abcnovels
Chapter 90 Round One Cleared
Chapter 90 Round One Cleared
( On the outside )
" Damn, it's been nearly 3 hours since we were eliminated, what's going on inside? " Sebastian said with a hint of excitement in his voice.
" I think the results will be out any minute now… please Ravan hold on for just a bit longer" Anna prayed desperately
Only Asiva remained calm, she hated the fact that she had to rest all her hopes on Max's shoulders while waiting outside like a wastrel, however, that was her only option now.
Although she had no idea as to what was going on inside, she would not blame Max even if he did not manage to come through, the rise and fall of the group was not his sole responsibility. It was shared by everyone.
Everyone had great ambitions regarding the tournament and nobody wanted to be eliminated early. However, in the end only a 1000 groups were to survive round 1.
[ Varsity Notification - The total surviving teams have been reduced to 1000.
Congratulations to all surviving teams to advance to round two! ]
A varsity notification sounded and the team jumped in joy upon seeing that Max had still not been teleported outside which meant that he had probably weathered the storm and somehow led the team to qualification.
[ Varsity Notification - Congratulations for surviving round one.
Round two will start in 72 hours, details are posted on the forums ]
Finally they also got confirmation from varsity that their team had made it to round two, and their joy doubled.
Anna hugged Asiva in joy and Asiva could feel the moistness over her shoulder as she realised how much this meant to Anna.
Sebastian grinned from ear to ear as he waited patiently for Max to be teleported outside.
A minute later, a bleeding and wounded Max stumbled weakly on the outside as Anna rushed to give him support.
" MY MAN! ". Sebastian shouted in joy as he gave a double thumbs up with a big smile.
Although his expressions were covered behind the mask, Max smiled too and gave Sebastian a thumbs up
" This man is a son of a gun! All hail Ravan the undefeatable hound! ". Sebastian said as he pretended to take a bow
Both Anna and Sebastian did not notice the extent of Max's injuries and did not understand what he had went through to get this victory
Only Asiva studied him carefully and noticed his nails bleeding profusely as she understood how brutally he had been tortured.
Gently hugging Max, Asiva said in a low voice " T-thankyou "
It was a heartwarming moment for Max, as although he would never show his sufferings to others, the soft embrace of Asiva told him that she understood his pain and appreciated his efforts.
Max hugged her back gently and placed his weight over her body.
At this moment, all the pain from the last 3 hours of torture vanished for Max as it seemed to melt away into a distant memory in Asiva's embrace.
*Cough* *Cough*
Anna and Sebastian coughed feeling awkward and left out, but Max only raised his right hand in the air, as if inviting them into a group huddle.
Anna joined in cheerfully as she snuggled between Asiva and Max, whereas Sebastian joined awkwardly from the other side, being a man he was not comfortable in such things.
The group of four huddled and shared a warm moment of joy, as Max said in a rare emotional voice " Let's go team, onto round 2 ".
Everyone started to chuckle after that and the emotional atmosphere started to be dissipated and replaced with burning ambition as Sebastian said " The Kingsman bastards, we will hunt them down next round, I swear ".
" Haha, thankgod the principal awarded you a million points Ravan, without you we would be deader than dead ". Anna chimed in
" I will return the torture they have given you a thousandfold, I promise " Asiva said, her voice cold and emotionless giving the other three goosebumps.
" Aye, let's focus on round two now. What's done in round one is done, but we must beware of team - up strategies and other unfair means in the future.
We are too naive to think that everyone here shall compete fairly ". Max reminded the group of the critical mistake they made in round one. As he urged everyone to open the forums and read about round 2.
When the group opened the forums and read about the rules of round two, they realised that round two was an even more brutal round than round one. Because in this round the elimination rate was absolutely crazy.
In this round only groups of 4 could participate and out of the 4032 participants only 64 were going to go through to the next round.
In the previous round one could participate in groups of 3-5 and there were a total of 10,000 participants, in the end the top 1000 groups qualified with a total of 4032 participants.
The elimination rate was nearly 60% but it was still acceptable.
However, this time around only 64 of the remaining 4032 were going to advance, putting the elimination rate at a whopping 98.4%
This meant that out of the 1008 participating teams only 16 were going to advance.
The group was silent after reading this piece of grim news, however, after reading the details of the round they realised that it was not as bad as it sounded.
The second round was inside a labyrinth type dungeon, where every team needed to navigate to the centre of the dungeon and place their hands on the return keystone to be teleported outside.
The keystone would only activate if all four team members clutched it.
If a single member died in the labyrinth, the entire team would be teleported back to the starting point and would need to start all over again.
There were 1008 entry points into the dungeon assigned to the 1008 teams, and were all placed equidistant from the centre.
The first 16 teams to reach the centre and clutch the keystone qualified, while the rest would be eliminated.