After Arman left, Sam went out to take a look at the ranking list.

Out of five people on the top of the list, he knew three of them. Arthur is first, Nicholas second and Arman is in third place.

He was surprised that Arthur was able to stay in first place with Nicholas. After all, Nicholas is a battle, crazy person. He would have beat the crap out of Arthur.

As for Arman's rank, he has his doubts. Because, from what he heard from the people around, the fight wasn't even that exciting and intense as they thought it would be.

Arman admitted defeat after five minutes as if he was exhausted.

As far as Sam could think, Arman might have just let it go and didn't want any attention.

As for Arthur occupying the first position, it was said that Nicholas didn't get a chance to battle him as he was in the western continent all these days.

And even after he came back, he is nowhere to be seen.

Nicholas is waiting for him to come back.

Right now, if Sam wants to participate and gain a position in the main team, he has to fight more than thirty duels at least. He doesn't need to get first place and as long as he is in fifth place which will make him eligible is enough for him.

He didn't wait for anything and just started noting down the names of the people he has to challenge.

But before that, he has to finish the battle with the 325th ranked and occupy his place.

Luckily all the candidates are in the initial stages of the Grand realm cultivation and the last ten rankers are even Great realm cultivators.

So, this is going to be easy.

The first duel was over as soon as he challenged because the person is a Great realm peak state cultivator.

As soon as he sensed Sam's cultivation, he just gave up.

The next person, he challenged is a person is 315th ranker.

The next person, 305th.

As there is still three months time, he didn't rush it and settled with three matches per day.

He doesn't want to attract too much attention as he is not prepared to deal with the six major powers. According to his original plan, he would stay in the western continent, keeping tabs on the money he is making and do more research to become stronger for a while, at least the palace of inheritance.

Then only he would set his sights on the rest of the world to explore it. But now, he was forced to come here because of Watt's situation. That is why he thought it would be better if they are lowkey.

That is also one of the reasons he wanted Jack and Philip to be out of the competition.

As they are famous as the team, they would attract more attention if they are too bright and outstanding.

It would have been better if they don't join the reserve team too. At the end of the day, he has no right to stop them and force them to act against their wishes.

So, the trio is set on challenging people. But unlike Sam who is doing three challenges for a day, both of them are much more low-key.

They decided to fight a challenge every two days.

They will be in the top ten if they win every challenge more or less within sixty days.

..........

Time passed. As much as Sam wanted to stay low-key, it is impossible to be out of the limelight when he is upgrading thirty ranks every day.

But it has its uses as Philip and Jack escaped the lime-light.

Compared to Sam, their ascension of ten ranks for every two days is not as eye-catching. Sam is relieved as this is one of the results that he hoped to achieve.

Even though this might look like he is undermining their talent, but the talent is a double-edged sword. It is useful as it will give a person more opportunities, but it will also deal a definite blow to them as humans are the species who get jealous easily.

He believed that there is no other being in this universe or any other universe which is more jealous and greedier than human beings.

Right now, they are walking in the territory of Giants and they don't have any protection, He knew more than anyone else that the thunder god temple, wouldn't bat an eyelid to sell them off if they get enough benefits.

Philip and Jack are not ready to face that at this moment, both physically and mentally.

Soon, the three months passed and it is time for the resource competition.

Sam reached fifth place and only defended his position. Philip and Jack got ninth and tenth places. Their only purpose here is to spectate the battles of seniors to learn something out of it.

That day, they were escorted to the space gate island.

Nicholas is still in second place as he didn't get a chance to fight Arthur, as, for the reason, Arthur was in a special mission given by the higher-ups, but there is a rumor that the higher-ups didn't let them fight so that the leadership of the team didn't go into hands of a disciple who is not a descendant of the thunder god temple.

They might have even let Arman take this, but Nicholas is a complete outsider who came from the western continent.

Sam could totally understand this and there is a high chance that this is true.

But what he is most interested in is, from what he knew Nicholas would be the last person to be interested in the positions, fame, and status. He wondered how these higher-ups would think, that the place they guarded with their honor online, is extremely worthless in the eyes of a green young man.

There is an extremely complicated space gate in a secure location of the island.

Sam looked at the two other teams. Right now, he is in the category of Below thirty-year-old cultivators.

Sam is just nineteen, meanwhile, Jack and Philip are twenty, but their cultivations are high for their ages and can only content in the under-thirty age category.

As for the remaining two teams, the under-twenty team is nothing special as their competition doesn't affect the whole resource distribution much.

At most, they are only here to expand their horizons.

As for the last team, which under-fifty category. Moriya is leading it.

He is the best Nascent stage cultivator of the thunder-god temple. He is as calm as usual.

Sam observed the Nascent stage cultivators and could sense their battle-hardened spirits.

They are emitting an aura which is filled with the smell of blood.

One look and he could say that they have been through all kinds of tough battles.

Only Nascent stage cultivators Sam knew, who could compare to them are the Six swords of the sword Marshall from the former Orion.

They have the same kind of aura these guys had.

After everyone gathered, the temple head came and led them to the space gate.

After the transference, they arrived in a large stone building.

"You guys, stay here. Moriya will lead you when it is time."

Temple's head said those words and left. Moriya guided them outside the stone building.

When they came out, there is a large expanse of forest.

The stone building is not even that big. It is as big as a single bedroom apartment in the modern world and there are only two rooms, one of them is the space gate and another one is just a meeting room which is almost like a mini-auditorium.

"Recover as soon as you can. There is not much to discuss. Don't expect a majestic ceremony or something. There wouldn't be any superficial things like that here.

Everything will be straight forward and all you have to do is fight when you are asked to. The team with the first place will get some prizes which would be useful for your cultivation.

There are almost no restrictions in a fight except for the weapons, inscription scrolls, and formation discs.

You cannot use higher ranked weapons than your cultivation level.

You can kill the opponent if you want. The only way the fight would end is one of two faints, one of two dies, or one of the two surrenders."

Moriya explained the rules.

Sam was glad when he heard that there are no ceremonies.

As Moriya was about to explain the remaining rules, his expression changed and started leading them somewhere.

"Follow me."