On the thirteenth day of the Champion Mage Challenge-today-the knockout stage was set to begin.
Under the rules of the knockout stage, any contestant who lost a single match could say goodbye to the competition.
And based on the experience and lessons accumulated over several years of the Champion Mage Challenge, Magic Duels in the knockout stage were no longer best of five.
To put the contestants' endurance to a greater test, and to make the entire Champion Mage Challenge more entertaining, the knockout stage now used a best-of-nine format.
After all, some Magic Duels ended very quickly, while others dragged on for ages, so the organizers had been forced to overhaul the format to extend the action as much as possible.
For Second Order Mages, fighting at least five intense rounds left very few with much mental power to spare. By the end of a nine-round match, both sides were generally spent. They might not even be able to beat an apprentice who stepped into the arena.
The contestants naturally complained bitterly, but it did them no good. After all, the Champion Mage Challenge was partly an entertainment event.
Without that entertainment aspect, the Champion Mage Challenge could never have gained enough influence within the Alliance to grant its ultimate winner advancement to the Third Order.
That same entertainment aspect also made many situations in the Magic Duels completely unrealistic, much to the amusement of many mages within the Alliance.
Overall, however, the contestants still had to accept it. If they truly wanted a realistic competition, they would have to enter the Unlimited Mage Duel, where even winning did not earn them advancement to the Third Order.
So if they wanted to advance to the Third Order through this route, the Champion Mage Challenge was their only choice.
Naturally,