The Tournament Ends

Banner shook his head. "That's different... Tony, did you hurt your face?"

There was a bandage on Tony's left cheek.

"You mean this?"

Tony casually tore off the bandage. The wound had long since healed. "A mage's energy sword grazed me."

He complained, "It only grazed me, yet Leon and JARVIS actually counted me as dead once and forcibly slapped a bandage on me. This tournament is really fair."

"Doesn't that show they care about you... Or maybe it was more reasonable to rule you out directly because the other mages don't have super regeneration?" Banner tried to smooth things over.

"Reasonable? Then shouldn't you have been eliminated the moment you turned into the big guy?" Tony shut Banner down.

Banner scratched his cheek, finding that quite reasonable. "So, Tony, you're saying they really do care about you, right?"

"What?... I would never say something like that."

Tony's gaze wandered until he suddenly spotted Leon flying back to the center of the platform. "Look, Leon's probably about to announce the results."

Everyone's attention gathered on Leon at the center once more, and the lively discussions fell silent.

"The first round of preliminaries has concluded. Twenty-five mages have advanced to the second round. The list is as follows..."

After Leon finished reading the names, he waved his hand and sent all the mages to the edge of the platform.

The projection equipment activated again, dividing the center of the venue into twelve arenas.

"Next is the second round of one-on-one round-robin battles. All qualified mages, come draw lots. Everyone else may stay and watch or leave early."

The second round of preliminaries quickly began.

None of the mages present chose to leave. They all gathered around the arenas to watch.

The most boring matches in this stage were probably Wanda's.

Almost