The lines of participants were so long that most had to sit in their own place until their number was called. Even after droves of people went in, there seemed to be no end to the participants.
"So many contestants," someone said. "Won't it take forever to complete this?"
Tsado heard that and said, "Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. There isn't just one set of ingredients in there. We have set about 10 sets of 100. With 10 participants going in at once, it shouldn't take that long."
"Ah, that makes more sense. With that, it should be over in about 7 hours," the first person said again.
Ning looked around, not knowing what to watch. There was nothing that could interest him her at all.
Finally, the rankings started popping out in front of them.
"Ah, it's out," someone said, pointing at the two different sets of rankings. However, both of those two had the same numbers and points on them.
"What's going on?" someone asked. They didn't know why there would possibly be two different, but same lists there.
"Oh, it's been 9 minutes, huh?" Tsado said. "Let me explain what is happening."
"The smaller ranking is the number of points each participant has acquired in the latest competition. The larger ranking is the same thing, but for all of the tournament. So, since it's only been a single competition, for now, it's like that. However, it will surely change in the upcoming days," Tsado said.
"There is also the thing that participants that don't make it to the top Ten Thousand in the first 3 competition won't get to move on, so we only have those people in the main rankings," Tsado said.
"Oh, I see."
People finally understood what was going on.
"But then, why is there number instead of names?" someone asked.
"Oh, that is to keep the privacy of some of the participants," Tsado said. "There are many that expressed their desires to remain unknown, so we decided to respect their wishes and not use a numbering system instead of names."
"Sigh, these kids. Not even a hundred years old, and already worrying about their image," someone said as they shook their head.
"Is that why there are so many wearing cloaks and such? It's because you are allowing them to keep their privacy?" another person asked.
"Yes. That is exactly it," Tsado said. "If they wish to not be seen, then I thought it was fine for them to not show their face."
"Although, you do not have to worry about any sort of cheating. I have made sure that they don't change themselves with other people, so I have given a tracking talisman to them. The moment the talisman goes more than 3 meters away from them, they will be disqualified from the competition."
"They are only allowed to have the right to privacy after agreeing to that."
"Also, I secretly recorded their aura, and if the number they have do not match their aura, they will be disqualified then as well," Tsado said.
The many people up in the tower nodded their heads in agreement thinking that was a good choice.
While the participants down below did their best, the people in the tower were simply having fun watching the competition.
"Woah, that's a 98," someone said. "That's quite high."
"The test must be hard if only one person got a 98 in the last hour," another person said.
"Ah, I should have asked my grandson what his number was."
"Those kids told me nothing about it at all."
Ning was surprised a bit too. "I didn't know there was a number system," he said.
"You would've learned if you paid attention to Yola when she spoke," Ely said. "Oh wait, you weren't even present when she explained that."
"Hehe, I'm too old to listen to children speak," Ning said.
"Stop acting like you're old. I know you spent most of those time sleeping," Ely said.
"Hey, you can't call me out like that. So what if I slept? Time still passed," Ning said.
"Did it pass for your body?" Ely asked.
"Uh...that was not the criteria to be old as far as I'm aware," Ning said.
Hijaka saw the two of them bickering and laughed.
Ning and Ely heard him and stopped talking. "Ahem, so is anyone from Klavis taking part?" Ning asked.
"Yes. There is my nephew's son that's going to take part," Hijaka said.
"Your Nephew's son? Oh, Hekti's grandson, huh? Man, he was just a child when I saw him after returning from Vilmore. I can't believe he's already a grandfather too," Ning said.
"Yes, his grandson, Yandi is taking part too, along with a few other kids from the city," Hijaka said. "Although I must say, I also didn't realize the kids were going to have numbers instead of names. Now I don't know how well they did."
"How well do they learn from the books I left?" Ning asked.
"Unfortunately, not very much," Hijaka said.
"Still, it should be okay. Right?" Ning said.
Numbers after numbers started popping up. By 5 hours mark, there were about 10 different 99, 125 different 98, and several hundreds of 97. Given how long it was going on, they were surprised there weren't many more.
"The ingredients must be quite hard then," Ning said.
They waited for some more time and another 2 99-point numbers appeared. They were all wondering how well that was when suddenly, a number with 100 points jumped up to the top of the list.
"Woah, a 100? That's awesome," someone said.
"Who did that?" another person asked.
They watched down at the entrance and saw 10 figures walk out. None of them had any intentions of hiding themselves, and they could clearly see their faces.
Unfortunately, with 10 people coming out, and none of them showing any positive faces, the group in the tower couldn't guess who it was.
Just then, another 100 popped up. This caused some more commotion in the tower as well.
"2 back-to-back 100s? There must be quite a few talented youngsters in the back half," someone said.
"Oh wow, who is it this time, can we tell?" they said and looked down once again.
They saw 9 sad faces with no sign of happiness in them, and finally, a 10th figure that was cloaked and was hiding their face.
"It seems to be the cloaked figure, right?" someone asked.
"It's quite possible," another one said.
Tsado stroked his short beard and said, "Truly amusing. Under Saint Alchemist's direct order, we set the competition to have 80 common ingredients, 16 uncommon ingredients, 3 super rare ingredients, and finally the last one that was said to be extinct before the Saint Alchemist found it."
"Which means that there are two participants out there that not only knew about the ingredient but also recognized it," Tsado said.
The competition soon ended and the result for the day was out.
Everyone was either happy, said, optimistic or doubtful in some way, shape, or form. Still, they looked forward to the next day, which arrived before they even realized it.
Tsado explained the purpose of this competition which was to go in and separate the ingredients into 8 piles, belonging to one of the 7 different elements, or a final one without elements. The points they earned were between 1 and 100 based on how well they did.
They all had exactly 5 minutes to separate and there were over 200 different places set so that the participants could take part at once.
The competition started and once more there were numbers that started popping out left and right.
People watched as the points the participants got were a little worse than last time. Still, somehow, there were over hundreds of people who got above 95 points.
They kept watching and this time, there were 3 participants that got 100 points by the time it was all over.
"That kid was there last time too," someone said.
"Yeah, so was that green-robed junior," another one said.
Since the competition for day 2 ended as well, they all went back to their place of stay once more and came back for the third day.
"Today is the final day for nearly 40,000 participants, isn't it?" someone asked.
"To think they would get rid of 80% just on the third day... that's quite something," another one said.
Tsado began explaining the third test as well. The third test was simple. A massive list of nearly 100 ingredients would appear on the screen in the air.
The participants had to write pills that contained those ingredients such that no two pills could have the same ingredient. Also, they had to use as many of the 100 pills as they could.
The time started and there were exactly 10 minutes this time.
The participants started writing and Ning looked at the lists of ingredients. The moment he saw them, his mind immediately churned out 12 different pills he could make with them without leaving a single ingredient.
The participants were done and it was time for the judges to tally the points.
"That's quite a hard task, isn't it?"
"I could only do about 93 ingredients."
"I did 94, but that was with a pill I made on my own."
"Saint Alchemist, how many can you make?"
The Saint Alchemist spoke in a raspy voice and said. "It's not fair for me to answer since I came up with the question myself, but I will say I used 14 different pills to make that question."
The Saint Alchemist had just finished speaking when the ranking board updated. The people who were talking were suddenly wide-eyed when they saw 2 different numbers with a total of 300 points.
