Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

The next day, the two of them went to the central area to attend the opening ceremony for the provincial competition.

The five-day opening ceremony had already been going on for two days. On the third day, other than the program events, there was also a performance match scheduled in the afternoon.

The entry ticket read: "Old Friend VS 'a mystery player'".

Victor said, "It seems like there must be two conditions for this mystery player. First is that they must be in the national competition and won't need to participate in the provincial competitions; the second is that they have to have come from the Second Star Province."

Tyron wasn't curious at all about this kind of gimmick and said, "Just watch it for entertainment."

Victor's eyes were full of worship as he thought to himself: Tsk tsk tsk, my hubby feels like watching any level of competition is 'just for entertainment'!!

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The two of them bought a couple of buckets of popcorn just like they were watching a movie, then also took two bottles of coke and went to sit in seats near the middle.

After the opening ceremony, the stages for the real and virtual world would merge.

In the real world, the stage and the audience from the virtual world would be holographically projected over their heads; in the virtual world, the scene from the real world would also be projected into their environment. It was as though the two sides linked together to form a synthetic sphere, perfectly surrounding the center stage.

The center of the venue was a virtual projection. This time, the hosts were four famous stars from the Third Star Province. Their appearances were all special in their own ways, and they were generous with their praise as they introduced the creation mage who had just come up onto the stage: Old Friend.

Finally, they announced, "Let's invite our mystery guest to the stage!"

A young man of about twenty-seven or eight came up onto the stage in time with the music. He wore a classic Robin Hood feathered hat and had a lollipop in his mouth as he waved to the audience.

Audience: "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

Shrill screams erupted in a flash.

Victor tilted his head and leaned against Tyron's shoulder.

Tyron reached out and helped him cover his ears.

Neither of them recognized this 'mystery guest'. They looked at each other for a while before Victor said, "Who is this?"

Tyron replied, "I don't know. Just watch the excitement."

Victor responded with an 'oh', then reached out to grab a handful of popcorn to eat, casually feeding Tyron a bunch while he was at it.

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This mystery guest was nicknamed &#k2018;Mysterious Hand’. His ID: Vantico.

Not only did he come from the Second Star Province, but he also happened to be from the Earth District.

He’d been the first assassin to be confirmed as a god in the Earth District, and he was famous for &#k2018;having so many techniques that it was like a bottomless pit’.

His win rate had only risen and remained high since his rise to fame, and he had made a meteoric rise from the Earth District competition to the National Championship. He won third place in the National Championship last year and only lost to the second-place priest, Jiuzhou, by one point.

It had been nine years since he started his career, but he really shot to fame in the last two years and became the 'pride of the Earth District' at the speed of a comet.

Even with all this, it was moot since Tyron still didn't know of him.

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Tyron and Victor sat beneath the stage and leisurely entered movie-watching mode.

A performance match was really just a performance with many beautiful moves that made it entertaining and wonderful to watch. However, it wouldn't contain much technical content and was mainly held to satisfy the audience's eyes.

After watching for a while, Tyron said to Victor, "This mage, Old Friend, is his ranking not very high?"

Victor took out the competition's introduction materials and said, "Hm, he's not from the national competition. It's said that he's the most favored black horse this year, the new King, and newly appointed War God of the Tianyi District…"

Tyron made a sound of acknowledgement, then said, "It's quite interesting. Vantico is using about thirty percent of his strength, and this Old Friend is also holding back. He will still be able to pose a threat to Vantico even if he went to the National Championships."

"I don't agree." Victor said. "You're clearly the new King this year."

Tyron replied, "I'm not a newcomer."

Victor thought about it and agreed: Putting Tyron with the 'newcomers' was simply bullying others! Which other newcomer was so rich in practical experience and had such a strong sense of strategy?

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By the time the popcorn bottomed out, the show had also hit a high peak.

Vantico pulled out one of his famous techniques: 'scattered kite steps', while accurately calculating the range of the enemy mage's spell. He entered and left his attack range easily, his movements just enough to stall his opponent's attacks.

However, the mage, Old Friend's hands shifted slightly closer together, fire and water elements gathering in his palms. Borrowing from the water vapor that had been created earlier, the mage played out a stunning explosion of steam.

At this time, Tyron suddenly uttered a 'hm?' sound.

Victor was curious, "What's the matter?"

Tyron replied thoughtfully, "This creation spell is a little interesting."

As soon as he spoke, they saw that the center of the stage that had been covered in the steam explosion shifted, the clouds of steam forming the shape of a pentagram star on their own. It soon transformed into fireworks before finally disappearing.

The audience marveled, "It's so beautiful!" "Coach, I want to learn this magic spell!" "Does this spell really exist, or is it custom-made?"

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At this time, Tyron was very certain as he confirmed, "It's customized. This is one of the mage's own techniques."

By now, Victor was incomparably curious and asked, "You understand magic? I remember that the process for releasing spells is totally different from the principles for using melee techniques. Most melee players won't understand magic at all…"

"How can I distinguish skills in battle if I don't understand magic?" Tyron laughed lightly and continued, "If you mistake a sharp stab for a fireball at a critical moment, it's a problem of life or death."

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he was obviously thinking of something in the past from when he was young. This kind of experience was thrilling all the way down to the soul, even if it was only ever experienced once. However, when he spoke about it, it seemed like he was merely mentioning it casually.

Victor thought for a moment, then said, "Then, there are so many spells. What if you can't recognize them all?"

Tyron replied, "In the past, I spent a long time learning to recognize them all. Now, there are more varieties, so I have to start all over again."

Victor was very distressed for his sake, and then, his school bully tendencies acted up again.

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After going back, Victor started with researching the creation mage, 'Old Friend', in order to slowly understand the magic system used in e-sports.

As previously mentioned, magic consisted of three parts: chanting, gesturing, and casting materials. Each part was very complex.

And, the 'spell recognition' that Tyron mentioned was a basic skill of any melee class (even if nobody could really memorize all of it). They needed to combine the first syllables that the mage chanted with the first hand gesture that they used in order to judge which spell the mage was going to release.

Victor recorded as he researched: Chanting determined the attributes of the spell, the gesture would determine the structure, and materials could add bonuses.

For example, with a fireball skill: There were two fire-attribute chanting parts (6 short segments, total duration 3 seconds); the hand gestures were the two gestures corresponding to 'cohesion' and 'path'; if the casting material 'dragonfly wings' was added, the fireball skill would be able to automatically seek out an enemy.

If one wanted to make a customized spell that started with a steam explosion and evolved into a pentagram star: First of all, the mage needed to calculate and generate the amount of fire and water that was required, two chanting parts added up to six short segments, repeated six times to reach the final amount. The mage then needed to build a three-dimensional model for the spell. Water was a dodecahedron while fire was a tetrahedron. They needed to build a stable and effective model based on the model calculated above, then finally choose a series of gestures to express the model.

This involved precise numerical calculations, sophisticated equations, and a solid grasp of geometry… If one wanted to add casting materials, then they would also need to factor in chemical equations!

Therefore, the fact that mage contestants required the 'intelligence' attribute wasn't something that was said just for fun!

In Western fantasy worlds, a person's intelligence value had to reach at least 18 before they could become a formal mage. People often said that geniuses with an IQ of 130 and above only accounted for 1% of the total human population yet only had an intelligence value of 16.

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Victor: "…. This is very complicated!"

The school bully rolled up his sleeves and took notes with his right hand while writing code on the keyboard with his left.

One night later, he carried a stack of paper and set it down in front of Tyron.

Tyron: "……"

Victor had his small tail flipped up proudly as he said, "There's not enough time to make a concrete analysis, but I've summarized the first three syllables and gestures for all spells. By following my list, one can reduce the workload by 80%!"

Tyron picked up a piece of paper, pondered over the formula written on it for a long time, then asked, "How long do you think it will take to learn this level of interstellar arithmetic?"

Victor replied proudly, "16 years if you start from childhood!"

"That's why I didn't become a mage." Tyron said. He'd made this decision even though the royal moon elf lineage was one that was very close to magic, and every generation of moon elf kings was a famous master known for their skill in magic… alternatively, it could be said that elves were very qualified to become mages.

Half of his blood came from elves, but he'd still stepped on the path of an assassin.

Victor found this inexplicable and asked, "But, but… haven't you memorized it all?"

Tyron was expressionless as he set down the paper and interlaced his fingers. He seriously said, "I don't like math. I can memorize it, but I. don't. calculate."

The incurable little fan in Little Vic thought obsessively: My male god is so frank! So cute! Ahhhhhhhh he's so cute, I'm going to die!"

After he recovered from the cuteness, the hopeless school bully naturally went on to think: I'm going to help my male god prepare for the competition.

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The next day, when Tyron opened the door, he abruptly took a step back.

He saw that his little fan had changed their room number to: ￥@&*@￥%！@￥%！#%……

There was no doubt that this string of garbled code was exactly how the master assassin saw this mathematical formula.

Tyron: "……"

Tyron walked somberly to the dining area, then saw that there was "￥@……@#%！#￥" written on top of the refrigerator, and the ingredient list on the drinks had all been covered with "！#￥！#￥！（&%".

After a while, Victor elegantly served breakfast and said, "The first round of the competition is starting soon. There are six mages out of the 15 contestants in Group C. Male god, work hard and memorize! You're not allowed to be lazy!"

Tyron looked down and saw that the tomato sauce on the poached egg on his plate had been used to write "@#%@￥%！@#￥%".

The old antique master assassin: "……"

What happened to my gentle little fan? The one who would blush when poked on the cheek, the Little Vic who would forget to be angry if coaxed just a little bit?!! How could my Vic become so uncute!?