After about sleeping for half a day, Race woke up before the trials began in the MAD tournament. He freshened up and activated a holographic feed of the MAD tournament. A lot of mechanics were still making their final changes to their designs. There were various kinds of armors and with 1 hour left before the trials began. He continued to watch the feed for about 45 mins after finishing his meal. And just when Race was about use his headset to enter the tournament, there was a knock on his door.

"May, I come in. " Agent T asked from outside.

" Sure Agent T, Come on in"

Agent T came into the room with a box in his hand, It contained a VR headset. " This one will help you stay in VR for a longer duration of time with out getting tired". The VR was one of the latest models made in the Terran Coalition. And Race was happy to receive such a gift. This one came with higher security than the cheap model Race used.

" Thank you Agent T. " Said Race.

" The people of Tarar is hoping to see the dark horse from their home world win." said Agent T.

" Its a done deal", Race said with utmost confidence, and placed the VR headset on him. After a quick scan of his biometrics, the headset was officially his. And then he entered back into the tournament. Usually he had to go through a few identification procedure, but owing to his current status Race was able to directly enter his compartment.

Race( his virtual avatar) was directly teleported to his workstation. His unnamed armor was floating above the workstation. Since he had to confirm the armor design before leaving VR, he was not allowed to make any changes to the Armor. Not like he needed to make change. And he couldn't make a change even if he was allowed because there was count down on the bottom right of the work station, and it showed that less than 10 mins remained. just 10 mins before the trials begin.

10 mins flew by fast, and various mechanics were excited to see how their designs fared against the rest of their peer.

The rooms of each contestant turned into a vast stadium in which athletic events would be conducted. It is essentially a throw back to an ancient athletic event called the Olympics that were once held in the ancestral planet of the Terran Coalition. Technically it was just gimmick to keep the audience entertained.

And like the Olympics various MA's controlled by the AI took part in a beefed up version of the various events, like the 100m sprints turned into 10km sprints and the rest of the events also underwent such drastic increases. This primary round was to weed out the numerous heavily underperforming Mobile Armor. Its usually quite simple, But since an Enlightened one was currently using this year MAD tournament as a means to select a disciple. So every single contestant was met with a announcement.

" Due to this year's special circumstance. there is a change in the performance requirements that is required by a Mobile Armor to qualify for the next round. The qualification for the M A's participating in various event is as follows:

=> The MA's are required to complete two events with scores or points that is at least 75% of the score that the original design collected in that particular event.

=> The Original design's score as well as the video of the performance have been sent to each participants and the audience

=> The Participants are allowed to register your designs for a maximum of all the Events , or to a minimum of 2.

"These are the changes that have been made to the first round of this year's MAD tournament. These changes are effective only for this year."

" So LET THE GAMES BEGIN".

All of the participants numbering in the billions was teleported into the stands, It almost seemed like there was an oceanic of players of various color and ethnicity. And among these numerous contestants sat Race who was currently registering his design for all the events. Their was special holographic panel for the participants that showed the various events and the minimum points or score required to qualify. Along with the requirement to qualify , each event also showed the score the Original design secured along with an option to see the video of the Original Design completing the event ( titled: The OG slaying it).

Race was rather confident about his design's ability to qualify in more than one event, So he was rather relaxed when compared to other contestants. Since it was an AI that was controlling the designs the results of each event was almost instantly made available. Lot of the participants were too nervous and afraid to even register their designs to any events.

Race was one of the first to register and so he was one of the first to receive his results as well. And like he expected his design achieved the qualifying mark for everything except for the marathon. His design even crossed the score the original design set for sprints, jumps and even some throwing items.

Though Race was not shocked by the performance, we cannot say the same for the rest of the group. There was a huge scoreboard floating in the middle of the stadium. Their was not that many events for this knockoff Olympics, Just events that will showcase the upper limits of the M A's. So their were only a few events like, sprints, hurdles, long jump, high jump, marathon, disc throw, javelin for land based M A's. Aquatic M A's had a different scoreboard. There was no M A's geared for space.

And Race's design nearly outperformed the Original Design in most of the events. And since he qualified for 6 out of 7 events, Race had comfortably cemented his spot as First for this round. This caused a lot of ruckus among the other participants.

" What is going on here, how is it possible for a newbie trainee apprentice's design outperform our designs let alone an Enlightened one's design." Some contestants who were unable to believe that Race's design were able perform to such a degree. " There must be something wrong with the AI".

When this was brought into the attention of the Hosts in the VIP box, a warning was issued to those causing the ruckus. " The simulations are done one of the most sophisticated AI's to be ever made, It is the pride of the coalition. Slandering it is the same as slandering the coalition. If the few that has caused the ruckus still instigate trouble, they will not only be banned from appearing in future tournaments, but will also be arrested."

This caused the unrest that was spreading through the crowd to settle. Though the mechanics who still chose to believe that there is something wrong with Race's evaluation; swore in their heart that when the next round commence they will definitely challenge him and prove that his design was not worthy enough to stand with the one that the enlightened designed.

As his fellow participant were planning and hoping for his downfall, Their was a development in the the VIP box that might have a huge impact on Race's future.

" Colonel Barrar(Lonnie_Barrar) the enlightened has a request for you" the Mechanic in the VIP box spoke to the one wearing the military uniform. After receiving a nod from the Colonel Barrar, The Mechanic opened a private channel for the both of them.

" The Enlightened one requests you to pilot the new MA design against Race's design in the next round, He hopes that you will be able to draw out the full potential of both Race and His Design "

" It will be my honor, I have seen him practicing his sword arts when he was testing his MA. He is good enough to give me a challenge. And I get to pilot an armor, even though basic, made by an Enlightened Mechanic." said the battle hungry colonel.

[ Lonnie_Barrar was the second person to vote for the story and such he will be part of the story as well. Thank you thunder6323 and Lonnie_Barrar for supporting my story. I hope I will be a able to write a story that all the reader can enjoy.]