Just as I was wondering about the possibility that the one who sent me the auction invite had already caught wind of Light, albeit vaguely, I noticed someone's gaze directed towards me…

'Oh, it's him…'

It turned out to be the piercing gaze of that martial fire fist guy who was standing in the far most corner of the platform, but while it did look like a gaze full of resentment and hostility, I could tell that it was supposed to be his way of recognizing me as his rival…

'That one didn't count, I was taken by surprise, so I really want a rematch so we can truly compare our strength' was what he probably had in mind at this moment or something along these lines, but I spared him none of my attention as I simply ignored him and went back to my ponderings...

`~~`~~`~~`

Clap. Clap.

An hour had finally passed while we were waiting as the organizer went back to his position, grabbing the attention of the 177 participants with a few claps…

"The second stage, also known as the 'Screening' stage will start very soon, so listen well, as I'm only going to explain its process once…"

'About time…'

"Unlike the 'Qualifiers', the 'Screening' will be a multiple battles stage, a three battle one to be exact, the one hundred seventy seven participants here, the 'Qualified', alongside the one hundred three 'Seeded Participants' will also be given random numbers within 1~280, but instead of having to fight the next number on the list, in this stage, you will be randomly assigned three other numbers that you will fight against, all with the first round…"

'As expected.'

The need for a certain number of participants was obviously to balance it out into a perfect number of pairing so no one will have a battle less and thus given a free pass just like I was given in the second round of the 'Qualifiers'...

"Also, unlike the first two rounds of the 'Qualifiers', losing one match doesn't mean you will be out and counted as a 'Disqualified', but it also won't mean that you will move directly to the next stage without further rounds. On the other hand, those that will lose two or more matches will mean a direct 'out' of the tournament…"

'Are they going to follow the same strategy with filtering of the 'only one loss' contestants…?'

"Since it's already decided as well, there is no need to keep you in suspense, following the 70 contestants who manage to do a full win streak and are automatically moved to the nest stage, the 70 who only lost one match will similarly all enter a 'Battle Royale' bonus round, with the same number of last standers being 10, meaning that the total number of those who will make it to the third stage will be only 80!"

The existence of the bonus round at the end of every stage so far felt more like it was the true 'Screening' that was happening to ensure that just being unlucky won't cause total elimination of talents, it seemed like it was their way to quickly skim through the rest of the participant just in case…

"The numbers on your tags will change in a few minutes, and the battles will start in half an hour, all participants should be here for the next 5 days, starting today, as the pairing will be done on the spot by drawing lots which will be done by the referees of every ring, I wish you all the luck to be part of the 80 participants who will move on!"

It was at least better that the organizer finally explained how the whole stage will play out, instead of telling us info after every ready, this way, I could at least know how much days of boredom would I have to go through during this stage…

`~~`~~`~~`

'222…?'

As I looked as the new number that appeared on my tag, I felt like there was some sort of a rigged choice of numbers, as it wasn't completely normal to get the same sequence in both stages, but it wasn't like the number mattered in itself anyway…

Not long after, the 'Screening' stage has officially started!

"No.22 Vs No.111!"

"No.11 Vs No.121!"

"No.69 Vs No.42!"

"No…"

The referees of the subsequent rings drew out the lots from two boxes as they shouted the numbers of the contestants who soon left the platform…

Seeing only four of them leaving, it seemed like one of the five pairs was consistent of two sect members, which would be a good match to assess the power of sect members through, meanwhile, it also wasn't bad to see how the qualified recruiters would fare against sect members, especially that one of the participants from our side was supposedly that fire swordswomen who grabbed quite the attention at the first stage.

`~~`~~`~~`

'The standard is indeed different…'

Taking a look at the seventy five matches that took place during the rest of the day, it wasn't hard to arrive at a somewhat inaccurate but fairly referable general standard that the sect members abilities stood at, that also included the few qualified recruitees who also managed to reach that standard and even surpass it!

The first obvious point that all the sect member participants had in common was that they were no first stage practitioners, that was the case that stayed true in both cases of weapon of elemental paths…

Of course, this easily resulted in most first stage recruitees biting the dust, as some of them were even injured close to death before the referee acted to end the battle…

On the other hand, there were quite a good number of mixed practitioners, who practiced mixed path and of course so elemental warriors, though there weren't that many sect members who fit that category, it was still quite abundant when comparing that to how they were considered rare of extinct professions in the Light Domain...

'Once again...'