363 Chapter 363: The Fourth Stage (1/2)
”Richie! You made it! Just in time!”
Dong Fang Yue Chu almost barreled into me, grabbing my shoulders excitedly. Behind him, the rest of my team approached, looking equal parts relieved and equal parts pleased. I nodded at them in greeting.
”Sorry, guys. What's up? How goes the qualifiers?”
Harrison actually grimaced as he closed the distance. Rubbing at his cheek, he sighed heavily and tried to weigh his response. Eventually, he decided on telling me the truth.
”Well, to be honest…not good, actually.”
”Sorry, it's my fault.” Cody Crosby looked ashamed of himself, raising an apologetic hand and hanging his head. ”I lost the third stage.”
”I also screwed up the second stage,” Theodore Hammond added sheepishly and placed a comforting hand on Cody's shoulder. ”It's not just your fault. I wasn't able to get as many points as I should.” He turned to Craig Carlson and lowered his head. ”Sorry…the both of us ended up wasting your efforts in the first round.”
”Stop that.” Craig waved his apology away. ”This is a team sport, not an individual effort. There's no point blaming other people. We go up together, or we go down together.”
”That's right,” Harrison Reed agreed. ”Right now, we should focus on thinking about how to gain the necessary points to not get eliminated from the qualifiers.”
”Okay, I'm going to need you guys to bring me up to speed on what happened in the past three qualifiers.” I was trying my best to conceal my confusion, without much success. Suppressing my frustration at not being able to be present during the first three stages, I took a deep breath and made my request. ”Could you start from the beginning?”
”Right.” Dong Fang Yue Chu conjured a holographic screen and quickly explained everything to me, tracing what seemed like charts and replaying a few videos here and there.
Apparently the qualifiers were, just as the tournament staff said, free-for-all matches where all of the representatives were pitted against each other in a bloodthirsty battle for the ultimate prize – survival. Okay, maybe that was exaggerating too much, but basically there were not much in the way of restrictions other than you couldn't kill your opponent, and obviously attacks with malicious intent and actions that went against the spirit of the tournament (torture, bullying, etc.) were not allowed. Otherwise you could attack anyone and everyone.
Of course, alliances were allowed and encouraged, especially since the last ten got the most points out of the entire group. Consequently, most alliances centered on ten-men teams. But there were many who chose to operate independently, or chose instead to work in smaller teams, such as trios or quartets. After all, a huge team would draw a lot of attention and was basically a massive walking target or firemagnet. No sane participant in their right mind would leave such a powerful alliance alone, and there were instances of several teams temporarily setting aside their differences and combing forces to take out one of the top tiered ten-man teams.
Even the most skilled students couldn't win against overwhelming numbers. There were more than a few occasions where such large teams succumbed to the weight of numbers, despite their enemies supposedly being less skilled. Even so, the difference between our skill levels were not that far, considering that each school sent their best and brightest, so there wouldn't be one Mary Sue figure who dominated the entire tournament like those you saw in manga, light novels and web novels, where a single solitary figure could literally defeat a thousand enemies on his own.
”Sorry…I thought I could maximize my skills if I worked alone and strike from the shadows, but it turned out to be a bit too difficult for me.” Cody scratched his head and looked apologetic. ”Instead, my hubris was what caused me to be eliminated early on. I was barely able to earn any points for our team. This is my fault.”
”I also got eliminated midway, without earning many points.” Theodore squared his shoulders. ”This qualifier is pretty difficult.”
As it turned out, Craig was the only one among the three of them who managed to get into the top ten and secure us the extra ten points. However, adding the middling amount that Theodore secured, and the admittedly abssymal number of points Cody scraped in the third stage, our Jing Tian Academy team was rooted near the lower middle. Not exactly a poor position, considering our performance last year, but not enough to allow us to qualify for the next round.
We were far from reaching the tally of the top twelve teams. Even so, the number of points that each team had earned were much closer than I imagined. Scanning through the tallies, I estimated that a single excellent performance or two would be more than enough to propel us all the way to the top.
The problem, of course, was to actually perform well on stage.
”All right, I get the gist of things. So basically we have to secure two top-ten finishes in the last two stages to ensure that we make it past the qualifiers.”
”That's correct,” Harrison affirmed with a sigh. ”I know it's a long shot, but…I still want to do my best.”
”We all do!” Pearl Pang argued hotly. ”We came this far, there's no way we'll give up now!”
”We'll fight to the bitter end!” Lily Liam agreed, throwing a fist into the air. She turned to me. ”We've discussed earlier, before your return, and come to a consensus that you might stand the best chance out of all of us to get into the top ten for the fourth stage.”
”Yeah!” Sheila Scarlet added with an encouraging smile. ”We'll be counting on you for the next stage.”
”Don't feel too pressurized to do this, though,” Harrison warned. ”I understand that it's unfair to place so heavy a burden on a single person – you. To be honest, it's also not guaranteed that we'll make it past the qualifiers even if you managed to get into the top ten of your stage. There's still the team captain stage that we have to deal with. Even if you succeed, the moment I fail, there's still a very high chance that we would crash out of the qualifiers.”
”Come on, Harrison!” Craig slapped his back. ”Don't look down on yourself too much! You'll definitely score well!”
”You should believe in yourself more,” Pearl said quietly but firmly. Harrison smiled briefly at that and slapped both of his cheeks, almost as if to wake himself up.