That night almost all the imperial capital was wide awake. The commotion itself was on a whole new level, but the news about Sam cutting off the prince Nathan's hands after beating him to pulp was passed through all the citizens.

The news spread like wildfire.

The six swords of the sword Marshall, who are the most carefree combat unit in the whole empire were also in shock.

They don't fear the imperial family, because they have pride in their abilities and achievement and the imperial family has some leeway for them, but even they are not bold enough to cut the hands of the Prince, but Sam did exactly that and he did that in an overbearing manner.

Even more highlight of the night is the Princess. The Princess' face was not revealed to the public since her birth and only a select few knew her, but Sam not only made her come out, he also cut off her arm a few days before her eighteenth birthday one of the greatest events in her life.

Even Philip and Jack are shocked by Sam's actions even though they have expected that.

The only two people who didn't lose their composure are Sam and Watt.

Sam went into his room, while Watt cleared up the place. He threw away the skeletons of the lackeys who became food for the termites and the locust and even threw the prince and the princess who are fainted due to blood loss on the roads.

Luckily, the six swords are kind enough and brought the princess and the prince away to the imperial palace.

Sam went sleep, while the rest of them are busy cleaning up the mess.

After the six swords delivered the two scions of the imperial family to the palace, they went on their own way.

The imperial palace though was in turmoil.

The imperial healer was assigned to heal and regrow the arms of the two scions.

Meanwhile, three people gathered in a small meeting room.

They are the Emperor Orion, the Crown Prince and the last one is a woman, the empress. She is the mother of the crown prince, Prince Nathan and the Princess Natalie.

She is most beloved woman of the emperor and also quite powerful with Peak Nascent stage cultivation keeping the vast harem under her iron fist.

These three important figures of the Orion empire are currently sitting in the room with a gloomy mood.

The empress in particular has face darker than charcoal.

"I want them dead. Four puny bastards dared to do this to my daughter and son, I want them all dead. Not even a normal death, I want them to die a horrible death that would make them feel the intense despair." The empress yelled at the emperor who is silent with a highly thoughtful expression.

Empress wasn't satisfied with his silence and yelled.

"What is the point of you being an emperor if you cannot even take care of your own children?"

"It is because I am the emperor, I have to take steps forward with caution."

Emperor said in a mild and calm tone.

Crown Prince stayed silent and was contemplating his father's words.

The Emperor is still thinking after leaving those words.

He was thinking about Sam's actions.

Why would a young man become so bold as to directly handicap a prince and a princess in the imperial capital?

There could only be two reasons.

One is that guy is extremely stupid or the other guy should have a to keep himself out of danger regardless whatever the consequences may suffer.

But this only applies, if that guy doesn't know the immunity the people behind the scenes gave the candidates.

If Sam really knew about the people behind the scenes and their need for talented youngsters, then emperor can confirm that Sam is confident that he can do anything in the capital.

But that raises another question. How on earth did Sam find out about those people?

If it is solely based in observation, intuition and deduction, then Sam is a very dangerous candidate. He is an extremely dangerous person which a person should avoid making any enemy unless they are extremely confident in dealing with him.

Because, a man who can guess this much just from some competitions, then he can deduct so much from other things. He would calculative to the extreme and will have contingency plans for any possible scenario in which things could possibly go wrong.

He already read all the information they could possibly get on Sam a day before. He knew from that point that he is not one who takes things lying down and it would be weird if a young man with such accomplishments took things lying down.

He wanted to warn his son to not push too far, but it was too late to do so. Sam made a move sooner than he expected.

But there is one more thing, he is also an emperor and he also doesn't take things lying down, he has to take revenge for his son. Even if it is delayed and not possible immediately, he would surely do it.

"You just stay put for the time being, the competition is too important and if I make a wrong move, we would lose the whole empire out of our hands, so just hold it in for the time being. I will find a way to get the revenge."

With those words, he sent away the Empress who is still indignant and then spoke to Crown prince about how to placate the citizens about the chaos in the city.

The next few days, many events happened.

Sam and his team didn't come out, the only other group without any harm is the southern star group led by Nicholas.

Sam took the cards of all the seeded candidates who have a possibility of winning the top ten.

They are all empty now.

The small fries who are hired from them started to see a chance of them since Sam didn't bother to take their cards, that is only until the big shots showed their fangs.

Since they cannot do anything to Sam and they desperately need points, they healed as quickly as possible and went all out on the small fries.

So, the elimination began even before the evaluation.

Even the Prince was on a spree to collect the points as fast as he can and then only the small fries understood the despair of being back stabbed and treated as pawns.

They were used to target Sam and his companions and now they are being hunted by the big shot young masters for their points.

Some of them even wanted to shamelessly ask Sam for help saying things like, 'we were being manipulated at that time.' 'A man of your stature shouldn't be this petty and you should help us.'

The only answer for them is their arm was cut off again.

They painfully paid more than ten million for their arms to get healed but now it was cut again.

So, nobody dared to bother Sam again.

Meanwhile, Sam and his group and busy distributing their huge haul. What six swords said is right.

The hidden cards are true treasure and it took them a whole day to transfer all the points to their three cards. They couldn't help but feel shocked.

They truly hoped that these points have more significance than just ranking. They have too many of them.

They spent their days cultivating and resting and soon the day came where they have to come out.

The day before the ceremony. The day for the top ten people to come out.

Since, Sam's trio took up the top three spots there are only seven for which the rest had to struggle for.

Nicholas was actually quite good and secured sixth spot.

Fourth being Nathan, fifth Patrick.

The remaining four spots are obtained by people named Fermi who is the pharmaceutical tower head's son in seventh place.

Tiger in eighth place.

Morgan in ninth place and finally Jerry in tenth. The last three are the sons of Dukes.

The princess and her assistant seemed to withdraw from the competition.

Today only, their positions were announced and not the points.

Sam, Jack and Philip took the top three respectively.

There was another announcement that day.

"Your positions in the ranking are not final, but I would advise you to keep the point cards with yourselves, those points are completely yours and you will have many uses for them in the future.

But the true rankings will be determined tomorrow after the banquet of the Princess Natalie. All of you will have to visit the imperial palace by sunset.

After the banquet is over the ten of you will be going through the hand to hand combat, similar to the way you obtained the ranking in your dukedoms.

So, be prepared. And everyone must where formal clothes to the ceremony and you can change to your battle clothes afterward."

After the announcement was over everyone went on their own ways.

Sam is quite busy for the past few days, his actions are a bit weird because he collected all the arms they collected from the candidates.

The remaining three were weirded out by his actions.

But that night, the day before ceremony, they saw what Sam made from the past few days and were stunned.

This is a piece of art.

"I plan to settle down in the imperial capital in the future for sometime and this will be placed in my meeting room. How does it look?" Sam asked them with a smile, his three companions are too stunned to even talk.