"Third place: Aria, 10 minutes 57 seconds."
"..."
Alright, I guessed wrong again.
"Haha, you're amazing to get second place!"
Aria gave me a bright smile after hearing her ranking.
"Ha...you too, I didn't realize we were only one second apart..."
I didn't know how to describe my feelings at this moment. She was also unfathomable.
"Fourth place: Rosalia, 10 minutes 59 seconds."
...
The rest of the rankings were no longer important. It was worth mentioning that the light elf who came in last had a particularly poor score as if she hadn't succeeded in destroying her own "Dark Element Sphere" when time was up.
"The above are the competition results for all contestants..."
After the chief referee read them out, she did not immediately announce the end but turned his head to face the first-place winner instead.
"But this may not necessarily be the final result, because there is an important question I want to ask Phoebe clearly—how did you pull off the high-level spell 'Lost Paradise Blast' at the end without chanting?"
"Here it comes!"
I was startled. As expected, the referee would not easily let go of this irregularity. It all depended on how Phoebe explained it.
"According to the report from your assistant referee, she didn't feel any elements flowing in your body for that final blow. Instead, she discovered that the light elements needed to condense the magic all came from your right arm..."
Seeing that she did not answer immediately, the chief referee continued to press her.
"For fairness, please show everyone your arm!"
"Alright..."
The laconic angel Phoebe finally spoke for the first time, slowly nodding her head and pulling up the sleeve of her right robe.
"I had a high-level spell pre-stored in here."
"That's...a magic circle!"
Everyone present immediately started discussing it upon seeing it. Of course, a magic circle wasn't that unusual, but what was impressive was that Phoebe had engraved this magic circle on her arm. This made it a bit difficult to determine if it counted as using a prop.
"What's going on with your arm? Isn't a magic circle strictly speaking not your ability?"
The chief referee frowned, probably also encountering this situation for the first time.
Looking at the angel's slender arm, how big could a magic circle engraved on it be?
"But I have this magic circle tattooed on me, without using any scrolls as a medium, and I plan to keep it permanently. So it can't be considered external aid, right?"
Phoebe argued reasonably. To be honest, she was already exploiting loopholes in the rules. If one followed this line of reasoning, wouldn't tattooing magic circles all over the body guarantee first place every time? But there was no help for it, Edenmere's Martial Arts Tournament had only been held twice, so loopholes were inevitable.
"But to my knowledge, magic circles capable of containing high-level magic are generally impossible to miniaturize to this degree, it's simply unheard of! Are you sure it came from this magic circle?"
However, the chief referee's concern was not on this point. Judging by the angel's slender arm, how large an area could a tattooed magic circle occupy on it?
"Of course, I can demonstrate it to you again as many times as needed!"
Phoebe affirmed very positively.
"Perhaps it was indeed impossible in the past, but nowadays there are angels who can do it!"
"Really? Who exactly?"
Hearing this, many angels present couldn't help but become agitated. After all, even Elara had said that research into magic circles wasn't something angels were particularly adept at. But from Phoebe's words, I vaguely guessed who the angel that helped tattoo her was.
"It's the newborn angel Reed who just descended last month. If you don't believe me you can go ask her, I only found her to help me tattoo it out a few days ago."
I knew it...
"You mean that new angel who's always holed up in the library, and even invented new magic on her own?"
Sadly, when the crowd heard the word "newborn", their gazes unanimously turned to me.
"...Why are you looking at me!"
I don't know magic circles, go find Reed!
"You new angels are all monsters!"
Aria gave me a glance, then turned her head away and stopped talking.
"Huh?"
I was completely dumbfounded. What was this? Passing the buck?
"Please give us a few minutes..."
Fortunately, the chief referee did not forget her duties. Left with no choice, she pulled several assistant referees aside to discuss.
"How cunning! If I'd known, I would've done the same. Turns out it's so easy to achieve instant high-level magic."
Watching the referees surround Phoebe and have her demonstrate the magic circle further to confirm, Aria said enviously.
"But don't you think it'd be very painful, and also look terrible to have magic circles all over your body..."
I couldn't help but try to persuade her. I absolutely could not accept it. Such a nice angel girl ending up with tattoo lines all over, wouldn't that be too much?
"Isn't improving your strength the most important thing? If it can give me an advantage in battles against monsters, why not do it even if it looks bad?"
She refuted me very pragmatically, leaving me at a loss for words.
She also had a point. After all, the angel population was scarce, survival was the top priority. As for how to achieve that, it depended on how each individual weighed the pros and cons.
"Phoebe's tattoos do not count as external aids, the result stands!"
Not long after, the chief referee announced the conclusion of their discussion and made a special note of it.
"But this method is undesirable, as it not only leads to unhealthy competition but is also detrimental to improving one's strength. So we will revise the relevant rules for the next competition."
"Next time?"
I murmur sarcastically. Who knew how long it would be before the next Martial Arts Tournament?
Reed, you've indirectly sabotaged me!
"Congratulations to the top three contestants, you may proceed to the main venue to collect your prizes!"
With the chief referee making some final remarks, the magic event finally concluded smoothly.
"I'm not interested in the restaurant coupons, I still have to prepare for tomorrow's flying competition, so I'll head back first."
On the way back, Aria made an excuse to part ways with me, then turned and flew away.
"Goodbye."
I waved my hand. Mere 20% off coupons didn't have much use. I naturally didn't have much feeling about such a reward either. But the sword competition finals with Nicola were still at the main venue, so I was still very concerned about the results.
When I arrived, the open space was already filled with crowds. It looked like the finals had long ended. As expected I had completely missed it.
But picking Nicola out from below was not so easy either. I hovered stupidly in the sky for a long time, before deciding to descend at the central banner.
"The magic competition results were just announced, and you've already come to claim your prize..."
The staff member looked at me strangely.
"Better than nothing!"
I grabbed the two coupons handed to me. Occasionally pigging out at the shopping district was not a bad idea either. Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten anything in a long time.
"How'd it go?"
Suddenly my back was gently poked a few times. Caught unprepared, I looked back to see that it was Aetina. Running into her here was not too surprising either.
"Second place!"
I quickly reported my ranking. This time I had to admit, her judgement was truly impressive.
"Thank you! It wouldn't have meant anything if not for your ability..."
Athena humbly smiled, and continued asking,
"So who were first and third place?"
"First place was last tournament's champion Phoebe, and third place was Aria..."
I nodded and listed out all the rankings in sequence.
"I can understand Phoebe, but I didn't expect you to surpass Aria..."
She had an expression of surprise, sighing and saying,
"I'd estimated third place at most for you originally, I didn't expect the result would be even better."
"Is Aria that amazing? She's also a six-winged angel like me!"
Seeing Aetina's manner, it seemed this Aria had quite the background. But the fact remained, her score was only slower than mine by one second, basically a close shave.
"It's normal you don't know. In the last few hundred years, Aria can be said to be the most talented of the young angel generation, whether in magic or combat techniques. She can challenge and easily defeat those of higher rank..."
Aetina slowly described Aria's past experiences, otherwise I would never have imagined Aria's capabilities to be so great. My impression was that she was just an ordinary six-winged little angel...
"Because of her talents, Lady Elara has always been reluctant to let her join the angel legions and venture out."
"But even so, Aria has also successfully advanced to six wings after staying in Edenmere for hundreds of years. You must know, based on normal standards, advancing to six wings without combat experience against monsters would take at least several thousand years!"
"That outstanding?"
I had a deep experience of this. I'd met quite several four-winged angels recently, especially those like Norma who had never gone to the outside world. Despite being over a thousand years old, they still hadn't broken through.
"Yes, outstanding, but she can only be considered past now..."
Athena shook her head and glanced at me, sighing,
"Because later there were some even more freakish ones".
"..."
I was speechless. After this competition, I finally had a new understanding of my own strength.
I'd never realized before, but I seemed to have reached this level unknowingly at some point. In my impression, I was always still that ignorant novice adventurer who only had 3 ranks.
But my growth seemed to have been too sudden. I didn't have any tangible experience of progressive improvement in between. It was as if I'd learned magic for a period and then suddenly became stronger.
"Your and Nicola's capabilities are far beyond this, you just don't know how to utilize them yet. If you can further advance to eight wings, even Lady Elara and the others might not necessarily be your match."