Chapter 147
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Watching the three bodies running away, Greyson still felt upset in his heart. However, there was nothing more he could do without getting into more trouble. Mostly, it was knowing he was still being targeted in the dark by someone that left a sour taste in his mouth. Although the talk was not long, his healing spell worked through around most of the wound on his abdomen. His shoulder and leg stab wound were less serious so he still had not focused any mana to fix them specifically. After all, healing spells were extremely helpful but not miracle workers. If all deep wounds could be healed so quickly then light element magicians would be almost impossible to kill compared to other element magicians.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.
Finding his progress too slow, Greyson got up and drew a simple mana gathering array and sat in the middle. Pulling Theo out of his pocket, he started the array. Greyson focused wholeheartedly on healing the two of them while the array helped him gather mana. Thankfully, most of the magic beasts in the Dead Woods were weak except for the ones specially placed by the Moon Empire. So, while Greyson and Theo were focused on healing, no magic beasts came to bother them. One night passed before the spell finally halted. Completely healed, both man and mouse were ready to start on their journey once more. It was only the afternoon of the second day; thus, they still had a lot of time to continue hunting. They did not leave right away, and went over to Holly first. Learning of his friend's death, Theo was devastated and blamed himself for involving her. When he reached the body, his eyes teared a little and he said a few words in her language before started to burrow into the ground. Once the hole was deep enough, Greyson gently placed Holly inside and Theo buried her. Taking a moment of silence in respect, both of them reluctantly left after looking back at the ground multiple times.
Depressed by the turn of events, Theo was not as lively. He still helped Greyson communicate with the native magic beasts, but he would only ask for directions instead of allowing them to follow. They did not want a second tragedy. Without someone directly leading them, their progress was definitely slower. However, Greyson still believed that he was making great progress compared to the rest who were blindly searching. Lucky enough, he managed to find three more magister level stage five magic beasts. This time, they were all separated which allowed him to deal with them rather quickly. When the third day came to an end, Greyson collected 77 tokens. The largest percentage of them were either equivalent to stage one or stage two magister level magic beasts. A decent amount of them were higher. Since it was night time and he would have to return by around 9 in the morning the next day, Greyson decided to just rest and stop hunting. Satisfied with his results, he did not believe that more tokens were necessary. The first basic selection test eliminated around a quarter of those who came to participate. Those were mostly the people who did not meet the age limits. In the second selection, Greyson counted around 130 participants. With only the couple hundred magic beasts placed in this forest, 77 tokens were without a doubt a high number.
Although he kept his guard up, there were no other attacks throughout the rest of the time limit. He did not assume that this meant it was over. Instead, he knew there were still many chances to come if the person was really stubborn. Greyson reminded himself to keep his eyes open for other wind element magicians who are participating. In the coming portion of the selection, there should be some more direct fighting this time, so he would be able to directly observe everyone using their magic.
"Haah..." he sighed, "in the end, being the one in the open while the enemy is in the dark is such a disadvantaged position. I'm the one who feels stressed and on edge looking out for threats from unknown sources and, if I let my guard down, I could be attacked at that moment." Greyson truly did feel tired. It was more psychological exhaustion than anything. The faster he could return to his room, the faster he could get decent rest. He would be a lot less worried with Lucius around to keep watch for him. Thinking of his partner, he had to admit feeling envious. Lucius told him about going to the homeland for Destiny Cats. While he was there, the tribe leader helped him level up faster before leaving. Now, Lucius was a bonafide great magister level magic beast. Though he was still stage one, it was still large leap. Plus, he had a new method of meditation specific to Destiny Cats that tapped into their bloodline potential which would speed up his subsequent progress. From living in the Snow Dragon Tribe, Greyson knew that this was not a rare occurrence. Each higher bloodline magic beasts had their own special ways of meditation and practice that would speed up their progress.
...
Inevitably, Greyson did not get too much truly restful sleep since he had to keep his guard up. Theo and he would switch places keeping watch. Theo was still slightly weak compared to Greyson, so Greyson could never truly place his heart down and sleep deeply. When the sun rose up in the sky, Greyson no longer wasted his time and began to head back to where he started. Taking a moderate pace, by the time he rolled around to the meeting place, around half of the participants had also come back. Judging from their smug looks, Greyson assumed that these must be all the ones confident enough in their results to return early. Everyone else was still desperately looking for that last couple of tokens before the time limit. Glancing around, he soon spotted the Yce siblings from the Idris Kingdom and Quinn waiting around. There were no signs of Ezra or Ignis, so he assumed they must still be hunting or on their way back. Although he included Sebastien and Quinn in his list of suspects, Greyson thought it would not be good of him to make it too obvious. Therefore, once he spotted them, he made his way over to wait with them.
"Greyson! You're back! How did your hunting go? Do you think you got enough?" Noticing Greyson heading towards them, Nicholas happily greeted him. He was not too loud, but the name Greyson still grabbed a lot of attention. The rest of the participants waiting turned their heads to look over at him. Scanning him up and down, they all stared as if hoping to somehow see how many tokens he had on his body. Feeling the hot gazes, Greyson felt awkward, but still stood confidently. No matter what, his results were impressive, so they could stare and guess all they wanted.
"Not bad." He did not talk too big in fear of embarrassing himself later, but he did not lie either.
"Oh, since it's you saying that you must have really done decently." Shuffling a little closer, Nicholas looked extremely curious. "Are you sure you can't give me a little hint?"
"You'll find out with everyone else. If I just announce it now, where is the fun in that?" Once those words left his mouth, Greyson started to wonder if his teacher's propensity for flamboyance was rubbing off on him. The thought kind of frightened him inwardly, but it was true that he wanted to wait. More so because he was cautious about the results of the other participants in comparison to him. There was a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Greyson wanted to make sure that he stayed on the side of self-confidence.
"Hmm... fine." Pouting slightly, Nicholas did not take the rejection to heart. Greyson rejected for the same reason everyone else was not announcing their scores. No one here was stupid enough to think their results were the best before hearing comparisons. If someone acted cocky and announced their scores only to be slapped in the face later with higher results, they would just suffer even larger humiliation. "Hahaha, well I expected as much. No one would be dumb enough to say it now, right? I was just so curious..."
"BAHAHAHA, this young master got 20 tokens. There is even one stage five in there! I will be taking the first-place title in this selection!" Swaggering in and interrupting Nicholas' words, a participant loudly announced as he left the woods. From the obsequious looks of the group of followers, he looked the picture of some arrogant young heir.
"Looks like you spoke to soon. There's the idiot right there." Unable to contain himself, Greyson released a low chuckle. The timing of it all was just too perfect.
"But still, 20 tokens? He has the right to be confident." Actually, Nicholas' expression was not one of mocking but of surprise. Startled by this, Greyson took a look around and noticed that most of the expressions on people's faces were darker. Only a select few were like Greyson and looked at the newcomer with disdain.
It seems that 20 tokens are actually a great result? Thinking to himself, Greyson suddenly felt much more confident in his results. Grinning inwardly, he started looking forward to the coming ranking after everyone made it back.
Most of the participants who have a competing chance were already back, the last stragglers afterwards came back looking disappointed and discouraged. It seems they were not able to get enough tokens. Ezra and Ignis were part of this bunch and did not look too happy with themselves. Noticing their moods, both Greyson and Nicholas did not say much to them and let them just brood in silence. Actually, before leaving, Braiden did not mention how the elimination would be determined. Who knew what the lower limit would be or if they would just cut everyone below a certain placing? However, just using intuition, everyone already had some guesses and feelings towards whether they would be eliminated or not.
Soon, the ten from earlier arrived once again with Prince Braiden leading at the front. Braiden looked up at the sky and calculated in his head. After waiting a couple more minutes, he once again nodded his head towards the person standing in front of the bell.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Three loud dings of the bell echoed for a couple minutes before finally fading away.
"Alright! The second test has come to an end! If there are some friends from your kingdom who are still not back, do not worry. Our soldiers will lead them out and back to the Lunar City and you will be able to meet up with them there. Now, it is time to count tokens. It is also at this time that I will announce that only the top 64 move on to the third selection. Everyone shall line up and hand their tokens in. The judges will count themselves and then the ranking shall be announced."
Hearing his words, even more people's expressions were downcast. 64? It was a little less than what Greyson expected, as well. Prince Braiden gestured for everyone to start lining up, however, unlike the first test, no one was too eager to be first. But it was inevitable that they would have to turn in their results, so everyone trudged forward slowly to get in line. Greyson was obviously not hesitant about his results so he ended up turning his tokens in very early. The results would not be announced one by one but instead they would count everyone's tokens then announce the ranking. This would save some participant's the embarrassment of their numbers being announced while they were there. Later, when the rankings are out, everyone would be too busy looking for their own standing to pay attention to other people's results.
Braiden was able to take an early look at the rankings and what he saw surprised him. Shock clear in his eyes, he could not help but glance over in Greyson's direction. Sensing the gaze, Greyson also looked back at him and felt even more sure of himself.
Everyone's jittery tension was palpable as they impatiently waited for the results to be recorded. Soon, a magic tool was used and a board became apparent in the eyes of everyone. From the top left number one position to the bottom right last place, everyone quickly realized these were the rankings and wildly searched for their names. Greyson found his name almost instantly and a proud smile won a spot on his face.
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Watching the three bodies running away, Greyson still felt upset in his heart. However, there was nothing more he could do without getting into more trouble. Mostly, it was knowing he was still being targeted in the dark by someone that left a sour taste in his mouth. Although the talk was not long, his healing spell worked through around most of the wound on his abdomen. His shoulder and leg stab wound were less serious so he still had not focused any mana to fix them specifically. After all, healing spells were extremely helpful but not miracle workers. If all deep wounds could be healed so quickly then light element magicians would be almost impossible to kill compared to other element magicians.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.
Finding his progress too slow, Greyson got up and drew a simple mana gathering array and sat in the middle. Pulling Theo out of his pocket, he started the array. Greyson focused wholeheartedly on healing the two of them while the array helped him gather mana. Thankfully, most of the magic beasts in the Dead Woods were weak except for the ones specially placed by the Moon Empire. So, while Greyson and Theo were focused on healing, no magic beasts came to bother them. One night passed before the spell finally halted. Completely healed, both man and mouse were ready to start on their journey once more. It was only the afternoon of the second day; thus, they still had a lot of time to continue hunting. They did not leave right away, and went over to Holly first. Learning of his friend's death, Theo was devastated and blamed himself for involving her. When he reached the body, his eyes teared a little and he said a few words in her language before started to burrow into the ground. Once the hole was deep enough, Greyson gently placed Holly inside and Theo buried her. Taking a moment of silence in respect, both of them reluctantly left after looking back at the ground multiple times.
Depressed by the turn of events, Theo was not as lively. He still helped Greyson communicate with the native magic beasts, but he would only ask for directions instead of allowing them to follow. They did not want a second tragedy. Without someone directly leading them, their progress was definitely slower. However, Greyson still believed that he was making great progress compared to the rest who were blindly searching. Lucky enough, he managed to find three more magister level stage five magic beasts. This time, they were all separated which allowed him to deal with them rather quickly. When the third day came to an end, Greyson collected 77 tokens. The largest percentage of them were either equivalent to stage one or stage two magister level magic beasts. A decent amount of them were higher. Since it was night time and he would have to return by around 9 in the morning the next day, Greyson decided to just rest and stop hunting. Satisfied with his results, he did not believe that more tokens were necessary. The first basic selection test eliminated around a quarter of those who came to participate. Those were mostly the people who did not meet the age limits. In the second selection, Greyson counted around 130 participants. With only the couple hundred magic beasts placed in this forest, 77 tokens were without a doubt a high number.
Although he kept his guard up, there were no other attacks throughout the rest of the time limit. He did not assume that this meant it was over. Instead, he knew there were still many chances to come if the person was really stubborn. Greyson reminded himself to keep his eyes open for other wind element magicians who are participating. In the coming portion of the selection, there should be some more direct fighting this time, so he would be able to directly observe everyone using their magic.
"Haah..." he sighed, "in the end, being the one in the open while the enemy is in the dark is such a disadvantaged position. I'm the one who feels stressed and on edge looking out for threats from unknown sources and, if I let my guard down, I could be attacked at that moment." Greyson truly did feel tired. It was more psychological exhaustion than anything. The faster he could return to his room, the faster he could get decent rest. He would be a lot less worried with Lucius around to keep watch for him. Thinking of his partner, he had to admit feeling envious. Lucius told him about going to the homeland for Destiny Cats. While he was there, the tribe leader helped him level up faster before leaving. Now, Lucius was a bonafide great magister level magic beast. Though he was still stage one, it was still large leap. Plus, he had a new method of meditation specific to Destiny Cats that tapped into their bloodline potential which would speed up his subsequent progress. From living in the Snow Dragon Tribe, Greyson knew that this was not a rare occurrence. Each higher bloodline magic beasts had their own special ways of meditation and practice that would speed up their progress.
...
Inevitably, Greyson did not get too much truly restful sleep since he had to keep his guard up. Theo and he would switch places keeping watch. Theo was still slightly weak compared to Greyson, so Greyson could never truly place his heart down and sleep deeply. When the sun rose up in the sky, Greyson no longer wasted his time and began to head back to where he started. Taking a moderate pace, by the time he rolled around to the meeting place, around half of the participants had also come back. Judging from their smug looks, Greyson assumed that these must be all the ones confident enough in their results to return early. Everyone else was still desperately looking for that last couple of tokens before the time limit. Glancing around, he soon spotted the Yce siblings from the Idris Kingdom and Quinn waiting around. There were no signs of Ezra or Ignis, so he assumed they must still be hunting or on their way back. Although he included Sebastien and Quinn in his list of suspects, Greyson thought it would not be good of him to make it too obvious. Therefore, once he spotted them, he made his way over to wait with them.
"Greyson! You're back! How did your hunting go? Do you think you got enough?" Noticing Greyson heading towards them, Nicholas happily greeted him. He was not too loud, but the name Greyson still grabbed a lot of attention. The rest of the participants waiting turned their heads to look over at him. Scanning him up and down, they all stared as if hoping to somehow see how many tokens he had on his body. Feeling the hot gazes, Greyson felt awkward, but still stood confidently. No matter what, his results were impressive, so they could stare and guess all they wanted.
"Not bad." He did not talk too big in fear of embarrassing himself later, but he did not lie either.
"Oh, since it's you saying that you must have really done decently." Shuffling a little closer, Nicholas looked extremely curious. "Are you sure you can't give me a little hint?"
"You'll find out with everyone else. If I just announce it now, where is the fun in that?" Once those words left his mouth, Greyson started to wonder if his teacher's propensity for flamboyance was rubbing off on him. The thought kind of frightened him inwardly, but it was true that he wanted to wait. More so because he was cautious about the results of the other participants in comparison to him. There was a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Greyson wanted to make sure that he stayed on the side of self-confidence.
"Hmm... fine." Pouting slightly, Nicholas did not take the rejection to heart. Greyson rejected for the same reason everyone else was not announcing their scores. No one here was stupid enough to think their results were the best before hearing comparisons. If someone acted cocky and announced their scores only to be slapped in the face later with higher results, they would just suffer even larger humiliation. "Hahaha, well I expected as much. No one would be dumb enough to say it now, right? I was just so curious..."
"BAHAHAHA, this young master got 20 tokens. There is even one stage five in there! I will be taking the first-place title in this selection!" Swaggering in and interrupting Nicholas' words, a participant loudly announced as he left the woods. From the obsequious looks of the group of followers, he looked the picture of some arrogant young heir.
"Looks like you spoke to soon. There's the idiot right there." Unable to contain himself, Greyson released a low chuckle. The timing of it all was just too perfect.
"But still, 20 tokens? He has the right to be confident." Actually, Nicholas' expression was not one of mocking but of surprise. Startled by this, Greyson took a look around and noticed that most of the expressions on people's faces were darker. Only a select few were like Greyson and looked at the newcomer with disdain.
It seems that 20 tokens are actually a great result? Thinking to himself, Greyson suddenly felt much more confident in his results. Grinning inwardly, he started looking forward to the coming ranking after everyone made it back.
Most of the participants who have a competing chance were already back, the last stragglers afterwards came back looking disappointed and discouraged. It seems they were not able to get enough tokens. Ezra and Ignis were part of this bunch and did not look too happy with themselves. Noticing their moods, both Greyson and Nicholas did not say much to them and let them just brood in silence. Actually, before leaving, Braiden did not mention how the elimination would be determined. Who knew what the lower limit would be or if they would just cut everyone below a certain placing? However, just using intuition, everyone already had some guesses and feelings towards whether they would be eliminated or not.
Soon, the ten from earlier arrived once again with Prince Braiden leading at the front. Braiden looked up at the sky and calculated in his head. After waiting a couple more minutes, he once again nodded his head towards the person standing in front of the bell.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Three loud dings of the bell echoed for a couple minutes before finally fading away.
"Alright! The second test has come to an end! If there are some friends from your kingdom who are still not back, do not worry. Our soldiers will lead them out and back to the Lunar City and you will be able to meet up with them there. Now, it is time to count tokens. It is also at this time that I will announce that only the top 64 move on to the third selection. Everyone shall line up and hand their tokens in. The judges will count themselves and then the ranking shall be announced."
Hearing his words, even more people's expressions were downcast. 64? It was a little less than what Greyson expected, as well. Prince Braiden gestured for everyone to start lining up, however, unlike the first test, no one was too eager to be first. But it was inevitable that they would have to turn in their results, so everyone trudged forward slowly to get in line. Greyson was obviously not hesitant about his results so he ended up turning his tokens in very early. The results would not be announced one by one but instead they would count everyone's tokens then announce the ranking. This would save some participant's the embarrassment of their numbers being announced while they were there. Later, when the rankings are out, everyone would be too busy looking for their own standing to pay attention to other people's results.
Braiden was able to take an early look at the rankings and what he saw surprised him. Shock clear in his eyes, he could not help but glance over in Greyson's direction. Sensing the gaze, Greyson also looked back at him and felt even more sure of himself.
Everyone's jittery tension was palpable as they impatiently waited for the results to be recorded. Soon, a magic tool was used and a board became apparent in the eyes of everyone. From the top left number one position to the bottom right last place, everyone quickly realized these were the rankings and wildly searched for their names. Greyson found his name almost instantly and a proud smile won a spot on his face.
Watching the three bodies running away, Greyson still felt upset in his heart. However, there was nothing more he could do without getting into more trouble. Mostly, it was knowing he was still being targeted in the dark by someone that left a sour taste in his mouth. Although the talk was not long, his healing spell worked through around most of the wound on his abdomen. His shoulder and leg stab wound were less serious so he still had not focused any mana to fix them specifically. After all, healing spells were extremely helpful but not miracle workers. If all deep wounds could be healed so quickly then light element magicians would be almost impossible to kill compared to other element magicians.Find authorized novels in Webnovelfaster updates, better experiencePlease click www.webnovel.com for visiting.Finding his progress too slow, Greyson got up and drew a simple mana gathering array and sat in the middle. Pulling Theo out of his pocket, he started the array. Greyson focused wholeheartedly on healing the two of them while the array helped him gather mana. Thankfully, most of the magic beasts in the Dead Woods were weak except for the ones specially placed by the Moon Empire. So, while Greyson and Theo were focused on healing, no magic beasts came to bother them. One night passed before the spell finally halted. Completely healed, both man and mouse were ready to start on their journey once more. It was only the afternoon of the second day; thus, they still had a lot of time to continue hunting. They did not leave right away, and went over to Holly first. Learning of his friend's death, Theo was devastated and blamed himself for involving her. When he reached the body, his eyes teared a little and he said a few words in her language before started to burrow into the ground. Once the hole was deep enough, Greyson gently placed Holly inside and Theo buried her. Taking a moment of silence in respect, both of them reluctantly left after looking back at the ground multiple times.Depressed by the turn of events, Theo was not as lively. He still helped Greyson communicate with the native magic beasts, but he would only ask for directions instead of allowing them to follow. They did not want a second tragedy. Without someone directly leading them, their progress was definitely slower. However, Greyson still believed that he was making great progress compared to the rest who were blindly searching. Lucky enough, he managed to find three more magister level stage five magic beasts. This time, they were all separated which allowed him to deal with them rather quickly. When the third day came to an end, Greyson collected 77 tokens. The largest percentage of them were either equivalent to stage one or stage two magister level magic beasts. A decent amount of them were higher. Since it was night time and he would have to return by around 9 in the morning the next day, Greyson decided to just rest and stop hunting. Satisfied with his results, he did not believe that more tokens were necessary. The first basic selection test eliminated around a quarter of those who came to participate. Those were mostly the people who did not meet the age limits. In the second selection, Greyson counted around 130 participants. With only the couple hundred magic beasts placed in this forest, 77 tokens were without a doubt a high number.Although he kept his guard up, there were no other attacks throughout the rest of the time limit. He did not assume that this meant it was over. Instead, he knew there were still many chances to come if the person was really stubborn. Greyson reminded himself to keep his eyes open for other wind element magicians who are participating. In the coming portion of the selection, there should be some more direct fighting this time, so he would be able to directly observe everyone using their magic."Haah..." he sighed, "in the end, being the one in the open while the enemy is in the dark is such a disadvantaged position. I'm the one who feels stressed and on edge looking out for threats from unknown sources and, if I let my guard down, I could be attacked at that moment." Greyson truly did feel tired. It was more psychological exhaustion than anything. The faster he could return to his room, the faster he could get decent rest. He would be a lot less worried with Lucius around to keep watch for him. Thinking of his partner, he had to admit feeling envious. Lucius told him about going to the homeland for Destiny Cats. While he was there, the tribe leader helped him level up faster before leaving. Now, Lucius was a bonafide great magister level magic beast. Though he was still stage one, it was still large leap. Plus, he had a new method of meditation specific to Destiny Cats that tapped into their bloodline potential which would speed up his subsequent progress. From living in the Snow Dragon Tribe, Greyson knew that this was not a rare occurrence. Each higher bloodline magic beasts had their own special ways of meditation and practice that would speed up their progress....Inevitably, Greyson did not get too much truly restful sleep since he had to keep his guard up. Theo and he would switch places keeping watch. Theo was still slightly weak compared to Greyson, so Greyson could never truly place his heart down and sleep deeply. When the sun rose up in the sky, Greyson no longer wasted his time and began to head back to where he started. Taking a moderate pace, by the time he rolled around to the meeting place, around half of the participants had also come back. Judging from their smug looks, Greyson assumed that these must be all the ones confident enough in their results to return early. Everyone else was still desperately looking for that last couple of tokens before the time limit. Glancing around, he soon spotted the Yce siblings from the Idris Kingdom and Quinn waiting around. There were no signs of Ezra or Ignis, so he assumed they must still be hunting or on their way back. Although he included Sebastien and Quinn in his list of suspects, Greyson thought it would not be good of him to make it too obvious. Therefore, once he spotted them, he made his way over to wait with them."Greyson! You're back! How did your hunting go? Do you think you got enough?" Noticing Greyson heading towards them, Nicholas happily greeted him. He was not too loud, but the nameGreysonstill grabbed a lot of attention. The rest of the participants waiting turned their heads to look over at him. Scanning him up and down, they all stared as if hoping to somehow see how many tokens he had on his body. Feeling the hot gazes, Greyson felt awkward, but still stood confidently. No matter what, his results were impressive, so they could stare and guess all they wanted."Not bad." He did not talk too big in fear of embarrassing himself later, but he did not lie either."Oh, since it's you saying that you must have really done decently." Shuffling a little closer, Nicholas looked extremely curious. "Are you sure you can't give me a little hint?""You'll find out with everyone else. If I just announce it now, where is the fun in that?" Once those words left his mouth, Greyson started to wonder if his teacher's propensity for flamboyance was rubbing off on him. The thought kind of frightened him inwardly, but it was true that he wanted to wait. More so because he was cautious about the results of the other participants in comparison to him. There was a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Greyson wanted to make sure that he stayed on the side of self-confidence."Hmm... fine." Pouting slightly, Nicholas did not take the rejection to heart. Greyson rejected for the same reason everyone else was not announcing their scores. No one here was stupid enough to think their results were the best before hearing comparisons. If someone acted cocky and announced their scores only to be slapped in the face later with higher results, they would just suffer even larger humiliation. "Hahaha, well I expected as much. No one would be dumb enough to say it now, right? I was just so curious...""BAHAHAHA, this young master got 20 tokens. There is even one stage five in there! I will be taking the first-place title in this selection!" Swaggering in and interrupting Nicholas' words, a participant loudly announced as he left the woods. From the obsequious looks of the group of followers, he looked the picture of some arrogant young heir."Looks like you spoke to soon. There's the idiot right there." Unable to contain himself, Greyson released a low chuckle. The timing of it all was just too perfect."But still, 20 tokens? He has the right to be confident." Actually, Nicholas' expression was not one of mocking but of surprise. Startled by this, Greyson took a look around and noticed that most of the expressions on people's faces were darker. Only a select few were like Greyson and looked at the newcomer with disdain.It seems that 20 tokens are actually a great result? Thinking to himself, Greyson suddenly felt much more confident in his results. Grinning inwardly, he started looking forward to the coming ranking after everyone made it back.Most of the participants who have a competing chance were already back, the last stragglers afterwards came back looking disappointed and discouraged. It seems they were not able to get enough tokens. Ezra and Ignis were part of this bunch and did not look too happy with themselves. Noticing their moods, both Greyson and Nicholas did not say much to them and let them just brood in silence. Actually, before leaving, Braiden did not mention how the elimination would be determined. Who knew what the lower limit would be or if they would just cut everyone below a certain placing? However, just using intuition, everyone already had some guesses and feelings towards whether they would be eliminated or not.Soon, the ten from earlier arrived once again with Prince Braiden leading at the front. Braiden looked up at the sky and calculated in his head. After waiting a couple more minutes, he once again nodded his head towards the person standing in front of the bell.CLANG! CLANG!CLANG!Three loud dings of the bell echoed for a couple minutes before finally fading away."Alright! The second test has come to an end! If there are some friends from your kingdom who are still not back, do not worry. Our soldiers will lead them out and back to the Lunar City and you will be able to meet up with them there. Now, it is time to count tokens. It is also at this time that I will announce that only the top 64 move on to the third selection. Everyone shall line up and hand their tokens in. The judges will count themselves and then the ranking shall be announced."Hearing his words, even more people's expressions were downcast. 64? It was a little less than what Greyson expected, as well. Prince Braiden gestured for everyone to start lining up, however, unlike the first test, no one was too eager to be first. But it was inevitable that they would have to turn in their results, so everyone trudged forward slowly to get in line. Greyson was obviously not hesitant about his results so he ended up turning his tokens in very early. The results would not be announced one by one but instead they would count everyone's tokens then announce the ranking. This would save some participant's the embarrassment of their numbers being announced while they were there. Later, when the rankings are out, everyone would be too busy looking for their own standing to pay attention to other people's results.Braiden was able to take an early look at the rankings and what he saw surprised him. Shock clear in his eyes, he could not help but glance over in Greyson's direction. Sensing the gaze, Greyson also looked back at him and felt even more sure of himself.Everyone's jittery tension was palpable as they impatiently waited for the results to be recorded. Soon, a magic tool was used and a board became apparent in the eyes of everyone. From the top left number one position to the bottom right last place, everyone quickly realized these were the rankings and wildly searched for their names. Greyson found his name almost instantly and a proud smile won a spot on his face.
