Messing With Her? Are You Crazy! novel Chapter 1271

But the harder they tried, the more artificial it felt.

The Elyndorian team knew exactly what was going on. The massive public backlash from yesterday had terrified the Severian officials, forcing them into full damage control mode.

At 9:00 AM.

Phase One: Points-Based Elimination officially kicked off.

The most critical pre-game event was the Randomized Pairing Protocol.

Since yesterday's blatant discrimination had caused such an international uproar.

The hosts went out of their way to demonstrate their transparency and integrity.

They provided an exhaustively detailed breakdown of the matchmaking algorithm.

The system was a unified network platform, fully audited and approved by The Organizing Committee.

Every competitor was required to log into the tournament portal via their authenticated devices.

Under the scrutiny of live global broadcasts and independent adjudicators, the system would generate the pairings in real-time.

Once the trigger was pulled, the algorithm would assign each competitor their opponent for round one.

The entire process.

Would be projected onto the massive holographic display dominating the tech center's main arena.

Broadcasted in pristine high-definition to billions of viewers worldwide.

On paper, it was a completely foolproof, incorruptible method.

Yet, the moment the final brackets populated the screen, the Elyndor delegation's expressions darkened.

The vast majority of the Elyndorian students had been paired directly against the absolute powerhouses of the tournament.

Competitors from the United Realmon States, Caldoria, Dovaria, and Severia...

Elyndor had somehow drawn nearly eighty percent of the top-seeded international prodigies.

Standing proudly in the front row was Phelps Prescott.

He was staring up at the rolling roster, a wildly arrogant, vindictive sneer plastered across his face.

Caleb Sommers noticed her line of sight. Pushing up his glasses, he murmured, "Captain, are you saying... the Prescotts rigged the draw?"

Serena gave a slight nod.

The Elyndorian team looked grim. "I thought the tournament directors fired all the Prescotts yesterday. How could they..."

"They did use the Prescotts as scapegoats to appease the public outrage over the opening ceremony," Serena explained.

"But the Randomized Pairing Protocol was developed by one of the Prescott family's tech subsidiaries over a month ago."

So while the base code might appear clean to an auditor.

Leaving a backdoor for the Prescotts to manipulate the outcome would have been child's play.