afternoon three days later.
Dorothy took a bite of the free croissant at Hearthstone Tavern and looked at the black-haired dwarf who was scratching his head with his hands.
The older dwarf had been cornered by Dorothy.
"Use this? No... not right." He was hesitant with the cards in his hand, but after several consecutive calculations, an unchangeable conclusion was defeated in front of him.
"I lost."
The dwarf took a large glass of wine and poured it into his throat, and then said helplessly.
When the old dwarf conceded defeat, Dorothy's familiar cheers were heard all around again.
"Congratulations to Dorothy, the girl from the country of steel, for winning a place in the quarterfinals!"
The voice of congratulations sounded in Dorothy's ears. After Dorothy learned that she had successfully advanced to the quarterfinals, she fell weakly on the wooden table beside her.
The qualifiers these days have been a long game, with more than 1,000 players competing in this tavern until only eight are left.
The daily game is announced from nine in the morning and continues until five in the afternoon.
For most dwarf contestants, the stamina unique to the dwarves allows them to play for three days and three nights without a problem.
But for human players, it's a kind of... spiritual experience.
Dorothy put all her energy into every game. When the last game was announced, Dorothy was completely unable to cheer and just wanted to find a place to sleep.
But with the cheers and congratulations from the surrounding Hearthstone players, Dorothy still sat up with strength and raised her arms to the surrounding players.
In this moment Dorothy really felt something called... honor.
It's like the gladiator knights of the Iron Nation have won, raising their arms to the cheers of the audience.
"You are the last player to make it to the quarterfinals."
Joshua walked down from the bench to Dorothy, and handed a letter to Dorothy.
"Good luck with your eligibility and the time and place of the next race in the envelope."
When Dorothy saw the letter, the tired look on her face finally turned into a smile.
"Can I take it apart right here?" Dorothy asked.
"It's yours, of course," Joshua said.
Dorothy hastily opened the wax stamp on the envelope.
A tinge of worry came over Dorothy as she opened the wax seal.
All the previous developments went as Dorothy hoped, and she won a place in the quarterfinals, one step closer to the championship.
And these three days of competition, just as Dorothy had imagined, were all held in the Hearthstone Tavern.
The audience for the game was only Hearthstone players, no other outsiders, and Dorothy didn't see any images of the Hearthstone game on Nolan's ubiquitous "TV".
She ran away from her marriage to come to Nolan to participate in this... tavern card game, and Dorothy didn't want to be known by acquaintances far away in the country of steel.
So the next game, Dorothy also hopes to be held in the Hearthstone Tavern.
With this expectation, Dorothy opened the envelope in her hand. The letter smelled of being branded with an inscription. The first line of words was her name, Dorothy Bexner.
Knight's Medal
Dorothy remembered the word when she saw the letter.
She continued to read, and began to look for information about the venue of the competition, and soon Dorothy saw the venue of the semi-finals and semi-finals in the penultimate row.
"Rulsk High School of Magic, Magic Arena."
Ru... Rusk High School of Magic? !
What Dorothy feared still happened.
Young spellcasters from all over the world hope to go to Nolan's four higher magic academies for further education. This fierce competition determines the status of these four higher magic academies in the world.
Although Dorothy has never been to one of them, the Rusk High School of Magic, she can imagine that if she were to compete in Hearthstone in the Magic Arena...
It is absolutely impossible for the audience who came to watch to be just Hearthstone players.
"A Hearthstone match in such an empty arena...?" Dorothy asked Josh who was the organizer tentatively.
She admitted that the game of Hearthstone is indeed very entertaining, at least compared to traditional card games, the various probability events of Hearthstone and the special effects of the screen add a special "dramatic sense" to the game.
But put eight magic machines on such an empty magic arena, and then let a group of people come over to watch and play cards
Dorothy felt a little inconsistent and monotonous just thinking about it.
"Not only in the arena, the process of your game will be presented to all Nolan audiences on TV, and the process will never be monotonous." Joshua said.
Presenting... in front of Nolan's entire audience
"I'll prepare well." Dorothy's face was a little strange, and finally Joshua watched the girl drag her tired body out of the tavern.
After today's competition, the entire tavern was back in regular business again. A group of young dwarves who had asked for leave to participate in the competition were dragged back by their elders to work on mining again.
Joshua handed over the affairs in the hall to Mrs. Marina to take care of it, and walked directly to the third floor of the tavern.
After arriving on the third floor, a strong vitality enveloped Qiao Xiu, and he felt like he was lying on the grass in the afternoon basking in the sun.
Qiao Xiu came to a room on the third floor, and before he could reach out and knock on the door, the door was automatically opened.
"How do you feel, Sage Mellors?"
Qiao Xiu walked into this room covered with vines. The man in purple agreed with Qiao Xiu's suggestion yesterday and was going to try to use the World Tree to relieve his body from dying of aging.
"The exhaustion is a lot removed."
The inscription on the purple-robed man's hand flashed by, and books made of illusions piled up on the wooden table made of vines.
But the books were quickly knocked over by a black dragon the size of a puppy.
This black dragon is the Deathwing Neltharion familiar to Joshua! But the one that flaps its wings in the room is a miniature version that doesn't seem to have any deterrent effect at all.
A miniature version of Deathwing flew around the room and landed on Ciri's shoulders, before spitting out a small circle of flames.
"The details are pretty good." Joshua walked to Ciri's side and looked at the Deathwing.
She is an illusion constructed by Ciri...
"But it takes too much magic and energy." Ciri covered her forehead with some distress, and the Deathwing on her shoulder also made the same action.
Soon the black dragon turned into pieces and fell to the ground and disappeared.
This is also the reason why there are very few people who learn illusion magic. The first is the difficulty of getting started, and the second is to master the movement of an illusion and make it look real, not like other magics that just use it.” It's as simple as releasing" out.
"Ciri needs to spend time accumulating her own magic power." The purple-robed man said, "She is learning very fast in inscriptions."
"What about the other apprentices?"
Qiao Xiu remembered that the man in purple was also the administrator of a higher magic academy, and there must be an illusion-related major in her academy.
It's been a long time since "Avatar" aired, and Joshua first mentioned the name of the man in purple at the beginning of every movie.
Let the audience understand that everything in the movie is constructed by the illusion of the purple-robed person.
"The only two phantom magic tutors in my academy told me that the students who took this course... there were a lot more, and many of them came to try and shape the Na'vi."
When the man in purple said this, a rare smile appeared on his face.
"It did work, so Joshua Yanorod, tomorrow's game at Rusk Academy, I will help you perform better."
The man in purple said that a lavender inscription appeared in her palm, and an orc in heavy armor appeared in the room and roared at everyone.
In a flash of light, the silhouette of the orc disappeared instantly and transformed into a magician in a blue robe.
These visions are all heroes of Hearthstone.
"Well, I'm already thinking, 'It's too late to sign up.'"
Joshua looked at the heroic characters who seemed to exist in reality, and began to look forward to the arrival of tomorrow.