We advanced to the next round which meant we would fight the next day. We all watched the battle between Auberdine Academy's best and the second best from Muhlhauser Academy. They were evenly matched but it was a different battle to say the least. Both teams had a mole for a tank, which was a rare tank in the first place as it was more efficient traveling under the ground.
Both healers were flying in the air similar to how Maddy was now maneuvering about the battlefield. They both had their own healing spells that were quite powerful. The mole beast had a big gash in his side that was quickly closed up from one healing spell from the life eagle. The healers were both flying yet they started to combat each other with a sword in one and a spear in the other. The life eagle with the spear was able to get the upper hand and landed a killing blow to the water hawk beast master.
The life eagle seemed to be the reason why the Auberdine team was so powerful as their mistakes would be quickly fixed by her heals. Maddy's spells didn't heal as quickly as the life eagle which shocked all of us to see its speed. The blue and orange group sporting their school colors consisted of a poison ivy plant beast master who specialized with a whip. The other damage dealers were a scorpionfly insect beast master who could fly and spit venom. They had vials of anti-venom ready for whenever that made contact with someone they would need to have it administered within 2 minutes of contact.
The last two beast masters had plants for beasts that seemed to be support skilled and they used crossbows that seemed to be a specialty of the academy instead of bows they all had crossbows. This was a different group than the normal since they had a flying healer, an underground tank and then multiple support ranged attackers. The gameplan we had to come up with was going to be something special to say the least.
As if fate was on our side Travis woke up having Tim finally evolve overnight to bronze rank. The newest spell was the perfect anti-mole attack there was, it was called earthquake. Tim or Travis could slam their leg down and cause an earthquake in a 10 yard radius causing those above ground to be lifted off the ground and those underground to be stunned. Our size now grew to 25% instead of 20% from Tim's shout.
Adam led us in the strategy as it was becoming more and more his calls with what we would be doing. I tended to add my two cents in where I could but Adam was more or less calling the shots. The biggest thing was getting their eagle out of the fight as quickly as possible which relied on me. Joey and Abby were charged with taking out their archers while Travis' sole responsibility was to stop the mole. Adam was confident he could take out the two melee fighters.
We started the fight in a completely different formation. Travis was actually in the back with Maddy while I was in the front. I lifted up to 20 yards in the air before the countdown finished with an arcane orb arrow notched and ready. The way they were all standing I decided at the last moment to aim my shot at the two archers right in between them hitting the ground and causing the orb to expand and explode, knocking both of the archers out of the fight right away.
The blue and orange uniforms were all looking at the spot their teammates were standing when lightning bolts from Abby started dropping on them as they hadn't realized they were all standing together. They all spread out but each got hit at least once causing them to stumble while rolling out of the way or lose their balance in flight. Joey's sais were thrown perfectly connecting with the life eagle knocking it out of the arena.
So just as we planned, I took out the archers and Abby and Joey took out the life eagle. Adam blinked to the rolling poison ivy beast master getting in close to negate the whip no matter what and quickly sliced at the head with his machete knocking the beast master out of the arena. Then he quickly blinked to his next target who sensed the blink but wasn't expecting an arcane missile from me. My shot was nice, right in the back of the head, granted it knocked the guy out of the arena but it felt awesome.
The mole had gone underground and was trying to find someone to come out under and its target was Abby who had been focused on her area of effect spell. Luckily Travis was doing his job and as soon as he saw the moles intent he launched and landed an earthquake attack stunning the mole underground. We weren't expecting it but the mole suddenly popped out of the ground with its eyes closed and went limp on the ground. Travis took his shield and went to smash the beast masters head and he was ejected right before the shield connected.
"Victory Arcanum from Ghostrun Academy!" The announcer proclaimed.
"Arcanum! Arcanum! Arcanum!" The crowd was chanting at a deafening roar. The sensation of the insane amount of beast masters all cheering your team name was a new and wild experience. The rush of mana from the chant was almost like taking a mana potion. That feel of power coursing through your veins just from voices was intoxicating.
Suddenly all of those stories of gladiators in the past being addicted to the rush of the crowd made perfect sense to me. This was incredible and even though we were all wearing armor that covered us completely I could tell all of us were soaking in the feeling. We stood there for what felt like an eternity but was probably 45 to 60 seconds at most soaking in the intoxicating sensation.
With there being far less teams left in the tournament the under arena area was so much quieter and less crowded. The frequency of patrolling adults was much more infrequent as well as any issues that would arise were far less now that we were down to the final four for most of the grades. That is when I realized that the under arena area actually had been sectioned off by academy in a way as there were only the seventh and eighth year for Ghostrun Academy left in the sixes tournament besides ourselves.
The two teams were down there and they were giving us a cheer as we came down. It was actually pretty cool and I told the team we should be cheering on our other teams in the tournament like they just did. Unfortunately the next thing to happen to us was not a great thing. We got into our room and when the door closed the lights went out and a cloud of smoke filled the room knocking us unconscious.
We woke up the next day to find out that we were drugged by Muhlhauser Academy. Where they messed up was the fact that they didn't know Joey left Po at the arena to watch the matches thus was not in the room to be knocked unconscious. They had used a sleeping spell that could keep you asleep for up to 72 hours if not countered. Po feeling Joey go to sleep suddenly hurried back to find the students from Muhlhauser Academy leaving the area. Po then had to get Mr. G to come to our room while not being able to communicate.
I can only imagine what that scene was like as Mr. G I am sure was doing something then Po comes up grabbing him to follow making weird red panda noises. It had taken till the end of the night for Po to find Mr. G in his room to then bring the principal to our room to wake us up after Po brought them to the room to find them asleep. However in the morning Po was back again pleading with Mr. G to get us. At least that is what I was told by Joey who relayed what Po did while we were asleep.
Once Joey could explain what Po saw there was apparently a meeting among the principals of all of the academies. Muhlhauser Academy was going to be penalized by one hundred points for attempting to interfere by causing a team to miss an event. They were pretty pissed that they got caught as they thought they had us and claimed that Po was lying but since Mr. G had to use a powerful potion to wake even one of us up he knew it had to be a spell to put us asleep and no other culprit could be named yet Po had identified culprits that were present within the under arena area.
The one identified had the ability and had used it in the fights so all of the principals were aware of the fact that the beast master from Muhlhauser Academy could pull off what was being accused.