Arcane Academy: The Divine Extraction Legacy

Vale smiled at the names of these contests.

In simple words, the Labyrinth of Secrets was a maze challenge. The maze was filled with traps, puzzles, and enemies that required the use of specific escape, detection, or movement arts to finish. The winner was the one who could escape the maze first or the one who could go the farthest in the allotted time.

The Mirage of Wonders was an illusion challenge. This contest has an individual run and a group run. In this challenge, the contestants must break the illusions and find the treasure that the organizers had prepared. Apparently, to ensure that the students would be excited about this, the organizers would always place low-grade or even mid-grade Royal Rank Mystical Items as a reward. This wasn't even part of the real awards to be given to the winners. Of course, it was also a tactic to promote the sponsors of this Competition.

The Clash of Champions, on the other hand, was just a duel tournament. It was a bracket-style tournament between two students from different academies, using their arts to fight against each other. The winner was the one who could defeat, incapacitate, or force the opponent to surrender. What was exciting about this was the fact that it had a group competition. There would be a three-versus-three tournament as well. However, the one who joined the one-on-one tournament could not join this mode of Competition.

Nevertheless, the Spectacle of Talents has the most modes in the contest. It has three ways: they could participate in Solo, Double, or Triple. Well, in this contest, they only needed to use their Arcane Arts to create a spectacular show. The performance would then be judged by a panel of experts who evaluate the creativity, skill, and harmony of the performers and their art.

"Senior, do you think we'll only excel in the Spectacle of Talents?" Vale asked jokingly. As a Ritualist, their Ritual Arts could indeed become beautiful if they wanted to join this contest.

Furthermore, if Vale used his Shadow Gate, it could really attract the audience and the judges since he could advance this Shadow Gate Spell to Advanced Realm. Once advanced, he could control it to create a huge Gate when activated.

"Haha! Of course, not… The Shadow Gate is more suited to the Labyrinth. However, I think that having this same spell could be very good in the group battles… As you already know, the Shadow Gate requires a darkness-cursed item, a magic circle, and a short incantation. It may seem tedious but once summoned, it could basically guarantee the victory of your team."

This sudden suggestion surprised Vale and Maya.

"This… How was that possible?"

"That's a bit confusing, Senior."

As they learned from their Professors, the Shadow Gate was simply a technique to create a portal to the Shadow Realm, a dimension shrouded in darkness and horror. In their mind, they could only use it for travel, hiding, or even exploration once they got stronger.

They had no idea how it would be good to use in a group battle.

The three Seniors smiled knowingly after hearing their confusion. It seems that they also had a similar idea when they were younger.

This time, it was Cassie who had cleared their confusion.

"The Shadow Gate can also be a place for a pre-made Ritual Setup."

As soon as Vale and Maya heard this, they no longer needed a lengthy explanation.

Their eyes lit up in realization as they indeed didn't think of that.

"If that's possible… Then it's really awesome!" Maya said in delight as she looked at Vale.

"Yes… It feels like cheating. The enemies would certainly do their best to stop such a ritual from happening. It would be tough protecting Vale while he tried to open the Shadow Gate. Furthermore, he must at least reach the middle stage of the Elementary Realm to at least accommodate 2 or 3 pre-made Ritual Setups." Thelma added as she seemed to be reminiscing about the previous tournaments she attended.

Vale immediately thanked his seniors for such a great suggestion.

Then, the three of them continued discussing what they could do when competing with other contests.

What interested Vale the most was the Tower Ascension. As its name suggests, they had to clear the trials of each floor until they reached the top of the Tower. It was quite similar to the Dark Soul Tower.

What was even more interesting about this was that no one had ever cleared this Competition. There were ten floors in this Tower, but the highest they could ever reach was just the eighth floor.

"Unfortunately, this Tower can only be entered alone. It's not a group contest. Furthermore, all levels of students will enter the same Tower as it can simply adjust the difficulty level of each trial depending on the person who had entered." Anderson explained.

He further informed them that the Tower could only accept 20-year-olds and below, so most students from eighth year and above couldn't attend this Competition.

"Yes… This is also probably the other reason why they decided to accept 4th-Year and 5th-Year students in the Competition. They probably wanted to have a higher chance of clearing it this year." Thelma added.

Vale nodded in understanding since this was the first he had heard of this limitation.

"I didn't know about. They should've done this earlier… or better yet, send third-year students too." Vale said.

However, Cassie shook her head at this. "That would be too dangerous. There are cases that which the Soul and Spirit of the contestants would be permanently damaged in this contest. Furthermore, your equipped Mystical Items could also be lost in the Tower."

Maya's eyes widened after hearing this. "W-what? It's that dangerous? Are there cases where people died in that contest?"

"No one has died yet since the Tower can expel you. However, you can be in a near-death state… Luckily, there will be plenty of healers that will be waiting for you, so any type of injuries you can get from that Tower can be healed." Anderson said, but Maya wasn't comforted at all.

Meanwhile, Vale looked even more serious. He already had a hunch that this would be dangerous, considering how the Headmaster was willing to give up his shadow if he won this contest. However, he didn't expect that the danger could be so.

After a few moments, Vale sighed and replied jokingly.

"I guess I'll just focus on the Monster Hunter event."