The Evaluation

In the middle of the night, when the moon was still maintaining its control of the sky, Emily opened her eyes. It wasn't perfect, but she had a satisfactory comprehension of the principles she learnt from the innate insights of Dull Harmony. When she raised her hand, water was gathered from the atmosphere, turned green with grass, ignited into an ember, solidified into a red rock and then shined like a scarlet metal.

A smile appeared on her face as she looked at the object while remembering her master and those who had stood by her until now.

'It won't be long. Please watch me, master.'

The next day started off with a very bustling atmosphere, which was no surprise considering that the Alterna Kingdom Array Master Minor Ranking evaluation preliminaries would begin on this day. Before this day, the applicants already reported their achievements and had been informed of how many rounds of the preliminaries they could skip thanks to these achievements. Those who had achieved first place when they were promoted to tier 3 array master status subsequent to the last evaluation, could skip all the way to the final round of the preliminaries so they only had to win one game of lock and key in order to move to the main evaluation with the current rankers.

The young duke was also a part of this group, much to his own dismay. He wanted to threaten the old men at the Array Association to give him a free pass to the main evaluation, but his guardian advised him that it would be better if he showed off some of his skill so that his reputation wasn't affected. He thought that it would be fine to ignore the common rabble, but when he was reminded that the news could reach the royal capital of Lyrillis, he reluctantly agreed to this arrangement.

Emily didn't have any achievements besides being the youngest applicant and Nikolai's disciple, so she had to start in the first round of the preliminaries. If she had reported that she earned the qualification to stay at Myriad Flower Pavilion, then she probably could have skipped at least the first round, but she didn't think she needed to. She wasn't worried because she was confident that passing the preliminaries was inevitable with her current ability.

The venue of the preliminaries was the amphitheater that was next to the coliseum. When Shui saw it, he recalled the amphitheater that was the venue for the dark auction and had a thought.

'I wonder how involved the city is with them.'

He was sure that they had some deal in place, but how deep their connection ran was a mystery to him. Thinking that it might be a source of trouble in the future, Shui decided to ask Maha about it when he saw her again.

Thankfully, only array masters of tier 2 or above as well as experts in the Earth Realm and above were allowed entry as members of the audience so Shui didn't have a problem finding a seat. However, this didn't mean that the rest of the public would be left in the dark. The event would be broadcast above the amphitheater through the use of a special device. The device featured a jade plaque that worked as a transmitter and receiver, and a Earth Realm cultivator that was the sender. The cultivator would engrave what his eyes saw onto the plaque and then the device would amplify the image being sent to the plaque and show it to the rest of the city. It wasn't a complicated method, but the creativity behind it made Shui want to ask how they came up with it. Even if he knew of several better means of doing the same thing.

There was actually a spiritualist organization in the city that could have done this with their spirits, but the device had little opportunities to be used and since the quality was higher, the city went with this method.

Although he had a large number of options to choose from, Shui sat in an inconspicuous spot around the middle of the audience, away from the view of those in the VIP section. He had predicted that Alicia would want to drag him up there so he made sure to leave the inn at daybreak. Her hidden guards had spotted it, but there was no way they could stop or hinder him before he left.

VIP section was split up for the guests whose identities were kept private, so it would be a good place to watch the show while ensuring he didn't accidentally end up in trouble, but Shui knew he wouldn't be able to get comfortable or slip out if he needed to in a place like that. He was sure that she would be able to understand him so there was not a speck of guilt on his conscience.

As the sun rose higher and the amphitheater got more packed, the event eventually began. To start things off, a middle-aged man with gray hairs and a vibrant and dignified aura, walked out from the highest level of the audience and stood above the stage so that all could see him.

This man, who was quite literally a step above the rest, acted as the current mayor of Paraj and was the previous head of the Array Association. He was a Master as well as a tier 5 array grandmaster, but that was about it for the things that Shui was interested in. Following his appearance, the mayor did the same thing as many other organizers at the start of their events. He began a long, boring speech.

He started with the history of the array master ranking system but Shui had already done his research so he tuned out his speech and took a look around at the audience. Some of the VIP guests chose to stay hidden including whichever group Alicia was in, but Shui could tell that every one of them held much influence. Especially the arrogant young man with maids serving him fruit. It was obvious that he was showing off, but he did possess the status that commoners could only admire.

'So that's the Young Duke, huh?'

It wasn't hard to see that he was the kind of guy to cause trouble, so Shui made a mental note not to get involved with him for both of their sakes. Considering the amount of Masters he knew were in the city, more weight was added to the warning Alicia gave him.

Shui managed to easily distract himself for most of the mayor's speech but he turned his head back to the stage when he announced the arrival of the array masters on the current Array Master Minor Ranking. There was a bit of a commotion when people realised that there were only nine on the stage instead of ten, but Shui already knew about this so he could stick to examining the ones there. Of the nine current rankers, the top two had gray hairs while the rest were mostly middle-aged. Three of them were female, with one of those three being ranked second. However, the one who appeared to be the most talented, was a thirty-year-old man who ranked fifth. He had the weakest cultivation, being only at the peak of Soul Realm though touching the next realm, but considering his true age, he actually had quite a bit of potential. It would be impossible to compare him to geniuses supported by major-level forces, but if he could reach the Earth Realm before turning fifty that would be seen as impressive in the kingdom. Not that Shui gave him more than a glance.

Surprisingly, the one that caught his attention the most, was the array master who ranked last.

'Odd. Where have I seen him before...?'