Scarlet

All around me, students are activating their magi-tech armor, making every individual’s armor cover their uniform before shrinking and fitting their bodies. The majority of them have basic armor that simply looks like a less cool version of Allen’s, without the core at the center, and with a duller metal for the plating despite everyone having a large variety of colors. But some of them have more unique armor, and others don’t even have armor that looks like armor at all, theirs being more like my own.

Deciding not to wait any longer, I reach under my collar and press on the amulet, making it suddenly burst into a red mist similar to blood that then envelops me, obviously designed with my blood magic aesthetic in mind. The armor then forms into a nice black and red coat that I can tell was made using my old jacket as the base, even if this coat is much longer and reaches down to my mid thighs in length, which is about the same length as my hair. Meanwhile underneath the coat, my Lion’s Heart GU uniform has been replaced entirely with a rather cool looking black shirt with some sort of glowing red emblem on the chest, and a slick pair of black pants that are comfortable yet tight enough to be good in combat without messing me up.

There is also a glowing red star on my right shoulder, with a strange X on my left. And if I remember correctly, one of those symbols is where whatever I was wearing before activating the armor is stored. The armor first covers me before moving my current clothes into the amulet and then fitting the armor to my body.

A rather delicate process and one that can easily get a company sued if they sell magi-tech armor that messes this up, considering the potential for accidentally revealing the wearer’s naked body should it be faulty. And even worse, the couple of products I heard about on the news that even completely destroyed their clothing, leaving them naked after canceling their armor without realizing it.

Despite those thoughts, I can’t help the wide grin that spreads across my face at the sight of my outfit. After all, this armor was – if what Allen said was true – made by the creator of magi-tech himself. Meaning it’s the best of the best.

Which does show some nepotism there, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get. I won’t be saying anything about handicaps anymore either, since that’d just make a me a hypocrite. Especially considering how my blood lycan genes are probably what got me contracted in the first place.

That aside, I think I remember Allen mentioning that the magi-tech armor should be adjustable as well, letting me make some tweaks to its appearance when I want to. Which is good, because the top part of it under the jacket is tight around the chest. I’d say that the top was made for someone with a B cup or something in that range by the feel of it. Not a C.

But the discomfort isn’t much for now. And I’m guessing it’s like this to make it easier to fight in.

“Now that’s cool,” I hear Belle say, bringing my attention from my outfit to her, only to find the girl wearing some sort of armor very reminiscent of her mother’s. But without the blue coloring, and a much larger emphasis on white. Which also reminds me that I didn’t ever learn what her magic was beyond it involving barriers.

“Yeah,” I answer her before looking around and noticing a lot of gazes on our group, me and Belle in particular. But at the same time, I see almost as many if not more in some cases focused on every other student here wearing a custom set of magi-tech armor.

Okay, I guess we do kind of stand out from these factory model magi-tech armor wearing students.

Although now that I look at it, there are actually a few people who don’t seem to have any magi-tech armor at all. At least, assuming they aren’t just deciding not to wear it and instead sticking with their uniforms.

My attention is taken back to the stage again when both of the lions let out a loud roar. I then find the screen having changed to show a list of rules for the tournament. And at the same time, a robotic voice begins to speak everything on the screen out loud.

Ranking Tournament Rules

Rankings will be determined on a point based system.

The first round of the tournament will be purely based on duels between students with the same combat categories and Class.Winning a duel will earn you three points. Losing a duel will lose you one point.Declining a duel will lose you two points.Having your challenge declined will earn you one point.

Every student has already been separated into a separate bracket according to their Class and their combat categories chosen based on their magic. These brackets will have different manners of ‘duels’. Some of these duels between brackets may not even involve direct combat, whereas others could be pure one on one fights.

The combat categories of Guardians are as follows:

Combat Guardians – Those Guardians whose magic is generally focused on pure combat.Defensive Guardians – Those Guardians whose magic is generally focused on defense, whether for themselves or others.Healer Guardians – Those Guardians whose magic is focused on healing and is lacking in the combat department.Support Guardians – Those Guardians whose magic is focused on supporting other Guardians through afflictions cast on the enemies, buffs on their allies, summoning skills, and others of the like.Mixed Guardians – Those Guardians whose magic does not fit into any of the previous categories.

At the start of the tournament, each student will automatically be transported into special rooms meant specifically for those brackets.After arriving at those rooms, students may either challenge another student directly through the challenge button on their magical reality earpiece or press the random challenge button on their earpiece to challenge a random opponent within their bracket instead.

These initial bracket challenges will last for three hours, after which every student will be transported again to the main auditorium.

The secondary round of the tournament will take place in a magical reality imitating a forest on Tartarus.

Every student will be placed in the same forest in the same magical reality, and they will be given points for slaying demons.

The forest will be separated into different parts.The outer ring of the forest will have only Class I demons, with their levels increasing as the students get closer to the inner ring.The inner ring of the forest will have Class II demons, with their levels increasing as the students get closer to the center, which will have a single Class III demon.

Demons will give points depending on their levels.

Demons at levels 1-50 will give one point apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.

Demons at levels 51-100 will give two points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.

Demons at levels 101-150 will give three points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.

Demons at levels 151-200 will give four points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.

The Class III demon will give a total of twenty points spread across whomever kills it.Furthermore, killing another student of the same Class as you or higher will give you a fifth of their points.

Should a student be killed by another student and not by a demon they will be revived in the magical reality.

The rankings will be determined by whoever has the most points.

However, should a combat focused Guardian decide to remove other Guardians from play through killing them and are believed to be specifically targeting non-combat focused Guardians during the tournament, or a higher Class Guardian targets a lower Class one, they will receive a severe handicap in the form of a quantity of their points taken away and distributed to every targeted Guardian they killed, with the specific quantity being decided upon by a panel of professors watching the tournament.

Unrelated to the rankings, five Top class student spots will be added in addition to the top one hundred corresponding to the top five scoring Class I students and 50 Advanced class spots will be added in addition to the nine hundred current spots corresponding to the next highest ranking Class I students not already in that class.

I blink once, then twice as the information feels a tad bit overwhelming. But at the same time, from what I did absorb of it, I think the tournament sounds fair?

“We aren’t expecting you all to memorize this,” Alfred’s voice echoes through the now silent auditorium. “However, it will be available to reference during the tournament as we explain things to you ourselves.”

The man taps his cane against the floor once more, making another dark mist spread out from it, albeit more slowly this time as he says, “For now, we will be splitting you off into groups based on your combat category and your class. A professor will be in your new location once you arrive to explain the proceeding to you.”

Very slowly, the dark, blackish green mist spread throughout the entire auditorium until everything goes dark, leaving only the man’s voice once more echoing through it, “I wish you all luck during this ranking tournament.”