Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
chapter-384-3

All the attention of the spectators focused in the current showdown of "spirit" between the crowned prince and the grandson of the Minister, who turned out to be a black horse in the tournament.

The seconds kept passing and their respective scholars continued to do their best, soon the count surpassed the third minute, but the scene of the crowned prince giving up which the Minister expected didn't happen.

Walford who saw that, frowned, he was still far from his limit but he was surprised to say the less.

'If he could endure more, then why he didn't do it from the very beginning, could it be that he can guess how much time I can hold and knew his limit was lower than mine, so he didn't want to waste time?', he wondered.

If one knew the other would win, then it was better to not tire oneself just for a showoff and instead manage the time in a way that made up for it, Walford was confused, if the crowned prince was continuing with this little competition, then it meant he was confident he was going to win, which should be impossible.

'Humph, don't blame me if you end up bleeding from your eyes, ears, nose and mouth later on', thought Walford.

A couple more of minutes passed and when they both surpassed the five minute mark, the spectators were speechless, they even ignored the fact that Lance and Ezequiel's teams scholars had already solved the seventh problem.

Once they reached the seventh minute mark and to the Minister's displease, Walford started to show signs of unstableness, at the same time the scholars finally finished deciphering the envelopes.

Walford noticed that the prince has also started show signs of being tired, but he knew he wasn't going to last as much as him, and if he overstepped his limit, then there was a chance he would get eliminated by being too tired, so while gritting his teeth he passed the penalty to his vice-captain, ending at an amazing time of 7 minutes 30 seconds.

The crowned prince in exchange held out until the 8 minute mark, when he suddenly trembled and only then he passed the penalty to his vice-captain, he trembled because just when he reached the eight minute mark, the continuous exposition to the effect of the water of the lake, increased the output from 5% to 8%, it was a bit more than a 50% increase in the effect when compared to before, and it hit different.

"Ohhhh!", naturally the whole place went crazy cheering up for the crowned prince, he even beat the "local" in his own home, not by anything he was the most popular in the younger generation and the number one at the same time after all.

At the skybox of the judged, the Minister had a sour expression on his face, he even gave Walford the three-colored water twice, for him to absorb as much as he could and yet, he couldn't beat the crowned prince, the difference wasn't that big though, so he started making some calculations, if he got a decent dose of the three-colored water this time, he should get enough to make a third portion for Walford.

'It's okay, a gentleman can wait dozens of years for revenge, my Arcarius family will definitely rise this time around, by climbing over the Blackfin family anyway', he thought.

At Daimon's skybox, the girls looked at him waiting for his explanation, those two nearly tripled the previous time the captains got at the beginning when they were supposedly showing off their capacities.

And while they looked a bit tired, it's clear that they could recover in a round of their subordinates enduring the penalty instead of them, so they should have been able to endure around 15 or so seconds more than what they did respectively.

"It's a matter of lineage concentration and the effects of the lake on the different affinities, Walford should be around 10-12% of concentration which is not bad, but the crowned prince as of current should be around 16-17%, also Walford's affinity is ice while the crowned prince's is water, so even if Walford has drank the three-colored water, he still has a slight disadvantage compared to the crowned prince".

"Still, I have to admit that that old Minister is quite cunning, according to uncle Vincent the amount needed for a sole dosage of the three-colored water per person is around the three liters, or it won't have any effect".

"And since the average is just around 100 milliliters in a good year, Walford must have drank around the amount collected in one hundred years, which should be two dosages, not to mention the mage girl who drank another two dosages, and three of the members of the time who took one, that is around five hundred years of their reserves… it's crazy", mumbled Mellie.

Daimon agreed with her, it was weird that the Minister was willing to invest so much in the younger generation, without any special reason, his grandson and the mage girl were understandable, but the others weren't, it was as if he wanted to increase the strength of the young members of his family, as much as he could, regardless of the cost.

"He probably even gave one dosage to other guys from his family", added Chris, who was talking for Daphne.

Daimon's eyes glowed, the Minister shouldn't know about the Global Raid, only system users should know the details of what was about to happen, also if the Minister would have known that the emblems were required to enter, he wouldn't have accepted Vincent's bet.

'It could be that others are restrained to talk too much about it, or maybe they don't know the details and just know that something will happen this weekend', thought Daimon.

It was possible, since unlike other system users, he wasn't affected by restrictions, unless they were for his well-being, like the one placed on the grimoire he got from his Fragment of Laplace, according to Evangeline, any outer restrictions were useless against him, and the Global Raid though adapted to the system as a mission, is something that will happen whether he was here or not, so it doesn't depend on the system.

"I guess we'll soon find out, in any case he is giving his all to win, so he wants the prize of accessing the treasury of the royal family, meaning there must be something of big interest for him there… for him or for whoever he might have done a deal with", concluded Daimon.

"Mm", the girls nodded agreeing with him and they then focused in the competition once again.

…

Back at the lakes, a strange situation was developing, some teams which aren't from the favorites had started to finish solving their problems, everything started when they reached the eighth problem in which even the four favorites were stuck right now.

When the scholar of one of the lowest ranked teams finally decided to skip it, as soon as he opened the ninth envelope he paled, the ninth problem required him to solve the eighth problem, meaning he couldn't answer it too.

So he skipped one more time and then he fell into despair, because the tenth problem required the answer from the ninth one, after skipping the tenth, he finally saw light when the eleventh problem wasn't related to the previous, just to fall from the sky to hell when he realized this problem was around tree times harder than the previous.

And as if the heavens were playing with him, the twelfth problem was even harder, so he started to try and answer it while he regretted having skipped the previous problems, he after around ten minutes and losing one team member had no choice but to admit he couldn't solve it and leave it which marked the end of his team's participation in the second round.

But he wasn't the only one, all the lower ranked teams found themselves in a similar situation, since they all used the same strategy, which was evaluating how much time was going to take them answer a problem, and if it surpassed what the team could endure, they had to skip it.

There were other teams who were able to answer the eighth and ninth problem but from the tenth was too much, meaning they reached their limit because the last two were harder than that.

Little by little the teams started finishing by just skipping the problems, their opponents suddenly felt the penalty increase which made them also fail a bit faster than what they planned.

All the way until only the four favorites, the three teams from the elemental sea, their opponents and the team made from the people of secondary branches of the high ranked noble houses from the kingdom, as well as their opponents remained.

In other words from forty teams only sixteen remained, and the ones facing the four favorites were probably only staying to not impair the idols of the kingdom, it's not like they were doing it out of kindness or admiration, but because if they who had no hopes to win them, were to resort to such methods to get in the way of the favorites, they will drown in a sea of spit, due to all their supporters.

In other words, their reputation worked as a dissuasion, as for the opponents of the three teams of the sects from the Elemental Sea and the team from the secondary branches, they were matched against opponents who were close in rank to them, so the remaining were the strongest 16 teams.

This time the disposition changed though, the opponents from the members of the three sects finished in a rushed manner, because they could no longer endure the effects of the lake.

Next the team from the secondary branches also left, it wasn't obligated but they skipped the last problem and quitted, the opponents of the four favorites saw that others left before them and they who were literally just making time at this point, let out a sigh of relief and left by skipping the last two questions.

So now only the four favorites and the teams of the three sects remained, patriarch Skyfire saw his son at the verge of collapsing and he gritted his teeth, if Jasmin took the position of the captain and with the children of the four sects working as the vice-captain, the strategist and two regular members of the team, they should have been able to get to the top three.

Although he used that excuse, he was just angry that his son seemed to be the first one that was going to be forced to retire out of the teams of the three sects which were participating, since patriarch Underwood's team wasn't.

And just as expected the son of patriarch Skyfire was the first one to leave from the teams of the sects, followed by the son of patriarch Stoneheart.

In comparison, the son of patriarch Heartstream was able to endure more and properly answer the eleventh question, but the scholar shook his head upon the twelfth question, meaning h had no clue on how to solve it and they then left.

Still they were the ones who held out the most out of the four favorites probably because all had water affinity, which slightly helped to endure the effect of water of the lake, unfortunately their scholar lacked just a bit.

Un any case, the climax of the second round was finally here, the four favorites had to endure a double output of the exposition to the lake, the crowned prince and Walford were fine holding their previous marks, which were three minutes, since their real limit was more than double that, the young spear was surprisingly able to stand 2 minutes and a half, meaning his real limit was around five minutes.

But Ezequiel felt his brain hurting barely passing the two minute mark, he turned to see his scholar and gritted his teeth.

'Why is this bastard not hurrying up!', he inwardly screamed, all of them were in the twelfth question, and even though time didn't matter for the final score, right now time was important since the teams were reaching their limit, whoever loses a team member will probably end up in fourth place.

The scholars were also sweating, they have been doing their best since the encrypted envelope surprise, to not burden their teams, because they knew that taking too much time to answer was the same as losing.

Surprisingly it was Lance's scholar the first one to finish the twelfth problem and so their team was released, some of the members practically collapsed as soon as they were released from the participating.

The ones who could move helped their comrades and under loud claps and cheers, the team from the neon nobles retired to the resting area prepared at the other side of the platforms.

The next one to finish was none other than Walford, but he had a positive expression on his face, since his scholar nodded at him after he finished the last problem, also it didn't escape the public's eyes that their team members weren't as tired as the previous ones, despite they having endured for a couple of minutes more.

And so it ended with the crowned prince's team and Ezequiel's team on the stage, for Ezequiel's luck, his strategist asked him to let her participate in taking the penalty, which earned their team mates a bit of rest, and that's what allowed him to not lose anyone, apparently the strategist was strong enough to endure the whole minute at double output, which meant she would have endured more than two minutes earlier.

The scholar from the crowned prince's team suddenly smiled and with a last movement of his hand, he finished the twelfth problem, some of the teammates of the crowned prince fell on their knees, but most were able to stay standing.

Not to mention the crowned prince's position was straight and firm like a mountain, he helped all his subordinates stand and they left to the resting area under the cheers and claps of the spectators.

"Hurry the fuck up you fool", growled Ezequiel, he felt as if his teeth were going to break due to him making one last effort to leave his scholar finish the last problem, which didn't last him too much, he had to pass it to his vice-captain who endured as much as he could and the thing ended with the strategist.

Fortunately the scholar finished before the strategist reached the minute mark, which was a must because the other teammates wouldn't have been able to endure it even one more second.

As soon as they were released, everyone besides the strategist collapsed on the ground, even Ezequiel felt the strength abandoning him, but he was helped to keep standing by his strategist, which made him nod in approbation, his woman helped him keep face after all.

Once the Blackfin family's team arrived at the resting area, the judges came down their skybox they had the answers of all the problems, so they just needed to see whether the answer matched or not, that was the first filter, then if the old glassed man deemed their process correct but their answer wrong for a minor factor, they were given half a point, but there were just about five cases evaluated like that, the others were fully wrong answers.

"I would like to congratulate the young heroes who participated in this second round, which is harder than previous years, having said that the first place of this time is… the crowned prince, his highness Terry Malleus".

Walford already knew it but he still sighed, then Aurora took over.

"The second position belongs to the grandson of the Arcarius family, Walford Arcarius".

The Minister clapped at her grandson, he lost for a really little difference in the spirit category, since the crowned prince won the showdown earlier, but he still got the second place, it was good, they had a second and a third place so far.

This time the glassed old man was the one to give the third-place result.

"I want to make a special mention for the third place, they got the twelve answers correct, and lost due to other aspects, but their answers were perfect including the processes, if this was a pure scholar type of competition they would have been the winners", said the old man with an approbatory voice.

The neo nobles proudly laughed, the ones among them who dedicated to knowledge were really important, since they helped develop the formations they used, the same for strategist, they might be battle maniacs but they aren't stupid, they know that to excel a higher battle prowess, more than strength is needed.

Ezequiel was literally fuming right now, and to add salt to the wound the one to announce it, was once again Annete who didn't bother hiding the disdain in her voice.

"As for the fourth position, the winner managed to defend its title, five a round of applause to Ezequiel Blackfin", she said.

The spectators still clapped and all, but those who had a grudge with the Blackfin family got the message and also laughed, which made the Blackfin Duke feel the urge to fight the queen on the spot.

'Why is that bitch targeting me, could it be that… that idiot was caught by her, if so he's more than dead, luckily he didn't know anything', thought the Blackfin Duke.

The rest of the ranking was announced by the Valas Duchess and so the second round of the tournament reached its end, the minister opened the portal and asked everyone to leave in the same order, this time he didn't bother in waiting and went directly to where his family was instead of looking for troubles with Daimon, he didn't want to give Vincent a reason to try and cancel the bet.

Aurora, Annete and the Duchess returned to Daimon's group side and they all left together, Vincent asked them to contact him once they were back at the mansion, though the secret communication line one could only access with the keys of him and the Annete, which the queen had on her right now.