At midnight on January 1, Year 1003 of the Saint Laurent Calendar, the Auditions for "Everyone's Singer" officially ended.
The final number of contestants who made it through exceeded Annan's estimate of 200,000 by more than 20,000, reaching a staggering 223,000.
Human Contestants made up the vast majority, though, at nearly 85 percent.
The proportions looked lopsided, but across more than 200,000 contestants, that still meant the contest had drawn 30,000 members of the foreign races.
By sheer scale, "Everyone's Singer" was already a world-class competition. No major newspaper could ignore it. Nobles and commoners alike discussed it over meals, and the excitement even overshadowed news that the Empire had begun recruiting soldiers.
And this was only the beginning. The next round was where the real contest would start.
On January 1, Year 1003 of the Saint Laurent Calendar, the Voice of Freedom published its first issue of the year.
The front-page headline announced the end of the Auditions and the immediate start of the next round.
It also revealed the five Judges and changes to the contest: the Top 1,000 Contestants to make it through the next round would each receive a prize of 10 Gold Narls.
Second- and third-place prizes had been added alongside the championship, worth 8,000 and 5,000 Gold Narls respectively.
The original championship prize read: [Champion: All of the above, plus 10,000 Gold Narls and the female lead in Annan Reeves's ninth Magic Film.] A note had now been added: If the champion was male, he could instead play the male lead.
(In parentheses: The female lead was fine too.)
The Tower of the Hall of Arts.
The new issue of the Voice of Freedom lay on a long table in the Lounge. Elegantly dressed elderly nobles sat around it, overlooking the city as