Chapter 1114: Two years (1/2)

After that little talk, Sam got closer with the kids.

He sent them away to relax, as he is sure that they wouldn't be able to relax after the competition ended.

And his guess was right.

The competition went on for over a week inside the forest patch as everyone tried their best to survive and to be the last one to leave.

Even though the students managed to stay until the last day, not all of them managed to become top ten.

Seven of them lost while the three of them only managed to luck out. They cannot use the beasts of their full power at the moment, so they are already troubled from all the pressure they are facing and they are only middle stage acolytes. The late-stage acolyte particularly the peak stage ones are extremely problematic to deal with.

They lost.

Sam met with them the very night after he rewarded the top ten and sent the schools away.

He looked at his students who are feeling down. Even the three who managed to score a position are feeling a bit down.

”So, how are you feeling?”

They didn't reply. They wanted to, but they couldn't find any words.

”I know you are probably feeling that you would have won if you managed to use the energy without restrictions. If your bracelets are off, you would have managed to gain a win over them. Right?”

They nodded heavily when they heard Sam's words.

Sam just smiled and said.

”That is the mentality you have to let go of. That is the thought process I wanted to eliminate in your mind from the start. In fact, I made this whole competition up for this.

The biggest mistake all the cultivators do is training to be the best among their peers. It is a mistake because it is not enough. If we look at the competitors, everyone who managed to win is a peak stage cultivator of the Acolyte stage which constitutes seven of the top ten.

Only the three from your group are middle stage cultivators. You managed to subvert two sub-stages and won three places.

That is the only thing the rest of the school administrators are doing and you did that with direct combats.

Every one of you focused on fighting your opponents head-on, you used your environment to your advantage but not the best of it.

You are so fixated on winning head-on and the glory of the winning, you forgot the most basic lessons I always taught you.

Only Rangit and Madhu utilized traps. Why did only two of them do that? What happened to the rest of you? You could have lured the others, worked together with each other, made others clash with each other by setting them up. Why didn't you do any of it? There is barely any cunning in that battle you have done.

Everyone thinks that there needs to be fairness in fighting. But it is not true. It is good enough that there is fairness in duels and some competitions. There is no need to ask for fairness in every battle.

Because the world is made of unfair things. It has only one job and that is to bring you down to your knees and slam your head to the ground while placing a foot on your neck until you die.

If you look for things like honor and glory in every single battle you face, you will die a meaningless death.

All of you worked alone even when you met each other. You could have had a better chance if you worked together. Only Ratri and Arvi managed to work together. But they were soon overwhelmed by the alliance of your competitors.

All of you wanted to win this alone, defeat more enemies and get the first place all by yourselves.

Go back and rest for the whole day and think what you did wrong and how you could and should have gone about it.”

After that, he sent them away.