The young fairy flew out of his unconscious body at a time earlier than what he had asked, she turned her head west of her as if searching for something and then back at Emrys, her gaze turned apologetic for a second as she steeled herself and flew towards that direction. It didn't take long, just a blink and she was already right before Hope who was wide eyed looking at her.

"A fairy" she spoke, her voice almost a whisper.

Aine smiled as she put her hand forward as if waiting for something, Hope recognizing the gesture hurriedly placed her hands against that of young fairy's. She looked excited and amazed, almost like a child and seeing this elicited a giggle out of Aine who began pushing a bit of her mana into Hope's body which startled her for a bit but sensing no danger she closed her eyes and allowed the young fairy to do as she pleased. Aine made preparations to control every bit of the process lest they cause an extraordinary disturbance to the world like on that day, once settled she continued pushing her mana through Hope.

As the Mana flowed through her body began responding to the familiar presence, the young fairy went far as even sending the mana through the very depths of her soul and blood then finally her core. Hope's body turned boiling hot as the floral patterns around her body from the neck down gained a faint luminescent glow of blue as did her starry golden eyes, she felt a new world of power open itself to her and a mana so playful, divine and serene. A was a sharp contrast to the effect of her other half which could only depended described as stubborn and divine violence. Her core underwent a great change to accustom the new flow of mana and her pathways got rewritten down to her very soul all just to create a beautiful and controlled chaos.

Upon opening her eyes she found the young fairy gone, her presence couldn't be felt anywhere around her either which saddened her a bit but something told her it wasn't anywhere near close to being the last time she'd meet her, with that thought in mind Hope smiled and continued on her way to rest after having dealt with her last target.

Meanwhile Aine had returned to meet Emrys awake and waiting patiently for her, she wasted no time in surrendering herself to the incoming scolding from him but to her surprise all he did was give her a little pat on the head.

She looked up to meet his eyes surprised at the treatment and he just smiled understanding full well her confusion-

"I understand why you did it".

"Would have asked the same of you had I discovered her condition later on".

"It's a tasteless thing battling anyone not at their best".

She smiled and began jumping around all jolly and he could not help in enjoying the childish display while lamenting a bit in his head-

'Oh deary me, I only planned on having a draw with her before but now that's going to be so much more difficult'.

'Ah well, it'll end the same'.

Aine came down to rest on his legs and he smiled as he sunk back into unconsciousness to continue his wait while trying for a new angle with the raging power inside him. As he had expected the longer he suppressed it the stronger and more denser it became which in turn had managed to drive his adaptation on a continuous but steady rise of easing the burden, but this was in the end a double edged sword because it would soon reach a point whereby the raging mana had entirely surpassed his current abilities and therefore break through his defenses.

Luckily this was what he currently hoped for, with the help of his adaptation his body's physical capabilities had become many times greater than before and could be somewhat compared to the boost given by basic mana infusion, not anywhere near close enough to rival what he could achieve with higher stages of infusion let alone strengthening but this was more than enough, now he could truly rest.

Time passed and the young fairy kept watch staring at his sleeping face as she waited for the moment to arrive, Aine was quite aware of everyone's eyes watching through the projection of those little one eyed rats as she called them but even those things couldn't see nor her so it was safe.

Aine heaved a small sigh and began gently pulling on the cheeks of her master out of boredom but a sudden slight disturbance caught her attention, she sunk herself into his soul space to find out what it was.

Irmir's cocoon which had remained unmoving and silent for years had begun shaking a bit and shown a crack after one year of being stable, potent wisps of dense mana from her soul was leaking out every few seconds. A joy like never before was displayed on Aine's face, she flew round and round all giddy at the prospect of Irmir awakening very soon, her excitement almost made it impossible for her to resist waking up Emrys to share the news but she to her own great surprise managed to hold back from doing so.

She flew out of his body again to watch the time and see just how much longer she would have to wait and to her good fortune it would not be for much longer. A familiar phenomenon began occurring during his sleep as a crimson aura seemingly imbued with stars enveloped his body, Aine looked unfazed by the occurrence and simply continued flying around in wait while sometimes coming down to tap the crimson aura just to see it ripple.

Finally it arrived, Aine flew straight into his mind and caused the biggest commotion position which worked effectively well in waking Emrys up from his sleep. He looked around slightly dazed for a moment but soon got his bearings and was now faced with the young fairy who dumped the news on him without hesitation, he immediately sunk into his soul space to find what Aine had told him to be the truth.

The cocoon surrounding her soul had a small crack on it, his heart thumped in excitement as he got closer and nearly placed a hand onto the cocoon before getting a hold of himself, words could not describe how joyed he was at this moment, Irmir's awakening might be closer than he thought.

He turned towards the jolly young fairy with a smile and gave her a gentle headpat as they returned to the outside, Emrys got up and did a small routine jump to get used to the new lightness he had achieved while deep in his conscious.

The weight had gotten much easier and harder to bear simultaneously, he could feel himself approaching his limit in terms in containing the ever growing raging power inside him purely with his 'normal' mana alone and he was quite apprehensive on using raw dark mana to contain it. But for now he would not have worry about it yet as there was still one more thing he had, his mental energy in the form of pure bleeding will.

With that out of the way Emrys vanished crossing miles worth of distance in the fraction of a second to catch one of his closest targets by the head and slamming him face down into the ground with great force, in that split second of pure confusion he broke the limbs of his target while confiscating their loot and moving on to the next to repeat the process all in the span of nearly half a second.

The second target he reached this time was one with a team and he wasted no time in trying the same tactic on him but unfortunately his target wasn't so slow and managed to dodge his grasp by a hairs breath, no time of recovery was given to both he and his surprised teammates as the moment Emrys touched down he launched back towards his target with his claws released and sliced his arm off then catching said arm to wack his teammate in the back of the head with it hard into the ground knocking him unconscious.

In the same breath he pushed his target's body into the other teammate surprising him even further and wasting no time he used slashed both his eyes out eliciting an ear piercing scream out of him which was cut short with the final surgical slash at his vocals, Emrys wasted no time and took their loot as he moved on to the next.

He could sense the last teammate was a healer so he would naturally recover the fastest from his injuries and help the rest which was fortunate for them though it would not be a bother even if that were not to be the case, his third target was like the first and got put down pretty quick while he took his loot and moved on to the next.

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Emrys continued in this fashion for the next ten seconds crossing hundreds of miles and bringing down his targets along with their teammates if they had one, some were stronger than the rest and couldn't be caught on the first attempt but by the time he was done with him hunt Emrys had defeated a total of sixty-eight contestants and returned back to his original spot with the little ball of darkness holding all his harvest.

-468-.

That was the sum total of his harvest after counting them, he felt it to be a little too much considering his goal was only to be in the top 20, only about eight thousand contestants participated in this round and with his peers here based on whichever one got greedy they could just as easily hoard fifty percent of it all or more to themselves, one way or another it was going to be incredibly unbalanced.

He sighed and resigned himself to accepting things as they were, though there were no rules concerning the prospect or gifting part of your harvest to others he wasn't willing to find out what would occur when he tried based on the announcer's fiendish nature.

"What happened to you".

Sarang's voice spoke from behind Emrys genuinely surprising him as his senses couldn't feel him in the slightest, he turned around to meet the towering beastman looking at him with a scrutinizing gaze.

"You feel so much weaker all of a sudden and your mana is in such chaos, I could crush you with a flick as you are now".

Emrys raised a brow at his words "I'm experimenting with an idea" he replied.

"Ah, I see".

"Would have been disappointing if we met this way in the tournament".

"Mhm".

Sarang smirked and walked a few feet away as he leaped back to the other side, Emrys was now by his lonesome once again as he lay down and sunk into his soul space. He playfully chided the young fairy for not warning him of Sarang's approaching presence before taking his time to check on Irmirs state and once satisfied he left the soul space to begin his preparations.

His mana was nearly getting overwhelmed by the raging power inside him that had grown exponentially stronger than it was at first leaving him with no choice but to go for the second option, though he had carelessly proposed the idea of bleeding pure will even Emrys himself recognized that as a whole it was a far more drastic measure than using dark mana itself to contain the raging mana.

In the end he went for the less drastic measure and began slowly steadily introducing dark mana to the raging mana, Emrys was already far too deep in unexplored territory doing what he attempted in the first place and now here he was was introducing dark mana into the question, a power still far too unexplored in and of itself also even for him, one could not even begin to call what he was doing taking a risk.

'Wait a second, what if I don't introduce dark mana as raw as it is but fuse it with my normal mana instead'.

'The fusion benefits only one side greatly but should be far less aggressive'.

'When my darkness element awakened it achieved the impossible and changed the original state of my mana from temperamental to calm though I retain the freedom to shift between states'.

Now decided on the path to take onwards Emrys began steadily introducing dark mana into his basic one, in minutes the fusion was completed and immediately it was like the raging power had gone still facing the new mana suppressing it, this was no longer a mutual struggle but the equivalent of a giant holding a child to the ground with but a finger. Emrys knew something was wrong, the ominous feeling grew by the second and in moments he had his worries confirmed.

The now dormant power burst out an overbearing aura so much greater than it ever was and clashed madly against his mana with a ferocity that made even he nervous, if the first clash between his normal mana and it could be called a tug of war mostly even on both ends then this could be called an actual bloody war. The area around his physical form sunk into the earth crushed by an invisible force, what Emrys had done seemed to have angered it greatly and now there stood two great giants each mighty and ferocious battling it out in his body at a level that would have killed almost anyone else a thousand times over.

To his great fortune this was exactly what would feed his adaptation many times better as it kick-started into a craze and did something Emrys did not expect in the slightest, it was like something just clicked in his mind and a cool breeze washed over his body, everything felt.....okay. He levitated off the ground and stood upright, a smile on his face as he reviewed the new gift he had been given. And just then the timer stopped, everyone last contestant on the battlefield was immediately teleported back to the arena with most looking baffled at the sudden occurrence and surprised even further when the crowd got in an uproar following the announcers words, he waited for calm before continuing-

"Well then ladies and gentlemen, the first round is officially over!".

"And now comes harsh judgment.....from ME!".

A wide terrifying grin was shown on his face which was soon replaced by a charming smile then followed by an apologetic one.

"Haizz, I owe you an apology people. Or to be more accurate, THEY owe you an apology".

Thirteen mini-announcers appeared before the fated ones and Emrys pointing their fingers at them, the crowd roared in agreement prompting small looks of confusion on their faces.

"You greedy hoarders almost took the fun out of the actual true purpose of this round".

"Pure•Unadulterated•Anarchy".

"Couldn't even at least make up for it by making your battles long or drawn out and interesting, everything you did was so robotic, lazy and calculated, where's the fun in all that".

"Even the red dragon did nothing to promote anarchy though being the most suited for it, your ancestors roll I tell you".

"Bringing a poor look to the legends".

Ishmael looked visibly ticked at the announcers words and the crowds booing but in the end remained composed.

"See, a direct insult to his face and bloodline yet he remains calm, a pride that reaches the heavens my foot".

Rows of laughter was heard from everyone, even some of the contestants whom were relishing in this little victory over the fated ones, especially those who were direct victims of their hunts. But even this too was short-lived when they felt a strong pressure from the announcer glaring at them with an intense gaze, their laughs got stifled almost immediately.

"Make no mistake you losers, I am not the slightest bit on your side".

"Or do you forget a sizeable portion of you will not be progressing past this round".

"Ah well, let's see the results now shall we".

"If most of you had been paying attention to the numbers I'm sure you already know the highest ranking ones".

"This is more so for the contestants than you the crowd at this point, a horrible little design flaw".

The announcers voice got giddy as he snapped his fingers to reveal the rankings on the screens, only the top 50 visibly left the screen and presented themselves in the air before everyone present, the others appeared in much smaller forms before each and everyone of the contestants bar the top 50

"Hm, guess we have our winner then".

Amongst the crowd stood Velkos with a mini crown floating above his head and a number up high that read:

-713-

Meanwhile Emrys could only sign, though knowing himself to have overshot past his original intention he still had no idea it would be this bad.

"Now then, the losers.....".

The announcer had a wide smile on his face seeing the looks on their faces, some of them had already begun breaking down in tears knowing that for a test which selected only the absolute best of the younger generation (aged 14-20) they would be returning with such a shameful evaluation, a shame more than tripled for those coming as representatives of their own worlds.

The passing grade for getting into the next was '5', out of nearly eight thousand participants more than half of them had been eliminated and a nearly half of that number was contributed to solely by the fated ones.

Their rankings went as such:-

—Velkos [713] <1st place>

—Avistro [658] <2nd place>

—Emrys [468] <3rd place>

—Ishmael [326] <4th place>

—Hope [192] <6th place>

—Sarang [142] <7th place>

—Bahu [121] <8th place>

—Mordred [113] <9th place>

—Shen [102] <11th place>

—Noctis [100] <12th place>

—Rozaria [98] <13th place>

—Mavion [82] <14th place>

—Zirsto [66] <15th place>

—Selene [52] <19th place>

In the end only a total of 788 contestants would remain with a lot barely scraping past the passing grade, the announcer looked a bit unsatisfied.

"Would have been a lot less if it were not for the team factor saving some of you leeches".

"Ah what can you do, there's one final thing i want to do but.....even I find it a little too harsh".

He snapped his fingers and teleported the disqualified contestants out of the arena into the waiting area from which they would be met the choice of either returning home or watching the rest of the tournament as a non-participant.

"Now then, onto the second round".

"Gear up everybody, were going fishing".

EnD.