After the match, Benedict kept roaring on the forums for a rematch, however, Max was least interested in entertaining his childish demands.
Benedict was face slapped hard by Max and it was an insult that he was not willing to carry for life.
He desperately wanted to find Max and pull him for a rematch, however to his dismay Max was nowhere to be found.
A big change occurred in the university as the principal announced that this year's end of the year tournament would see a slight change.
Every year, the top 10,000 students who had accumulated the highest merit points over the first 9 months of the semester participated in a massive end of the year tournament which had many team based rounds that eliminated everyone but 64 competitors who then went onto the final 1v1 stage.
The victor of the tournament was always granted a big sum of money, followed by a special reward that changed year to year.
Sometimes it was a weapon, sometimes it was a scroll, but it was always a useful item at the epic grade.
The real value of the tournament, however, was not in coming first, but rather in the opportunities that presented themselves once one distinguished themselves as a top student.
Factions from all across the universe desperately wanted high performing talents and would give each top performer extremely lucrative business deals to join their family.
While mostly everyone in the university came from a distinguished background, the offers that came with being a top 64 warrior were so lucrative that even top nobles readily accepted the jobs.
However, this year the stakes were the highest that there had ever been, with the winning price being the legendary ' Malgo ' fruit, which boosted all stats by +25.
Levelling up once in tier 0 gave only 2 unassigned stat points
Levelling up once in tier 1 gave 3 unassigned stat points
Whereas levelling up once in tier 2 gave 4 unassigned stat points.
Under such circumstances, the worth of 150 stat points was unimaginable.
It was akin to gaining 50 levels at once inside tier 1 and 40 levels in tier 2.
And it was not the only reward!
A special dungeon called ' Dragon's Paradise ', was going to open up this year, and the top 16 of the tournament were going to be given an opportunity to enter the dungeon and try to obtain life changing loot.
It was because of this reason that Max saw a great change in the attitude of everyone at the academy as people became more and more frugal with saving merit points wanting to enter the top 10,000 rankings as badly as possible.
Most people stopped attending lectures all-together to save merit points, and their only focus became to farm points in the wild, as brutal PVP finally saw it's dawn in the academy, as the wild forest became more dangerous to venture into because of players killing players rather than monsters.
Even in this dog-eat-dog jungle, Max and his team had established themselves as neutrals who just wanted to go to school and farm monsters, as they were rarely attacked by enemy forces.
A major part as to why nobody bullied them was because of Sebastian's unbelievable strength which saw him toy with 10-12 opponents at once without losing a breath.
Although Max, Asiva and Anna were all powerful warriors in their own light, everyone paled in comparison to Sebastian.
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( 2 months later )
2 months later, there were only 2 months and 14 days left until the top 10,000 were locked for the end of the year tournament, and the gap between the others and Max and group had already widened by a large margin.
Rank 10,000 had a whopping 870,000 merit points whereas Asiva who was saving most of her points and had the highest merit points saved in the group has only 610,000.
Max sat at a pitiful low of 9,000 points, as at this point in time it was a mystery if he would be able to even get the 100,000 needed for graduation.
" Max, the three of us have already decided to enrol into the tournament and the team round requires us to have at least 3-5 people, you sure you don't wanna come? ". Asiva asked in a worried voice as she tried to convince Max to give up on his mad training for stat maximisation and rather focus on the tournament.
" No, my goal is fixed Asiva, even if I don't enter the top 10,000 ranks it's fine, I just want to train hard and reach stat maximisation for tier 1.
I'm already at level 65 and have faith to reach level 100 by the time that 2 months end. " Max replied resolutely
" But it's a dumb choice Max, the rewards are just too good to pass on, and you have the potential to actually make it big in the tournament.
You are better than 99% fighters in the university! ". Asiva pressed Max to give in and accept her suggestion.
" No, Asiva, I'm sorry.
My path is chosen and I will not deviate ".
Max was resolute in his reply, he had long found his goal and while Sebastian ditched him mid-way to pursue the top 10,000 ranks, he was going to see it through to the end.
He was going to walk out of the university only as a perfected tier 1 warrior and nothing less.
" Okay, in that case you will need to come back from the University to dorms alone from now on, because us three will be out farming for points all day". Asiva said as he slammed the metal window between her room and Max's, clearly annoyed at Max's stubbornness.
It was not like Max felt that Asiva's advice was wrong. To be fair, the tournament was an extremely lucrative opportunity, But his lifestyle was basically spending about as many merit points as he earnt and to sustain his training he had no other option but to continue to spend merit points like water, not saving any to train full 13 hours a day.
Although the path he chose was different from his friends, he was resolute in becoming the perfect warrior.
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/// A/N - This a bonus for hitting the powerstones target! Good job everyone///