The fourth round of the Top 100 Tournament, the ranking matches, was still underway.
The best-of-three format meant that the young wizards in each matchup had to compete in at least two matches every day. Sometimes a tie called for overtime, and on busier days, there could even be a fourth or fifth match.
After seven days of drawing different opponents and fighting every day, some young wizards had already competed in more than twenty matches.
After such a prolonged stretch of high-intensity competition, many contestants' spellcasting had declined sharply, and they were all showing varying degrees of fatigue.
Even in the events they specialized in, although there were still some dazzling performances, more and more mistakes were beginning to creep in.
After all, the Top 100 Tournament was the first global magical competition in wizarding history, and its contestants were all under eighteen. The pressure on everyone was immense.
As Dumbledore had said in his speech before the seventh day of competition: "Remarkable perseverance will be an invaluable asset. It will carry us further along the path of magic."
Even so, the judges' scores for the young wizards' performances had continued to fall noticeably.
Take Draco, for example. In the very first match, he had scored an exceptionally high average of 97 for the spell Serpensortia in the "Magical Duels" event.
By the fifth day, the spells he cast were scoring only around 80.
This was happening to all the young wizards.
Those who had been injured in the previous match or beaten by an opponent in their strongest event were especially likely to underperform the next day.
The young wizards' spirits were flagging, but the atmosphere in the arena was growing ever more tense.
Everyone had made it this far, and no one wanted to lose!
The contestants