Sovereign of the Ashes

In the last Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War, none of the initiates from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Academy managed to rank in top ten.

Only one managed to rank in the top twenty, securing the seventeenth position.

The outcome of this war, following a strategic shift, remained uncertain.

A month flew by, and the Divine Tower Academy War was upon them.

During this time, Sein reunited with his friend Grimm in the training session.

After several years, Grimm had also become a Quasi Mage.

In stark contrast to the more extroverted Mark, both Grimm and Sein, with their reserved and unassuming demeanors, perfectly epitomized the archetype of truth seekers.

Like Sein, Grimm had not made any appearance on the arena stage since his promotion to Quasi Mage.

He seemed preoccupied, exchanging only brief words with Sein before hurrying off, likely due to pressing experimental research as the war approached.

The training sessions expanded to include not just senior initiates and Quasi Mages but also intermediate initiates and below.

Selina attended these sessions as well, though the content differed from what Sein had learned in his sessions.

The academy tactfully avoided instilling fear among those below senior initiates, who constituted over ninety percent of its strength.

Given their substantial numbers, they were crucial to the overall war effort.

A hundred intermediate initiates, combining their magical prowess, could deter even the most confident Quasi Mage.

The academy’s strategy to seize more public resource points also hinged on these lower-ranking initiates.

In addition to familiarizing them with the various scenarios of the trial space, the academy’s full-fledged mages emphasized one key directive—these lower-ranking initiates must strictly adhere to the instructions given by those who were senior initiates and above.

After a month of training, the divine tower believed that all the senior initiates and Quasi Mages in the academy had thoroughly grasped and were prepared to execute the academy’s strategic approach to the war.

This adherence to hierarchy was not unique to the academy; it mirrored the wider practice in interplanar wars, where lower-ranking knights and mages customarily followed the lead of their higher-level counterparts.

***

The day of the Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War dawned with an ominous air at the north campus of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Academy.

Three immense doors of crimson light materialized, their color evoking unsettling images of blood and death.

This unsettling symbolism, combined with the initiates’ recent despondency and rampant rumors, cast a somber mood over the academy.

A female mage, riding on her broomstick beside Jovian, asked, “I’m not too hopeful about our prospects in this war, are you?”

She served as one of the academy’s cohort leaders and demonstrated greater responsibility than Jovian. At the very least, she consistently monitored the progress of both instructors and initiates within her cohort.

Her deeper awareness of the academy’s situation only intensified her skepticism about the upcoming war.

“We can’t expect to match the other divine towers anytime soon. It’ll take us two or three thousand years to catch up. Master Archimedes’ strategy is the best we have for now,” Jovian responded.

The female mage shared a confidential piece of news. “I heard that the tower masters will be personally observing this war.”

Tower masters were mages of Rank Four or higher, beings commonly revered as “gods” by less knowledgeable extraplanar beings.

Their presence at the Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War was unprecedented.

Typically, only the deans of the divine tower academies oversaw these events.

The higher a divine tower’s ranking and the better its initiates performed, the more favorably it reflected on the deans, thereby helping to justify the high salaries they received from the tower masters.

Jovian, along with the other cohort leaders and instructors, usually received bonuses aligned with the performance of the initiates at the conclusion of each war.

Even if they ranked last, as they had in previous years, they still received some reward, albeit minimal.

Jovian sighed. “With the tower masters watching, there might be fewer casualties among the young initiates this time.”

Despite the competitive nature of these regional wars, the tower masters of the various academies maintained amicable relations.

Even in the case of the Divine Tower of Shadow and the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder, which had collaborated to target the initiates of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring in the previous war, the tower masters of these two towers maintained a friendly rapport with the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring’s master.

With several tower masters personally overseeing the event, it was unlikely that the deans of other divine towers would condone overt aggression from their initiates toward those from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring.

The female mage on her broomstick nodded in agreement, then shared a more confidential piece of information.

“I’ve heard that... the reason for the tower masters attending this Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War in person is due to a high-profile arrival in our region recently,” she revealed.

“A high-profile arrival?” Jovian echoed in surprise.

***

The crimson light door within the divine tower served as a portal to the trial space of the current Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War.

This trial space, a collaborative creation of several divine towers, was astonishingly vast—its expanse slightly exceeding that of a typical human nation’s battlefield at the border.

The area encompassed over twenty large public resource collection points, hundreds of medium and small resource points, and thousands of locations where extraplanar creatures could be encountered.

The varied terrain included towering mountains, deep valleys, dense jungles, and expansive bodies of water.

The Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War was anticipated to span two and a half years.

However, the actual duration could be adjusted, either extended or shortened, based on the progression of war and changes in the initiates’ rankings.

For Sein and the others who stepped through the crimson light door, the space before them seemed boundless, its limits indiscernible.

Yet, for the few beings observing from the pinnacle of the trial space, this vast area, enveloped in what appeared to be a red eggshell, was akin to a mere sandbox.

The tens of thousands of initiates within, navigating this immense landscape, appeared as minuscule as ants from their lofty vantage point.