Death was inevitable in the Sansara world.
It had been integrated into the very nature of the test. So the moderators were only asked to minimize the number of deaths and not stop them from happening entirely. Apart from that, the moderators were prohibited from keeping tabs on the participants or helping them in any way.
This was not all. The kingdom had organized this event to recruit most of these young rankers. They preferred team players. So it was only natural that they introduced a team-based aspect to the Sansara world as well.
The captain of each team would be made to carry the team flag. To stay in the game, the rankers needed to protect the flag from being taken by other teams. In the case where the captain loses the flag in any way and does not retrieve it within a certain timeframe, everyone gets disqualified from remaining in the Sansara world.
So the effective way to get rid of an entire team was to target the captain and take the team flag from them. And the most effective way for the rankers to ensure participation was to move in teams and protect their captains.
The rankers were allowed to place security details on their captains in any way they saw fit using any perks they obtained through the spending of Karma points. Of course, they were also allowed to keep their captains hidden inside the giant Sansara world so that they do not get targeted at all.
If the team decided that their captain would stay with them, then the captain of the team would be able to fight with them. However, this would be at the cost of being exposed to increased danger.
And if the captains were made to sit on the fence, the teams would be able to move more freely and attack enemy teams with fewer complications. However, if the captain of such teams was located in the Sansara world, the fact that they were left alone would make it near impossible for all the rankers to remain disqualified.
As the event progresses, teams will have to collect a certain number of flags to remain inside. Failing to meet the minimum flag requirement would mean the disqualification of the entire team. So the teams could not play defensive all the time.
Hiding or protecting the captain were not the only options the participants had. There were various other strategies the rankers could employ. Like dividing the entire team into two groups focusing on offense or defense. Or focusing on earning Karma points as a whole to access the team-based perks the Sansara world had to offer.
No strategy is without its drawbacks. And no strategy is perfect.
It all depended on teamwork as a whole and the individual strengths of each ranker to make any strategy work for them. And each team needed to perform right from the start to maintain momentum.
The rankers would start from scratch on the first day of the event. They did not have any weapons or other perks from the Sansara world to benefit from. The restrictions placed on them would not allow them to move freely.
There were many risks and opportunities for rankers of all backgrounds and statuses when the event began. It offered equal opportunities for rankers across all the academies.
Of course, most of the Royal Ren students were not happy with the whole setup of the event. They had the most number of Expert ranking entities than other academies. But even those Expert rankers were hugely dependent on their artifacts. Their battle styles were heavily dependent on their gear. So they could only curse the event's organizers for playing "unfair".
If it was any other time, the kingdom would not have organized this kind of event. Yet it knew that if it didn't implement meritocracy at this time, it would make the upcoming war all the more difficult for itself.
The event will last for a month.
The separate dimension of the Sasara world did not have any time difference from that of the real world. But the same could not be said for the near-dead participants whose souls were subjected to go through a special test.
These souls would experience time differently depending upon the difficulty of the test. Of course, the test difficulty would increase with an increasing number of days into the event or the number of times the same ranker was subjected to the test.
Surviving the first week was the minimum requirement for graduating with distinction. It means that rankers who come out of the event alive will receive promising rewards irrespective of their position in the event as a whole.
Those who survive the event for longer than a week will receive a growing number of benefits from the kingdom. So all the rankers needed to stay in the Sansara world for as long as they could.
Towards the end of the event, the entrances to the Sage legacies would appear inside the Sansara world. The flags the teams had collected so far would then serve as array-keys for the teams to access these entrances.
Only one person per team would be allowed to access these Sage legacies. The rest of the rankers in the team were needed to protect the flags that served as the array-keys. If the enemy team managed to get hold of even one flag from the array, the ranker who had stepped inside to claim the legacy would get kicked outside.
The rules of the event were complicated and simple to understand at the same time.
The participants needed to concentrate on their individual growth by leveling up consistently each day. However, they also needed to work in teams to ensure their survival.
As long as they could strike a balance between the two aspects of being a ranker, they could get the most out of the event. This was provided their souls and psyches did not get affected by the special test.
Plus, it was clear that the Sage legacy would only be achieved by the most talented teams. At that time, the individual strength of the ranker who had survived numerous hardships would play a role. Only the most capable ranker from the qualified teams would be allowed to receive blessings from the four Grand Dukes of the kingdom.
