Chapter 113:

As it had been happening for the past week, Ace made his way to the main hall, where he found about 30 people waiting already. He waited and a few more came. The numbers had dropped again, and this should be the last day of tests before the finals, which should most likely be quite crazy.

"Good morning to everyone!", he looked at the crowd, and smiled, "We have even fewer people now! Now, if you have gotten this far, you should be truly proud, you are the best of the best, the brightest of your generation, at least when it gets to puzzles.", he made a small pause, and Ace could cut the atmosphere in the room with a butter knife.

Everyone's nervousness and excitement were clear, all people were thinking about now was what would come now, and whether they would be able to make it through to the next round. Some of these people had gotten to this round by luck, and they knew that they would most likely not make it to the next one. Regardless, they would still give it their all, and pray for another miracle.

"So, I will explain what will happen. Before I see any more, however, I will give a warning. This will be completely unfair, and our goal with this is to get as low a number of people through as possible.", he paused, and continued, "Throughout the tournament, you have been ranked, according to how well you have performed in all the various puzzles, and how far you have made it, etc…", another pause, and this time, Ace heard some muttering.

"In this test, you will be taken to a room, and given one puzzle to solve, everyone will have the same one, and you will have a limit of three hours to solve it, the higher ranked you are, the more bonus time you will be given, my heart hopes that none of you need it, but my mind understands that you will. Regardless, good luck, I hope the best of you can make it.", he walked out of the hall, and then attendants came to lead each one of the people there into separate rooms.

***

'Well, he's definitely ruthless.', Ace thought, he had just solved the puzzle, and walked out of the room, taking the elevator to his room, going up to tell Edward the good news, 'Hopefully, he won't be asleep'.

All the while, he thought over the puzzle, it had been a really cruel choice. It was an assimilation thief, which basically meant that they would have to sort and filter a large amount of information that would give them clues on how to solve it. The actual puzzle was not very hard to solve, but there was such a great amount of information to go through, that most of them would not even have time to do so. 'I guess that was why it was such a big advantage, even if you are good at puzzles, you will probably need some time to go through all of it.'

***

"Hey! Edward! Wake up!", Ace shouted, laughing as he thought about the seemingly strict and prim professor he thought he knew. Someone who really was a night owl, who preferred to sleep through daylight, waking up to play some chess and do a few puzzles.

'Class must be seriously hard for him.', Ace thought, 'Regardless, he is a good person, and is amazing at his job, which is more than enough for me.'

Edward came out of his room rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, "Everything go well?", he asked.

"Yeah, I should be able to make it all the way to the finals at least.", Ace said, and Edward smiled, "Good, it seems I made the correct choice. I should inform the school, should I tell them you won already?"

"They probably won't like it if you feed them false information, but do let them know that I should be able to win this pretty easily.", Ace said, smiling, and Edward laughed out loudly. "If only they heard you talk, it would be priceless, they would have you running the full tournament circuit during your next four years, and simply allow you to graduate Rank 1 in your year group. In fact, I would bet that they will soon try something similar, considering your track record in all the competitions you have participated in.", Edward said, and Ace nodded.

"I do not mind doing them honestly, they are interesting and pretty fun, plus, they rack me quite a few points, and I can experience new things or meet new people.", Ace paused as if he had just remembered something, "As a matter of a fact, now that we are talking about friends, I am going out with them, but I should be back early since I agreed to go to a party, hopefully, it won't be lame.", he walked into his room, getting changed and a few minutes later leaving through the main lobby.

He saw a few people wanting to speak to him, but he ignored them, if they came up to talk to him, then he was fine with that, but he would not just wait for them to grow a pair. He had accorded with his friends to meet in a pretty famous statue, they told him that they would give him a tour of some of the more conventional parts of the city, but would do so while skating. It would be faster than walking, and they could always go back to the park if they got tired or bored.

They took him around the city, and they saw the various parts, each with their own pros and cons. They showed him what only locals could, and ended up eating at the house of one of the girl's. She lived on the way, and they ended up having a massive barbecue. Her parents were not home, which meant that there were no issues. Ace did not think there would be any anyway, they had all done this before, and the parents of the kids were also friends, which meant that it was easier for a large group to meet up. Furthermore, they all knew why Ace was in the city, and the moment they told the parents, the idea of him being some evil-doer would instantly be eliminated.

All of this and more cleared Ace of his worries, they made no motion to drink or smoke, which was appreciated, and they ended up watching a movie in a room that had a projector. It was slightly small for that many people, but that just made the experience more fun. They all piled up like sardines, which created a lot of laughs and opportunities for comedy.

They spent the afternoon there, and accompanied Ace back to the hotel once it was time for him to get ready for the party. He would have rather not go, but he had promised, and had no intention of going back on his word. Plus, he would have some more time tomorrow.

He took a shower, and put on a light blue shirt with some faded blue jeans and white sneakers. He then made his way down to the hall where he had been told to go to. It was 8:23, but that was fine, he was not heavily invested into this party anyways, and would most likely leave first chance he got regardless. All he hoped for was that the food was good, at least that way he would not lose too much time. If it wasn't, then he would just get some room service once he went up to his room.

He opened the door to the hall, after some men at the entrance checked the guest list. Ace got a look at it, and it seemed that there were about 200 people coming, knowing how these kind of people worked, then it would most likely be the top rankers in the Tournament, these people had nothing better to do than nitpick and exclude each other when they could anyways.

'Bunch of snakes', Ace thought, reaching a quick conclusion on what to expect, 'I swear if they try anything…'