Elite Mages’ Academy (Web Novel)
chapter-641-30041322

Chapter 641: Judge Academy’s Strength

During the training period, Yu Mei started to reveal the basic combat ability and condition of the other academies to the students. Looking at the composition of the group, everyone quickly made their evaluations.

In the group, the American Judge Academy was definitely the strongest. Even though the Americans were not part of the founding colonists, they managed to use a hundred years of peace to rapidly catch up. The other academies had all been bogged down by war, so Judge Academy now seemingly stood at the helm of all the academies.

Dawn Academy was no longer as impressive as it was in the past. After the war against the orcs, even though the academy had slowly recovered, they were still not at their prior state. However, comparing it with the smaller academies, Dawn Academy still had a big advantage.

So, the assessments made by the monitors were not wrong. The ones able to advance to the next stage in the group were basically only Dawn Academy and Judge Academy. The only difference was if it would be in first or second place.

Only Xiao Lin asked a different question after thinking for a moment. “Are there any S-rank talent holders in the Japanese and Turkish academies?” He remembered the president mentioning that every academy in the world seemed to have exploded with a large number of talent holders, and there would definitely be S-rank talent holders in the mix.

Yu Mei looked at Xiao Lin with praise before saying to the others, “That’s exactly what I want to talk to all of you about. It’s true that we are much stronger than Japan and Turkey, but do not underestimate them. Even though we don’t have reliable information, we’ve heard that the two academies have seen a surge in the abilities of their new students in recent years, especially Japan. They were fourth place in the last tournament, so they can’t be taken easily!”

Japan had only entered the New World around a hundred years ago, so compared to the other major countries, they had been late by about a decade. The country also had a very strong ambition, and was constantly in conflict with the academies around them. Their conflicts were particularly intense with Dawn Academy, but had slowly relaxed in the last few decades.

Everyone had learnt about that before in their history lessons, so after Yu Mei’s words, everyone could not help but feel some pressure. Chen Dao half-jokingly smiled and said, “It’s fine if we lose to Judge Academy, but if we lose to the Japanese academy, we’ll be scolded to death.”

Yu Mei said somewhat earnestly, “In the history of the tournaments, we’ve crossed blades with the Japanese thirteen times. Out of those times, we won twelve times and came to a draw once. Setting aside our past grievances, even in recent years, we’ve had more and more conflicts in the New World. If we lose to the Japanese, even I will be pressured by the higher-ups, so you all better take it seriously!”

“Putting aside the Japanese first, the first battle is against the Americans. Do we have any information? Such as their participants or abilities.”

“The participants and the monitors are easy to find out, but in terms of talents, outside of a few of them, we still don’t know anything about most of them. Let me tell you, the last eight tournaments have all been won by Judge Academy. I’ve said before that this tournament is a way to tell the relative strengths of the various academies, and Judge Academy has slowly crept ahead of everyone in recent years, largely in part due to these tournaments.”

“Do we have any information on the past Judge Academy tournaments?” Xiao Lin asked again. Even though there was no way the participants of the tournaments would repeat, they could at least use past information to make some inferences.

“Yes, I was just about to show you. It’s not information, but recordings. In consideration of fairness, every match will be recorded with memory crystals.”

Yu Mei came prepared, and immediately took out a memory crystal she had with her. She brought everyone to a darker room. After activating the crystal, it was like a film. Large amounts of energy shot out of the crystal and turned into a clear screen.

“This is a group stage match from the last tournament. Judge Academy is facing Royal Academy. Even though the British aren’t as strong as America, as an old Academy, they can’t be underestimated.” After that, Yu Mei quieted down. Everyone had already been captivated by the recording.

Xiao Lin’s face was a little strange, because he saw a familiar person in the recording: Lilith. He suddenly remembered that Lilith truly made a name for herself during the last tournament, which completely solidified rumors of her SS-rank talent.

The other monitors had never met Lilith, but that did not stop their evaluation of her skills. A few minutes after the battle started, Cheng Ming said thoughtfully, “This woman is very strong.”

On the screen, an Englishman tried to do a sneak attack, but was discovered by Lilith immediately and was quickly killed off!

Yes, it was a quick kill. The entire process was not longer than five seconds. The people in front of the screen did not even see Lilith’s technique clearly, and only saw the image of a scythe flying out before the unfortunate Englishman collapsed in a puddle of blood.

“Very strong individual combat abilities, but their teamwork is very bad. Look, other than that woman, the others are just hanging back. The distance is so far that there’s practically no way for them to help her.” Class Eight’s Sheng Guo smartly made an assessment.

Xiao Lin rolled his eyes and could not help but say, “No, that was Lilith’s request. She did not allow her teammates to interfere back then.” He had heard about some rumors of Lilith from Song Junlang before. Even though it might not be about this particular battle, his understanding of Lilith and the situation there was exactly so.

“One against four?” Sheng Guo said doubtfully.

Xiao Lin did not retort. After five minutes, he looked back again, and amusedly noticed that Sheng Guo’s face was pale and his lips were constantly trembling, as if he did not know what to say.

On the screen, the battle was already over. The battle only lasted five minutes, which was even faster than the friendly match between the Russians and Dawn Academy. There was nothing to say about the fight. Lilith ran into the English formation alone, and in a few minutes, she decisively caused her opponents to lose all strength.

Other than investigating and using perception to report on the opponents at the start, Lilith’s teammates did not do anything.

“Lilith? I think I’ve heard rumors before. She should be the only SS-rank talent holder alive!” The others had an ugly expression on their faces, and Cheng Ming suddenly thought of something.

“That’s right! That’s the Lilith they’re talking about!” Xiao Lin sighed. Looking at Lilith’s recording, he could not help but admit that Lilith was stronger than him, even back then.

“You know her?” Class Six’s Li Jiayi had a curious face.

Xiao Lin ignored that gossip as he continued, “Judge Academy’s fights from the last tournament were basically all like that. The other four would collect information, and Lilith would settle the fight herself.”

Chen Dao looked at Yu Mei, saying, “But didn’t you say before that teamwork is very important in team battles?” It was obvious that Lilith was basically fighting solo, but her opponents could do nothing about it.

Yu Mei nodded. “That’s right. I said that before, but today I want to teach you something else. When one person’s skill exceeds a certain limit, teamwork can be ignored. I never told you before, because there’s no one who is at that level among you. Of course, you don’t have to worry too much, as there’s no one at that level in the other academies either.”

After those words, Yu Mei glanced and Xiao Lin and Xiao Lin let out a dry laugh. If it was really with his full strength, Xiao Lin believed that he would be able to go blow for blow against Lilith if he used Myth. However, Myth could not be used easily. If it was just Ruin, he could suppress any regular academy, but Ruin was not enough for those at the level of the Russian academy.

They wasted a bit more time watching all the group stage matches of Judge Academy. After that, all of them decided to not watch the elimination matches. Judge Academy had won the last tournament by a landslide. Any form of teamwork was just a joke to that batch of new students. They even suspected that Lilith could actually have won the whole tournament by herself; she was just forced to have teammates due to the rules.

There were no benefits from watching those fights, and it was even a blow to everyone’s confidence.

Moving on to the tournaments from a few editions before, it was more normal. Even though Judge Academy’s strength was still extremely strong, there was no one like Lilith.

However, everyone turned even more quiet and the looks on their faces got heavy. Lilith’s strength could be explained with an SS-rank talent, and everyone could console themselves with that. After all, there was only one Lilith, and she could not take part in this tournament. It could even cause some of them to misunderstand that Judge Academy’s power was just because of their luck that they obtained Lilith, but that notion was quickly dispelled.

1

In the earlier tournaments, Judge Academy still showed an incredibly strong dominance. Even though it was not as exaggerated as Lilith, their opponents still usually had no way of fighting back, and could only stare as they lost. There were even quite a few surrenders.

“What mastery! Look at that guy’s Flame Ball! It landed right on the opponent’s weapon, but did not harm any of his teammates nearby.”

“Their teamwork is basically perfect.”

“Are they really first-year students? First-years just like us?”

“Impossible! They must be from upper years!”