You decide that, since your ki is at full capacity, you can afford to spend it, whereas your low mana reserves need to be rationed carefully. After all, you still have a whole day's worth of matches to observe, as well as that technique exchange with Ayane and a hunt for reagents to consider. As such, you bring your aura sight up and begin studying the competitors, hoping to get a sense of who has magical potential and would be worth spending some mana on, in addition to your ongoing efforts to absorb ki techniques.
You learn several important things just by watching the first match. For one thing, there's a significant difference in skill between the Under Eighteens Division and the Under Fourteens. There's a gap between the Under Fourteens and the Under Tens, too, but between your unusual physical development and the leg-up your inherited memories give you in training, you're pretty close to being on the same level as fighters several years your seniors - certainly close enough to have a good idea of what they're doing when they fight each other. When the age difference is increased to two-thirds of a decade or more, though, with all the attendant training and experience, it's much harder for you to keep up. On top of that, the auras of fighters at this level are much better controlled than those of participants from the younger divisions - and part of that control is the ability to conceal elements of one's aura from observers, so that a fighter's movements are less likely to be given away before he strikes. The kendo practitioner who fights in the first match seems to be quite good at this technique, his aura being a smooth, featureless wall right up to the moment when he moves - and even then, the distortions are small and difficult to read. His opponent, a human who has a remarkable number of blunted knives tucked away on his person, is no slouch at the concealment technique himself, though he proves to have some trouble hiding his intent when he tries to throw a few of his weapons. The swordsman sidesteps one spinning blade and swats two more from the air, after which the knife-man quits trying to hit from a distance and closes in, a blade in each hand. He proves unable to outmaneuver the swift shinai and get into "stabbing" range, and though the knife-user is able to avoid taking a direct strike for a time, he's soon worn down, trapped in a corner, and shortly therafter, forced out.
Another point of difference between this division and your own is that here, nobody seems to pull out the flashy techniques in their first round. Five matches on, and you've seen excellent weapon-skills, keen battlefield awareness, and superb physical conditioning, but not so much as a hint of a Body Flicker or the first gathering motes of a potential spell. It'd be dull to watch if the fighters weren't all so skilled; as it is, you can't help but feel a little embarrassed on behalf of your peers, half of whom were throwing their auras around in one form or another by this point.
When Hayate's match comes up, you pay very close attention, but you're not terribly surprised when you turn your aura sight on the young ninja and see next to nothing. His ki control is such that he's able to hold his energy entirely within his body when not actually fighting, and even when the match begins, you get only brief flickers here and there. A few bouts later, Hayate's friend - Hayabusa Ryu, the Announcer helpfully proclaims - proves to have a similar level of control. It's during Ryu's match that you cast your divination spell for the first time, as his staff-wielding opponent invokes a spell that raises a bubble-style shield around himself. Ryu smashes through the defensive spell easily enough, but in the time it takes him to do so, the other boy completes a second spell that creates a ring of fiery orbs about him; these begin launching at Ryu, forcing the ninja onto the defensive for almost half a minute. Then he finds an opening in the seemingly-endless barrage, charges, swats two of the streaking firebolts out of his path, and finishes his opponent with a single strike to the chest.
As it happens, you aren't able to get your divination spell up in time to catch more than a glimpse of the shield spell's workings, but you do see the fire spell in its entirety. If it was an internal method like the one you use, at the same level of skill its caster showed with his weapon, you'd still be out of luck, but the young man's magical style is one of the typical ones that involves borrowing external power - and in reaching out to his patron, your fellow mage can't avoid giving away some of his secrets to a keen observer who happens to have a spell for seeing mana up and running.
That thirty-second, two-spell combo seems to be taken as some sort of signal, because in the last four matches of the first round, all but one of the fighters pulls out some sort of technique. You see a Body Flicker, several Substitutions, and a couple of ki blasts.
Gained Fire Elementalism F+
Gained Ki Control E+
Gained Ki Sight D+
Gained Knife Training F-
Gained Looking E
Gained Mana Control F
Gained Staff Training F-
Gained Sword Training F
Gained Weapon Defense F
You're despairing of seeing any more spells in this round when, looking at the competitors for the final bout, you almost have a heart attack.
One of the pair is a Mohra demon, who looks a great deal like an older, bigger, nastier version of the one you fought in the semi-finals, and also has the hilt of a sword peeking over one shoulder. It's possible that this Mohra is related to Gorn, or it could just be that all members of their species look alike - but that's not what worries you. Facing the demon-swordsman is a tall, quite lovely girl wearing a rather stylish sleeveless blouse and loose pants, both in royal purple with black trim. She has long red hair, tied back in a thick braid, she carries a slender staff that gleams in a way which means it can't possibly be made of wood - and under your aura sight, her ki is faint, tinged with a deep grey that darkens to black at the edges, and feels creepy in an alarmingly familiar way.
You appear to have found the person who summoned the shadow-creature yesterday.
"In this corner, coming from our preliminary round with an astounding four consecutive victories by knockout in under sixty seconds, Karrokk! And to face off against this fearsome swordsman, this beast of the blade, we have a battling beauty - ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Beryl!"