Today I will fight the battle to get into the Top 50. The battles will be very tough, the top 250 will be divided into five groups of 50 people, where they will fight ten battles to get into the top 50. In today’s battles, luck will not matter, only those have strength will able to advance in front. Yesterday one could get lucky or unlucky as it was a qualifier round, you only have win one fight to advance but here one has to fight ten battles and tried to win maximum to get into Top 50. For me, I plan to win all fights, no matter who came into my way, they will become stairs for me to reach the top. "Can I take a picture?" I nodded and let a ten-year-old girl take a photo with me. Yesterday evening Top 250 list announced and since then many people had asked me to take pictures with them. Lily beside me constantly buzzed for the picture since we entered the competition venue. it took some time to get into the participant longue, seeing there are only 250 people they have made quite a good arrangement. There are still 45 minutes till the round start but everyone in the participant lounge is busy looking at their holowatches. The five groups had decided and their list had been published fifteen minutes and now everyone is busy reading information about their opponents in the group. Lily and I had placed in the different group if we were in the same group, there would have been quite good chances me fighting lily. The people in my group quite strong, there are five people top 20 including perfect scores Elle Cooper. I had the confidence to put a fight against everyone in my group but whenever I read the information of Elle Cooper, I didn’t think, I would last for a minute against her. She is very strong and seeing the list of knight grade skill she got, only a few people in the competition who could last against her. I am still at the mid-level of Specialist stage if I level up the peak level, there was a slight chance that I will be able to put up a fight against her. Still, it is quite hard to level up, for two weeks I got the feeling that Ashlyn would level up and she also felt but she was not able to level up. It is quite hard low strain monsters to level up quickly, if not for the many chances I got in the space realm, I will now be mostly an initial level of Specialist grade. Ashlyn’s strain is one of the lowest in the monster and after reaching a peak level of Specialist stage, she will reach her limit. To level up further, I will have a search for ways and chances to break the strain limit. It is said that it is very hard to break strain limit and I had searched many times on the web but I did not able to find a single clue about breaking the limit. I ask Jill and Jim about it but both them replied in the same tone saying they will tell me after I reached a peak level of Specialist stage. It feels weird for both of them to say that but I didn’t ask further, seeing they promised to tell after I reached the limit of Ashlyn strain. In the space realm, especially in scind for Ashlyn is fly away from whatever she got chance to search for fruit and herbs but since we return, hardly anything interest her in the forest. I’ve gone to many dangerous areas inner forest for different jobs and only four times she left my shoulder after smelling something interesting. Compare to the scind forest it is nothing. I will not lie, I was hoping that Ashlyn would be able to find miracle fruit again that is why in their three months, whatever jobs I took, each and everyone one is at different areas. We have never gone job in the same area twice despite that we have not come across many things that interest Ashlyn much less finding miracle fruit. Only places like Space realm which I went in could produce things like that as it has dense mana. Mana there is many times denser than was blood that is that space realm produced such amazing things and many many people were able to make great progress that would be very hard in westblood. As I was reading details about the people in my group, I couldn’t help but notice that nearly half people possess both knight grade artifact and skill together while others possess either of one. There are only six people in the list that did not possess Knight grade artifact or skill. What is written here is only half information while another half can only be known in the battle. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂 I have fight ten battles today and will have to finish them quickly as possible so I could have as much as rest possible. "Micheal, you got the real problem here!" said Lily suddenly. "Hun?" I asked startingly, little confused by what she meant but when I looked at what projected in the screen, I understood all. It is a list, predicting who would be able to enter the Top 50. It is made by the reputed site and 60% to 70% people in their list always get into a place where they predicted. I felt good knowing their estimation of me this high, even though I got 49th rank in their list but it had just made things little harder for me. The people who get into such list would always become the center of attention. I didn’t mind the attention I will get from people, the attention I will be getting from the opponent that I am worried about. I would have used my skills yesterday and kept my ability moves secret, I would have able to win the fights, I am confident in that. The reason I did not use my skills and used my ability moves so that my future opponent would take me lightly, thinking my wins were a fluke. I have read a research paper on psychology a month ago, it’s published that people would take skill more seriously than any other thing, no matter how amazing that is. And I agree with that, people always believe skills are better, better than artifacts or any trick likeability manipulation. The prices of things have further reinforced the thinking as in the price of any Grade 1 skill you can buy 10 top o the line artifacts and there will be still money remaining to buy other things. I started to craft my strategy for the competition a month ago when creating my ability moves. I wanted to go further in the competition, that is why I worked so hard but now water is shed on half of my strategy. I have to salvage this but it will all depend on what type of opponent I get. Soon the competition started, anchor started the second day of competition by introducing the guests. "Ting!" My name is shown on the screen, I was surprised to get a fight in starting fights. "Good luck!" said Lily, I nodded and walk toward the ring while reading the information on my opponent. It is written that my opponent is free adventurers and have full set knight grade artifacts. There is no mention of knight grade skill in his info but I wouldn’t take it out of the equation. While walking I was just thinking, how he got the full set of knight grade artifact? Free adventurers can get one or two knight grade artifact by luck but to get whole, it is quite difficult but soon my doubts were cleared from extra note mentioned in the bottom. It is said that his brother is an organization and he is an Elite member top of that. Elite member can easily buy Knight grade artifact as many as they want as long as they have contribution points. It is quite hard to get Knight skill though, the organization keeps little tighter control over them, you can buy them for yourself easily but it is hard to buy them for your family or friends.