I Can Contract Beauties-Chapter 214: Strongest Dark Horse

"Silver Grade items? Is this for real?"

"This has never happened before. The highest reward so far that they gave out in this competition was the Peak Bronze Grade armor that Domen won around three years ago."

"Wait! Can I join this competition as well?"

"Hmmmp! What do you mean join? You plan to compete with your own son?"

As the audience broke into a noisy commotion, Leodoro allowed all of them to settle down before he continued.

"Like before, the competition this time will consist of two categories and each category has two types. The Freshmen category and the Sophomore category. Each category has two types of competitions, the Grimoire Summoners and the Martial Arts competition."

Leodero began to explain in detail. Miguel listened attentively as he was not fully aware of how this competition works as well.

Each year, only the sophomores and the freshmen have the chance to battle.

This was because the Juniors and Seniors like Domen already made their presence known to the previous competition and had already begun to settle themselves in the academy, hence, there was no need for them to compete anymore.

Meanwhile, the Freshmens had just enrolled in the academy. Aside from screening this batch to see potential geniuses through this competition, it also allowed them to gauge their strength compared to their peers.

If they could gain the attention of some powerful figures in the crowd, they would be able to have a smooth journey ahead of them.

The Sophomores like Erika on the other hand had just barely made their debut a year ago. This competition allowed the teachers and the important people in the audience to determine their degree of advancement they achieved during the past year. This was to see if they can live up to their newly-gained reputation as rising geniuses of the academy or the respective family that they represented.

The Sophomore competition also aims to broaden the horizon of the Freshmen who might be thinking that they were invincible at this moment.

"Like before, each category and type will have their own stage to perform. The competition will last for five days and the Grand Champion will be decided by the fifth day."

The Grand Champion was the overall champion of each category. This meant that the first place of each category would battle with each other to determine the Grand Champion of their respective categories.

As the time was limited, the first three days would be used to determine the top 10 of each category. On the fourth day, the top ten of each competition type will battle to determine who will compete in the grand finals on the fifth day.

"The Grand Champion of each category will receive a Low Silver Grade item each. The second place will receive a Peak Bronze Grade item.

Previously, the Peak Bronze Grade was the highest reward that the academy offers. However due to the generous offer of the Red Family, the rewards this time around were elevated to another level, making this competition especially fierce.

All of them knew of the significance of a Silver Grade item. The parents were already threatening their children not to come home if they could not obtain the top reward this time around.

The weakest students could only grumble and complain inside their hearts. Still, even without their parents ’motivational threats’, they still planned to do their best and obtain the highest reward

The Junior and Senior students were especially envious. Most of them don’t even have a Peak Bronze Grade item yet, how much more a Silver Grade item that was now being handed basically for free to the newcomers?

A few minutes later, Leodero finished the introduction and finally announced the start of the competition.

As an appetizer, the champion of Martial Arts and Grimoire Summoner of the Freshmen category a year ago will battle.

As this was only an introductory battle, the winner would not obtain any reward. With that in mind, it was not required for them to do their best as well. As long as they did not perform too poorly, it would already be considered a good performance.

The Silver Grade items that were being handed as a reward were obviously the ones that came from Miguel. He overheard the dean and Damian’s conversation a while ago so he knew that this was a decision made at the last moment.

Miguel did not say anything about it as long as he received his due payment.

As for the action of Damian donating the goods, Miguel has no objection either as he even thought that this was a brilliant move.

One must not forget that the overall aim of this competition was for the students to show off their abilities and possibly gain some ’sponsor’ from the crowd.

In fact, not only the students, the ’sponsors’ themselves were also having a battle of their own.

To attract the rising geniuses to their respective families, the families must become attractive to the rising geniuses first.

The act of the Red Family giving Silver Grade items as a reward for the competition was undoubtedly a good move to raise their value from the students’ perception.

After the commotion died down, Leodero began speaking once again.

"The Champion of the Martial Arts Category, Victor Hall, please come forward."

Victor Hall was also the Grand Champion during the previous competition. He came from a well-known Martial Artists family in Blazing City and he was also a renowned genius even before he joined the academy.

Last year, it was said that he had already reached Advance Novice Martial Artist, or an equivalent to a Level 3 Normal Grade Beast before he joined the academy.

For a youngster, this was definitely a feat worthy of being recognized as a genius. In fact, even before the competition began, the crowd had already basically confirmed that he would become the Grand Champion of the Freshmen Category.

Hearing his name being called out, the crowd began to murmur to themselves, wondering how much of improvement Victor Hall achieved after a year.

As the name was called, a young man with a fierce appearance immediately jumped towards one of the stages.

He was a muscular lad with hair tied into a ponytail. He wore leather armor with a spear hanging vertically at his back.

The moment he landed on the stage, everyone immediately noticed the change that occured to Victor Hall.

Compared to the energetic young man they had recalled, the Victor Hall standing on the stage seemed to have become a tamed ferocious beast waiting to be released.

Victor Hall stood there like a statue. He ignored the crowd and just stared ahead with great discipline.

"The champion of Grimoire Summoner Category, Erika Red, please come forward."

The crowd went silent at the mention of her name. As though feeling the importance of the name, even the freshmen went along with the crowd and shut their mouth as if to welcome Erika Red’s presence.

"Erika Red, the strongest dark horse during the last Freshmen Category competition."

"If not for her lack of stamina to continue the battle, there was a high chance that she would be able to defeat Victor Hall during their battle."

Last year, it was already determined that Victor Hall would become the Grand Champion of the Freshmen Category, and that he would win effortlessly.

However, what everyone did not expect was for a violent girl to suddenly rise in the competition.

The greatest dark horse, Erika Red, emerged with a strong momentum. Relying on her only summon, she defeated each of her opponents flawlessly until she eventually arrived at the grand finals and faced off with Victor Hall.

At the grand finals, if it was not for her being inexperienced in battle and that Victor Hall has more stamina than her as Martial Artists, everyone believed that she would have won that battle back then.

Looking at her graceful figure that had slowly come up to the stage, everyone could not help but cast a look of admiration towards her location.

The freshmen, who obviously heard of the ’legend’ also looked at her with admiration painted all over their faces.

Each of them wanted to be like her. The greatest dark horse of this year’s Freshmen category.

Miguel listened to the crowd’s murmurs with an amused smile. He knew that Erika obtained a good place and fame during the last competition, but he did not expect that her reputation was to this extent.

Looking around him, even some elders looked at her with great expectations on their faces. It was apparent that they expect a lot from her. She showed a lot of promise last year, they wondered how far she had improved since then.

Miguel shifted his gaze to the stage. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

At one glance, he could tell that Victor Hall was very strong, at least, stronger than Erika when they were still traveling together.

According to his estimate, Victor Hall already has the strength of an Intermediate Warrior Martial Artist. Compared to a beast, he was already as strong as a Level 5 Normal Grade Beast.

From what Miguel recalled, Erika has a Level 4 Normal Grade Flaming Skull Innate Beast and another Level 1 Bronze Grade Bronze Sparrow contracted beast.

No matter what beast she chose between the two, Miguel knew that she would not be a match to Victor Hall.

Well, considering that she almost beat Victor Hall during their last face off, Miguel did not try to make a conclusion immediately either. Who knows if she still has some trump cards that he did not know of.

At this moment, Victor and Erika stood a dozen meters apart from each other.

Between them was Lumier, acting as the referee for this battle.

The two participants looked at each other with equally strong fighting spirit.

The desire to win was apparent from the two, even though this was just a ’promotional’ battle to liven up the academy’s yearly competition.

After a few seconds of face off and after Lumier told them the rules, his hand suddenly swiped down as he announced loudly.

"Fight!"