22

205th World Winter Tournament

Day 2.

Her students survived the preliminaries of mind test and got in the second round which would proceed today. After talking to Quin, she already mentioned that the amemodites would be given this evening as her second brother would be travelling using the Agillon who had the fastest flying speed.

At the moment, the host announced the names that would be participating on this round.

"Lerrent, Han, Rye, Liu Zhe, Wei Yun, Li Zeming, Seong Jin, Lee, Hanyoo, Via, Detrix, Ades."

"This is a group match and the called names came from four continents which were TwinCity, Greatworld, Xenun and Wezzerborn."

The host continued and stated that in every continents had three representing players. This players had roles which were the King, the Knight and the Queen. The knight protects the queen, the queen protects the king and both of them was under the command of the king. As the king was a vulnerable role that needed the protection of the queen while the knight could deal the king but it has no protection towards the move of the queen and the queen could be dealt by the king.

The mechanics of the game was, they needed to possessed the flag of an opposing party in order to colonized them or take over their territory. Whoever has taken over many territories and the last group standing within the time duration of thirty minutes is the winner of the game.

"The title of this game is Chess Players, compounded by our one and only Imperial Strategist Lin with the help of his assistant, Sera."

The said assistant was by the side of Lin, with his blank face and uninterested look. Sera was rumoured to be the next in line strategist as he was an apprentice of Lin.

"Right. Don't forget to protect your king because the king is the most precious piece." The host reminded with his cheery smile.

Chun with her four students who were not called bid their good luck towards the three as they walked to the simulation room for the game to activate with the other called students.

-----

Twelve students went in the simulation room and without any signal, they were immediately transferred to the game setting.

"Players' data loaded."

A mechanical voice stated as each of them were transferred to their own tower. The towers were ten feet high and on the top of it were flags. The four towers were facing each other but they were thirty meters apart and it could be seen each of the opposing parties' flag, the flags were color coded as the Wezzerborn students flag was orange, the Xenun was red, Greatworld was green and TwinCity was blue.

Lerrent and his two classmates was on the top of the tower as the center was their erected blue flag being fluttered by the wind. Near the flag was three chess pieces that represented the king, queen and knight in order for the players to not cheat with their roles.

Analyzing the game, it was complicated as it has many difficulties to it. First was they needed to guess who was the king, queen and knight on each opposing groups in order to prevent their losses. Second, they need to plan on how to overtake the opponents' flags and third was guarding their flag.

"Isn't this a bit too difficult in many angles?" Han said and continued, "Who will be guarding the flag? I can only volunteer myself to steal their flags but I cannot fight with them as I have no idea with their roles."

"You're right. Lerrent, do you have any idea to this game?"

The silent guy Rye unexpectedly stated a sentence more than five words that made Han a bit surprised while Lerrent did not found it surprising as he was busy thinking and with his hands playing with the three chess pieces.

"Clues…"

Suddenly an idea came in to his mind.

-----

In another tower with a red flag, Lee gathered his two members and discussed their plan.

He gave Seong Jin the knight piece and Hanyoo the queen piece as he had the king.

"Lee, I prefer that I would be the king because you know from just your aura already, they would know that you are the king." Seong Jin said and the only girl Hanyoo on their party agreed.

"Alright, that's a nice idea."

They swapped their pieces. Now Seong Jin was the king and Lee was the knight.

"So how do we proceed?" Hanyoo said as she pocketed her queen piece.

As their leader, Lee was acknowledged to be the one to plan their ways on taking over the flags.

"The main priority is to protect the flag but first we need to identify the roles of the opposing parties."

"Yes. I had a gist that in the Wezzerborn team, their king would be that arrogant looking Via, Ades would be the queen and Detrix would be their knight."

"Right, but they were all martial practitioners even though they were on the Median realm Nascent stage, we can't handle them knowing that we only have me as a martial practitioner in the same realm and stage as them." Lee explained.

The mini games for mental capacity were not restricted on martial practitioners so it's not unexpected to be matched up with cultivators.

The two agreed on his opinion and Hanyoo then uttered, "So we will take out first those TwinCity team, you know that all of them has no talent in cultivation."

"Really? Where did you heard it?" Seong Jin asked.

"Duh. It's famous in this institution, that the Minds were all talentless students."

"Aye, stop yapping there, you have no talent too at cultivation," Lee reprimanded Hanyoo that made the girl red in embarrassment.

They proceeded on their planning and decided to take down first Lerrent's group.

All of the three groups had the same idea of taking down first the TwinCity team as they were all weak.

The students on the tower with green flag was observing Lerrent's group using a binoculars that they found on their tower.

Li Zeming was looking through the binoculars as he cannot manipulate the qi energy that only cultivators in Late Realm could do. Waiting for the opposing party to take action in order for them to move too.

"Captain! They are moving now, that geek guy is out of the tower."

He was referring to Rye who went out as Lerrent ordered him.

"Let's move then." Liu Zhe stated and Li Zeming was left to guard the flag.

"Wait, captain! There's no one guarding their flag?!"

The alarmed Li Zeming exclaimed while looking through again the binoculars.

"Are they dumb? But that's good," Liu Zhe then nodded at Wei Yun, signalling him that they must move now.

At the same time, the other two parties were dumbfounded by this situation while observing the TwinCity team.

"Let's go!" Via commanded.

Her and Ades went out too.

As the three teams went out with one of their members left to guard their flag. They met at the intersection of the towers and suddenly the ground that transformed into grids like in the chessboard and a mechanical voice stated out of nowhere.

This was the moderator of the game.

"Due to a simultaneous encounter, the player's board is now activated. Each teams needs to pick a player to move in order to defeat their opponents in ten seconds, not moving will nullify the team's participation when the time is up."

The mechanical voice counted down from ten to one and each of the three teams had a member step forward.

Via for the Wezzerborn (orange), Wei Yun for the Greatworld (green) and Hanyoo for the Xenun (red).

"The data is now being analyzed."

"3…2..1"

"Completed. The green team is annihilated by the red team. The red team is dealt by the orange team and at same time the green team achieved the complete annihilation towards the orange team, earning them the orange team's flag."

While they sacrificed a piece, Liu Zhe's team earned a flag. The orange flag was directly transferred at their tower as Li Zeming cheered on his team.

The annihilated team members was immediately moved out the simulation.

"Three teams remaining. The red team had two players left, the green team had two players left and the blue team had three players left."

As they heard that, they suddenly realized their true agenda.

"The player's board is now deactivated." The mechanical voice stated and the grid lines disappeared while it transferred the remaining players back to their towers.

"Isn't this a bit too unfair? The TwinCity wastes did not participate and had their complete members intact," Seong Jin clamored to Lee.

"Well that's fortunate for them. Did you monitored their movements?"

"Yes. That curly haired boy who had that sleepy look was back."

"Tsk. We missed the opportunity."

In the green team's side.

"Captain, are you not moving out?" Li Zeming asked to Liu Zhen.

The latter replied, "As the queen, you need to protect the king so you move out."

"Eh?"

"Other than protecting the flag, protecting the king is same as protecting the flag. The orange team was completely annihilated for their mistake on moving out their king and that was the trap to it. Luckily, Wei Yun volunteered to make a move so his sacrificed was not in vain."

"Then about the blue team?"

"They already figured that out so they did not move their king and did not move at the same time with us to avoid the trigger of the moderator."

"Eh?! They're that smart?"

Liu Zhe smirked at the dumbfounded expression of his team member's face.

"They are not called Minds if they did not figured that out and they have Lerrent on their team."

"Lerrent? That reputed genius in Phoenix continent. Why is he on the TwinCity continent?"

"That is I don't know."

The team of Lee decided first to evaluate the youth who was left guarding the blue flag.

Ting!

"10 minutes left. Players are pressured to make an encounter, if no one moves then the game will end in a draw and all participating teams will be eliminated in the tournament."

Knowing the moderator's point that they will be eliminated not only on this game but in the tournament, too so they did not hesitate to move out.

Han suddenly appeared infront of their tower, Li Zeming from the green team and Lee for the red team.

"The player's board is activated. Initializing the pieces…3, 2, 1."

"Initializing completed. Both the green team and blue team annihilated the red team. The green team and blue team had a draw, giving the two teams to have a showdown of external force to decide the annihilation of only one team."

Even Han wanted to fight the green team's member, he easily accepted his defeat and looked towards Lerrent.

"Three teams remaining. The red team had one player left, the green team had two players left and the blue team had two players left."

Han then nodded his head at the other as Lerrent nodded back. The former was sent out from the simulation.

"The player's board is now deactivated."

Seong Jin cursed his misfortune and decided to not move from the tower.

After being transferred back their tower, Li Zeming seized the opportunity to overtake the red team's flag but he was stopped by Liu Zhe.

"You will be dealt by the king. I will move out."

"But the blue team has their knight out!"

"I will be careful."

Liu Zhe used his skill as he manipulated his qi energy to distort his body and teleported to the red team's tower. Li Zeming almost forgot that the captain was a Late realm martial practitioner and the game did not prohibits on using skills.

Seong Jin did not resist and hand over the red flag to Liu Zhe knowing that it's not possible to defeat this king. As part of the game, if they got a draw then they needed external force on seizing the flag. And the former was not a cultivator so he had no chance to win against the latter.

"The green team had taken over the red team's flag. The green team had a total of two territories being taken over. Two teams remaining." The mechanical voice resounded.

"Then the blue team is next."

Liu Zhe teleported infront of Lerrent that made the sloth young man a bit startled yet he was still lying on the ground beside the blue flag.

"Surrender the flag or I will be force to hurt you."

The being threatened Lerrent chuckled and stood up while raising both of his hands in a surrendering manner but a chess piece suddenly rolled out from it, it was a knight chess piece.

"You lost."

At same time the mechanical voice announced.

"The blue team completely annihilated the green team. They overtook three territories."

"The blue team wins the game."

A surprise looked was etched on Liu Zhe's face as he turned to their tower, he used the qi energy to zoom his vision. Li Zeming was in a surrendering position infront of Rye.