The Golem Mage

By the next day, all four teams that had qualified for the semi-finals were already waiting for the match format and battle pairings to be announced.

From the changing room, they could clearly hear the roaring cheers of the crowd as everyone waited for the day’s matches to begin, while they were still waiting, the Dean walked in, accompanied by Miss Selene, who had come to wish them good luck.

After all, she had been the one who originally selected the team, and seeing how far they had progressed filled her with pride, they had definitely grown far beyond anything she had imagined when she first chose them.

After the team greeted her and she exchanged a few brief words with Alec, the Dean finally spoke.

“The team we will be facing has been confirmed,” the Dean began.

That single sentence immediately captured everyone’s attention as they turned toward him.

“We will be facing the Bloodline Academy, and the format for this match has also been decided, it will be something called a Rune-Point Domination Match.”

He paused briefly before continuing.

“The arena array system will include something known as a Creation Stone.”

“Although it’s called a Creation Stone, its function isn’t limited to changing the terrain, it will also be able to generate a temporary astral body for each of you. That astral body will be deployed onto the battlefield in place of your real body.”

“The most important part of this system is that each of you will have three lives during the match.”

Everyone in the room began smiling as they waited for the rest of the explanation.

However, the more Alec listened, the more uneasy he felt, from his experience, tournament formats rarely favored them and something about this one made him suspect it might backfire.

“And by three lives,” the Dean continued,

“I mean that if you are killed during the battle, you will be able to reincarnate and rejoin the fight, since it’s only your astral body participating, your real body won’t be harmed with the same wound that was inflicted on you during the dead period.”

“However, keep this in mind, that each death will leave you feeling extremely fatigued once the battle ends. It’s simply a side effect of the astral connection, nothing too serious.”

Hearing this, no one seemed to have any problems with it. After all, they clearly understood what it meant to be able to reincarnate three times in a battle.

They were fully aware that such an advantage would naturally come with some form of cost, and since to them the only price to pay was temporary fatigue after the match, it didn’t seem like a serious drawback to them.

“There will be five Rune Points spread across the battlefield,” the Dean continued.

“Your mission is to capture and control them, the more Rune Points your team controls, the faster your score will increase.”

He then paused briefly before adding the final rule.

“And there is one restriction—summons are not allowed.”

The moment the Dean finished speaking, everyone finally understood why this new format had been introduced, even the most simple-minded mage could tell that this rule had been specifically designed to target them, because they were the only team surviving who seems to have a summoning type of mage available.

Alec, on the other hand, merely chuckled after hearing the rule, it was obvious to him that summoning Titan during the previous match must have frightened certain people enough that they decided to impose restrictions to prevent him from using that advantage again.

And by those people, Alec was thinking about King Charles of the Northern Kingdom and the group of mages who carried out his orders must have talked and worked out things with the Judges.

What Alec couldn’t understand, however, was why they hadn’t arranged for his team to face the School of Silent Night instead, as it was publicly acknowledged as the strongest team of the moment.

He had actually been looking forward to that matchup.

The fact that their captain, Takeda, had been responsible for leaving Lucas and Beatrice in such terrible condition still irritated him.

Even though he knew Takeda had simply done what was necessary to qualify, Alec couldn’t completely shake off the grudge he felt.

Still, since that battle wasn’t happening now, he forced himself to focus on the opponent his team had actually been assigned to face, the Bloodline Academy.

When he thought about it carefully, he realized how disadvantageous the situation seemed for them.

First of all, Alec was already familiar with this type of battle format, even though his teammates looked slightly confused, he had seen similar systems in games he used to play back on Earth, games like Call of Duty or Mech Arena, where the objective revolved around capturing and holding strategic points on the battlefield.

But this situation was very different, one of the rules stated that a player had to remain inside a rune circle for ten uninterrupted seconds before their team could successfully capture the point.

After a rune point was captured, it would generate one point per second for the controlling team.

That meant the only way to win was to constantly maintain control over more rune points than the opponent, and the total score required to win was 500 points.

Alec couldn’t help but feel that this format had clearly been designed to target them, if he had been allowed to summon his golems, securing the rune points would have been far easier.

On top of that, Beatrice could have also used her puppet to help them cover grounds, but since her puppets also counted as summons, she was affected by the restriction as well.

He shook his head slightly, realizing that whoever designed the format had thought everything through very carefully, they clearly believed the rest of Alec’s team wouldn’t pose much of a threat, especially since Bloodline Academy was known for having an extremely well-balanced team.

Of course, there was still another way to win the match, and that is by eliminating every member of the opposing team if they couldn’t compete effectively in the rune point battle.

But even that possibility had been partially neutralized by the three-life reincarnation system.

Earlier, his teammates had been celebrating the advantage of having multiple lives, but they hadn’t realized that it also made it harder to win through pure combat.

Alec simply smiled.

He felt strangely satisfied knowing that he had scared certain people enough for them to constantly change the rules just to limit him, and honestly, he welcomed the challenge.

If anything, it only made him more determined to break their carefully crafted system in a way they would never expect.

After all, nothing brought him more satisfaction than shocking people who were certain he couldn’t win.