In a dirty and damp tunnel with little to no lightings, a big number "5" could be seen painted on the wall. Inside the dark tunnel, a yellow-haired boy and a black-haired young man were walking casually as their feet stepped on the dirty puddles of water on the ground.

"Are we really not joining with the others?" Xin asked.

"Of course not. What do you think?" Liu Guanyi asked back.

"They... would only weigh us down?" Xin spoke with a little hesitation.

Seeing this he merely shook his head, this kid was still naïve. Even though he had potential, a potential was only… a potential in the end.

How many were there, talented and gifted people who failed at the beginning of the Martial Way? Easily countless.

And Liu Guanyi had no doubt that maybe there were even more regulars who failed to climb to the top and become Rankers with the tower's massive size.

Fortunately for Xin, Liu Guanyi deemed him worthy enough to be nurtured. That was why he continued to guide this kid to mature and become his right-hand man in the tower.

"What do you think of Novec?" Liu Guanyi decided to test the kid.

"Umm… Novec is a bit ruthless and uncaring compared to my position teacher." Xin said a bit hesitantly after a bit of thinking.

"Close, but not quite. Novec is indeed ruthless and uncaring. However, it is only what he shows on the outside. Inside, he is probably the most caring and kind test administrator on the floor of tests." Said Liu Guanyi.

He stopped for a moment to see Xin's reaction. Seeing him paying attention and thinking about his words deeply, Liu Guanyi continued.

"This can be inferred from his decision on the tests. When we first time came into the resting room, we were told to make teammates. However, on the running test, he emphasized that being weak and picking up teammates randomly would make the regulars fail the test. What did Novec want to relay with this?" Liu Guanyi asked as he looked at his eyes.

Xin contemplated it for a moment and spoke with an enlightened voice. "He wants to tell us that to take the tests and climb the tower, we have to be strong physically. Also, randomly recruiting a person into our team will prove disastrous."

"This is because their trustworthiness is hard to determine, and in the tower, this will be dangerous. However, a weak teammate is the same, they will endanger the team and become a weak link. That's why we really to consider a lot before picking a teammate."

"Very good! Now, when he said that we must return to the starting zone to be considered participating and finishing the hunt and we cannot kill but we are allowed to harm other regulars, what did he want to imply?" Liu Guanyi squinted his eyes as he stared at Xin's face.

Xin thought hard about this and finally spoke. "We can be attacked by the regulars from our side and the enemy's side and we must be able to protect ourselves to pass the test. However, since they can attack us, we can attack both sides as well."

"Since only one-fourth of each position will be chosen for every position, we can simply target our "rivals" and disregard the test. However, no matter the result for every regular participating in the test, they will still come out alive, explaining his soft side."

Liu Guanyi nodded satisfactorily at his answer.

"Yes, the test that Novec gives this time doesn't mean to evaluate our teamwork to hunt Shinheuh in the darkness, rather it is to evaluate our intelligence, cautiousness, and cunning. He wants to tell us that to climb the tower, we will need all of them."

"If we fail to realize this in the test, we will become easy prey to those who realized it, and with all the points they will get from the test, we will fail." Liu Guanyi explained slowly.

"This test will be very chaotic since as long as someone starts the betrayal, the others will quickly follow suit, especially our group since the morale is extremely low with Adori on the other side. This is why we don't need to participate with our group since they will start attacking each other shortly."

What we should now is to… incapacitate all of their scouts." Liu Guanyi ended it with a smile.

"I understand! I am scout so we need to take their scouts and we can return to the starting zone before the time ends to take the scouts on our side!" Xin exclaimed energetically.

"Good, this is your battle so I won't help you much. Let's get out of this tunnel and move to the stone carps' gathering spot. We will use the darkness as a cover to avoid meaningless fights so consider it as training to see in the darkness."

They ended their conversation and move faster to the gathering spot to intercept the group B's scouts. It took them around half an hour to get to the gathering spot. It was dark, darker than the tunnels they had passed so they had to walk slower.

"Observers, come out!" Xin whispered as two small cube objects appeared as they floated around him.

These two were "observers", the special device that scouts used to collect visual data to pass it to the scouts, that will improve their reconnaissance capability.

What Xin had was merely the cheap ones so it would not help much. But with them scouting and sending information in the front, they could traverse the dark areas much easier.

They walked more quietly and slowly since they were approaching the area near the group B's tunnel way.

They continued for a while until Xin stopped suddenly.

"Wait, the observers spotted some people lurking in the darkness!" He whispered.

"Then go dispatch them quickly and bait more of them. Remember, that sparing them and being soft with them would only harm you. Make sure they are completely incapacitated even if you have to cut their limbs. As long as they won't die before the test ends, it's alright."

Xin nodded as his face turned serious and moved stealthily forward to the place that he had he spotted from his observers as his figure disappeared in the darkness.

There in the distance, Xin saw three people with their observers floating around nearby. It seemed that they were worse than him, well that was obvious since he was among the top 5.

'There are only three… since there are 7 scouts in group A, there should be 8 of them in group B. So I have to lure the rest of them to come out in the open.' Xin pondered.

When they were quite close to him, Xin rushed to the last guy in the back. With a quick punch on the jaw and a powerful kick on his head, he was sent unconscious instantly.

Hearing the noise, the two reacted quickly and shouted. "Who's there?!"