Sam joined Philip and the rest and six of them made some small talk, he found out that Philip became a Deputy battalion commander in this short duration. This achievement alone is enough to get him around five hundred points.

As for the points for the kills, there shouldn't be a doubt, even though this guy used to lay low, Sam believed that he wouldn't do anything less than surprising.

Jack is also brimming with confidence. These guys had some serious blow after they were done with the business phase. Because their profit of 100 percent only got them thousand points which gave them only three hundred and thirty -three points each, Philip got the extra one point totalling three hundred and thirty-four.

The number might seem big, but that was one of the lowest scores in all the twenty teams.

So, they were quite disheartened. But the military phase needed only their battle and coordinated effort. This is not that difficult to them compared to the restaurant.

As for stopping them with the duels and all, they could at most make things difficult for Kelly, but Sam heard that all the women are assigned to a female only regiment and the male members didn't have contact with them.

As for Jack and Philip, anyone who provoked them should count their blessings so that they would spare them without beating them to pulp.

So, he wasn't worried that they would be hindered by other candidates and even the regiment commanders can only give so much trouble.

After a few minutes of idle chatter, the Duke and the General Spark took the stage followed by the Deputy General and the ten regiment commanders. Seems like all the regiment commanders took a break from their duty to attend this even.

Everyone stood in attention and bowed to the Duke as soon as he came, well everyone except three people.

Sam just stood there casually with hands in his pockets, and looked at Duke coldly, see this Philip and Jack who are about to bow also halted their movements and looked at the Duke and Sam as they made eye contact.

The rest of the candidates and the people on the stage also notice this, but they didn't say anything at all. After all, this is not their place to speak. If there is any problem with Sam's behaviour the Duke can take it up with him, if they interfered it wouldn't do good for them if the Duke himself felt nosey.

After they stood up, Duke looked at all the candidates and said with a smile.

"Today marks for the end of the two phases of the competition. All the candidates here participated in the chaos of the battle field and the labours of the Business field. I hope all of you learnt something from this experience and realize your full potential.

But unfortunately, all of you cannot be promoted to the next phase and the majority of you would be eliminated.

I hope those who are going to be eliminated are wouldn't be disheartened and continue to pursue the path of cultivation and reach greater heights.

Everyone who is going to be eliminated will be given the admission into the southern star academy and will be admitted directly to the elite branch."

As paused here, the candidates applauded loudly. Many of the candidates who were extremely tense a moment ago, were a bit relaxed now.

They are mostly people of other marquis territories and that too commoners. They came to this point with most effort and if they get eliminated which they had high probability of happening and left with no returns they would really be disheartened. That is the main motivation that is pushing them forward.

Now that, they heard that they could be admitted into the Southern star academy which they never ever dreamt of admitting into, their worries mostly eased.

The candidates from the two teams of southern star, some candidates from the various other teams who are only interested in the next stage of the competition and burning with ambition and people like Sam who knew they would definitely pass. These people didn't care about this admission offer

After some more hypocritical wise words and promises, Duke finally came to the point.

"Now, the candidates shall go to the exchange point and collect your points there and at the same time distribute among yourselves. For your convenience, every team has one exchange point in a separate room and you have one hour to distribute your points among yourselves.

After that, the rankings will be announced.

So, Now go and collect your points in your assigned exchange point."

All the candidates started running off. Sam and his team went to their assigned exchange point.

When the team members saw their newly acquired points, they didn't know what to say, they almost forgot to breath for a while. Sam is the only one who is calm.

He generously transferred some points to the teammates, but he didn't share equally. He distributed them varying on their efforts. Hawk, Drew and Kelly got lesser points. Even though, they might not be the least of all the candidates in those six they are not best.

But they didn't complain, because they understood what they did. Kelly could only help them in the kitchen at the restaurant all the battles Philip and Jack faced are out of her league and she didn't have enough business acumen. Only them did she understood her competence level. This place is too big for her.

Hawk and Drew only became employees under Sam in the business phase.

But the main problem is that the business phase is the place to reap more points.

After all, the military phase offers limited chances as they have to vie for the kills with the rest of the army. The nine hundred points that a person got in Sam's batch is actually pretty great. Hawk and Drew are not on that level.

They also didn't have much hopes on advancement. They are content with the admission into the southern star.

Philip and Jack though, even though they didn't make much points in the business phase, their military points are unnaturally high. Sam was quite startled when he saw their points and felt that they really did go all out.

They must have killed an entire battalion all by themselves to gain so many points.

After an hour, everyone assembled again and the atmosphere was quite tense.

Duke cleared his throat and said in a serious tone.

"I am going to reveal the top fifty members but the rest of you are going to be eliminated."

As soon as he said these words, all the candidates were slack jawed. They didn't expect that the majority elimination would be this large. The duke just removed three fourth of them in a single cut.

But he acted as if he didn't see their expressions and he slowly stated announcing the results.

"Rank fifty: Hawk 650 points.

Rank forty-nine: Zeke 652 points

Rank forty-eight: Blue fire 653 points

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.

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Rank ten: Josh Carton 1700 points

Rank nine: Jinen 1756 points

Rank eight: Amander Silver 1795 points

Rank seven : Sylvia Tosh 1803 points

Rank six : Aiken Joy 1825 points

Rank five: Trevor 2015 points

Rank four: Jack 2486 points

Rank three: Philip 2984 points

Rank two: Nicholas Carton 3483 points

Rank One: "

Duke paused a bit as he observed the candidates who are already in discussions, his eyes landed on his youngest yet most capable son, Nicholas whose face was full of confusion and curiosty.

Many people here thought that Nicholas is going to be the first ranker followed by Trevor who is the person who score more than nine hundred in the first military phase. That guy is also from Nicholas' team. But there are three dark horses and two of them threw Trevor from the second place to fifth and the third one even threw Nicholas from first to second.

Duke gulped a bit before he announced

"Rank one: Sam 36307 points."

As soon as his words left his mouth, everyone fell silent. It was the standard example of the phrase 'pin drop silence'.

And the next second the whole crowd was in uproar.

"Did I hear it right?"

"I think I am still dreaming?"

"What is with those numbers? Why are they five digits?"

"How can one even get so many points?"

All these voices are from the candidates who are not from Sam's batch but the candidates from Sam's batch have different voices.

"Damn it, that guy was suppressed so much in the beginning, but now look at this."

"Yeah, I thought this guy was doomed after he was assigned a separate battalion to lead, but those soldiers not only whopped our asses, they even brought him these many points."

"Yeah, that Sam's Park. Even though, I know that he would earn profits, I didn't think he would earn this much, maybe we should have partnered up with him."

But there are voices that are also not willing to accept this.

"It is impossible to gain these many points."

"I know this guy, he is the Artisan. Maybe something underhanded happened?"

"Does Artisan tower have any hand in this?"

Their words became more and more outrageous that Duke became speechless.