The Meaning of Competition

For the residents of Demacia City, the concept of athletic competitions was actually quite familiar. After all, back when Jiawen III was still around, Demacia had hosted an international martial arts tournament!

However, compared to the Northern People, the residents of Demacia City had a rather narrow understanding of competition.

They understood duels well enough. A person's martial prowess had a great deal to do with their future prospects: winning a duel proved you were a capable fighter, and made it more likely you'd earn merit and rise to prominence. But now that the Northern People had arrived, the various competitions they proposed sounded more than a little strange.

Not martial arts, but professional skills from all walks of life... Nobody had ever organized anything like this before!

However, for the administrators who had accompanied the army, and the students later recruited as interns, organizing competitions was something they were completely familiar with. In Freljord, after Karya had opened the Pandora's box known as examinations, a competitive culture had quickly flourished.

Never mind the Northern Wanderers' regular army-wide martial arts tournaments, held alongside training. Even among ordinary people in Freljord, competitions of every kind were springing up everywhere, and a considerable number of them were even organized by the government.

The fishermen of New Freljord Port held fishing contests; the docks hosted boat-parking contests and cargo-hauling contests; the Hextech users held all sorts of competitions; and new immigrants took part in migration sports meets after arriving in Freljord or New Freljord City, among many other events.

For the people of Freljord, competitions of every kind were popular pastimes. Some even offered a chance to earn extra money. In Lux's eyes, however, these competitions were a vital way to foster a collective identity and sense of belonging among the people of