The villainous young master just wants to live a Buddhist-like life.

　……

　Ok.

　It is perfectly normal for girls to be afraid of insects.

　In fact, many boys are also afraid of insects, and the older they get, the more afraid they become, but boys don't say it.

　Dark rushed to the Psychic Zone and immediately caught up with a contestant as soon as he landed.

　He was still dressed casually today, but made no effort to disguise himself. Since he frequently changed servers, there was no need for disguise.

　At this point, what matters is sharp eyesight; speed and accuracy are paramount. Identity and such are irrelevant.

　—The main disguise did indeed take time.

　In addition, frequently changing regions is definitely not as stable as staying in one place, and time is wasted before and after each region change.

　If we add the time spent camouflaging, then it's a waste plus waste equals a double waste. 9:45.

　After winning two duels in the Psychic Division, Dark finally encountered an acquaintance—Professor Lily.

　Watching Professor Lily float slowly forward in the air, he almost forgot what he wanted to say.

　"Hey, isn't that Dark?"

　Professor Lily flipped in mid-air, her body still parallel to the ground, but face down, and then floated down in that position.

　Dark's gaze sharpened: "Professor Lily, what are you doing?"

　Professor Lily said with a grin, "Look at the scenery! Don't you think the clouds in the sky are beautiful?"

　天上的云

　The sky was very blue today, the sun wasn't too strong but it was very bright, and only a few clouds were floating around.

　If you're bored, you can bite a lighter!

　"Hey."

　Professor Lily tilted her head back and rotated a quarter turn like a flat board, turning into a vertical "lying flat" position.

　She glanced at Dark and, seeing his expression was off, quickly waved her hand and said, "Don't worry, I'm ranked eighty-second now, advancing will be a piece of cake."

　They've already fallen from seventieth to outside the eighties!

　Looking at her grinning face, Dak suddenly felt a surge of anger.

　But just as he was getting carried away, his bio-alarm suddenly went off, instantly bringing him back to his senses.

　"I'm suffering from the aftereffects of being a professor!"

　Professors, by nature, cannot tolerate students who are frivolous and carefree. Dark suddenly realized that if Professor Lily advanced to the preliminaries, she would definitely become a stumbling block for him in his pursuit of the main competition.

　Therefore, letting her rot here is the best choice!

　"Eighty-two!" Dark exclaimed in surprise. "How come you're only eighty-two? I'm already forty-two!"

　"Ah!" Professor Lily exclaimed, her mouth agape and her eyes blinking rapidly. "How come you're only forty-second? I worked hard all day to climb to eighty-second!"

　“Oh.” Dark patted Professor Lily on the shoulder and said meaningfully, “Then keep up the good work. Farewell.”

　After saying that, he turned and left.

　what

　Show your points card and challenge Professor Lily! Oh, how about we tell a different joke?

　After Dark had walked a distance, Professor Lily suddenly realized, "Wait, why is there someone with him?"

　Professor Lily, who had only managed to drop to 82nd place after a whole day of hard work, quickly forgot about Sophia who was by Dark's side and regrouped to start pushing for higher scores.

　"Hey, it's easy to handle."

　Dark shook his head and arrested the next opponent.

　He has figured out the secret to this competition: as long as the intervals between duels are short enough, he can always maintain the initiative.

　When you remain in "rest time" for an extended period, you have the right to refuse all challenges from other players and choose the opponent you wish to face.

　Of course, the same applies to their opponents.

　Therefore, it is essential to have the ability to accurately identify contestants who "will accept the challenge."

　After encountering two "rejectors" in succession, Dark decided to give up. He kept his "mind-reading" ability in a semi-active state for a long time, and then increased the sample size by moving quickly, from which he accurately selected people who were "more willing to accept the duel".

　This is how they maintained their scoring rate.

　The rise in his ranking points proves that his actions were very efficient. However, based on the actual scores, his scoring rate today was still significantly lower.

　It is evident that the scoring speed of others has decreased even more.

　The good old days of easy money are over.

　Now is the real time to score points.

　Selecting fighters willing to duel, and avoiding those with overwhelming strength, are all skills to be learned.

　It can only be said that Darko did a better job in this regard.

　Half past ten.

　Dark arrived at the Flying Series competition area.

　He possesses a flying magical Pokémon like "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," which puts him in a very advantageous position in the Flying-type category, so he didn't bypass this area.

　But after a few duels, he quickly discovered that the contestants in the flying division were very good at "dodging".

　Their magical spirits are mostly very fast and can fly freely in the sky, making them easy to catch.

　So just half an hour later, Dark arrived at the next region – the Ground-type region!

　The Ground-type and Rock-type competitions may seem similar, but they are actually completely different.

　The Rocky Zone was designed by the Dwarves and is filled with mines and caves.

　While the ground-based competition area also has many giant rocks and caves, it is more like a desert overall, with many replica desert wonders.

　—This was designed with the participation of goblins.

　Because the surface of the ground-based arena is very flat and the visibility is excellent, finding opponents is relatively easy.

　Dak stayed there a bit longer, until noon, before finding a restaurant called "Desert Heatwave" to eat at.

　到这个

　By then, his points had reached two hundred, placing him twenty-ninth in the standings!

　"Without realizing it, I've already squeezed into the top thirty..."

　Looking at his ranking on the points card, Dark suddenly had a feeling that he no longer needed to work hard.

　Total points: 200; Rank: 29th.

　There are now only eight hours left until the end of the preliminary selection.

　From now on, even if he slows down a little, as long as he doesn't completely give up, he can't possibly fall below 128th place, right?

　His original goal was simply to get into the top 100...

　Dark fell into deep thought, wondering if he had been trying too hard.

　From yesterday to today.

　From 10 to 200 points.

　He participated in a total of 190 duels and defeated 190 opponents.

　Although among these 190 contestants, only Rei Hodge was the strongest, he didn't encounter any of the other top 30 contestants.

　However, it's not entirely devoid of value.

　He can avoid the experts and quickly rack up points because of his brain!

Chapter 1516 Dark's Hot Soul (5k)

　Knowledge and strength, luck and strategy, are all indispensable. But to advance from the preliminary rounds, only one aspect needs to stand out. Some rely on their exceptional skills to break through from three thousand people. Others rely on luck to move forward.

　Of course, some people win through strategy.

　Dak opened the menu, looked at the dazzling array of delicious food, and decided to slow down for a while and treat himself first.

　Sofia seemed to get into the swing of things much faster than him, already chattering away at the menu.

　The infrastructure of Duel City was designed with the goal of becoming a tourist destination. Therefore, it boasts a concentration of almost every cuisine from around the world.

　Every year, the World Cup is a huge publicity opportunity for this city.

　The goal is to leverage the World Cup to transform this place into a tourist hotspot. Even those not there to watch the World Cup can still enjoy themselves and linger.

　This restaurant, named "Desert Heatwave," employs many beautiful women with tanned skin and graceful figures as waitresses, and also features desert dance performances at set times.

　Their cuisine is also heavily influenced by desert flavors... well, it's all skin and no bones.

　After all, food in the desert is hard to judge. So the food at this restaurant only retains the "flavor," making it look like what desert dwellers would eat. But the actual taste has been repeatedly refined and is very delicious.

　However, there are other restaurants besides this one that retain desert flavors, so you can try them out if you're really curious.

　—Dark didn't have that kind of curiosity; he just wanted to enjoy the explosion of flavors.

　The local charm of "Desert Heatwave" seems to have spread from yesterday's competition, with a large number of spectators coming specifically to watch belly dancing (scratch that) and desert dance performances.

　Even after noon, crowds continued to pour in.

　Just as Dak finished ordering, he saw a group of acquaintances come in through the door. While teamwork is prohibited during the preliminary rounds, you can't really forbid contestants from resting and eating together, can you?

　Therefore, many contestants will agree on a time and meet at a certain restaurant.

　Sarah, Heidi, Doron, and a young mage with an unfamiliar face all arrived at the restaurant at the same time.

　Dark glanced in that direction, then quickly covered his face with the menu.

　He wasn't afraid of being seen eating with other girls; he just wanted to maintain a discreet perspective and observe quietly.

　"Have you run into someone you know? A student from St. Mary's College?" Sophia asked curiously.

　Dark whispered, "Shh, don't let them see."

　This was the first time Sofia had seen him so enthusiastic. Although she was puzzled, she suppressed her curiosity to ask more questions.

　However, unlike Dark who kept peeking at him, she kept peeking at Dark, finding it very novel and interesting.

　Sarah, Heidi, Doron, and Malachi weren't together from the beginning.

　In fact, Heidi and Sara initially separated in their search for Malachi Fern, only reuniting later by chance. By then, Doron had already found Malachi before her. Malachi clearly held Doron in high regard, having previously shared life-and-death adventures with him.

　In fact, to be precise, it was Malachi who saw Dolon first and then took the initiative to greet him.

　The two then worked together, but they followed the rules of the competition carefully and avoided fighting the same opponent consecutively.

　Malachi is indeed a very sincere and enthusiastic person. At first, Doron was somewhat reserved towards him because of Heidi. But after spending half a day together, he completely opened up to him. It was like rediscovering the feeling of adventuring together, experiencing duels together, and discussing ways to improve together.

　Malachi came simply for training, and obtaining "divine cause" was one of the purposes of the training.

　While Duolong's motives weren't entirely pure, he did have the idea of ​​becoming stronger.

　Friendships between men gradually took root. "The Archmage never takes a partner."

　"Women will only slow me down my card-drawing speed!"

　Just when Doron had almost forgotten about Heidi, they met up last night.

　Malachi doesn't distinguish between men and women, treating everyone equally, and quickly developed a good relationship with Heidi.

　Sarah wasn't interested; she simply agreed to meet at dinner time and left alone. Heidi, however, didn't want to leave.

　Things didn't turn out very dramatically.

　After observing secretly for a while, Dark discovered that the young mage named Malachi seemed to have a better relationship with Doron.

　Doron initially viewed him with prejudice due to personal reasons. But now he has clearly removed his prejudice, and the two are having a pleasant conversation.

　However, Heidi didn't seem to think that way.

　This is the difference caused by the distinction between opposite sexes and same sexes. The same way of interacting can ultimately evoke different feelings. Heidi felt that Malachi's enthusiasm for her must mean he had feelings for her, and she couldn't help but think about a romantic relationship.

　But Duolong only had eyes for friendship.