Just became an evil god and was summoned by the saint

Celia said, "I feel like someone might use Ghostly Essence during the match. If possible, I hope we can make more for everyone to use in self-defense."

Anke nodded. "Leave it to me."

Aside from this, Ross didn't give Celia any further hints.

Time flew by and the preliminary rounds began.

Professor Nicodimers, who was leading the team, brought everyone to the backstage area of ​​the competition and instructed them: "The draw was completed yesterday. You should have all seen your opponents in the preliminary round. Remember the competition time and make sure you don't miss it."

Someone asked, "Professor, didn't the tutor remind us before the competition started?"

Nicodimus looked at him and said, "If you are confident that you can achieve a ranking, either the top 16 in the team competition or the top 32 in the individual competition, the school can provide you with a wake-up service. Of course, a contract needs to be signed. If you cannot achieve that, you will need to pay the school 100 gold coins as payment for the wake-up service."

Everyone fell silent, afraid to speak.

100 gold coins is not a small amount.

Although most third-tier mages can produce decent work, being decent doesn't mean they're willing to waste money on this.

If you sign a betting agreement and lose, you'll truly lose everything.

No one questioned it. Nicodimus continued, "The rules for the preliminary rounds are a bit different for the individual competition. The individual competition format is six battle opportunities, and you need to win four to advance. The team competition is also drawn by lot, and you only need to win three. The difference is that in the team competition, the winners fight against each other and the losers fight against each other until you win three to advance. If you lose three consecutive matches, you will be eliminated early."

As Celia listened intently and pondered the situation, Ross's voice came from beside her: "Swiss format, huh? That's a good format."

Celia didn't understand the meaning of the Swiss system, but as a mage, she quickly grasped the format, which would eventually eliminate half of the teams.

The entire team competition has 64 teams. After this competition, 32 teams are eliminated, and the remaining teams enter the knockout stage, where the winner is decided in one round.

In the knockout stage, the eight teams that have a 3-0 record will not meet in the first two rounds, meaning they will not meet in the round of 32 to 16 and the round of 16 to 8, ensuring that the strong teams can enter the top ten.

Although she had some understanding of the tournament format, after hearing Nicodimers reiterate it, Celia felt that there were too many matches to play.

If all goes well, these matches will last for about a month, ending in August.

Of course, teams that lose 0-3 can go home early.

However, more than the match itself, Celia was concerned about one question: "Professor Nicodimus, what if something unexpected happens during the match, such as a heretical attack on Koster? How will the match proceed?"

Nicodimus looked at Celia and smiled slightly: "That's a good question. A hundred years ago, when the competition system was not very mature, we encountered this situation. When the quadrennial Mage League was about to begin, the empire that had obtained the right to host it went to war with another country, which led to the suspension of the league."

"After that, with the support of the five great empires, the Mage League Committee formulated a series of emergency plans, including explanations for situations caused by natural disasters and man-made calamities such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and flash floods."

"Take the example you gave, for instance. If it happens, the Northern League will be fully responsible and will need to deal with the heretics as soon as possible before resuming the interrupted matches. If the heretics' attack results in the death of a player, the Northern League will provide substantial compensation."

Nico Dimers paused for a moment, then chuckled, "However, there are two possible contingencies: either the Northern Alliance is unable to resist the infidel attack, or the Northern Alliance defaults on reparations or stops altogether. There's not much that can be done about the former, but the latter would likely reignite the war. Don't worry about it too much; with me here, you don't need to worry about safety outside the arena."

"Ok."

Celia asked no more questions.

After answering some of the students' questions, Nicodimus told everyone to get ready to begin the first round.

Before everyone left, he asked, "I don't think any of you are participating in both the team and individual competitions at the same time, right?"

Everyone shook their heads.

Nicodimus said, "That's good."

……

Soon, the first match began. Celia and her team's first opponent was a team that had won the national selection from the Southern Blue Dragon Empire. The entire Saintess Squad took the match very seriously. At the start, Phil used the Divine Link to share everyone's mental energy, and then the whole team launched a fierce attack. They then decided whether to use the Judgment Battle Strategy based on the opponent's fighting style.

However, they soon discovered that the team was quite weak, and they knocked them off the field in less than three minutes.

After the fight, Doris commented, "Not as good as Therizinda."

Celia rolled her eyes: "Don't forget you were asleep the whole time we fought Therxi."

Doris put her hands on her hips: "That's why I said I'm not as good as the Terks. I could beat them even in my sleep."

Benovia laughed and said, "Don't underestimate a team just because it's weak. Maybe we'll meet a formidable opponent in the next match."

Anke nodded in agreement: "Benovia is right. We'll have to study it later and see how the other teams are doing, and which team is the biggest enemy."

"Let's go back first, and wait for our mentor to send us the other teams' competition results before we watch them."

"The second game doesn't start until tomorrow, so there's no rush."

The girls left while discussing, and Nicodimus and the other mentors gave them their praise.

Shortly after they returned, the school's other two teams also came back.

One team is happy, the other is frustrated.

I don't know if it was bad luck to run into a strong team, or if their own strength was insufficient.

Regardless of which one it was, Celia probably already knew why the Holy Magic Academy hadn't achieved any rankings in a long time.

"Anyway, don't worry about it too much, just focus on the competition the next day."

After returning home, and receiving the competition records from her mentor, Celia and the others began to study them carefully.

But the plans couldn't keep up with the changes.

The next day, when they were on high alert, they discovered—

The team they were facing was absent.

Thank you to Yuxuan for the donation!

Chapter 305 Initially, no one cared about the absence of several teams.

What was anticipated to happen, but which Celia thought was unlikely, ultimately did happen.

She looked at Anke, and the two stared at each other.

After waiting a few minutes without the absent team appearing, the referee declared the Saintess Team the winner, securing a 2-0 victory.

Backstage, Celia immediately found Nicodimers and reported the unusual situation to him, asking him to decide whether or not to report it to the league committee.

Upon hearing Celia's report, Nicodimus pondered for a moment: "Someone will definitely go to investigate the situation if he is absent, but according to what you said, there is a chance that the person who goes to investigate will also fall asleep. Only mages of the fourth rank or above can resist this. I'll go and talk to the committee."

Nicodimers then left.

A short while later, he returned and told Celia, "Besides your opponents, two other teams are also absent, but when I arrived, their representatives were arguing with the committee, saying they had misread the time and overslept."

Celia asked, "So, do I need to retake the exam... no, reschedule for another session?"

Nicodimers shook his head: "The league committee didn't allow any replacements, they just told them to pay attention to the timing next time. As for what I said, they didn't take it seriously and thought it was just a coincidence."

“Alright…” Celia said, “Professor Nicodimers, I don’t know if you believe me or not, but I hope you will pay attention tomorrow.”

Celia thought for a moment, then took out a small bottle of Dream Essence and a small bottle of antidote. "'Oversleep' should originate from this purple Dream Essence. The blue one is a potion that helps with magic flow and is also an antidote for Dream Essence. It comes from Anko. If you want to equip other teams, you can go to Anko."

Nicodimus nodded, took the two bottles of potion, and first opened the purple one and smelled it. As a fifth-tier mage, he was very sensitive to changes in magic power and quickly determined the effect of this thing on magic power.

“It seems you might be telling the truth, but by the way, where did you get this?” Nicodimus asked.

Celia said, "I went out for a stroll a couple of days ago and stumbled upon a small heretic stronghold. I almost fell for this trick, but I got this after destroying the stronghold."

Nicodimus nodded and smiled, "As expected of you."

Celia: "..."

She wanted to refute it, but didn't know how, so she simply shut up and acquiesced.

Nicodimus left with the medicine, and Celia didn't know what happened afterward. However, Nicodimus seemed to be in a bad mood, perhaps because his communication with the league committee hadn't gone smoothly.

The committee may have thought it was just a normal accident and that Nicodimers was being overly pessimistic.

In response, Nicodimus sought the antidote from Anko and distributed it to all the participants of the Holy Magic Academy.

The antidote was very cheap; dozens of bottles only cost one or two gold coins, and Nicodimus paid for it generously.

As Nicotimers and Anko exchanged money for goods, Celia looked at the others after Nicotimers left and couldn't help but ask, "What do you think will happen tomorrow if all the other teams are absent, but only our school's students are present?"

Doris snorted and said, "That goes without saying, the league committee directly suspects that our school was behind it."

Benovia said thoughtfully, "You know what, it's actually possible."

Anke said, "We know that Professor Nicodimers took the Dream Essence to get the league committee's attention, and afterwards all the other teams were 'late,' only we arrived early..."

The girls exchanged glances, realizing that under these circumstances, it couldn't be called mere suspicion; given the League Committee's casual attitude today, they were practically pinning the blame on the Holy Magic Academy.

Just as Celia was pondering how to handle such a situation, Ross's voice rang in her ears: "How about this, get up early tomorrow and go check on the other contestants' accommodations. If you confirm that everyone is showing signs of 'oversleeping,' then wake up all the participating teams from the Ishtar Empire, and ignore everything else."

Celia looked puzzled, not understanding what Ross meant.

Ross smiled slightly: "Nothing else, just changing the blame for the Holy Magic Academy to the blame for the Ishtar Empire."

"what?"

"Think about it, if only your school is fine, the league committee will definitely suspect you. But what if it's the entire empire? Don't you want to see what the league committee will do? Will they directly say that the Ishtar Empire is behind this, or will they continue with the same excuse as today?"

Celia's eyes lit up: "Wouldn't that be a bad idea?"

Ross didn't say anything because he knew that Celia was just saying it and would definitely go to check on things tomorrow morning.

……

The next day comes quickly.

Celia got up an hour early and was about to go out to check when Ross's voice came: "No need to go. The other side has increased the dosage and secretly used Dream Essence in the resting places of fourth-tier mages. You will be affected if you get close. There's no need to go. Go directly to the other contestants from the Ishtar Empire and destroy the hidden Dream Essence."

Celia said, "But I don't know where those Dream Essences are..."

Ross said, "I can see that most of them are at the entrance, which means that someone deliberately walked around the hotel last night and dripped Dream Essence at the entrance."

"How should we destroy it? Should we collect it?"

"No need, I'll teach you a simple dream spell to break it."

"Ok."

Soon, Celia learned this simple dream spell. After disguising herself, she ran around the doors of all the contestants from the Ishtar Empire. At the same time, Rose used her puppet to walk around the rooms where the mentors or leaders of other teams lived, using dream spells to remove the effects of the Dream Essence.

All of this was done quietly under Ross's surveillance.

The Dream Essence can only affect the fourth tier at most, and cannot affect the fifth tier. However, not every team has a fifth-tier mage; only major magic schools have fifth-tier mages accompanying them.

Many of the selected teams and individuals came alone, without even a person in charge. They relied entirely on the Empire to send someone to handle matters outside the competition venue.

These people in charge are mostly third-tier or even second-tier mages. They're good at handling odd jobs, but forget about fighting.

They slept more peacefully than the athletes.

Soon, as the competition time approached, all the athletes began to get up and prepare.

The area around the Ishtar Empire was bustling with activity, just like yesterday and the day before.

Because the other empires lived in different areas, they did not notice anything unusual about the contestants from other empires.

Just like yesterday, everyone chatted with their friends as they headed to the stadium.

It wasn't until the competition began and the players entered the arena, facing numerous absent opponents, that they realized something was wrong.

Thanks to Gu Chengqing for feeding Celia~

Chapter 306 Are heretics really this boring?

Currently, the Protoss network is underdeveloped, and messages are transmitted entirely via text.

Otherwise, the scene of the Sorcerer League at this moment would surely have spread throughout the entire Starfall Continent.

Whether it's an individual competition or a team competition, during simultaneous events, only a few competition venues have people scattered around; most are empty.

Those who were waiting for another opponent to arrive were in a better position; some matches even had only one referee on the field, with both sides absent.

This absurd situation left everyone—the judges, the audience, and even the newspaper commentators—completely bewildered.

Ross commented on this, saying, "It's still too amateurish."

Celia and the others were standing on the stage, staring at the referee, waiting for the other team to arrive.

Time was quickly approaching the point where being late would result in a loss, but no referee made a ruling.

It's not a big deal if one team doesn't show up and is declared the loser.

But since no one came, isn't it a joke to rule against them?

The referees all looked toward the committee.

The committee was already in a state of utter chaos.