Results From The Qualifiers

(Information Clash: I would like to point out that Emma Saunters is actually Duke Quentin's daughter and not granddaughter. All previous errors would be corrected.)

"Hehe. Goddess Emma," Asher said with a hint of sarcasm, "are you interested in making a bet with this one too?"

For some reason, Emma felt a shiver down her spine when she crossed her eyes with Asher. It was almost as if she was staring at a primordial beast that desired to eat her whole.

Although there was no serious grievance between the two, Asher was an opponent in this tournament and so Emma had to be on alert against him. She didn't know why Asher was so confident, but if there was one thing she knew about this boy her age -especially after what happened at her birthday party a year and a half ago- it was that he was by no means a dimwit. Rather, Asher was a cunning strategist.

"I'll pass." Emma said.

"What a loss." Asher commented with a sigh.

He didn't ask any of the other great family members as he doubted that they were idiots. Even with the odds stacked against him, those kids who were smarter than the rest could see that there was possibly something Asher was banking on. As for members of the royal family, Asher didn't want to have anything to do with them, at least not yet.

Aurora stood by the side and watched as Asher recorded a bunch of bets and signed papers with the other students. At some point in time, a student from the Second Dawn Academy had even come by his side to assist him.

There were at least twenty students who placed a bet with Asher and they had staked various valuable items and the like. If Asher lost the bet, he would be hit heavily and the Arnhaunts' growth rate would slow down drastically. But, that was all and to be honest, was nothing too much. However, if he won, the profits would be insane and it could help speed up the Arnhaunt family's growth.

As a member of the Castellan family's direct branch, this was not something Aurora would like to see. She might be young but she was already aware of the relationship between her family and Asher's.

'Asher Arnhaunt, you will lose at my hands.' Aurora glared at him.

. . .

The hours went by as the remaining students participated in the qualifiers. Although they were all geniuses, having to face four opponents at the mid-rank of the second-stage of the Guardian realm proved to be difficult. Some of the students were still at the early rank of the second-stage while the others were at the mid-rank. The more lacking ones were at the peak of the first-stage. It was these students who had things worse off. Against such opponents, victory was a dream and they only fought to last long enough for a good rating.

The qualifiers were scored based on Completion rate, Completion time, and Survival time. The first and second criteria were self-explanatory; Completion rate referred to how many enemies were defeated while Completion time meant the duration it took to defeat all enemies. As for the last criterion, which was survival time, it was used to judge the students who had failed to complete the challenge within the specified time, alongside the completion rate.

Survival time was simply how long they had held on against the opponents who were actively attacking them. It was thanks to this determinant that even the weaker students had hope of competing in the tournament. If two students happened to get the exact same score based on the three criteria, a fourth one would be introduced as a tie-breaker which was called Progress time.

Unlike Completion time and Survival time, Progress time referred to the time it took to defeat each opponent. As such, there would be four progress time per student, each referring to one of the four puppets.

Eight hundred and ninety-nine students (899) were participating in the tournament, but in reality, the number was too big for the two academies to be able to organize a tournament. Hence, they needed to shave down the numbers to an acceptable level which was why they had introduced the qualifiers. But this in turn made the students more competitive, specifically the weaker ones.

With the introduction of the qualifiers, it was not ensured that the students at the early rank of the second-stage and the peak rank of the first stage would make it into the tournament. Even if they did, they already knew that they wouldn't go far or even make it beyond the first round of the tournament. As such, the qualifiers became their battleground.

Being able to get a high score would already be impressive, but if they managed to make the cut, that was even better. It was in this fashion that the upper half of the bracket and the lower half all fought their best against the puppets, albeit some didn't even need to move that many muscles to get the job done.

At the end of the day, all eight hundred and ninety-nine students had participated in the qualifiers, but only one hundred and fifty-six students made it through. A very low pass rate! But this was exactly the intention of the tournament organizers.

Separate the grain from the chaff.

While the numbers looked small, one should first recall the situation properly. Three hundred and eighty-two students were from the First Dawn Academy while five hundred and seventeen were from the Second Dawn Academy. Although the latter had more experienced students, they were weaker than the former in terms of raw power. As such, more than sixty percent of the five hundred and seventeen students were below the second-stage.

This left a bit above two hundred students in the second-stage of the Guardian realm, but even then, few were at the mid-rank and above. When put into numbers, they consisted of less than seventy students, or exactly sixty-three students (63). For the qualifiers, as long as one was at the mid-rank, completing them wouldn't be an issue, so it was safe to say that all less than seventy students made it through.

In the case of the First Dawn Academy, there were three hundred and eighty-two students (382) but only ninety-three students (93) were at the mid-rank of the second-stage and above, and they were the ones who made it through.

From this, one could see the obvious difference in quality between the two academies. Despite having more students, the elite headcount of the Second Dawn Academy was lower than that of the First Dawn Academy. This gap wasn't just because of the difference in the students' potential, but the contrast in training methods and resources available to them.

Unless more resources were allocated to the Second Dawn Academy, it would be difficult for a division to surpass an equivalent one from the First Dawn Academy.

. . .

After the one hundred and fifty-six students were officially announced to have passed, Fogre had the scoring panel add in four more students, who were the best performers of the losing category, to round up the number to one hundred and sixty. Unsurprisingly, the four extras were all from the First Dawn Academy.

Once they were done with that, Fogre officially brought the first day of the tournament to a close. The next day would then be the start of the real deal.