The two contestants

The girl gave the eight of us numbers from one to eight and then used a lottery wheel to pick us some papers with numbers that indicated our opponent. 

I and the boy who woke me up were with some random dudes and the other two matches were two aristocrats versus two common folks.

Needless to say that the first two matches finished instantly as none of the two wanted to fight against someone with such a great background so they just surrendered. Which made everyone unpleasant as they wanted to see a good fight.

Well, maybe they will have the same experience with my fight too as I want to finish it quickly. Though I don't know about the red haired boy's fight.

And it seems that our examiner was also unsatisfied from those two fights so much that she requested one hour time out for the participants to reset a bit. 

I guess that's in the hope of her seeing an interesting fight. 

Well she ain't gonna see something interesting from me just yet.

I left from there and decided to take a walk around the town. But how could I have guessed that my time wasn't meant to be peaceful.

That red haired boy saw me while I was leaving and followed me everywhere I went.

And not only that, but he was also extremely annoying. He didn't stop talking even for a second.

But to tell the truth I wasn't really listening to him so I don't know what he was talking about all this time. I was just focused on exploring the town, which, I'm not gonna lie, was beautiful.

Except for the fact that the prices there were too high. I couldn't even buy a single meal for myself.

Luckily that red haired boy had some sympathy and bought me one. And with that I owe him a favour.

We sat on a table and I started eating, but he kept staring at me.

"So, why don't you tell me why you seem so interested in me?"

"How can you eat with the mask on? Why don't you take it out?"

"If I take it out something bad will happen. And don't try to evade the question, tell me why you're so interested in me?"

"I just want to be friends with someone who's strong."

"And how do you know that I'm strong?"

"I mean, you were standing on the formation for a long time. And I also have the ability to sense someone's aura."

"Excuse me, what the fuck?"

"As I said I can sense someone's aura, which helps me if I want to see how strong one is or if they have some sort of killing intent."

"But you can clearly understand if someone has a killing intent."

"Only if they don't hide it."

Ah right, I forgot about that. I can sense everyone's intentions whether they want it or not and if they are lying or telling the truth.

"I see, so how does this aura sensing thing work?"

"Every person's aura has a different colour depending on their cultivation, skills and techniques. For example someone who's a rookie in cultivation has dark orange aura colour."

"You have decided it into stages?"

"Yep, it goes from orange to blue, to green, to red, to yellow and in the end it's golden. And all of them are divided into three stages, dark, mid and light, with the dark being on the bottom and the light on the top."

"I see. But how did you manage to make this sequence?"

"My father was a merchant so I traveled a lot and saw a lot of cultivators throughout my trips."

"So, what's my colour?"

"Yours is a bit unique I could say the least. It's pitch black."

"And what does that mean? I'm sure that there wasn't any colour like that in your list."

"Exactly, I have no idea what this means, that's why I want to stick with you to find out. But one thing's for sure, it's not a weak colour seeing how you did in the test."

"Well, that's good to hear, but I think we should get back. The time has almost come."

"Oh, right, let's go."

We both departed from the small restaurant and headed towards the examination stage.

But while we were crossing the roads I saw in an alley holding a girl by her hands probably without her consent as she was trying to break free from his grip.

"Hey… what's your name again?"

"Ah, right I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Cher."

Cher? Weird name, not gonna lie.

"And my name is Homare, nice to meet you. Now, back to what I was saying."

I grabbed him by his shoulders and pointed at the alley.

"What do you think? Should we go and help?"

"Of course we should, what are you talking about?"

"Look closer and tell me if he reminds you of someone."

"Wait, isn't he one of the contestants?"

"Exactly, so we don't have many options. Either we go and help the girl by beating him and get disqualified from the exam or we keep going without helping her. What do you choose?"

He took one last stare at the incident and sighed saying "You're right, it's better to not help. If we get disqualified this bastard will get into the sect."

"Hey, hey, why are you like that? I never said that there are only two options."

"But you only gave me two."

"I wanted to see which one you will choose. Anyway, the third option is to knock him unconscious without being noticed."

"And how will we do that? He has progressed to the final phase of the exam, that means that he is really capable."

"But you forgot one thing. My aura is black coloured. Let me show you what it stands for." I said and took a step forward.

And as a maxed level cultivator my speed is unparalleled so in a blink of an eye I appeared behind him and hit him in the back of his neck, making him collapse to the ground.

I turned to the terrified girl in front of me and asked her if she was okay.

"Y-yes, thank you miss." She replied and fled from the scene.

"Miss? When did I change my gender?"

"Probably when you made your hair long and your voice similar to a girl's." Cher said laughing while walking towards me.

"Hey, it's not my fault that my voice is like that."

That fucking Hades, the mask he gave me has voice altering properties. I'm pretty sure he did it on purpose. And now I'm stuck with this voice for the rest of my life. God damn.

"Yea, yea, whatever you say… young lady." Cher said and burst into laughter.

"I would give you a beating right now, but we don't have much time for that. The exam starts soon. Get a move on."

"Ah, right, right." He replied while wiping the tears from his cheeks.

Thus we both managed to get to the exam just in time.

And it seems that the guy from before had regained his consciousness because I saw him coming running to the stage.

That's because I had put the appropriate power in my blow to make sure that he would have up in time for the tournament.

Well, I wouldn't want to lose my opportunity to beat him live on stage, would I?