The invites were small scrolls of papers, which were handed over to Zephyr. As soon as the messenger left, Zephyr kept the scrolls on the table. Suddenly the students saw that the scrolls started flying. Red wings appeared on the yellowish scrolls and they flew to all the respective invites. All of them gasped at this beautiful way of invite. Their gazes followed to all those who had received the invite. There were only sixteen invites, which meant that those sixteen students were the top point aggregators.

The students who didn't receive the invite felt terrible once again for this kind of bias and there were murmurs of dissatisfaction. The ones who received were extremely excited. The only one who wasn't excited was Adrianna. She opened the scroll to read it. It read as follows:

"We are very happy to invite you to the third stage of the competition. You have earned the maximum points in the last stages and hence you are in the first spot. Following is the way the competition will be spread:

1. The competition will have two pools of people with each pool having 8 people.

2. The first round will be qualifying round.

3. The first student with highest points will fight against the one with the least points in their own pool.

4. So in the first stage there would be eight competitions in two pools.

5. Four people will emerge as winners from their pool in the quarter finals who will then fight for the semi finals.

6. The top four who will emerge as the winners will fight according to their points for the spot to get in the finals.

7. The final will be held next end of the week.

8. The rules will be sent to the notice board for all to see.

If you have read this message say 'Yes', else you can reread the message. Once you will have reread the message the scroll will destroy itself.

"

Adrianna was reading it with concentration. How she wished she had a phone that time just to click the photo of the scroll. A chuckle left her throat when she thought that and started reading the message again. The boy who was sitting next to her wanted to badly to peak in and read what was written. He hadn't received the invite, so his curiosity was killing him. Adrianna sensed it and kept the scroll on the table for him to see it. However, before he could even read one sentence, the scroll combusted and was burnt to ashes within a second. The boy was shocked.

All students who had received the invite knew that even they would cross the first stage of the competition they would gain a place in ministry. But there were two students who were waiting to go as far as possible in the competition and stake claim to the throne. They wanted to defeat Adrianna at all costs.

Lile and Shay looked at Adrianna with narrow eyes.

Once the class was over, they all went to the potions class where Professor Lane taught them a potion that would make a person laugh the entire day.

When the class got over, Adrianna went to the notice board. She found too many students out there. As soon as she reached, the students who saw her immediately made way for her to see the board. She thanked them and moved forward. When she went there, she found a list of the top sixteen students was hanging there and the letters weren't even moving as they would for all other notices and the topmost was her name. With Nefasky out of the competition, Adrianna was naturally the topmost. Otherwise she would have shared the spot with Nefasky.

All students smiled at her and greeted her with awe. They were eager to see what was in store for the third stage.

Adrianna was reading the rules when in the end she read one thing that caught her off guard.

"The competition will be held in front of all the people of the wizard kingdom. Everyone in the wizard kingdom would be invited to watch it. It will be held in the grounds of the academy situated on the back side of the administrative block.

"

That ground was the biggest field in the academy, almost the size of five football fields. Adrianna became nervous. So many people would be spectators.

Obviously this only meant one thing – Isidorus wanted them all to see Adrianna climbing her way up.

But Adrianna doubted herself. She was scared that would she have to harm other wizards in order to climb the success ladder? She was not ready to do that and so she clenched her fists in nervousness and left the place. How could she harm more people in order to climb up? Was this justice? Was this the only way to prove that she was the most powerful?

Her head became heavy, as once again she started getting discouraged…