After the headquarters’ gate closed, it wasn’t long before the crowd of competitors finally began to discover the final details of this part of the selection.

Upon arriving in the stands of the fight arena, immediately, each of the competitors saw that there was already a group of soldiers in the middle of the fighting stage. There were about 20 soldiers there, sitting around a table in front of where the competitors had seated.

There were some artifacts on that table, while several clipboards and water glasses were distributed on it.

And as soon as a soldier gave the signal that there was no one else outside the gates, one of the people on that stage began to speak. “Well, good morning, and welcome to the last part of this selection of new soldiers.”

“For starters, I’ll explain some simple rules as to how everything will happen, and finally, when each of the fights will take place.”

After saying this, the white-haired man who had started to speak rose from his chair as he looked from one side of the crowd to the other. He then began to explain. “Eh, as many of you may have heard, in this last part of the selection, you will face opponents who are soldiers of the Black Plain Army.”

“However, I must emphasize that although this is an arduous task, each of your opponents will have an amount of spiritual strength equal to yours.”

“Maybe someone here doesn’t know, so I’m going to take a chance and declare the obvious. Blue-grade techniques are 50% efficient, and Black-grade techniques are 70%. With that, given the energy differences of different cultivation levels, we will put a soldier on a similar amount of usable power as the competitor he will face.”

“For example, a level 39 competitor will face a level 35 soldier. Someone level 29 will face a level 24 soldier, and a level 40 competitor will face a level 39 opponent.” He gave examples, following the fact that most of these 3,500 or so competitors were at one of these three levels.

With this, he could all at once clear the doubts of most of these people.

And as for the difference in levels, as can be seen, one can notice a reduction in the difference in levels that someone can face, with different classifications of techniques. But this is normal.

With each new cultivation stage, the amount of energy of the cultivators increased a lot, and it was remarkably different when compared to levels of different stages.

For example, following the same pattern as above, someone at level 49 with Blue-grade techniques could fight an opponent at level 46 using Black-grade techniques.

That is because the energy growth within the same stage was not so significant. However, by changing cultivation stages, the difference would be enormous and become more and more extreme in later stages.

Therefore, someone at level 40, like these competitors, could only fight the soldiers at level 39.

An example of this was the young Stuart himself. When he was level 39, he could barely draw a tie with Troy, level 44, at the end of the Spiritual Tournament. However, months later, when he had already entered the 5th stage of cultivation, Minos could already fight opponents up to level 47.

Anyway, this explains the disproportionate differences between these levels of cultivation.

And upon hearing the old man’s explanation, the contestants continued to pay attention to him, but with raised eyebrows, as they thought about this matter. Some of them were not so well aware of the differences in cultivation levels, as many of them had lived most of their lives without caring about it.

However, they had the impression that it made sense because, when comparing themselves to previous versions of themselves, they believed that they could defeat the current version of themselves with better techniques.

Of course, this thought was quite gradual, and some of them took a while to reach this conclusion.

Therefore, many had serious expressions, which only after a few moments diminished.

‘Even so, it will still be very difficult to face a level 24 soldier…’ Alina thought to herself. A fight could involve several variables. Even if the power was equal between the parties, this could not mean an impasse.

On some occasions, with this restriction, certain types of fighters would be considered pareo. Still, on other events, there could be a more significant imbalance than you might think. For example, the opening match of the Arena of the City had demonstrated this well.

The winner of that one-day tournament had been a soldier with an innate skill focused on hand-to-hand combat. And that was just her opponent’s specialty!

Because of this, those individuals had won easily, as innate abilities are far more efficient and powerful than spiritual techniques!

Even if the soldiers who were going to fight these competitors didn’t have or didn’t use battle skills, each fight would still have different situations. So, for example, a competitor could be very compatible with his opponent, and the battle would be easier.

Or it could be the other way if a competitor had to face his nemesis!

This man, an expert in close combat, would face his most formidable adversaries, those warriors who specialized in long-range combat. Like Minos with his restrictive techniques, or someone with mental techniques or abilities!

The possibilities were endless, and anything could happen in a battle!

The old man then continued. “Each of you will fight only once against a soldier of spiritual power equal to his own. If you lose, you’re out. If you win, you’re ok.”

“As for the unlikely event of a tie, there will be a group of referees watching each fight. If they think you deserved the victory, then you’ll be approved. Otherwise, you can only blame yourself.”

“Finally, for the approved group, you will fill the vacancies of each hierarchy, taking into account the level of cultivation of each one. In other words, the first classified in the group of competitors for the 4th stage will be those at level 39, going up to the first person approved, with a level lower than that.”

“If the number of vacancies is filled before reaching the last name of those approved for this stage of cultivation, then you can only blame your misfortune and try another time. As for the remote possibility that, for example, someone in 400th position has level 39 cultivation and another person in 401st position has the same cultivation level, then the younger of the two will pass.”

“The same goes for the other groups.” He said as he moved his eye from side to side, observing those competitors.

Conditions were a little harsh for people who were in these situations, but there was nothing to be done. The budget was limited, and the army needed to follow standards to organize the selection.

And given the low chance of something like the last example happening, such a tiebreaker, while seeming unfair, wasn’t that hard to accept.

Defeating an army soldier, or pulling a draw after a good fight, wouldn’t be easy!

For this reason, even if some of them were worried about losing their vacancies due to their age, this was more of a problem in the future.

The problem that was closest to them bothered them the most!

And finally, the criterion adopted was genuinely reasonable. After all, younger cultivators often have higher potentials and cultivation speeds. Therefore, for an organization like an army, such a thing would be highly valued.

“As for the fight itself, you will be able to use any external support items you have or that are necessary for your techniques. And the soldiers will only use weapons necessary for their techniques. In addition, they will be prohibited from using innate abilities during matches if their opponents do not have innate battle-type abilities.”

He then stopped for a moment and then continued. “However, if anyone here has an innate battle-type skill, then your opponent can have the same and will have the right to use it during the fight!”

‘Damn it! They truly want to put us in an impasse situation…’ Finally, someone in the crowd thought about it.

That thought was rational. After all, if there was already a rule limiting the spiritual power of soldiers, then competitors couldn’t have the advantage of using skills while their opponents couldn’t!

The objective here was to test this group to the extreme so that the selection organization could choose the most suitable ones.