When Chaz, David and Mr. Lester were walking out of the private training room, they noticed little crowds clustered all over the gym as a few guys were standing reading some posters at various spots on the walls.

"Ha ha.....they decided to take my recommendation," Mr. Lester said after seeing the scene, "You two will really need to train hard now."

"What recommendation?," David asked a bit puzzled over why Mr. Lester was so happy.

Seeming proud of himself, Mr. Lester responded, "A recommendation to hold a ranking tournament between all of the guards. Remember when I told you before that a few brawls were breaking out between the new guards that Vincent brought over and the old Carmine Family guards? I didn't think that the situation was going to work out that well in the long run, so I talked to William and Vincent about the issue. After a few minutes of explaining my observations, I recommended that the Carmine Family hold a battle tournament to let the guys compete. Since the old and new guards are already fighting, why not let them sort it out the pecking order in a more organized fashion? They said that they would consider it, but it looks like they decide to move forward with the plan."

"Those posters must have the details of the tournament. Let's go take a look," Chaz said getting excited over the prospects of more fighting.

The group of three made it over to one of the several posters hung on the walls of the gym.

The poster read, "Carmine Guard Assessment Tournament", at the top of the page.

After spending about 5 minutes reading all the text on the poster. Mr. Lester, David and Chaz backed away and sat down to discuss.

Per the poster, the rules were as follows:

1. All new and old guards were required to participate. All Carmine Family employees, not listed as guards, had the option to participate but were not required to register.

2. A qualifying round will be held to group the tournament participants into appropriate battle classes. Brackets and initial rankings will be set based on those qualifying tests. The brackets will consist of Level C-D, Level A-B, Level S-SS, and Level Zero.

3. The tournament contest is a single elimination event until the top ten is established in each battle class. If eliminated in the early rounds, then the guard's individual ranking will be set based on their qualifying results.

4. The qualifying round will be held three weeks from today. The tournament rounds will officially start the day after qualifying. Anyone participating will need to register at the registration desk that will be setup in the gym tomorrow. Registration must be completed in the next two weeks.

After reading through the rules, the three men began to discuss.

"I assume that the Level Zero group will include everyone in the Foundation Stage. I keep forgetting that most people don't know the truth about the whole situation," David said.

"Ya...that shit messed with me pretty bad when I found out about it," Chaz said, "I wonder how many Foundation Stage cultivators will participate."

"Regardless of who will participate, I can guarantee that you will have a chance to battle other strong individuals," Mr. Lester said with an hint of excitement in his voice, "...and the rewards are not bad either."

Mr. Lester's last comment caused David's and Chaz's eyes to be drawn to the bottom of the poster. The bottom of the poster had listed some of the tournament awards.

The top 5 winners in the Level Zero battle class of the tournament will receive the following:

1 place: Elder's Request and a Flawless Whole Elemental Gem or High-zero Weapon and Armor

2 place: Flawless Whole Elemental Gem or High-Zero Level Weapon and Armor

3-5 place: Flawless Elemental Gem Shard or Low-Zero Level Armor and Low-Zero Level Weapon

"WOW!" Chaz said, "Those are some good prizes. I would really like to get some nice armor."

"Yep, those elemental gem should give someone a chance to increase their attack power," David said.

"What's an elemental gem? Is it a Heavenly Stone? ," Chaz asked.

Mr. Lester chimes in, "Elemental gems are concentrations of elemental forces used to enhance elemental skills. Heavenly stones are concentrated heavenly energy used to further cultivation. The elemental gems do not really have much use for those of us that focus on physical skills, but to guys like David that mainly focus on elemental skills....they can be invaluable. The elemental gem contains a trace of element that helps amplify a skill. Most elemental mages will affix them to a staff or wand and use them to enhance a skill during battle. For example, a Level 1 Fire Foundation Stage's skill couldn't do much damage to a Level 1 Earth Foundation Stage's defense. But if they used an Flawless elemental gem shard and executed the Explosion Skill....the Level 1 Earth Foundation Stage would probably be defeated. The shard would make the attack at least twice as strong."

"Oh, I see. It would be like a sword master getting a stronger sword," Chaz said.

"Yes, but that isn't the most important of the items. The Elder's Request for the main winner is an exceptional prize. Getting an elder of the Carmine family to owe you a favor....is something that even I would have trouble doing. It could get you out of a bad situation easily...or use could use it to request a Carmine family elder to let you transfer to The Other...or promote your position here on Earth. You would have a lot of options if you really wanted to rely on the Carmine family," Mr. Lester said.

"WOW! Everyone will be fighting hard to get into the top 5 for sure," David said as he was re-reading the rules.

"Hey look, they are setting up the registration table now," some guard off to the side said.

Sure enough, a group was setting up a table near the entrance to the gym. Several people started to make their way over to register.

Seeing the crowd start to form a line, Mr. Lester said, "Why don't the two of you go register now before the line gets outrageous?"

Realizing the steadily growing line, David and Chaz trotted over to get in line.

After standing in line for a few minutes, the two guys heard a commotion up front. A group of four new people had barged in and stepped in front of everyone.

David recognizes these four right away. It was Gabriel and his entourage. Apparently, they thought themselves special enough to cut everyone else in the line.

Hearing the mutterings of unhappiness behind him, Gabriel turned around, "If you have the strength, what can you just fight me in the tournament? I will be competing if anyone is interested." Gabriel said the last part while staring directly at David standing a few people back in the line. Everyone could see it was a specific taunt at David and started to mutter to each other.

David was unfazed. Just stayed in line and ignored Gabriel. It actually seemed to piss Gabriel off that David ignited him and he stormed off after his registration was complete.

After they left, a collective tension was released from the air.

Chaz turned to David and asked, "What the hell was that all about?"

David shrugged and said, "The guy is trying to move in on my girlfriend and expects me to step aside because his dad's some hotshot."

David's voice wasn't low and eventually his response drifted through the line.

After waiting for the people in front to register, David finally made it to the front of the line. It only took him about 6 minutes to fill out the paperwork and questionnaire. Then he said his goodbyes to Chaz and Mr. Lester and left for his apartment.

Walking to his apartment, he started to think about Gabriel's invite to battle. Of course, he knew the reason why Gabriel was hostile towards him. And David actually wanted to fight Gabriel too. However, David understood that Gabriel was a Level 4 Fire Foundation Stage. He was strong. If David used his full Level 6 Darkness Foundation Stage strength....he may be able to beat Gabriel, but that would require David exposing his secrets and the right battle conditions. It would also require a bit of luck since Fire element practitioners are one of the most destructive opponents to fight against.

Even after he arrived to his apartment, David continued thinking intensely about his strength. More appropriately, his thoughts were on his lack of attack power. He had mastered the 6 basic skills of Darkness, but Darkness skills had an issue.....they were great at supporting and supplementing attack power, but not the best for actual attacking. Of the six skills, only one actually involved an actual attack. The Retribution Skill wasn't a direct attack though since it was a method to counter the opponent's physical attack.

All David's other skills seemed to be geared more towards someone that attacked like an assassin. He could hide his life signs with the Death Skill. He could detect threats with the Doom Skill. He could agitate opponents with the Strife Skill. Shadow Skill could help him sneak up on people. Destruction Skill could give him a brief boost in strength.

Nothing really offered him a good attack.

His best way to kill someone was in their dreams, but that required someone to be unconscious.

When David really looked at himself from a certain perspective, he was extremely strong. He basically had never faced something that could harm him in his shadow form. He had all the best skills for hiding and evasion. He had good support skills for recognizing threats. He even had a skill that would give him a sudden burst of strength to boost a single attack. He essentially had the perfect assassins toolkit for launching a surprise attack. However, he was lacking in one main department....he still didn't have a good attack method.

David was at a loss when thinking about it. What sort of attack method would work best for him. He didn't really like guns. He played around with a few of swords before but they felt awkward.

David's darkness skills really supported the attacks of an assassin....maybe he should pick the weapon of an assassin.

But what type of weapons do assassins typically use? A quick internet search yielded nothing but lists of weapons in video games ....and probably got him added to some government list.

In consideration of his fights so far, David had always used a blade.....Specifically a knife.

The knife had always worked good for the initial surprise attack. It was after that first attack that the knife always seemed ineffective.

David spent the entire night thinking about how to fill the gap in his training to add a weapon of some sort. He had asked Mr. Lester before and the man cursed at him. Mr. Lester was a Fist Specialist after all.

After finally getting so tired that he fell asleep, David entered his dream world and continued to sit and ponder the issue.

While sitting in his dream world thinking, he had a wonderful idea. He could just enter someone's battle dream and test out a few different weapons to see what he liked the best. That should help better than guessing.

So...David began a long night of tormenting other guards in their dreams....he wasn't doing it on purpose...he was just using them to test out weapons...lots of weapons....he shot and hacked and cut and slashed...he was pretty ruthless in those dreams...

After hours of testing different weapons in the dream world, David had finally made his decision. He liked shorter blades. Knives and short swords to be specific. They fit into his brawling type fighting style a bit more than other weapons.

After making his choice, David knew his next task would be convincing Mr. Lester to give him some training information.

With the decision made, David actually went to sleep....and he had a good nights sleep....

....unlike half of the guards who had been tormented by a black clothed man in their dreams all night...