After exiting the estate, Jack and Philip boarded their new pets while Sam and Watt opted to their boards as usual.

The capital is very large and many people here use their pets for travelling. The people who walk are not many.

They went to the Artisan tower and Sam used the same way he used in the southern star, contacted a rank 5 Architecture Artisan and asked for help in finding a house.

Just like southern star the Imperial capital is also divided into various zones.

The central zone is for nobles and the imperial family and not anyone can enter that place. Other than the nobility the officials and the big shots of the four professional towers also stay there.

The guards wouldn't let anyone enter that place easily. The person has to have an extremely high status or should possess an invitation from the people that reside inside.

Outside that zone, the rich people who are not nobles stay there, this is the inner zone.

The zone outside that is the business zone and the final one is the normal zone.

Sam bought a house in the inner zone, this is not a mansion, rather it is only a duplex house, with a small yard but it still cost fifty million for him.

After buying the house, the four of them went to a nearby restaurant to have a meal, while eating they started discussing about the competition.

Sam, first organized the data he knew.

There is a team from every dukedom and from the imperial capital there are two teams.

Each team has ten members each.

Now, that the competition started the teams are divided and there should be only considered as one hundred participants.

During the assembly, Sam observed the remaining teams, particularly the two teams from the capital.

One of those two teams is completely made up of offspring from the nobility and officials. The second team is made of commoners. The leaders of the nine teams seemed to be people of fame and wealth, as he can observe the pride and arrogance.

These people might be the scions of the Dukes or Generals from their respective Dukedoms.

As for the leader of the first imperial teams, he is called Nathan the Prince and the elder brother of the princess. He is the second most favoured prince after the crown prince, because both of them are from same mother and so is the princess.

The leader of the second team though, is a bit interesting as that person wore an outfit which made it hard to describe if it is a man or an woman and even his face was covered with mask which seemed to be inscribed to make sure that their face is concealed.

Even the second ranker of the second team wore the same outfit except the second ranker's was maroon, while the first rankers was Black.

From what he observed the highest cultivation is of Middle-stage Great realm stage in Level 4 or 5. The lowest is a Peak stage Novice.

These are all the things they saw, heard or known from the assembly.

"So, how should we proceed further in the competition, should we target one person at a time the teams?" Philip asked as he bit a huge piece of meat.

"Well, from what I see, it doesn't matter what we do, because there would be very few people who will not be forming a team. There is a high chance that the first rankers will be left alone, because they are the major targets for any team.

And the teams wouldn't be too big as there would be high chance of being betrayed as it would be hard to watch out for every person. So, it wouldn't be much difference if we target the solo players of the team players."

Sam replied.

"Doesn't that mean, you are the biggest target of all?" Philip exclaimed.

Sam looked at him as if he was an idiot, why would be asking such an obvious question? The worst part is that Sam couldn't even guess if this guy is really asking or just being dramatic.

"Why, you want to target me too, or what?"

"I don't need a beating so badly." He immediately lowered his voice.

Sam didn't bother with him and said.

"I think the best course of action for us is to wait. Because, even if we don't go and find out our targets, there would definitely be some people who would come looking for me, to hit a Jack pot.

From what I could tell, the remaining first rankers are all below Nicholas in battle prowess as every dukedom's young scion was battered by him, so I highly doubt anyone would cross twenty- five thousand points even with the additive bonus of the ranking.

So, I am the largest target.

Which means, the clever ones will come to me to fond trouble in the last week, the cunning ones will stay on the side as we fight and try to get all of it for themselves and the simple-minded guys will want to find me from the beginning.

That's why, I suggest we don't seek them proactively, instead, let us finish the missions and find the hidden cards, while we just take care of the people who come after us and we only go after other people in the last week.

By that time, the most cunning and scheming batch would also come out and the most capable and straightforward people will already be having a boat load of points ready for us to take."

Philip and Jack started to ponder on what Sam said. It is indeed true that the people who have most points since the beginning will be targeted the most.

What Sam said is feasible.

"Sure, let's do that way. The first three weeks, we will be solely focussing on the missions and the last week, we will target the candidates. Meanwhile, all we have to do is watch out for our safety."

Philip said in agreement while Jack also complied. Watt is seriously focussing on his meal.

After that, they had a sumptuous meal and are on the way back to their new home.

But as soon as they exited the restaurant…

*Swoosh*

An arrow came towards Sam with the electric blue lightning crackling around it, but before the arrow could hit him, his arm glowed with golden light as he caught the arrow and looked towards the direction it came from.

Sam noticed that the terrace of the opposite building from with the arrow should have been shot was empty, the attacker, ran away after the attack failed. But Sam didn't let that go.

He boarded harbinger and hovered like wind and reached the terrace, there was no sign of a person who ran away, at all. No matter how fast the person is, it is almost impossible to disappear without leaving a trace, unless that person has a treasure just like Sam's divine dimension.

He went towards the alley behind the building and searched around. Meanwhile, he discreetly let the shadow mice out and made them scout the area.

Even though, they didn't see that person, if he is hiding in any discreet areas, shadow mice have a better shot at finding him.

Sam looked around vigilantly.

He observed the people's expressions. There is no disturbance whatsoever. The surrounding people are behaving normally. They are looking at Harbinger curiously, but that's it, there is no other expression.

This area is near the intersection of the Business zone and the inner zone, so it is pretty high-end. So, the crowd is very small.

Sam felt that the attacker should be extremely close as it is difficult to run away that fast without even alerting the surrounding people.

After a few seconds, Sam closed his eyes and calmed down, he took a good look at the surrounding people and his eyes landed on a old man, who came out of the bar and walking away, without so much as a glance towards Sam.

This caught his attention, and after observing for a second, he took out the golden Crescent and nocked an arrow as he aimed at the old man without so much as an argument or confrontation.

He stretched the thread and started condensing the spiritual energy, the 'old man' freaked out and was about to run away, Sam released the aura which hit the old man squarely on the back.

The tail wind of the arrow was as sharp as the tip, as it tore the several opening on the back.

Sam moved and stepped on the old man's hand and tore the mask off of his face, before dragging him by his neck.

This is a young man who is from another dukedom. Sam has seen this guy before in the assembly.

He dragged the man back to the restaurant entrance, only to see Philip Jack and Watt holding two other people.

"Five people ambushed us as soon as you left, but they left these two here and escaped. They don't have much points in their cards, just around three to four thousand."

"Let us take them back to our place."

Later, after half-an-hour.

The three people who attacked are kneeling in front of Sam and the rest, in the basement. This is one of the reasons Sam paid for this house, the basement will come in handy and especially in these kinds of situations.

After some serious 'convincing' the three spilled their beans.

These guys are from a team and their team consists of six members; the interesting thing is that not all of them are from same Dukedom.

The whole team was made up by the bottom two rankers or three Dukedoms.

Sam was surprised that they not only made a team without much knowledge about each other, but they somehow tried to ambush them.

He was even more surprised when he learnt that he is not their target. Their actual targets are Philip and Jack.

They somehow learnt that Sam doesn't like it when someone pisses him off and he is very persistent in taking revenge, but they also heard that he is pretty strong, so they made a plan. One of them would sneak attack Sam, to lure him away, the remaining five will attack Philip and Jack taking their points.

The plan is actually quite good, except that whoever they got the news from didn't say anything about Philip and Jack's battle prowess making them misjudge the situation.

In fact, they said that this actually worked on some smaller teams and now they wanted to try their luck on a big fish.

Sam is even more surprised that these guys took down some smaller teams. That means, since dawn these guys didn't take any break or waste any time. They are fully active. Now, because of their wrong target selection the three are now captives.

"So, what are we going to do with them? Killing is forbidden right?"

Jack asked.

"Empty the points and give them their cards back, but don't let them leave the place. I will lay some formations to imprison them, let the remaining teammates take the bait and come here. As these three are separated the team card is worthless. Let us see if they will come here to take them so that they could access the points in the team card or they would just let go of the points."