After removing their hands from the Creation Stone, the mages couldn’t help feeling incredibly drained, almost as if their very soul essence had been disturbed and weakened considerably.

This left mages like Endrick who used up all his re-spawing sprawling on the ground, even Alec could feel that his mental energy was unusually weak for the moment, so he decided to try swallowing a mental pill, since whatever was affecting them seemed to be connected to that.

Fortunately, once he took the pill, he realized that it immediately relieved the strain he had been feeling, and a wave of relief washed over him at once.

After confirming its effect on the soul drain, Alec began tossing one pill each to his teammates, in the second and third VIP sections, the deans still couldn’t tell what Alec had swallowed at first.

They only knew that he looked much better after taking it. But once he started handing the pills to the other four members of his team, they were finally able to recognize the pill from its body and understand exactly what they were.

Immediately, the deans of several institutions couldn’t help turning their gazes toward the top executive of the War God Mage Academy in the second VIP section with them.

This time, however, the War God Dean felt relieved that he wasn’t the only one attracting those looks, he knew for a fact that Old Man Alderic had a deal with Alec, and that was the only reason the academy’s mid-rank instructors had gained access to much higher-quality cultivation and healing pills.

But he had never heard of Alec giving out mental pills, back then every time Alec revealed more of his pill reserves, it only made him want to explode, because he genuinely had no idea where they all came from.

Meanwhile, the other deans simply assumed that the War God Mage Academy was wealthy enough to have a top-tier alchemist on their payroll, which was why they could hand out such rare and expensive pills as casually as candy to their students, and since they couldn’t purchase from the War God Mage Academy they couldn’t help staying jealous.

And they weren’t the only ones thinking that way, there were already several newly awakened mages who had considered enrolling in the War God Mage Academy right after the last Northern Kingdom competition.

They seem to had developed some kind of misconception that they would have access to rare pills just like Alec and his team seemed to.

However, many had already dismissed that idea because of the northern king cutting them off and all he new rules he had imposed on them, but now Alec had revealed another type of pill that left even more people with questions.

While the Dean was relieved that he was no longer the only one receiving those suspicious looks, his counterpart, Old Man Alderic, didn’t seem to care in the slightest, he was simply staring at Alec in awe.

He had heard from Terran that Alec had given him mental pills, and although he had been eager to discuss them with Alec about it, Terran had made it sound as if they were Alec’s last remaining stock and that he didn’t have many left.

But seeing Alec casually tossing those pills to his teammates like candy, Alderic was now certain that Alec had far more pills hidden away than he had let on.

At this point, he was already thinking about how he would sweet-talk and cajole Alec into negotiating over the mental pills the moment he got him alone.

_ _

Meanwhile, in the third VIP section where the King, the rest of the judges, and the Patriarchs of the ancient clans were seated, the reaction was far more reserved.

That didn’t stop the judges from being surprised by Alec’s actions, though, and that was because unlike the Five Kingdoms, they didn’t have much difficulty obtaining mental pills from where they came from, there were many talented alchemists on the Origin Continent that were capable of refining them.

Still, even they wouldn’t just hand them out so casually because of how rare it was. Alec was behaving like one of the rich young masters from the Origin Continent, and that alone made them look at him with more interest.

After all, even though they had tried to hinder him in hopes of setting up the Bloodline Academy versus School of Silent Night in the final, he had still managed to spoil their plans.

Either way, since the War God Mage Academy was a Northern Kingdom academy, it wasn’t that much of a problem for them. In the end, their list was already close to completion.

After the Bloodline mages dragged themselves off the battle stage—very differently from how the War God mages swaggered off—the judge reappeared, and the crowd fell silent again as they waited for the second battle of the day.

_ _

Five minutes later, the entire crowd went completely silent, it was so quiet that if a needle had dropped at that moment, everyone would have heard it.

The School of Silent Night had managed to win in the shortest time possible, and they had done it by dominating all five rune points with each of Takeda’s bodies.

There had been no need for complicated tactics like trying to gain a slight edge through simply trying to win by capturing one more point than the Ember Citadel Team.

It was a crushing defeat. After a few seconds of shock, the Eastern Kingdom fans finally shook themselves out of it and began cheering loudly.

Alec, who had stayed back to watch the battle, couldn’t help looking down at the five rune points, each one being guarded by a Takeda body.

For the first time, Takeda had brought all of his main elemental bodies into battle, and that wasn’t all—his main body had also participated directly in the fight.

The moment the match began, many had noticed that the Takeda leading the team this time looked more confident and carried himself with far more presence, giving off a very strong impression.

But once the battle started, his team immediately split into pairs and moved toward the two closest rune points near them.

On the other side, the Ember Citadel Team did the same, while their captain moved straight for the central rune point, many couldn’t help noticing that this was the same kind of tactic the War God Mage Academy had used earlier.

But they didn’t really care, until Takeda began summoning his main elemental bodies, at that point, the crowd realized that unlike the Wind Gate summon, this time he had only used hand signs, and a completely new body simply separated from him.

At first, it was the three bodies the crowd was already familiar with—the Wind Takeda, who wielded a katana; the Earth Takeda, who used a greatsword; and the Water Takeda, who fought with a kusarigama.

But that wasn’t all, the remaining two elemental bodies of Takeda which they had never seen before finally appeared.

The one the crowd now referred to as the Fire Takeda wielded a wakizashi and a very long curved odachi.

Finally, there was the Dark Takeda, who carried a scythe and possessed a hooked-claw mechanism attached to his hands.