Chapter 104:

"Good morning sir.", the light British accent of Alfred's voice greeted him as he walked into the kitchen, having already completed his exercise, and taken a shower.

"Morning, anything you can tell me?", Ace asked, he was curious as to whether Alfred had been able to find something overnight.

"Sorry sir, there are a few things I did find, but I also have a few suspicions, let me work on it today, and by the time you come home from school, I should have a complete file. My recommendation, for now, is to not engage freely, if they come to you, be polite, and let them know that you will visit them at some point, just not now.", Ace always took his recommendations to heart, and this would be no different. Alfred was able to run tons of calculations and simulations within seconds, nothing Ace could get close to. This meant that Ace would at least consider what was said, since it could potentially save his life.

He ate some breakfast, conversing with Alfred about hard word puzzles, and various tactics to solve them. He would be going to Vienna in a few days, and wanted to be ready for anything they could throw at him. He knew he would be - and he was, and yet, his way of doing things was to outdo everyone else, so that was his goal.

His teacher had kept on sending him puzzles every week, and while they got harder, for Ace it was a breeze to solve them, they would usually not take him longer than a few minutes. He would have to speak with him about that, requesting him to send the hardest puzzles there has ever been on an exam. He was curious as to what level they were expecting, and it would give him an idea as to what to prepare for.

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The day was a calm one, Ace went from class to class, and spent time with his Noxia in each of them. Kristina had made it to Rank 1 for every single class, and her teachers were amazed at her progress. They had all congratulated her when they found out, and she had thanked Ace once they were alone, "Thank you for all the outlines, I really mean it, without them, I would have been swamped in work, and probably too confused to figure out a way to learn it."

"Of course, it was my pleasure, it took nothing from me, and at the end of the day, it was your hard work that paid off."

She looked at him smilingly, and they then went their own ways, Ace excited to get home.

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"Ok, what did you find?", Ace asked, he was genuinely curious now, and wondered why it had taken so long.

"Well, before we begin I would like to explain something, it was not so much that the information was hidden extremely well, which it was, but not to the level of Rache's. It was simply the fact that there was a lot of it to sort through, and I had to compare and sort it, in order to make it comprehensible. Furthermore, I found a multitude of crumbs all over forums and the internet in general, I just simply had to work through it, and piece it together.", he took a pause, most likely waiting for Ace to finish changing into some comfortable clothes, and get to the computer room where he could review the file.

"Ok, so, as you can see, the file is pretty thick, a lot of it is just junk, but I kept it as it could be potentially useful."

"Cool.", Ace read through the file at breakneck speeds, memorizing it, and then deleting it once he had finished, it would now only be stored in Alfred's memory, a secure place, no one would be able to find.

Ace kept seated, and wondered exactly what they were hoping to achieve, with letting him know all this information, he could not believe for a second that they did not have the skillset or connections required to delete it or hide it better. The only reason would, therefore, be that they wanted him to know.

Secondly, Ace would have to ask the Abyss Group about this, Ace wondered if they had also met them, and if they had, what was it that stopped them from joining?

From what they could come up with, it seemed to be an institution created to teach kids that were immeasurable in a certain manner. Whether that be IQ, EQ, or any other skills they looked for. They mostly focused on potential, and helping the students form a web of connections with future geniuses from around the world.

Up to there, all was good, however, what was interesting was the fact that once they went into the institution, they had never been spotted before, this was something that Alfred had pieced by himself. He had checked CCTV cameras around the world, in a way only a supercomputer could, and he had not found a single student caught in one. This meant one of two things, they either kept them for experiments, or kept them working for whatever shady business they were a part of underground, where no one could find them.

Both seemed ridiculous, since a lot of these people had their own personal goals, especially when they knew that they had the abilities to carry them out. For this reason, it was almost inconceivable that all of them would agree. The question was, did they? Or were they forced? Or was it a choice between working and dying?

Whatever it was, Ace was curious to find out, and he would deploy all he had to do so, even himself.

To begin with, he called his grandmother, informing her of this, and asking as a favour what she could find out. Secondly, he set up a few insect-sized recon drones around where the school supposedly was, keeping them for recon.

He would go in, but before he did so, he wanted to find out all the details, and at least ensure a minimum of safety and security, so that hopefully nothing would happen to him.

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"So, Ace, as the sole contestant for this school, I hope that you are ready. Three is only one contestant allowed per school, which means that we are placing all our trust in you. I am in charge of the tournament - of course, however, some people were less than happy at the fact that you seem to be hogging all the spots.", he smiled slightly at that.

"Honestly, I don't care, the only reason I am doing this, and you know it. Is because I will have an excuse to travel to Vienna, and meet interesting people from around the world. The tournament is secondary, but I still plan to win it.", Ace said with as much conviction as he could muster - which was a lot, enough to ensure that the teacher would have full confidence in his abilities, and would not have a problem with him coming back at unholy hours in the night, back from midnight tourism, or meeting the many friends he was sure to make.

"Is there anything you wish to set up? Such as a challenge, and they will have to do better than me to take my spot?", Ace questioned, wondering as to what the end goal was.

"No, I stick by my decisions, I only wanted to let you know that this is a cherished spot, and if you do not work for it, you may not get it next year…", he said, slightly ominously.

"Cool.", Ace said, and walked out of the room.

He knew there would be 500 contestants, the school usually placed within the top 200, but these last years, it had done better than expected, simply due to one person, one who had finished school last year. He had managed to finish top 50 on his last tournament, which was a great position, considering the school had no dedicated lesson for puzzles, and it was all based on a student's interest.

'That's easy, all I have to do is come first, then, I should be ok for the next few tournaments.'