On November 1st, the last month of autumn began, and time flew by quickly, and in the blink of an eye, Alan had already spent two full months at Deep Blue University. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The autumn wind gradually rises and falls, the grass and trees are more and more yellow, those delicate flowers and willows that are not resistant to autumn have long been gone, I don't know when the air wafts with the fragrance of osmanthus, the autumn chrysanthemum and bauhinia that can withstand the cold finally ushered in their season, wantonly blooming wonderful and beautiful, not afraid of frost and cold erosion, but more and more gorgeous.

If it was in Allen's hometown, he would have already put on a thick coat at this time, but White Deer Fort is located on the southeast coast of the Minerva Continent, although it is late autumn, but there is no cold, every day is a crisp autumn weather, comfortable and pleasant weather, some of the students who come and go have already put on long sleeves and thin coats, and some of the strong boys are still wearing cool short sleeves, and Allen is also among them.

The annual school-wide competition meeting of Deep Sapphire Magic School was held at the end of this refreshing autumn, all the leaders of the school and the guests of the board of directors of all parties attended the opening ceremony, and the principal Mr. Davis delivered a wonderful and brief speech, put forward the initiative of friendship first, competition second, and encouraged the majority of contestants to compete in style and level.

The leaders on the stage spoke lively, but the audience was very unmotivated, Alan yawned, pouted, and seemed very bored, and the principal's unnutritious speech was like a lullaby, and he almost never fell asleep.

Finally, when the principal finished his speech, the audience had just breathed a sigh of relief, and then they asked the director representative to speak, and a sigh rang out in the square, quite clear and loud.

The embarrassed director representative hastily ended the speech, and then the player representative took the oath, the referee representative took the oath, and the representatives of each college came to the stage to participate in the lottery ceremony, tossing for most of the day, and there was no sign of the game starting.

During the oath-taking ceremony, Alan remembered to ask his roommates about the format of the competition, and it was okay to be idle anyway, so Daniel explained the format of the school competition to him in detail.

According to the tradition of the past years, the school competition is divided into two stages - the group stage and the knockout stage.

Group stage: Ten participating teams from ten colleges are divided into two groups of AB, with five teams in each group, respectively, for a single round-robin, three points for a win, one point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss, and finally the top four teams in the group will qualify, and the last place will be eliminated, and a total of eight teams will be determined to advance to the knockout round.

Knockout round: The top two teams in the group enter the winner's group, the four teams in the third and fourth places in the group enter the lower group, and the two groups play a single-elimination tournament, with the winner of the upper group advancing to the next round of the upper group, the loser and the loser of the lower group advancing to the next round of the lower group, and the loser of the lower group being eliminated directly. Finally, the winner of the upper bracket and the winner of the lower bracket will play in the grand finals to determine the final champion.

According to the well-informed Daniel, this slightly complicated-sounding format has been tested in practice for a long time and is considered the best format for both efficiency and fairness, and is widely adopted internationally, with basically the largest tournaments adopting this format.

"That's pretty much it, it's easy to understand, isn't it?" Daniel laughed.

The others nodded in agreement, their faces showing expressions of sudden realization.

Alan blinked his big simple eyes, as if he didn't understand, he understood the group stage, but he only understood half of the knockout round, he dared to swear to God, he really listened to Daniel's explanation very carefully, but his relatively straight brain really couldn't understand the twists and turns of the knockout round.

Whatever, just play hard and win every battle!

"Shhhh A senior next to him kindly reminded him, and the five of them were busy and listened carefully to the host's report on the results of the grouping.

The beautiful senior sister in a dress on the stage held the microphone and said in a nice presiding voice: "Leaders, teachers and students, this year's grouping is like this, Group A: Wood Academy, Water Academy, Earth Academy, Time and Space Academy, and Summoning Academy, Group B: Fire Academy, Wind Academy, Holy Light Academy, Shadow Academy, and Alchemy Academy. ”

"Alan, we're in a group, remember to be merciful when the time comes!" Daniel patted Alan and said with a smile.

Alan smiled, and before he could speak, the host on the stage continued: "Please summon the contestants of the Academy and the Space-Time Academy to go to the General Square immediately, your competition is about to start, please ......"

When Alan and Daniel heard this, they all let out an "oops", and they didn't have time to talk nonsense, so they hurriedly ran in the direction of the comprehensive plaza.

There are two large squares in Deep Blue University, and the square where the opening ceremony is held now is called the Ten Thousand People Square, which is the largest square in area, with a large rostrum in the east and tall spectators around it, where the Group B competition is held.

The other, slightly smaller square, called the Plaza Complex, is large enough, but there is no rostrum or spectator seats, and the previous entrance ceremony and the Freshman Cup were held at the Plaza Complex, where the Group A matches will also be held.

The students in Group A of their own house all rushed towards the general plaza like a tide, and Alan and Daniel were caught in the crowd, unable to hurry up, and stamped their feet in a hurry.

There were senior students next to them discussing the grouping situation, and a boy with glasses said: "It's really lucky, our academy is in a group with the summoning academy this year, and this time the qualification should be stable!"

His companion smiled: "Don't talk nonsense, be careful of being beaten up by the summoning academy, the summoning academy's Kai is quite strong, and the one named Rosa is not bad, I heard that their goal this year is to win the championship." ”

The man with glasses smiled and said, "How is it possible, no matter how powerful Kai is, he is only one person, and I heard that their freshman strength this year is not good, I'm afraid they can't even qualify, but I can't qualify for the summoning academy." ”

"Actually, I pressed it too, haha......"

Daniel squeezed his eyes at Allen and chuckled softly: "Come on, as long as you qualify, the money they pressed will be ours." ”

"Yes!"

The two finally rushed to the comprehensive square, inquired about the location of the player area, the staff was already in place, and after the two reported with their student IDs, Shi Shiran walked into the empty player area.

Seeing the crowd of spectators outside, Alan was a little dark, and he could occupy the best viewing spot without crowding with people, and it was cool to be a player.

However, when he found that there were masters who didn't know what means they used to fly into the air, he was still dumbfounded, this TM is okay.

After a while, the audience grew more and more, and other contestants also arrived one after another, and the senior contestants were all old acquaintances, and they all greeted each other in a friendly or secretly murderous manner, the most eye-catching of which was the conversation between Kai, the master of the Summoning Academy, and Lawrence, the master of the Space-Time Academy.

"I won't lose to you again this year, Kai!"

"- I'm sorry, I'll do my best for the sake of victory!"

"Me too. ”

On the originally flat comprehensive square, I don't know what means to build a huge circular ring, the material seems to be dirt but not soil, like stone not stone, it seems to be a masterpiece of earth magic, and there are strange textures on it that seem to be naturally generated, I don't know if there is any special effect.

A male host with a shiny back came to the stage, and after briefly adjusting the microphone, he said in an enthusiastic tone: "Students, let everyone wait for a long time, the competition in Group A is about to start, before the game starts, I want to announce a few rules, first, the audience is not allowed to fly into the air; second, if you lose the ability to resist or fall off the field, even if you lose, once the judgment is announced, the winner is not allowed to attack again, and the violator will be disqualified; third......"

"Ellen, do you notice, they all seem to have staffs, and the two of us don't have anything," Daniel whispered into Ellen's ear.

Alan glanced to the side a few times, and sure enough, everyone else was holding a short or long staff in their hands, and the most exaggerated one was also inlaid with a huge magic crystal ball at the top, which was very valuable at a glance.

"Wow, how much does that staff cost!"

"I don't know, it's very expensive anyway, and when I make money this time, I'm going to buy one. Daniel said enviously.

"I announce that the first match of the first round of Group A is now officially opened, and the first game will be played against the two sides of the Space-Time Academy and the Summoning Academy, and the first-year players of both sides, Daniel Jones and Alan Gale, will be invited to play!"

The audience applauded, and the game was finally about to begin.