"Faran… I wonder who that is," Ning wondered.
Next to the name was the number 10341. This was the number of points he had gotten. "What's at 128? He wondered and checked. It was exactly 4392.
"Hmm… about a 6 thousand point difference huh. That's quite a lot he thought. Although, seeing that the 2nd and 3rd only have 8 thousand and 7 thousand respectively… I guess this Faran is just a beast," Ning thought.
He decided to get into the line after seeing everyone get into it when he heard someone calling him.
"Inikaka," Hijaka called him as he ran up to him.
"Oh, hey Hijaka. Did you survive until the end? Nice. I hope you've got a lot of points," Ning said.
"It's all thanks to you Inikaka. If it wasn't for you, I would've lost on the second day from that enormous serpent-like beast. I saw from far away from how it killed nearly everyone. I thought you might have already left because of it, but it seems you didn't. I'm glad," Hijaka said.
"Alright, alright. Let's go back into the line," he said and brought Hijaka to the end of the line.
"3765 points" the person checking the points shouted.
"5343 points"
"2611 points"
He started checking the points and shouting it one after another.
The points in the top 128 kept on changing as more and more kept on getting added to it, and more and more kept on getting thrown out of it.
"8825 points"
Ning was a little surprised to see that number pop up. "Isn't that?" he thought and looked up. It was indeed the new second place, and the name that popped up was Gai.
"Ah, it's that bastard," Ning thought.
More and more points got added to the rankings. Finally, it was just him and Hijaka left. Hijaka went forward and handed his talisman.
The man looked and said, "7430 points."
"Oh, that's… 9th place. Not bad, Hijaka," Ning said.
"Haha, Inikaka, please don't tease me. you have much more than me," Hijaka said with an embarrassed face. Ning smiled and walked forward.
He took off his talisman and handed it to the man. The man at the register glanced at it once and announced, "2228 points."
The man who just said that made a weird face as if something didn't make sense. Ning smiled at him and said, "Read again."
The man complied checked the numbers again. "Oh, I apologize, that was my error. The real points are actually… 22228 points," he announced.
Gion, Yelca, and the rest were dumbfounded when they heard the points.
"Di— Did he just say 22 thousand?" Gion said in disbelief.
"I— I think so," Yelca said as he looked at the top of the ranking.
The first place on the ranking was still Faran, but suddenly, it changed to Ning - 22228. They were finally sure that he had in fact gotten so many points.
"Everyone in the 128 please, follow me. Everyone else, please follow him," two staff appeared out of nowhere and started speaking.
Ning followed him and went where they were taken.
The man then handed them all a talisman once again. "With this talisman, you can check how many points each of your bags have. You must return half of the points worth of items to us," they said.
Ning checked his bags and started separating items. He knew what he wanted to keep and what he didn't. In the end, he was left with 2 bags, while he returned 3 bags.
He only kept the most precious of items which were mostly just ingredients.
Ning walked out and returned to the seats where the Deepskull island folks were. As soon as they saw Ning, they all stood up and congratulated him, calling him their benefactor.
"Sect Leaders, After the competition tomorrow ends, I will be leaving. You do remember that right?" Ning asked.
"Oh, Y-Yeah we remember," they said as he got a little dejected after the reminder. He smiled and said, "Don't worry. I will win the grand prize and you can take it all back."
"For now, let's go back to the hotel."
Along the way, he saw Gai and the other 13 disciples all look at him with hateful eyes. The only one that wasn't was the man he had helped the Flood Dragon defeat.
When he realized that he was responsible for nearly all of their loss, he got a good sense of happiness inside of him.
Once he returned back to the hotel, he got on his bed and started cultivating. He was so close, that he just wanted to finish it.
However, he wasn't able to break through even after an entire day of cultivation.
"Arghh, I am so close. If only I had more time," Ning thought. However, it was time, so he stood up and left the room.
Along with the rest of the people from the Deepskull island, he walked to the center of the huh island, which he now knew wasn't really the center.
He entered the Arena and waited for the tournament to start.
More and more people came in to watch. He then saw a man in an orange robe fly down from the sky.
"Are people allowed to fly in here?" Ning asked the sect leaders.
"Oh, that's Mallus, the sect leader of the Dazzling sect, the only Golden Core cultivator of the Scattered Isles," Dion said.
"No one is going to bother stopping him," Yelca said.
Ning looked up and saw that he was looking towards him as well. 'Did his disciple tell him about me?' Ning wondered.
"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the hopefully final but most likely the penultimate day of the tournament. Today we will start the 1 v 1 matches that you had all been waiting for. This will be between the 128 participants that got the highest points in the previous match," the host spoke.
"In front of me is a box with 128 numbers. I will now pick 2 numbers," the host spoke and picked 2 numbers from the clear box.
"The first match is going to be between… Number 45 and Number 10."
