****[Jake’s POV]Later that evening, Eleanor and I met at a secluded corner of the building’s rooftop garden.The view of the city below from up there was mesmerizing. The cars moving around, heading to their various locations, the traffic lights, the scenery, it was like the city had come to life.My brow furrowed as I recounted Damon’s desperate and defeated behavior during our last encounter.Eleanor listened intently, with an expression of a mixture of sadness and determination on her face.“I met him on his knees, his whole demeanor, the look on his face, it was a pitiful scene to experience. He didn’t try to argue or fight back, he just walked away and said I’d won.”I gritted my teeth in anger as I recalled the look on his face.‘I wanted more, even though I won and broke his spirit, he was just going to roll over and accept it? This was supposed to be a challenge! I took him as my rival and this is what I get?’ I thought to myself.“I can’t help but feel pity for him,” Eleano

I turned my eyes to Damon to see his reaction to the results about to be released.‘This is my victory, there’s nothing he can do now to change that. I’ve crafted this system to perfection, and I know the outcome of everything,’ I thought to myself.“Defeating him turned out to be not much of a challenge for me after all anyway, I guess I overestimated him. I should never have thought that he would be a worthy opponent for me, no one is,” I muttered out."And now," the instructor declared, his voice ringing with authority, "the moment you've all been waiting for. The scores from the third round...I’ll be announcing the top five in ascending order,” he said.“In fifth place, Eleanor Windsor, in fourth place EmilyAnderson, in third place, Mia Rodriguez, in second place, Jake Thompson, and finally, the winner of the corporate assessment gauntlet, Damon Darhk!” The organizer screamed at the top of his voice.An eerie silence descended upon the crowd as the whole room went silent. The prev

“Damon…,” she started.She looked like she’d rehearsed everything she wanted to say earlier, but now that she stood in front of me, she was at a loss for words.I controlled my temper and remained quiet, determined not to get worked up over the situation.We stood there for almost a whole minute and she still hadn’t said anything.‘Is she going to speak? Or not? I’m tired of just standing here waiting,’ I thought to myself.After waiting a short while more I made an attempt to walk past her, since she wasn’t interested in saying anything to me.She grabbed my arm preventing me from doing this, and so I walked back and stood in front of her.“You’re aware you can’t keep us here all day right?” I asked, to remind her about the amount of time she was wasting.She waited for a while before she finally took a deep breath and began."Damon...I wanted to apologize for what happened during the competition," she said, her eyes searching mine for any hint of understanding. "I know that allying

Everyone began shuffling out of the room in a uniform manner.I got up from where I sat and was at the back of the queue. However, I was held back and grabbed on the shoulder by an official, stopping me in my tracks.I turned to face him and asked him what was happening, and he gave me a signal to wait behind till everyone else had left.‘What could this be about? A special reward for me coming out in first place? Or something else…,’ I thought to myself.Either way, I sat back down on my chair and soon the room was empty. No one seemed to notice my departure from the ten candidates, and so I didn’t get any disturbances.Now that they had all left, I spoke. “Care to tell me why I’m the only one left in the room?” I asked.“Mr Damon,” the official began. “Congratulations on coming out in first place in the tournament, if you would please follow me, we have someone who wants to speak to you,” he said.“It’s Anon again isn’t it?” I asked.“As perceptive as ever I see, he would like to co

‘Unauthorized access? I shouldn’t pry any further, I’m not prepared to face the consequences or take the risk. If it’s against something that the keepers of the code have set in place, I guess I can’t access it. Still I’m intrigued, I keep discovering that the system has more and more secrets to hide, it remains a mystery to me,’ I thought to myself.I got up from bed, my eyes were clear as day now. “In any case I’ll just have to wait to see what the surprise quest is, I’ve fulfilled the thresholds, now I just have to wait and see what it is,” I said to myself.I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I decided to pack my bags as was instructed by the officials.There wasn’t much to pack anyway, as most of our clothing and essentials were provided to us by the company, and I felt it would be wrong to take what didn’t belong to me.So I only packed a few things, a toothbrush, toiletries and other minor items. Thankfully there was already a bag in the room, where I could store my belongings.As I p