Kora V/S Elliot.

With his spiritual senses reaching 20 meters, Kora could feel most things inside the room while walking in the hallway before he could open closed doors. Most aspirants were Rank-1 and some Rank-2, thus it was easy for him to sweep through the levels easily while carrying Erisna on his back. Even if they formed teams, they would be having traitors hidden within, and thus, nobody was foolish enough to keep their back open for a sword strike to take them out of the game.

On the other hand, Kora completely relied on Vorka's hidden nature of being protective of close ones, and with his teammate, he sailed through with flying colors, as Kora's and Erisna's talisman glowed with a projection of '2000points!'.

Committing a massacre of hundreds of people similar to his physical age could create mental demons inside weak-minded cultivators' if they were doing it for the first time, halting their progress but Kora, on the other hand, didn't have any guilty conscience and even Felecia was surprised by Kora's ruthlessness. After all, it was one thing to get some points to pass the tests and another to become a killing machine. Naturally, Kora didn't care about the methods to get what he wants, if someone gave their talismans willingly, Kora waved them goodbye as they were escorted out the Academy gates, while many others started pledging allegiance to him because of his high cultivation base as a sword beheaded them.

But Kora's streak was broken when he met his match that he was trying to avoid all this time. With a frown on his face, he spoke to the red-eyed man, "We don't have to fight, we could go on our way and continue getting points easily!"

"Oh?" The red-eyed man replied with a small smile, "But I think we do..."

Kora's face twisted into a grimace as he thought while knitting his brows, 'Although he knows he cannot kill me...I guess his pride was hurt during our last confrontation!' Elliot knew the importance of Ace-level talents and he knew Academy would protect them, thus he only wished to confront Kora for the previous embarrassment.

"My name is..." Kora had no interest in his introduction but he decided to listen patiently, to know what this Ace wants, "Elliot."

"No surname?" Kora narrowed his eyes.

"Hah, Commoners like us usually don't have surnames..."Elliot chuckled while pointing the greatsword in his hands towards Kora, "What is your name?" He exhibited a small smile.

"Void."

"Then Void, I want a duel against you!"

'Haughty eyes and a proud heart - the lamp of the wicked' Kora sighed internally as he knew Elliot wanted to humiliate him, chewing on his thoughts he recited, while glancing at the timer on his talisman from the corner of his eyes.

"What is like a smelly fart,

that, although invisible is obvious?

One's own faults, that are precisely

As obvious as the effort made to hide them."

A confused expression formed on Elliot's face as Kora's words glossed over his head. Although Kora could have tried to explain that it was Elliot's fault for falling prey to Kora's sword, despite having higher cultivation than Kora and not finding loopholes in the rules even though Elliot already did his research by asking other people, That said, Kora aimed an arrow at Elliot's heart, but his aim was not perfect as it trailed near Elliot's leg.

"You bastard!" Even though Elliot knew Kora used moments of surprises to catch his enemies off guard, he never thought, Kora would sneakily attack him after he made his intentions of duel very clear.

Elliot rolled to a side and saved his foot from being impaled by an arrow and then with bloodshot eyes looked in Kora's direction, Elliot raised his greatsword to prepare for a follow-up attack...

"...Huh?" But Kora's follow-up attack never came...

Kora has already turned his heels and ran to a different level at an inhuman speed and hid inside some empty room. Kora found tackling Elliot a pain in the ass since Kora couldn't kill him as Felecia wouldn't let any of the Aces' die under her watch and if he wants to fight him, he would have to reveal either his Soul Weapon or cultivation base but he didn't wish to unravel both, as it would raise suspicions and Kora had too many secrets to protect. Elliot might also have secrets but unlike Kora at least Elliot was human and not a demon, the young Ozonal could face many problems if he raises too many flags.

"Do you not even have the humility to be chivalrous for once?!!!" Elliot roared in fury as he ran behind the remnants of Qi in the air, left behind by Kora but upon reaching the higher levels he looked around the hallway and didn't feel a single speck of Qi using his spiritual senses as Kora already sealed himself inside a room.

'Humility? Chivalrous? What kind of snack is that?' Kora scoffed inwardly.

A minute passed by as Elliot searched around the hall, and soon the timer on his talisman ended, and as Kora expected they were all teleported to the entrance of the fourth building. Kora already noticed the timer and had no interest to entertain Elliot for the last 1 minute. He would rather conserve his energy and save his secrets for as long as possible, after all, Kora had already earned more points than required.

*Clap!* *Clap!*

"So cruel...murdering your friends in cold blood..."Felecia chuckled and flicked a chock of hair behind her ear, "Looks like you all are getting used to the meaning behind being a cultivator...If you want to reach the top, you will have to climb a mountain of corpses!"

"Very well, before the fourth test begiiiinnnsss...."Felecia pointed a finger towards her right side and the youngsters followed her finger, as they saw a huge blackboard on their left, "You must know that only ten thousand will be chosen, the rest will be discarded!"

"And it is time to know, who are lagging behind others so that they prepare themselves for the last two tests and score as many points as possible!"

Kora looked up at the board as high as 30 meters in height and 40 meters wide. The board was floating in the air by some magical force and displayed the names of all youngsters with their respective points. When the talismans were given to all, their names were noted and now with those names, talismans were connected and displayed the earned points.

[ #1 Elliot: 2840points!

#2 Void: 2650points!

#3 Erisna Loriare: 2450points!

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]

"Loriare?" A few mumbles filled with spite erupted among the groups as, Loriare Clan, although did nothing wrong in the past was branded as traitors to the Kingdom because they were Vorka's and many Vorka Clans attempted a coup according to the history that was being taught to the youngsters.

The cute creature still lunging on Kora's back trembled slightly from the stares that seemed to bore holes in her entire existence but Kora's cultivation that was fully unleashed at Mid-Stage Elementary Profound Realm hindered other people's will to approach them. Erisna felt much comfortable and hugged Kora even tighter.

On the other hand, Elliot's face darkened, he could tell Erisna, although a Jack-level talent was still Rank-1 and without Kora's help, it was impossible for her to reach number 3 in the rankings. Elliot couldn't imagine how far ahead was Kora against him if Kora didn't give his spoils of war to his teammate-Erisna.

'How is this possible?' Elliot chewed on his thoughts and tried to find any possible loopholes that could grant Kora the edge. But little did he know, rather than pressurizing other students, with his high cultivation base and forcing them to give up on their talismans as Elliot did, Kora simply killed them off without batting an eye.

*Clap!*

Attracting attention back to her, Felecia exhibited a small smile, "Now that you know your rankings, try to come out on top. You still have two more tests to score massive! Becauusseeee... " Snapping her fingers, the board that was displaying the placements, started displaying the rewards for the respective positions,

[ #1: 40000 low-grade spirit stones

#2: 30000 low-grade spirit stones

#3: 15000 low-grade spirit stones

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#101-1000: 1000 low-grade spirit stones

#1001-5000: 500 low-grade spirit stones

#5001-10000: 300 low-grade spirit stones

]

Everyone's eyes shone brightly with greed while Kora only thought about how to capture the first place without confronting Elliot as he didn't wish to reveal his secrets and if he could coax Erisna, he could easily climb to the Peak of Elementary Profound Realm. The only problem was Erisna was thinking of him as her father...Kora didn't know Erisna's past and the conditions that instead of calling him a brother or something else she chose father, he decided to think about it later when the time comes.

"Woohoo! Although the amount seems tempting, don't forget about monsters lurking in the dark..." Felecia mischievously smiled since the ridiculous amount of wealth attracts heaps of flies. She looked around the group that was composed of over 100000, now reduced to half of the original, and smirked as it was a better outcome than previous years.

Most of the time, nobody killed their friends or teammates or even thought about exploiting loopholes, but with Kora's intervention, this batch became a dog-eat-dog batch, that the Academy preferred. Cowards would stagnate and only consume resources without doing much.

"Now, now...enough of chattering!" Felecia put her index finger on her lips to gesture to everyone to keep their mouths shut and waved her other arm as the door behind her opened with a gust of powerful Qi.

Just like the second test, in which they have to kill 5 beings, the ground hall was completely empty.

"The Fourth Test- 'Wolf Among Us!'"