"Dong!"
As the group chatted idly, a bell suddenly rang out from the center of Duel City. It was exactly eight o'clock.
The thirty-six-hour World Cup qualifying round had finally come to an end!
However, contestants who had deployed a duel field after the bell rang could continue their duels, and the points from those duels would still count toward the rankings.
After the final duels concluded, the organizing committee would still need some time to verify the fairness of the final results. All of that took time.
Therefore, the final qualifying results would be announced at nine in the evening—one hour later.
During that hour, contestants who had finished competing would no longer be restricted by access control and could freely enter and leave Duel City.
Spectators, meanwhile, could wait for the results to be announced wherever there was a screen. Duel City would not close for the time being and would remain open until midnight.
Whether contestants or spectators, everyone could continue celebrating in the city. However, Saint Marian Academy required its contestants to return to the contestants' waiting area after the match and gather there.
This was both for the contestants' safety and to allow the academy to learn about their match conditions more quickly.
After the bell rang, students and professors gradually returned. Dark and Pandora had already arrived at the contestants' waiting area for the Light Type division, bringing Sophia and Alice in with them.
The waiting area had tea and pastries, and a large screen directly across from them was displaying projections. The rankings refreshed continuously on the screen.
From first place to last, the rankings refreshed every thirty seconds. Each page contained three hundred names, and it took eleven refreshes to cycle through the full rankings. However, vertical side screens on either side