CHAPTER 29

The day came, and it was the awaited first game. With sweaty palms and shaky legs, every child was feeling restless even after all the rigorous preparation they had.

Most of them were dreading what would happen in the game, while few had determined looks and resolved to get a spot in the high ranks to earn a lot of award points.

Lined up properly in one line, the children silently waited for the massive doors to open. No chatters could be heard, but their eyes are saying a lot as they eye their competitors, especially those who have ranked high in the tests, including Hirayon.

'They're staring too much,' Hirayon thought as he could feel the children's heated gazes on him. Some were even frowning and were evidently scowling, showing their displeasure and rivalry toward the exceptional child.

Although they had no idea that Hirayon was a chief's son, they witnessed his incredible potential as he either ranked second or first in the previous tests they had. This led them to feel inferior and see Hirayon as someone they had to beat and overcome.

The giant doors opened a few minutes later, and the children were motioned to step inside. The moment they entered the bright Arena with nervous hearts, they immediately stilled with the unexpected view.

With loud cheering and thunderous claps, the children were welcomed by thousands of oddities that wanted to witness the game. It surprised all the children as no one was there during their test in the massive place besides their servants and trainers.

Now that they were surrounded by cheers of people, the children felt like their hearts would burst out of their chests. They wandered their wide eyes in every direction, taking in and realizing their situation.

Some children felt elated with the audience, boosting their confidence, but most became more nervous to the point of almost having a panic attack. Hirayon, on the other hand, belonged to neither of the groups. He did not really care whether they had an audience or not, as his only concern was what type of game it would be and how many award points he might receive.

Like him, Hirang was in a similar situation. He was relaxed as well as he entered the Arena, brimming with loud yells from the audience. Once their line was combined with other children that came from different entrances, he looked for Hirayon and saw him on the outermost line, expressionlessly looking ahead like a model student.

Hirang was wondering if he would have an opportunity to talk to Hirayon later when the bright lights turned off, silencing the audience. A serene melody rang inside the Arena, and soon after, a spotlight turned on, illuminating a white platform surrounded by white smoke that was slowly descending from above.

The moment the platform hit the ground, the white smoke exploded like a bomb, revealing the fury Bearman who was wearing a grander three-piece suit decorated with gold chains. With a wide smile showing his fangs, Tedie greeted everyone with a delighted growl.

"Welcome to the first game of the Torneo!" Tedie shouted like an experienced host, emphasizing the Torneo and making the crowd wild.

"OID76! You must win!"

"Good luck OEL51. You look beautiful!"

"OLU94, I'm a Lightning Oddity as well! Electrocute them!"

"OST87, I voted for you with all my points!"

"Burn them to ashes, OFE137!"

The already noisy crowd becomes more crazy, filling the whole Arena with their cheers and yelling the name of the candidate they want to rank first. Although betting was not allowed within the audience and residents of the facility, they were given a chance to invest in the candidate of their choice by giving them Audience points.

Every employee residing in the facility is given 1 Audience point every month. They can save it, and when the Torneo starts, they can use their points to vote for the candidates they think would likely rank first in every game. In the end, those who gave their points to the ultimate first rank after all the games were conducted will receive 1000 Award points for every Audience point they voted for. Due to this, several employees have become wealthy, making Torneo popular and looked forward to by everyone.

"Are you ready for the first game?!" Tedie asked, hyping the audience more.

"I see that everyone is excited! Let's not waste any more time and see the first game!" he said, and massive holograms appeared above in all directions, allowing everyone to read the first game and its rules.

GAME: THE BLOOMS!

INSTRUCTIONS: Find as many flowers as you can within two hours.

RULES:

1. Find a flower and touch it for ten seconds for it to enter your inventory.

2. Use of Abilities is allowed.

3. Partnership or collaboration is permitted.

4. Stealing, fighting, and killing is allowed.

5. If killed, the player's inventory will go to the killer.

6. The number of flowers every player has will be shown every 30 minutes of the game.

7. You can't quit the game 30 minutes after it started.

8. You can give up the game by saying, 'I quit.'

"The first game is The Blooms! I will explain the rules," Tedie said, and a forest clip was shown below the rules.

"A minute before the game starts, the Arena will be made into a forest, and you will be randomly teleported to your starting points. You will find flowers and collect as many as you can within two hours. Every flower has designated points. Here is the list," he said, and a hologram appeared in front of every child. There was also a list on the giant hologram above for the audience to see.

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Hirayon frowned at the list in front of him, showing the picture of the flower, its name, points, and element. It was also arranged from the largest to the lowest point flower has.

'Why does it have an element as well?' Hirayon wondered as he scrolled the list that showed more than 100 flowers. When he reached more than half, his frown deepened as the points became negative.

"By the way, there are flowers that can give you deductions, so pick wisely. Also, you can only see the list now, so try to memorize the flowers before we start the game," Tedie said, which shocked the children. There were more than a hundred, and there was no way for them to memorize them all in the short amount of time they had.

"That's not possible!" A child voiced out his concern. The other children who heard him also nodded and agreed.

"Well, that's the challenge," Tedie shrugged with a smile, making the children wear problematic looks.

"Can we write them now?" Another concerned child asked.

"Nope."

"Then how are we supposed to know which would give us deductions?" Another child asked. His tone was angry with the unfair rule of the game.

"Then you better memorize the flowers now. We also only have five more minutes now, so I will continue explaining," Tedie said, ignoring the angry looks the children gave him.

Hearing the man, most of the children panicked and tried to memorize as much as they could, ignoring Tedie as he explained the other rules.

"As I've said, you have two hours to gather flowers. You must touch a flower for ten seconds before it disappears and go to your inventory. You are allowed to fight with other children, and if one is killed, the flowers will be transferred to the killer's inventory. Every 30 minutes, you will see the rankings on who has the most to least, but that will only apply to the number of flowers. You will not know until the end who has many points and deductions. That's the gist of things. Do you have any questions?" Tedie explained and asked at the end. However, the children were too busy memorizing the list to pay attention to him.

"Also, beware of the flowers. They might bite," he said with a chuckle that no one other than Hirayon noticed. Like the other children, he was memorizing as well, but he was also listening to Tedie as he didn't want to miss any information.

'They bite? Does that has something to do with their respective elements?' Hirayon thought while scanning the list. He was almost at the end, thanks to his basic ability of enhanced memory, allowing him to remember everything he had read.

'I should be alert. The flowers might be capable of using elemental abilities.' To him, that was the only plausible reason why the elements were included on the list, with Tedie's warning at the end.

"And done!" Tedie shouted, and the holograms disappeared, earning whines from the children. Before they could even complain, all children levitated, rising together with the platform Tedie was. Then bright Aura surrounded the Arena's floor, and after a few seconds, the light exploded, revealing a dense forest packed with wild trees.

"You will now be teleported," Tedie said, and the children simultaneously vanished in the air and appeared all around the forest at a sufficient distance from each other.

The massive hologram changed, presenting the map of the forest and colored dots all around it. Beside it was the list of children together with the respective color they represent. Below these holograms, a line of smaller screens appeared, showing a player's name glowing in the color they represent together with live footage of them.

Almost all the children were roaming their eyes, but as the game hadn't started yet, they weren't allowed to move.

"Not that everyone's in their place, we will start The Blooms in 4... 3... 2... Go!"

Hirayon started walking the moment Tedie's signal rang inside the forest. Wandering around, Hirayon observed his surroundings. He inhaled, and the earthy smell of soil and trees entered his system. He could also hear the rustling of leaves and the sound of insects and animals as if he was really in a forest.

'I could see the sky instead of the white ceiling. It even looked larger compared to when looking from above. This must be all done by illusion. I should be cautious. There might be traps,' Hirayon thought as he searched for a flower.

Moving forward, Hirayon scanned every plant he encountered. "Finally, my first one," he muttered, approaching a green-petaled flower with an opening in the middle.

Remembering Tedie's words, Hirayon reached for the flower slowly and carefully. He was almost touching it when suddenly, the flower released a fountain of sand from the hole in the middle. Before he could even react, the flower moved on its own and directed the sand toward the child.

Unshaken, Hirayon ignored the sand and held one of the petals. The flower tried to increase the amount and pressure of sand, but ten seconds passed, and the flower disappeared.

'They really do use abilities. That flower was only equivalent to 25 points, one of the lowest I could get. My goal is to acquire 500 points, and I could quickly achieve that if I found the Illusion element flower worth 500 points. But I should eliminate it from my list since I'll probably just waste my time looking for it.'

Hirayon continued searching for flowers and was lucky to find five more, which gave him 120 points. He was doing well, and when 30 minutes had passed, a list of children and the number of flowers they had appeared. He looked for his name and was delighted that he was fourth on the list.

'Hirang's doing well.' he thought as Hirang had a total of four flowers. Although there was a two-flower difference between them, Hirayon wasn't planning on taking it easy, as there was still a chance that Hirang had more points than him. Moreover, Hirayon was slightly bothered by the child currently in the first place.

With a total of twenty flowers, OLN103 was leading, and Hirayon was sure that the kid had killed somebody else. Although the game seemed easy, aside from the abilities of flowers, it was difficult to find them, even with the use of a detecting ability.

'I should avoid a player as much as possible. I don't want to fight anyone.' Even though it is inevitable, Hirayon hopes he wouldn't meet anyone else while searching for a flower. He has no plans of stealing or killing, but that doesn't apply to the player he might encounter.

With that thought, Hirayon continued searching while using his enhanced sight. He was looking behind trees when he finally saw something in a different color in his peripheral.

The flower in the distance, almost hiding between huge roots, was shining in a yellow glow. It was small and had four plain yellow petals, while its stem was dark blue.

"It's a Flavum. That's worth 420 points."

Hirayon excitedly walked towards the precious flower when he stopped and looked to his right.

"Are you interested in that flower?" A little girl asked with a cute innocent smile. She was looking at Hirayon with her round deer eyes, her head slightly tilting to the left. With her hands on her back, she was somewhat rocking her body while his foot kicked the dry leaves.

It was a very adorable scene that could melt anyone's heart, only if the little girl didn't have bloody hands holding a rock drenched with fresh blood.

"Are you a Lighting Oddity?" Hirayon asked. He had never felt or seen the girl around the vicinity, so he was sure that the girl's ability had something to do with speed. He only needs to confirm another thing.

"Why are you curious?" the little girl asked cutely, her head tilting in another direction.

"No particular reason," Hirayon answered calmly.

"If I am?" The little girl asked with a chuckle.

Hirayon stared at the girl momentarily, then shifted his gaze to the still-glowing flower. "Then I have to run."

The cute little girl smiled widely, her eyes turning into an arc. Suddenly, her face froze, seemingly like a robotic emotionless smile.

"You can run, but... can you escape?"

R E H I L I Y A