He realized then that his train of thought might have been planned out. It is just like the sage to present a problem to him and also give him a way out. It is so that he will have to do what the sage wants if he wants more law of order. And in this case, for some weird reason, the sage wants him to win this competition. He doesn't know why the sage will care so much about some Unified Skill Index that will be held every 10,000 years.
It is strange that the sage will care about the competition enough to offer Soverick some of his law of order even if this competition is the first of its kind. It was then that he became suspicious of the competition but he has not been able to figure out what is unique about the competition. He is unwilling to be led around by his nose through the promise of more knowledge but he certainly doesn't have a choice.