“The selection process has several different stages,” said Helen as he projected a blank holographic screen. The screen showed a significant amount of white empty space with the class number written down in the center, NU242.

“To qualify for the Alliance Tournament, you must first reach the basic requirement of having passed the qualifiers. During the Alliance Tournament, the matches are divided into a best of three. Which means there will only be three teams that will be able to pass the qualifiers,” Helen said.

At this moment the display listed several class numbers encircling their number. Helen then pointed out, “The first stage of the selection process is class versus class battles. We, the staff here at Nexus University, I understand that you have friendly relationships with your other classmates which might cause you to lose matches against each other intentionally. The competition is designed to bring out our best teams and to lose without a good cause goes against our ideals, which is why the initial stages are designed to wage war between classes.”

Helen continued, “The class versus class battles continue until there are only 16 groups left. After the 16 have been chosen, those 16 groups will have a month of time to study and prepare for the final battle, your group names will then would then enter a bracket-style tournament system, and there is no by's or seeded groups. So don’t think that your family influence could change these results. Once you lose in this competition, your possibility of participating in the Alliance Tournament is over.”

Helen then stopped for a second and asked, “Is there any questions with what I said so far?”

No one in the class said anything in response, the lesson wasn't over yet, and the students were still digesting what she had said so far.

Seeing none of the students respond to her remark she smiled and said, “Good, now let’s talk about how matches are handled.”

“Similar to how your combat class is handled, the display will select a random class for you to fight against and then each class is to assign a group to battle against another random group randomly. Between class battles you only need to fight once,” Shizuka said as the display started randomly highlighting class numbers.

The highlighting speed of the selection process began to slow down after a few seconds and stopped on the number NU274. Helen looked at the number that was chosen and said, “This class here is your first opponent, battles will soon begin in two hours. The same rules apply to the match conditions. To win, destroy the enemy Crypt of Heroes or slay the Commander. Losing is just the same. If you want to submit your equipment, each room has a designated scanner for you to do so if you haven't noticed yet and you can only duplicate objects and set these settings in the lobby. There are only 12 gear slots so choose them wisely.”

Helen then turns off the holographic projection and said, “That is all the basics that you need to know. There is no restriction to dirty or righteous methods. The winner takes all in this kind of battles. Now then, is there any questions, if not then you may begin preparing for battle.”

One of the students raised their hand and asked, “What if one of my team members are in a different class, how will that work out?”

Helen replied, “Your class assignments only matter if you’re the party leader, so say every single member in this class is a leader with members in different classes, because of the way it's set up this class will more than likely have many of its team qualified in the best of 16 battles after battling each class.”

Another student raised their hand and asked, “Say you lost a match and is no longer in the competition, can you still do participate in the Alliance Tournament in some way?”

Helen looked at the young man who said and asked, “If you lost why would you still want to participate in the great battle?”

The student smiled as boasted, “Why its to be popular of course, everyone will know who I am since the match is televised everywhere.”

Helen seriously looked at the ignorant student and bellowed, “Shameless!”

Her words startled the students and scared the boasting student. Helen's eyes were fixed on the cowering student as she said, “Rather than being one of the most popular men in the universe people will know that you're the biggest loser in the entire Alliance if you lost too easily against your opponent. To answer your question before, since it is a valid question, it is technically possible for someone to rejoin the final battle.”

Helen continued, “After the qualifiers are settled the team leader of the teams who qualified are allowed to substitute team members with anyone in the second year for increasing our chances of winning.”

After answering that question, nobody raised their hands up to ask anything else. Helen nodded and said, “Alright get in your little groups and prepare for battle. If a team member is in another class right now then send him an invite, the teacher will exempt him from attending class, and their grades wouldn't be affected. Of course, if you lose then back to normal classes you go. If anyone has any questions feel free to come up to me and ask.”

After her remark, she started to sit down and to occupy herself with her BMPU. Everyone in class dispersed to form their little groups and chatter began to echo about the room. Luon who after meeting Gizmo, Tyron, and Bendan then said, “Let’s invite Thomas to the class to discuss our strategy.”

The others nodded, and Luon sent Thomas an invite, soon enough he arrived, and their first match planning session is now live.

Luon looked at Gizmo and asked, “Are we going to use the building strategy now?”

Gizmo shook his head in response, he then said, “If we use it then other classes can study it since all the matches are properly recorded and filed under our team. The counter play would be difficult to work with later on.”

After saying so Thomas looked at Gizmo and said, “But if we use it once right away and battle normally afterward we can use psychological pressure to pressure them to spend more points earlier and set the early part of the battles tempo.”

Gizmo was surprised by his answer, his perspective quite fresh. Gizmo thought about it for a moment and nodded as he said, “Your idea is quite reasonable, then let's go with that.”

At the point, Luon interjected as he said, “It is a good idea. However, we need to spend the first minute of resources for scraps and tools.”

Gizmo and Thomas looked at Luon as if he was someone who was addicted to crafting. Seeing their response, Luon shrugged as he said, “If we didn't know then what's the point of having Thomas here?”

At this point, the group realized the fact that besides engineering Thomas was useless! Gizmo thought real hard about what Thomas could do. At this moment Bendan tapped Thomas' shoulders and said, “Its about time you get some muscles, come let us train together. I'll make a man out of you.”

Thomas shivered at his words, was he scared of working out? Or was it the way Bendan said it? Thomas rapidly waved his hands in front of him as he said, “The match is about to start in an hour! There's no way I'll be able to build enough muscles to be useful in time. If anything I'll be too tired to fight.”

“Tsk,” Bendan clicked his tongue at his denial. At this point, Luon suggested, “After the first match how about we set Thomas in the commander seat in the back?”

Thomas replied to Luon's suggestion with negativity as he said, “there's no way I could do that! I'm not a good commander at all, I'm afraid that I will mess it up for everyone.”

Luon laughed at his quick denials and misunderstanding as he said, “Although you're on the commander position you won't be commanding the battle, I'll do it from the front lines. Instead, all you need to do is tell me if you see any enemies on the map and spawn units when I ask for it. That's all.”

Thomas and Gizmo both appeared perplexed as they asked, “Can you really command while on the front line fighting?”

Luon simply smiled and said “Just trust me on this one. I won't let you guys down.”

“Instead of being a commander, I'll be a communications officer? Has anyone ever done this before in these 5v5 battles?” Thomas asked.

Everyone shook their heads after thinking about it, Luon at this point said, “Usually the commander stay in the back where the whole map is displayed, so there was no need for one. However, since I'll be fighting in the front line, I need you to relay to me every single important information that would affect the match. Don’t worry about it too much, let’s just try it out for a bit. Try to save the points so in case I mess up we have something to fall back on.”

Since the plan was secured, Luon decided to bring up the next topic. Luon said, “Now for to confirm what gear we’ll be using for the event. First of all, besides our weapons, all of our utility devices and armor will be restricted. I don’t think we need to expose them for now.”

Everyone nodded at Luon’s suggestion as it was very reasonable, seeing their response Luon brought out several of objects from the inventory system and said, “Lock these in your gear slots, since we can only have 12 things let’s fully use all of the slots. Besides your weapons take some of these things.”

At this point, they looked at what Luon brought out, besides the weapons, there was something else that surprised them. Gizmo who saw these very familiar things asked, “You’re planning to use these here as well? I know there aren’t any rules regarding them but isn’t this kind of… I don’t know… cheating?”

Luon smiled and said, “Since Thomas is being the communication officer something else has to take his position.”

What Luon brought out was the robots he crafted from the survival camp, the government offered to take them off his hands in which Luon denied their offer. Robots were heavily restricted and at the same time very expensive and hard to maintain. It was more of a luxury tool that made people’s lives easier. If it weren’t for the fact that they were costly, then everyone would have gotten them.

Luon first gave Tyron his weapon and several sets of arrows before filling the rest of the slots with robots. Tyron smiled at the bow and arrows Luon had provided him. Initially, he had made the arrows all by himself, but after he told Luon about the development method of his clan's arrows as long as he promised not to disclose it, Luon had managed to create a better set of arrows and at the same time made a mighty bow to go along with it.

[Revolving Wind Bow]

[Rank - Unique]

[Attack - 2150]

[Durability - 720/720]

[A bow bends the will of the heavens. It shoots thunder upon its foes. The more power that coils up, the more powerful the bow. Created by an expert craftsman the power behind the bow is unimaginable.]

[Enchant - Durability Boost]

[Perk 1 - Auto Repair]

[Perk 2 - Lightweight]

[Heliken Arrows]

[Rank - Unique]

[Attack - 200]

[Durability - 50/50]

[Powerful arrows crafted from the bones of the winged beast Heliken and the quiver from its feathers. Heliken was revered as a godly existence several millennia ago until humanity raised its strength to domesticate them. This arrow is extremely expensive.]

[Perk 1 - Wind Resistance]

[Perk 2 - Gravity Resistance]

[Perk 3 - Magic Piercing]

Fortunately, although the arrows were very expensive to the point he could only procure one, the system allowed Luon to duplicate it as he managed to bundle several sets of Heliken arrows. Seeing the satisfied Tyron, Luon turned to Gizmo to hand him his weapon. Gizmo took the rifle and started to inspect it, after confirming the number of bullets and making sure it was functioning he nodded at its condition.

[Lazodora Rifle Replica]

[Rank - Unique]

[Attack - 2000]

[Durability - 600/600]

[A replica of the famed Lazodora laser rifles invented from the Plana solar system. Retrofitted and customized to shoot both laser and physical bullets.]

[Enchant - Speed]

[Perk 1 - Mana Boost]

[Perk 2 - Lightweight]

[Perk 3 - Energy Charge]

Only Bendan and Thomas didn’t have any weapons. Bendan used the sword his ancestors had passed down, and Thomas wasn’t a combatant, so he didn’t need one.

After everyone’s gear slots were full, and the plan was made a lot of time had passed, and at this moment Helen stood before the class again and said, “Time is up folks, I hope you're prepared for battle. Let’s queue our first team to challenge class NU274.”

A list of team names appeared on a holographic projection, and the randomizer highlighted each team quickly before it began to slow down. Luon noticed that each side had fancy names and the name he registered for his squad was Team Ascension.

The selection slowly ticked and stopped upon a name signaling the start of the qualifiers.