"Oh....you broke through?," Mr. Lester questioned before turning it around, "....I knew that is what would happen. Why do you think I keep throwing those racket balls when you aren't looking?"

"Fucking shameless, old man," David cursed looking at Mr. Lester with a glare. The old man had not done it intentionally.....but he surely would take credit for it.

Not acknowledging David's comment, Mr. Lester said, "Alright, we can call it quits for today. Tomorrow you can rest up all day to make sure you are in your ideal condition for tournament qualifying. The gym actually closes tonight to setup for the qualifying in here tomorrow.....so we would have had to leave early anyway. Go back and start to have a good rest."

Chaz and David started picking up their workout stuff.

Finishing up, Chaz told David, "Give me a call when you want to head over to qualifying tomorrow. We can go together."

"Sure man....see you tomorrow," David said as he finished up his stuff as well.

He wasn't prepared to leave though. Mr. Lester owed him something.

Seeing David walk his way, Mr. Lester knew exactly what David was going to ask for.....his brother's knife skills journal.

As David walked up, Mr. Lester said, "Come with me."

The two men exited the private training room and walked over to the other side of the gym. Mr. Lester entered another door to the side that lead to a hallway.

"Where are we going?," David asked as Mr. Lester came to a stop in the hallway in front of a door.

"My room. That's where the book is," Mr. Lester said.

He took out a set of keys and unlocked the door.

"You live this close to the gym?," David asked.

"Yes, I look after the gym. It is my job, you idiot. Why else would I be in there all the time?," Mr. Lester said as he opened the door and walked inside, "Come in."

David followed Mr. Lester into his apartment...well it was more like a private training room that was converted into an apartment...even the toilet was just sitting out in the open...there were no walls....it was just one big room with a ton of punching bags hanging in the center.

"WOW!," David was surprised, "What do you do.....eat....sleep....and train?"

"Yes....that and watch over the gym. The book is over by the kitchen table. I had expected for you to need it sooner.....who would have known that it would take you forever to master the skill," Mr. Lester mocked.

The two men had a habit of picking on each other.....it showed that they had a good relationship.

Mr. Lester walked over and sat down at the kitchen table. He pulled a book out from a box underneath the table and handed it to David.

"My brother's name was Richard. He was about 10 years older than me but always helped me when he could. This book is a collection of the knife skills and experience that he gathered in his years of training and fighting. I would ask that you please take care of it.....it is one of the few items I have left of him," Mr. Lester said in a serious tone.

"Thank you, Mr. Lester," David said, "I don't know if I have ever seriously told you thank you before....you treat me like a friend and I really appreciate it."

"What the fuck are you talking about?," Mr. Lester said, "Of course, I help you kid. I have always liked the way you handled getting thrown into our world...it doesn't seem to mess with you much. If I was in your shoes, I would probably be freaking out all the time."

David chatted with Mr. Lester for a few minutes more.....well most of it was just shit talking.....Then he was dismissed and went back to his room. He needed a good night's sleep tonight. Tomorrow he would have the day off.....then the next day was tournament qualifying.

________________________

On his day off, David didn't do much. Most of his time was spent healing up from all of his previous injuries and reading the book that Mr. Lester had given him the night before.

Once he started reading, he became engrossed in the information about knife techniques. Mr. Lester's brother did a wonderful job in describing his experiences.

To David's surprise, most of the information was focused on human and beast anatomy. The concept was simple. Knifes are small. If you know the most critical places to stab....then you have a higher chance of killing an enemy. It was simple but made perfect sense.

By the time nighttime came around, David had made it about halfway through the notes and was at the peak of his physical condition. He went to bed early to rest up for qualifying tomorrow.

____________________

After taking an entire day off, David felt fully recharged when he woke up the morning of qualifying. He ate breakfast as usual and hung out in his room for a while.

The overall tournament would have around 500 participants, so they couldn't all fit into the gym at once. In order to mitigate the crowding, the organizer for the tournament had scheduled different time slots based on the first letter in everyone's last name. David and Chaz both lucked out and made the first cutoff...so they had an early morning qualifying.

After calling Chad to make sure he was up, David made his way down to the gym for the 8 AM kickoff of the tournament. By the size of the crowd of people outside of the gym, a large amount of people in addition to the guards had signed up for this tournament.

Everyone was just standing around in no organized manner. David kept trying to figure out how this was going to work since they were not letting anyone into the gym.

"What's going on?," David asked as he walked up to Chaz.

"Don't know. Someone else said that they will be making an announcement on the format right at 8 AM," Chaz said.

"You in good shape?," Chaz asked.

"Yep. How about you?,"David responded.

"Just anxious over the qualifying. I don't want to get disqualified. I don't even know what the tests are about," Chaz said.

"Oh.....Mr. Lester had said something about the tests last night after you left. From what I know, this qualifying round is composed to three individual tests that would be used to determine a final score. The top 16 scores in each class would complete in a bracket style tournament battle for the prizes. Everyone else will just have to deal with their position based on this qualifying," David relayed the information that Mr. Lester had told him last night.

"....and you shouldn't be worried about anything. There are not many Foundation Stage on Earth. My guess is there at most 25 in the Carmine Family here on Earth. If you can't get into the top 16, then I don't stand a chance," David said assuredly.

David and Chaz were laughing when a buzz came over the speakers in the area outside the gym. The buzz drew everyone's attention and then a voice came over the loud speaker.

"Welcome to the Carmine Guard Assessment Tournament. This qualification's assessment will be done to limit the amount of time spent on the tournament. Only the top 16 scoring participants in each classification will be promoted to the bracket style tournament battle finals. This qualifying round will consist of three tests: strength, skill and reaction speed. Please wait until your name is called then you can enter."

In brief second after the announcement, the first name sounded over the speaker. After about 3 minutes, the second name was called. It seemed that the people were going to cycle pretty quickly.

"Hey Chaz, you are going to have to tell me how it goes....since it looks like you will be in and out in a few," David said as they stood there waiting. Chaz's last name was Brown....so he would be going pretty soon. In a matter of minutes, Chaz's name was called and he went into the gym.

Now, people were in a steady stream in and out of the gym. Everything was going smoothly.

Then, David heard another name he was familiar with....Gabriel Carmine.

"Guess he really is competing," David thought while waiting his turn.

After a while, Chaz came out of the testing area and walked over to David.

"Man, you should do alright in the testing. some of it is kinda stupid. The only one that is going to be difficult for you is the strength portion, but you should be around average," Chaz said.

"But they told us not to give anyone specifics or we would be disqualified. Seems they want everyone to go in cold and unaware," Chaz followed up.

"Really?," David questioned, "That's funny."

After another 20 minutes of waiting, it was finally David's turn to be called up to qualify.

Entering the gym, David saw numerous testing stations setup. It looked like there were at least 10 groups of each type of testing station.

"Please walk over to the strength test," a woman said directing David over to one of the corners of the gym.

Walking up to the testing station, an examiner started to give David directions immediately.

"Mr. Knox, please walk up and punch the red dot at the center of the wall. This is a punching strength meter and will record the poundage of your punch. Then, you will need to walk up that stage to that lifting bar and pull it up with all your strength. No weights needed to be loaded onto the bar.....the mechanism under the stage will adjust the weight automatically. No skills are allowed to be used at this testing station."

Listening to man, David walked over to the wall and stood in a punching stance in front of the target. Mustering up all of his physical strength, David threw a punch right at the red center of the target.

The machine sounded with a ding and David's punch strength was revealed on the screen next to the station.

"1,245 pounds of force," the testing supervisor said.

David was surprised. His punch was about double the strength of a normal person's punch. It didn't seem that bad to him but the test supervisor seemed unimpressed.

Immediately after finishing, David walked up the stairs on the stage and stood at the bar on the ground. He grabbed a hold of the bar in a dead lifting position. With his strength, he drove his feet into the floor and pulled up on the bar. He locked his hips out in the deadlifting position and a buzz sounded off to his side.

After David released the bar, the test supervisor read the weight David lifted, "800 pounds. Move on to the Skills Station"

Again, David was impressed with his strength but the supervisor was completely unaffected. A little discouraged, David walked over to the next station. He had maybe spent two minutes completing his strength test.

As he walked up to the skills test and realized that the station consisted of a woman sitting at a table with chair next to her. As he walked up to the table, the woman looked at him and said, "Mr. Knox, could you please state your currently mastered skills?"

Sitting in the chair, David said, "Okay...I have mastered three Darkness Skills and one Body Skill. The Darkness skills are Shadow, Doom and Retribution. The Body Skill is the Body of Recovery." He only listed the skills that other knew about....If he wanted to give up his secrets, there would be another five skills to add to the list.

"Oh.....great.....thank you for the information. You can move forward to the reaction test," she said as she waved David on.

"That's it?," David questioned.

"Yep, that's it. We can't have Level Zero cultivators executing skills all over the place.....people would freak out and the gym would be destroyed," she said.

Moving over to the next station, David saw a few little rooms that kept echoing with popping noises. Walking up to the man overseeing the test, the man seemed to recognize David immediately. It was like the man was waiting for David.

"Oh.....Mr. Knox.....Please proceed to Room 5 for your reaction test. Please do not use any skills during the test," the testing supervisor said with a weird grin.

David walked over to Room 5 and opened the door. As he entered the room, he saw a wide eyed and grinning Mr. Lester sitting at what appeared war turret.

"Walk over to the wall. Dodge as many of the balls shot at you in the next 2 minutes," Mr. Lester said.

"You sick fuck.....," David said as he walked over to the wall with a glare at Mr. Lester. What was this old man's deal with throwing balls at people?

The test timer started and Mr. Lester commenced with an aggressive bombardment of racket balls against David.

David was actually pretty successful at dodging. He had never been weak in terms of speed and his passive perception skill seemed to let him anticipate where the balls were going to be shot.

In the end, he had to allow a few of the balls to hit him so that he wouldn't seem like he cheated.

As the buzzer sounded, he looked over and saw disappointment on Mr. Lester's face.

Startled David asked, "What's that look for? Did I do poorly?"

"No....I wanted to hit you with more balls. You did better than anyone else so far," Mr. Lester said, "Leave before I get angry."

David left the room and moved toward the exit. As he reached the exit, one of the test supervisors told him that the results would be posted later tonight and to check back after 9:00 PM.

David walked back to his room to begin reading the book again. The tests had been relatively simple and quick...it wasn't even 10:00 AM yet. He had a long day to wait for the results.