snow Melting Competition, the 【Grand Illusion】. The three parties of contestants must create the most magnificent or peculiar scenes, images, or events they can imagine. As for which side wins, it is left entirely to all the spectators present!"

As he spoke, Elkamon pointed to the diamond-shaped Crystal that everyone was paying close attention to and introduced: "This is an Identify Crystal provided by Cormanthor, and it has passed the inspection of the Great Arcanist, serving as the basis for judging this competition."

How exactly the audience would decide and how this diamond-shaped Crystal would judge it, Elkamon did not explain very clearly, but with the endorsement of the Great Arcanist, the crowd was able to accept it.

However, Xia Duo immediately associated it with so-called emotional power; this was too easy to guess, and his own Bloodline Awakening might require such power.

It was just that he had previously called this power Belief Power; in this context, calling it emotional power might be more appropriate.

Then the order of the competition was very important; ultimately, the so-called 【Grand Illusion】 was a performance. If the ones before did not lose their standard, then having already appreciated the previous ones, it would be difficult to have any emotional fluctuations when appreciating the ones that followed.

On Earth, this situation might be called "aesthetic fatigue" or "numbness of the nerves," and in this Magic world where emotions can be quantified, perhaps it is just that human emotions are limited!

Although the Netherese Mage might not immediately associate it with emotional power, they could still tell who went first and who went last, and who had the advantage.

When they heard Elkamon announce that the order of the competition was "first Cormanthor, then Yierlan, and finally Netheril," the dissatisfaction that had been suppressed by the appearance of the Great Arcanist—caused by a group of Gnomes sitting in the contestant seats—suddenly erupted.

"Just by virtue of those little things, they can represent Netheril in battle?!"

"Magic is not a Trick; do Gnomes even know what Magic is?!"

"Send them to the mine!"

……

Xia Duo did not speak out, but like the members of the Seven Towers, he watched this farcical scene with cold eyes; he felt that rather than aiming his spear at the Gnomes, it would be better to cast a Fireball at the Elf.

That at least would let him see a trace of mettle.

Of course, if someone really did that, Xia Duo would still curse them as an idiot.

It does not exclude that there might be a Great Arcanist with a screw loose, but Xia Duo felt that one who could reach the level of a Great Arcanist was at least not a fool; although he was confused before as to why the Netherese side had Gnome contestants, it was only confusion, not questioning.

Such a formal competition, to the point that even the means of using the 【Annihilation Plane】 to increase time were used, would not really let a group of Gnomes who knew nothing take the stage!

It must be that these Gnomes made the group of Great Arcanist feel that they had a better chance of winning than humans.

Of course, Xia Duo was also dissatisfied with the order of the competition, but this was not something he could decide; for Elkamon to say so, it must be that the people above had already negotiated it.

……

On the high-up main seat, Princess Xiya also watched the protests of the audience below with cold eyes; she deliberately did not speak to stop them, partly out of dissatisfaction with the Elf's forceful demands, and partly because, after the competition ended, there might be even more unacceptable results!

Let the people below have some mental preparation first, so that when it is announced later, it might not be so hard to accept.

Just then, the Cormanthor representative Suweilisi suppressed a smile and asked softly: "Your Highness, do you think today's competition should continue?"

In his view, in a competition like the 【Grand Illusion】, even if humans found a group of Gnome illusionists, and even if those Gnome illusionists were quite talented in the field of Illusion, they could never be the opponents of the Elf.

After all, the civilization foundation of the Elf is far from what a Gnome can compare to; if the Elf had not reached out to pull them out of the mud, these little guys might still be mining in some sunless mine right now!

"The competition continues; I am just about to appreciate the magnificent scenery of Cormanthor!"

Seeing the Elf speak, Princess Xiya retorted to the other party, and then stopped the chaos in the arena.

The competition began.