Chapter 192 (2/2)

Although there wasn’t much noise in the room to begin with, aside from the small scratchings the attendant made on his ledger, everyone went even more quiet, the gazes of the people present moving to this woman. The attendant nodded as if this was normal, and handed her a piece of paper.

Looking about proudly, the woman left. Which allowed Randidly to stepforward.

“Strength?” The attendant asked in a bored tone.

Randidly grimaced. But honesty was probably the best policy in this case. There didn’t seem to be any harm in revealing it. Most of his Strength came from skills anyways. “100.”

It was an above average, but not shockingly so, amount. Probably just the sort of amount someone would give if they were trying to escape notice. But the Attendant didn’t care. Instead, he gave Randidly a piece of paper with the number 7 on it and shooed him away. When he left the room, he was led to the location of group 7.

Randidly was not pleased to find that the spear user who went first, with his bulky frame and orange skin, was standing there, along with a few dozen or so other spear users. They all eyed each other up, looking for weaknesses.

Breathing in slowly, Randidly narrowed his eyes. After all, these were likely the people he would have to fight to proceed to the next stage.

They were outside one of the half constructed edifices, surrounded by scaffolding. Upon closer inspection, it really did have the number 7 carved into the side of the stone. After briefly confirming that there really was no other distinguishing features of the buildings, Randidly glanced around in the surrounding areas. There were more of the same buildings, and Randidly was able to make out a 6 on the one nearest to them, where another similar group was standing around.

….well, mostly similar.

Randidly began to frown, and then turned and examined the people around him. Although in age, gender, skin color, and relative fierceness, the people were all very different. There was one aspect in which most of the people around the 7 building were very similar: height.

And the people around the 6… appeared to be slightly taller. Not so tall that it was intimidating, but likely tall enough that it would make a difference in reach. But it didn’t really make sense to Randidly. Well, it made sense why they were measured for their height, but not why they would be separated into groups by height. Although height gave some benefits in physical battle, it also included some disadvantages as well. Why would elimination be premised on your height brackets…?

The orange skinned man scanned back and forth with his eyes, a deep frown creasing his face. Finally, he spoke very slowly, talking to the group at large. “When you look at our group… and at the other groups….”

Randidly began to nod slightly, agreeing with what he was saying, even before he finished saying it. Until the man finished talking, and Randidly froze, hoping desperately that no one saw him nodding in agreement.

“...Isn’t it strange that there aren’t any beautiful women? I heard every one of the Steel Feather disciples was hot as hell- speaking of which, where are any of the disciples from the big Styles?”

The one woman in group 7, an imposing figure with a green tint to her hair, which was shaved on half of her head, simply snorted. But now some of the other members of the group were paying attention to the orange man and muttering agreement.

To Randidly’s relief, they weren’t muttering about hot women, but rather about the lack of the big Styles. Everyone turned their attention to the attendant standing by their building, who was a very, very short woman. She seemed to sense their gazes and looked up from her ledger, surprised.

“The big Styles. Where are they?” Orangy, who Randidly now almost lovingly referred to him as, grunted.

The small woman shrugged. The first part of the preliminaries isn’t necessary for those who have a requisite level of strength. It is only for those of you who came in through the qualifiers. Ah, it’s time. Come on in.”

The woman turned, but Orangy stamped his foot. “That’s-!”

“Unfair.” The woman said simply. “So is being born weak. Or to poor parents. Or with a deformity. Deal with it. And follow me in. You may of course remain outside… but that is considered a failure. And you will be removed from the testing grounds.”