After the long drawn-out battle, Jade's contracts, while not injured, were too exhausted to persist for long in the following round.
Thankfully, since Axel was one of the most difficult students to deal with at Frozen Sun, majority of the remaining matches were able to be handled by Edward, until the opposing side's captain took to the stage. However, Ravi was able to dispatch the opposing captain without his contracts suffering too much and after a night of healing and rest they were as good as new the following day for their match against Supernova College.
Supernova, like Frozen Sun, naturally was not too intimidated by Venessa's poisons and had their own means of dealing with her.
They chose to send up a beast-tamer with a plant-type affinity as their representative against her. All of this opponent's plant contracts had regenerative abilities not inferior to Jade's. However, whether that regenerative ability was innate or due to a gift or spirit skill was unknown.
Whenever the plants were stabbed and poisoned, the plant contracts decisively discarded any contaminated vines, roots, leaves, and petals, and carried on as though nothing had happened.
Eventually, after having 2 of her contracts put to sleep by yellow pollen-like spores released a large orange flower, one wrapped tightly until it was immobile by vines that kept regenerating when poisoned, and the remaining 2 being covered in a moss-like substance that slowly sapped their strength.
Although Kain was upset for his low rating given by the System due to the low number of matches he participated in, seeing how easily Venessa was targeted by other top 5 schools reaffirmed that the college's strategy of concealing the strengths and skills of their top students was necessary.
Additionally, due to Jade revealing much of her skills in the fight with Frozen Sun, she had a much more challenging time against Supernova. Once she took to the stage, after defeating only one of the opponents, she had to face an opponent that seemed to perfectly target her.
Although she has powerful regenerative abilities, that regeneration is useless when her contracts' minds were targeted.
Therefore, after having all 5 of her contracts either reduced to being mindless zombies, put to sleep, or mind-controlled, she was forced to step down from the arena.
Thankfully, while ample preparations had been made targeting their students, more and more information was also being revealed by their opponents in each match.
By the end of the match against Supernova, Ravi managed to defeat 2 previously studied opponents in a row to secure the final win.
The match against Starfire College, while occurring after Supernova so that both sides had more time to prepare, was not as difficult of a match up—likely because none of the 5 students representing their school were so obviously able to target the weaknesses of Jade and Venessa.
While Venessa was eventually defeated, she managed to take down 1 student with her, while Jade was able to defeat 2.
Surprisingly, it was Edward, and not Ravi or Ezra, that secured the final 2 victories due to the excellent strategies created by their staff that capitalized on their enemies' weaknesses and Edwards' strengths.
Edward's gift consists of him being able to generate a high-frequency hum that directly causes pain in the minds of all living things in an area, making them unable to focus or think clearly, and overtime can lead to confusion, disarray, and in extreme cases, temporary mental damage.
Unfortunately, this skill is indiscriminate and will attack both friends and foes—including his own contracts. Which is why he had seldom used it in this competition.
However, over time his contracts have grown accustomed to this gift, not to mention that due to their resilient and single-minded focus when it comes to training, they all have very focused characters that don't get easily distracted and have extremely strong will-power. Heck, even if Bea tried to infect them at the same level, it would probably take twice as long as the average spiritual creature to take full control.
Therefore, when the opposing side frequently made errors due to the mental bombardment on their concentration due to Edward's gift, Edward's contracts were still able to think clearly enough to defeat them.
However, if the opponents had stronger will-power or been prepared it would not have been accomplished so easily.
The success of this strategy hinged on 2 factors:
Firstly, Edward never having used his gift before at the tournament so that they were unprepared and had no enchanted equipment or spiritual skills prepared to counteract his gift.
Secondly, the fact that their information on their opponents identified them as 2 young masters from old prestigious families. Normally, this would be a pro, due to the resources their family could provide allowing them to have contracts with a higher potential and access to secret spiritual skills unique to the family.
However, an unintentional consequence of such a privileged upbringing is that due to their lack of hardships in life, both the beast-tamers and their similarly pampered contracts had relatively weak will-powers.
After all, the word "suffering" had never been a part of their lives before. They had been carried on a cloud of luxury since birth, with every privilege handed to them as effortlessly as the air they breathed. The idea of scarcity or struggle was as foreign as another country to them.
This difference in mental state was obvious as soon as Edward activated his gift. With little more than a slight twitch of a whisker or ear, none of his contracts revealed any other signs of distress.
On the other-hand, both of the opposing beast tamers practically collapsed to the floor screaming once the hum started, and many of their contracts struggled to remain upright on their trembling legs.
However, next would be their final, and toughest, match yet against First Celestial Academy. And considering the perfect record of both sides, this would be the match that determined the first-placed college of the entire tournament and who would rank first the following year.
Many of the cards of both sides had been forced out, so the final outcome was completely unknown.