On the next day, Aran woke up early in the morning and after getting prepared, he left his room and met with his teammates in the residence hall. After every team member arrived, all of them left their residence together for the selection round.
As they got out of the mansion and walked towards the battle arena, they saw that the arena was already prepared and everyone was collecting their participation flags.
After standing in line for half an hour and showing their badges, every teammate got a small red flag with the contestant's numbers written on it. As aran saw his flag, the number 484 had been written on it. The contestants had to stick their flags to their chests, like a badge.
After collecting the flags, As everyone was waiting for the selection round to start, they heard an announcement guiding everyone to head to the wide arena for the selection round and to stand in their designated spots.
As hundreds of contestants walked to the arena, they saw that the arena looked like a battlefield. There were numbers written on the ground and according to the announcement, aran had to find the spot with the same number on his flag.
Although it took others some time, Aran used his vision and easily found his spot and headed there.
The selection round was a free battleground fight.
According to the rules,
* Every contestant has to stick their flag to their chest. When the round starts the contestants had to fight each other and collect the opponent's flags.
* In that battle, the contestants who lose their flags get disqualified.
* To get selected for the actual tournament, the contestants had to collect two flags from others.
* When the total number of flags a contestant has, gets to three, he/she will have to safely bring those flags outside of the arena to get selected.
* It was not a team effort round, so the teams weren't allowed to help each other. That way only the strongest ones will get selected for the real tournament.
As the announcement of the rules ended, everyone was staring at each other for the flags.
Since aran was standing in the middle of hundreds of other contestants, most of them were staring at his flag since he was one of the weakest contestants there.
But Aran was standing still without any worry as if he is sure about winning. The contestants around him couldn't see a single hint of worry on his face. Some of them started to wonder if he was a strong swordsman.
As the flare gun was shot and the selection round got started, the arena became a battlefield in a second. Everyone started to fight each other for the flags, and some of them didn't even show mercy to their own teammates.
When a group of contestants charged at aran to take his flag, instead of fighting them, he dodged everyone and started to run away. As they saw aran running away, some of them followed him and some of them went for someone else. But aran just dodged everyone who tried to attack him and continued to run.
As aran was running from everyone, in the middle of the arena, suddenly someone appeared from nowhere and scared away the contestants who were following Aran and jumped in front of him. Aran suddenly stopped running, because looking at the strength and the speed of that person, he was sure that he can't run away even if he tried.
It was Elissa!
As she suddenly appeared in front of aran, with her sword in her right hand, aran got startled for a moment. Elissa tightened her grip on her sword and gave a serious look at Aran. Aran thought It was completely out of character for her but then again what does he know about her?
" Where is your sword? Take it out!" She said loudly. But between that battle, aran couldn't hear her although she was only twenty feet away from him.
" What?"
" I said take out your sword! Let me see how strong the young master of the Wilford family is! "
By her words and serious expression, it was sure that she is very serious about fighting him. As aran heard that he began to smile at her and before she could wonder why he is smiling, aran suddenly took out something from his pocket and threw it at her with full force.
But Elissa who was already in a battle position swung her sword and knocked that thing down before it could touch her. As she looked at the ground to see what aran just threw, she saw that it was his flag. Looking at that, a single question appeared in her mind.
" What the f**k?"
Elissa started to wonder if it was actually a mistake but as she took that flag from the ground, and turned towards aran, he was already running away from her. Again she couldn't understand what was happening, but she just followed him. She ran faster than him and confronted him once again.
"What's the meaning of this!" She asked, with a puzzled look. She wanted to know if he meant anything by that.
" What are you talking about? I already gave you my flag. Why are you still following me again? "
" What? Is this some kind of a joke? Why aren't you fighting me? "
" Isn't that obvious? Because I know you are a lot stronger than me and I can never win again you. Instead of fighting and getting beaten up by you, I chose to surrender! "
" What? But What about the tournament?"
" What about it? I don't want to risk my life fighting you just for some stupid tournament. By the way, I wish you good luck and don't follow me again!"
After saying that aran turned around and ran away. Although Elissa was dumb folded hearing what he said, she just ignored him and went to collect someone else's flag.
The selection round went on for almost two hours. In the end, out of all the hundreds of contestants, only 176 contestants got selected.
After the selection round ended, Alexia met aran who was sitting on a bench outside the arena with his cat. Since he hadn't gotten selected for the tournament she thought he might be feeling disappointed. So she sat beside him and tried to comfort him.
"It's okay, you are not the only one in our team who could make it. You can do better the next year."
" Yeah"
Aran replied. He didn't want to make a big thing out of it. Since it was already lunchtime, he went with his teammates to eat lunch.
" The next round of the tournament is about to start after lunchtime. After that, we will be busy with the tournament and it will be the same for almost a month. What are you going to do in the meantime?"
The captain asked the teammates who had got disqualified. There were a total of seven of them in the team who had lost the selection round. Two of them decided to visit their families before returning to the academy and the others decided to stay to watch the tournament. Since aran had some unfinished business there, he also decided to stay.
After lunch, the two of them left in their horses and the others went to the tournament arena but aran told them that he is not coming.
" You guys go. It's my first time visiting this city so I am thinking about looking around the city for a while! "
"That's fine, but remember don't lose your badge and don't get in a fight with anyone! " The captain said. Since it was his responsibility to make sure his teammates doesn't get involved in any unnecessary fights. After saying that captain left for the arena with the others.
***
After parting ways with the team, aran went back to his room to change his clothes. After making sure that he has everything he needed, he left his room. Before leaving the palace he had some other things to make sure so he found an empty bench close to the palace gate and sat down there.
Aran had lost in the selection round of the tournament. Although he could have won that round and could have at least gotten to the third or the fourth round, he had some better things to do. Because like arrax thought, aran had no Interest in winning a tournament. For him, it was just a waste of time.
Since he was planning on getting the sword technique, after three weeks, he didn't want to waste his time until then. When he thought about what to do in the meantime, he finally decided to cultivate his demonic cultivation.
Although demonic cultivation was just like heavenly cultivation, there were some differences.
Training and using pills were the only way to increase heavenly cultivation. But in demonic cultivation, there were some unique shortcut ways to increase the cultivation called the Dark arts.
These dark arts were usually performed by those with stronger soul cultivation. Since the demonic cultivation was based on negative emotions, if the cultivator with weak soul cultivation performs it, although he gets great power, his mind will slowly get corrupted until he eventually loses his mind and becomes a mindless destructive force. For aran who had strong soul cultivation, it was a perfect way.
The awakening technique that aran had used for his breakthrough was one of the strongest dark arts.
Since the cultivation is basically strengthening the life force, using the dark arts the demonic cultivator could have absorbed the life force by different means to increase their cultivation.
After deciding to cultivate his demonic cultivation, he summoned the book and looked at the details of the dark art formations he has to use.
After completely reading that, as Aran was about to get up and leave from there, he suddenly felt someone's presence behind him and someone put their hand on his right shoulder.
Aran got startled for a moment. As he turned around he saw that it was Elissa! She was standing behind him with the same smile she had when he first met her.