Sam prepared for the group test.
The top ten rankers of the Gambler's Academy all gathered. The same happened with the other academies. They needed to discuss the strategy for the group test.
When Sam arrived at the already-gathered group, they did not seem very welcome.
They started discussing the strategy before he arrived and they didn't feel the need to include him in the plans. They openly discussed the whole game plan and Sam was nowhere involved. One of them looked at him and said.
"Your role is to simply stay back and ride on the coattails."
Sam is a bit surprised by that confidence.
After all, not one of them dared to fight him until then. But now they are confident enough to tell him off. Then he recalled something about Gambler's Academy.
They never had good track record with the Inter Academy tournaments, freshmen or otherwise.
That is mostly limited to the solo combat tournament which is the hero event of the whole tournament. When it comes to other competitions including the team tournament and auxiliary professions they didn't do that bad.
They didn't win many championships but they gave great performances.
It seems like nine of these people are confident in winning a decent rank even without Sam. Sam didn't force himself up on them though. Instead he just stood back relaxed while they discussed the plans.
His eyes roamed around the spectators stand and locked on to a certain group of people.
When he looked, he noticed that these people were also looking at him. Whispering among each other while occasionally pointing at Sam. They even called a couple of juniors, particularly freshmen to inquire about him.
Sam recognized them.
A huge grin appeared on his face. He also knew they recognized him. Ever since Sam came to the Academy region he was waiting to come across these people. These are the Demi Gods of Olympus. The particular group that Sam noticed belonged to Zeus Academy.
The same Demi Gods that sent two hundred Titans at Sam and tried to destroy him;
The same Demi Gods attacked Sam even though it was against the rules. The same Demi Gods that wanted to turn Sam into a toy for their own amusement. At that time, Sam made a promise to them along with a giant middle finger statue made out of dead Titans.
Those guys slowly forgot about Sam.
But Sam didn't. Now that he is here, he is itching to destroy these people.
Meanwhile, the seniors that Sam is looking at are still discussing among themselves.
One of them called Christos over, the guy who leads the Noble League of the Olympians.
"Is that guy the Sam that people were talking about?"
The Senior asked Christos.
Christos nodded and explained the circumstances regarding Sam. How he destroyed the dignity of Olympus, how he constantly picks on Olympian geniuses, blah, blah, blah…
"Do you guys have any information on him? Where did he come from? How come he got into Gambler's School?"
Christos shook his head.
"We tried, but everything related to him is obscure. From what little I could sniff around, I found out that our Dean might have some idea about it. I heard that Pearl demanded some information from him, but he refused to let out anything.
Weirdly, he didn't take any action and even stopped some students who wanted to take action when Sam made a mess."
"How can you not find anything at all? Is this what became of Noble League in my short absence? You couldn't even find a freshman's origins much less deal with him?"
The senior's voice appeared cold.
Christos pursed his lips and suddenly he got an idea.
"There is one guy who might more about him, but he was off limits to us because he is under Pearl."
"Who is it?"
"White." Then Christos narrated the whole incident about how White left Gambler's Academy to join Zeus' Academy.
"I want to meet him. This guy named Sam. He isn't supposed to be here."
Christos was sent away and the Senior is still not feeling at ease.
"We need to hold a meeting with all the important people that came that day. Leaders from all main academies. This afternoon. See to it."
He casually ordered and a Senior who was sitting behind him stood up and left in a hurry.
Sam just smirked at this.
He could get all of their conversations easily. After all, they took the wristbands and birds as well. He decided to let them do what they wanted to do. It would be a bit more entertaining.
Soon it was time for the team competitions to start. Since there are only a few academies in total, one match is being held each time.
Sam entered the testing grounds with the rest of the Gambler's Academy group. He relaxed when he heard what the competition was. It is a very simple competition. Back on earth, people play this in high schools.
Capture the flag.
The rules are also pretty straightforward.
The flags of each team have fixed positions. A team should capture the opposing team's flag while defending theirs.
If a team captures the opposing team's flag and brings it to their own flagpole, then it is a win for them. They can distribute the team members however they want.
They cannot use heavily enchanted or inscribed weapons, no formation discs or inscribed scrolls. They can however place formations with the competition-specific formation nodes around the flag for defense.
The usual strategy is that three to four people will stay back at the flag with a proper formation set up while the remaining goes on offense.
That is a decent strategy.
As soon as the competition started, Sam noticed the movements of the Gambler's Academy students. He sat on a rock nearby while looking at their execution. Three people stayed behind while the remaining six moved in groups of two.
The three of them worked together to place a pretty good complex formation.
Sam is impressed.
The formation has sixteen layers with four different elements and there are a bunch of illusion elements added to the mix. And the best part is the three people are also part of the formation. They became invisible.
There are no signs of formation whatsoever. It looked like the three of them just ran along with the remaining nine.
They did all of this in just fifteen minutes. Sam almost wanted to praise them. But after three minutes of examination, he could see a bunch of flaws. Maybe it is because he saw them placing it.
At that time, his communication token buzzed.
It is one of the Gambler Academy students who hid in the formation.
"Get away from there. Your presence might not much difference, but it might raise unnecessary suspicions."
Sam shrugged and he disappeared into shadows.
But he was spectating.
The people from the opponent's side took their time. They made some formations and four people were left behind. The remaining six made a move. But unlike the Gambler's Academy team, they got separated.
And that was the mistake, before they knew it the groups of the Gambler's Academy started sacking the offensive team of the opponent one player at a time.
They always had an ambush plan. They scouted the forest very quickly set up some traps here and there and easily tricked the opponents. The whole round went on for over two hours, which is the only drawback.
Gambler's Academy team won.
They were given five minutes and the next round began. This one was over quickly and they moved to the next round.
The performance of Gambler's Academy is better than the last year and to Sam's surprise, the performance of Zeus Academy is still quite good. Pearl finally seemed to have regained some of her usefulness.
Or maybe she devised the plans beforehand and the rest of the team is just executing it well. But in Sam's opinion, they are doing better than Gambler's Academy and if his guess is right, both will meet in the finals.
Pearl became excited again and she gritted her teeth in anticipation.
"We need to crush them." Pearl said to her team.
It was already past midnight when the finals started.
Sam was once again asked to stay back as the Gambler's Academy team made preparations.
Back at Zeus' Academy team camp, they held a small meeting while the rest were working on their formations.
"I am going to scout. From our information, the Gambler's Academy is good with formations. My energy detection will be of great help." White suggested.
"What if Sam tackles you?"
"It's fine. In an open field, I can easily shake him off if I don't want to fight him. Just give me ten minutes and I will give you all the details needed. Just like Pearl wanted we will crush them."
The rest of the team agreed.
White hit the cane on the ground and flew into the sky before he did another recoil shot and flew across the field as he moved, with every foot he traveled a small recoil of energy spread in all directions.
With the waves created by these recoil hits the energy in the atmosphere resonated.
And just like that White had a cream of the crop energy detection method working on hyper-mode.
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