The formation competition is over.

Sam took the championship for it and his presence disrupted the plans and preparations of many academies. While he left the academy without any care for it, the said academies' representatives that came to the tournament are sending news back to their respective academies.

The most shaken are the Viswa Karma academy, Hel Academy and Hephaestus academy.

In the Hephaestus academy camp.

All the students from various grades are gathered. The Elder looked at the representative leader of the fourth grade students, who is kind of the highest authority among the students.

"I want you to help me plan the rest of the competitions so that our scores will sustain. Initially we at least expected a third place from the formation competition in the second grade.

However, we are dropped to fourth because of Sam.

If I had known, I wouldn't have made Deals with the Viswa Karma academy and the Hel academy. Sam just pushed all the ranks down. That will create a deficit of points in overall ranking strategy.

Which are the competitions that we can strive for some improvement?

"

The Elder asked calmly. Even though he is shook by the unexpected loss they suffered, he is still composed.

He knew that this is not the time for losing his **. That is the reason that he is even here, instead of some relatively younger elder. With his seniority, this job is a bit too below his paygrade.

"Elder, our initial requirement from the second grades are relatively low compared to the other two grades. We know that many of our second grade students have suffered losses due to the Flaming skull situation.

So, we didn't put too much pressure on them. However, whatever small requirements they have... they are essential in the end.

Now with this deficit, it will be hard to expect recovery from the competitions of other grades.

"

"Then, what do you suggest? You are not suggesting that we just let the situation be, right?

"

"Of course not. I just think we need to recover this in the second grade competitions only. Since the initial expectations itself are low, any relative improvement will have significant impact on the overall grade.

If we can improve slightly in every other competition, I believe we will be able to recover this deficit.

"

The Elder looked at the scroll spread on the table while thinking over the student's words.

There are several numbers and details written on the scroll. It is basically, a report of sorts on how many points each competition can bring them based on the position attained. This is not actually an official criteria.

This is what the academies speculated after years and years of the experience in these tournaments.

You can consider the first place in each auxiliary competition counts as ten points, while the combat competitions have twenty.

Each position in the competition of course holds some points and in this second grade formation competition, the Hephaestus academy wanted to have eight points at least. Now, with Sam's intervention they dropped to fourth place, which is only seven points.

Even though these are not the official points and they cannot be sure about it, they really did expect that they needed that extra one point to at least stay in the same rank as they did now. The worst part for them is that the Hephaestus academy is not known for the combat prowess.

Formations, inscriptions, puppet making and weapon making are their forte. For the second grade students they reduced their requirements in other competitions to very low and hoped that they would score decently in these three.

Now, they have to recover it.

But in what competition could they do it?

In combat, half of the Olympian academies already dominate it. Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, Athena all of these academies are already having high hopes for this.

Then, there are skills like painting, music, medicine making, healing, etc.

They can't do ** in these. However, they are still hoping to get a quarter of a point which is what they get for crossing the first round of prelims and entering the second round.

Now, to cover this one point loss, either they have to quadruple the second round entries or enter the finals.

And this problem is not just the situation in the Hephaestus academy camp.

The Hel academy, Viswa Karma academy are all dealing with similar situation. Of course, this is also not new this year. Every year something like this always happens and they always have to improvise their plan.

But this year is extremely bitter because the person who caused this upset is Sam.

Meanwhile, the Gamble academy side situation is much more lively.

Chorus understood the advantage their academy is in. Even though the Gambler academy is not exactly known to focus too much on the rankings, they do have condition that everyone at that academy abide by.

That their academy should always stay in top 100 and should not leave the rankings of the Divine Academies.

However, even with that condition, they don't go around making alliances and plans. Every department just focuses and performs well to get as many points as they can and win. Their performance wouldn't be too great, but it would be decently remarkable nonetheless.

Every year, in the second grade competitions, they only get around third to sixth places in almost every competition.

So, Chorus who is in charge of handling everything related to the competition is surprised by the sudden victory of Sam. He didn't expect it. On top of that, there is also another person from Gambler academy in the formation rankings.

He ranked eighth. Not too high. But it is still three points. So, just this contest got them

thirteen points.

The students of course, are delighted. After all, they cannot be as detached as their elders, can they? They behaved like there was never any bad blood between them and Sam and cheered happily. The seniors got some added motivation. After all, they cannot do worse than their

own juniors.

Just like that the formation competition for second graders closed the door and led to the competition of inscriptions, the very next day.

While everyone is still trying to get over how messed up their plans became, Sam came back to this competition with a wide toothy grin.

Because he just completed another mission condition in the list. He won the first place in formation competition. Apart from that, there is another condition that he believed that he surely fulfilled. Contributing in increasing the academy ranking.

Even without Sam's involvement, the Gambler academy has always been capable of sustaining its ranking. And with his sudden contribution of points, which are extra, it couldn't get any better. Once the final calculations are done, this would be finished as well. Since he didn't have too many expectations on the competition itself, he got a great haul.

The original goal was to increase the conflicts and from the looks of it, performing well is enough to do that. So, Sam just decided to stick with the flow and achieve what he wanted. With those thoughts he is cheerfully in the inscription competition.

The first round of preliminaries once again took place in the same open-air auditorium. Similar tables are placed in front of them. The competition is also very similar.

"You have one hour to inscribe the whole table. The stone slap part of the table will be attacked by the elders with each attack increasing in its power. The longer the stone stays

intact the better.

The inscription could be of any kind. You can even inscribe the formations if you are capable of it. But you only have one hour. The longer to your formation stays the higher your rank will

be in prelims.

Your time starts now.

"

Sam felt like he had a dejavu.

He took out his inscription pen. It is not the one he got from inheritance of Murali back in Desolate, neither is it some kind of divine weapon. It is one of the tools invented in the Dusk organization. Students of the academy did it.

And it is a collaboration between the formation department, inscription department and the artisan department, which is more into the way of engineering than the traditional methods

of this world.

This inscription pen is eerily similar to a normal pen in the modern world. Except, it has multiple cartridges inside, which allow the wielder to host as many inscription inks prefilled

as possible.

With just intent, they can decide which ink comes out of the nib and they can also decide the side of the nib, just with the intent. It also has a small energy reservoir within that helps the wielder not stress about running out of energy.

The highlight of it is that it records the pattern in which the inscription is done, which could later be shown in a projection.

It is a hot commodity in the markets Dusk is active in and way too convenient. Sam started drawing the inscription with the pen. Looking at him, not preparing any material or instruments, not even planning or marking anything beforehand, everyone is surprised. Sam just acted like he is doodling on a desk like a bored student and within ten minutes, he is done.