Pearl looked around nervously as she advanced in one direction. The terrain in that position is way too disadvantageous to her.

She decided to move in the direction of the vegetation.

Maybe she could find an environment with water nearby. As long as there is a water body, she would be much better off.

When she first saw all the snow around her, she thought she could use it to her advantage, but when she tried to manipulate the snow, this weird corrosion effect is increasing by many fold and it is much harder to resist in that state.

So, she could only do that in emergencies.

For the next two minutes, Pearl really thought she is having a better time, but all of a sudden, the ground under her feet gave away and she fell into a hole.

As she descended vertically downwards many ice spikes shot out of from all sides. She tried her best to dodge and block as many of them, but whenever a spike touched the water barrier, the barrier froze and she is losing the control over it.

When she tried to forcefully take back that control, she is once again being exposed to the excessive corrosive energy.

*BAM*

Pearl hit the hard surface with a loud noise. She looked at her own body and felt a sense of crisis. Her whole body is punctured with small holes done by the spikes and the holes themselves are not the problem.

She will heal soon enough.

The ice energy invading her body though, is going to be a problem. She is very tempted to down another vial of medicine, but she is afraid about what she will face in the coming time.

At that moment, the wall on he hear caved open and a large worm that looked eerily like an earthworm except for his snow white body came out. It tried to bit on Pearl's back and swallow her whole.

But Pearl reacted and created a crystallized water sphere around her, blocking it.

The area of contact between the worm and the sphere started freezing. Pearl thought quickly and broke another opening in the spear before she came out and the next moment, she launched all the water in the sphere into the mouth of that worm.

A single blast flooded through its mouth and in to its whole body, destroying everything that came in the way.

Pearl took the chance and flew out of the hole.

Now, she started levitating and didn't dare walk directly. Once again, she realized that levitating is leaving her a bit vulnerable to the weird corrosive energy. But she didn't care about it now. She couldn't afford to.

Since her senses are not working at a hundred percent, she had to do this.

After stabilizing herself a bit, Pearl looked around nervously and finally she saw a bunch of silhouettes closing in on her. Until now the trial is just starting, now she is going to get a real taste.

More than a dozen beasts of different kinds cornered her. Worms shot out of the ground and there are even some birds circling around.

She charged her water energy to the extreme and battle began.

She didn't pull any punches and tried to kill a beast within three hits at most. And it worked, because the beasts might be strong and smart, but they are not to the point they can kill a decent ranked person within the academy.

Pearl of course is more than just a decent ranker. She is one of the best.

The battle became brutal and in the middle she had to take the second vial right when she was ready to give up. Her body was way too beat up with the ice energy and the atmosphere corrosion.

And to her unpleasant surprise, even though the energy poisoning of the ice element was gone, the corrosion effect is not completely taken away. She had to fight at her not so optimum state.

The beasts swarmed her and soon Pearl couldn't take it. Slowly she gave up and by the end of it, her whole body is covered with beasts as they tore her apart. She lost her senses in the middle as her whole body went numb with ice energy.

Pearl was kicked out of the simulation room.

She is exhausted, but she mustered enough strength to take a look at the board to check her results. She survived for a long time in there and she hoped she scored well.

And when she saw the results, her jaw almost dropped to the floor.

Her name is in sixth place.

It might have been a great honor for a lot of other people, but for her, it is a disgrace. She was born to rule this era. It is her era and the glory should be hers, but now, she is sixth ranked in the preliminaries.

She looked at the remaining five people.

The fifth place actually belonged to a different academy student who is on her list.

Fourth place belonged to Five Elemental King.

Third went for Vidyut, second went for White and first place is obviously Sam's.

Vidyut and White hurriedly ran towards her.

"Use three are in top sixteen as expected. Apart from us, there are three more people in the top sixteen that belongs to our academy.

Two of them belong to the Noble League and another one is a marked candidate on our list. The rest of our academy students didn't perform that well. But still the situation is a bit favorable to our academy since we have the highest number of people in the top sixteen.

"

Pearl didn't show any change in her expression.

She just looked at Vidyut who is giving her the report and pursed her lips. Just a few days ago, she beat him in the tower ascension rankings. She was only second to Sam.

But now both Vidyut and White beat her and the competition is not close because there are two more people ranked between them. Separating them.

She is afraid that things would go bad if they continued like this.

After all, subordinates only listen to people who are stronger than them. Pearl has to solidify her position as the leader with significant combat ability and then her brains to command them and strategize.

Now her combat prowess is slowly being overshadowed.

If this continues it is only a matter of time her suggestions on combat wouldn't be taken seriously.

Then she remembered what Five elemental king said.

Her strong suit, which is the strategy also has huge gaping holes. One of the target not only found out he is being observed and analyzed, he knows what purpose he was being analyzed for, who is analyzing him and who is passing the orders.

Pearl felt like breaking down.

Her mind is a mess and she wanted to pull her hair and scream out.

But she controlled herself and went into meditation on the spot.

"The preliminaries are over. The top sixteen tournament will soon start. All the contestants are requested to recover as much as they can.

If you are unable to participate to the full extent in the next round, it is not our academy's responsibility.

"

Everyone went to rest.

The next part of the tournament is going to be in the Apollo academy grounds and this time the format is no secret. Because most of the time all the academies follow the same format for this round and it has been same for a while now.

Late in the afternoon.

Everyone gathered at the special arena prepared for this tournament.

All the participating candidates, even the ones that were eliminated in the preliminary round are given spectator seats.

Apart from that, there are a bunch of other spectators including the seniors in the Apollo academy, seniors from other academies, instructors from this and other academies etc.

The arena is shaped in a different way.

There is a large square in the middle which seemed like the main arena. It is big enough for fighting for anyone.

And there are two paths to this arena. These paths are connected to two different squares individually.

These squares a bit smaller, but they are good enough for a fight as well. These two squares have two more paths each and each of these paths are connected to their respective square and the same thing repeated again.

This is what they call the four layer arena.

The fourth or the outermost layer has eight rings. Each ring will have two participants each, perfect for all sixteen candidates. Eight fights will simultaneously go on. The winners of these fights will move on to the third layer which has four rings.

Four fights in third layer and winners will be four people. They will enter the second layer where two fights will happen in two rings and finally the first layer the single arena where the last two finalists will fight.

Apart from this there are a couple of more twists within the rules of this tournament.