For the next week, Sam focused on the surgeries.
He transformed one bone after another. But the one week is not enough. The body has over two hundred bones and each bone is of different size and shape. He has to be careful to not disrupt any of the bones' functions.
He also has to maintain the relative strength and properties of each bone. Some needs to be more dense than the others, some need to be more flexible. Some have complex structure.
With all these factors, it will take a few weeks to fully transform the whole body.
Sam came back after the first week to attend the next open tournament in the different academy. Before that he checked the updates of the whole week. Particularly the updates related to Pearl.
Her plans are exposed and no one reacted to it yet.
So, she grew anxious day by day and tried to find out what others are thinking and what the next step should be. But she couldn't do much because Sam already made sure none of his friends will show her any new information.
She could only see them in the tournaments.
On top of that, not all of them were at the same tournament. They are only going to participate in the open tournament related to their academy. Just like how only Five Elemental King participated in the Apollo Academy, the rest would participate in their own academies.
And all of them have the same goals, they are going to defeat Pearl in the prelims and if possible in the mains as well.
They are going to disrupt her plans and make sure that she doesn't land in the top three or even the top five for that matter.
Of course, in the first tournament, she managed to land within the top 5, but that is her plan for Sam.
He wanted to create a show of gradual decline.
In every tournament, her performance will appear a bit worse than the previous one. In the first one, she managed to rank above the seeded candidates like Five Elemental King, but in the next one, she is not going to get that.
She will rank in the same category of the seeded candidate.
In the later one, she would go for an even lesser rank and she will continue to stay there.
That is Sam's plan and it is going to be executed perfectly.
The second tournament is in Hermes Academy.
Watt is going to be there. Sam could relax even more. Just like the Apollo Academy, Hermes Academy also followed suit to conduct Prelims in the Hub. It is much easier, cheaper and faster. They didn't feel shame in copying one of their peers for all these advantages.
Sam of course didn't mind.
It is revenue and he would also make all these academies owe him a few favors.
When all the plans reach the final stages, he is going to rip off these guys to his heart's content. It would be a magnificent fleecing.
The second tournament went as Sam planned it out to be.
The final battle was once again between Sam and White and this time Sam lost the match. Not the fight, but he got kicked out of the Arena just like how he kicked White out of the arena in the previous fights.
Pearl on the other hand was not in the top five this time. Watt took the spot. Vidyut also was in top five. The only problem is Pearl managed to take the top five once again. She managed to grit through the mental obstacles and fought with them cleanly.
This made it hard for Sam.
His plan would not work out with proper impact if she stayed in the top five. So, he decided to change the plans for the next tournament.
After the tournament, he went back to the surgery. Another week passed by and Sam finished another part of the surgery. It was a productive week. He went to the third tournament in Hephaestus Academy and this time to the tournament, even Five Elements King came.
It is perfect for him.
And Sam managed to clinch the top five spots just like he wanted. Pearl was thrown out of the pool. He also won first place by the way. The problem is White didn't lose the fight yet. For them to have a proper fight, they would need a lot of space and it might take hours.
Another week of surgery later in the next tournament which actually belonged to the Zeus academy, Sam let Watt, Five Elemental King, and even Philip come. Her spot dropped by one more rank. Pearl finally understood what was happening.
The people that Sam revealed her plans to are trying to humiliate her. They are making her lose her ranks one by one and that is why all of them didn't attend all the tournaments. This made her feel panicked.
Her father is one of high expectations, if he knew this was the result of her failed plans, he would take it out on her.
She became anxious, but she didn't know what to do.
Weeks passed.
Every week, Sam performed Bone transformation surgery and went to kick some ass in the tournaments. The last open tournament took place in Gambler Academy and Sam won once again.
By now, Pearl dropped out of top ten.
At first she was still able to hold on mentally, but now she is way past her breaking point. She made mistakes in panic and every single prelim test happening in the simulator has a mental aspect to it. After all, the beasts are new, the environments are new and the damage they took is unfamiliar, she dropping out more and more.
In a couple of tournaments, she barely made it into the top 16.
In every tournament, after the fight was over, Sam gave her a look. A look of ridicule.
Pearl went crazy.
Vidyut was always the one trying to calm her down, but White on the other hand remained calm. He only had one question every week.
'What is the next plan?'
And every next plan failed. She could see that his trust in her was reducing every day.
In this panicked situation, Jade got a little freedom from her sister. She made some new friends in class and enjoyed some peace. She really wished that Stone is nearby and a chance to visit him would have been great.
She even commissioned some people to search his planet and see if she could find him.
If only she knew that Stone is in the same region going through hell to reach her level.
On the last day of the Open tournaments, Sam finally finished all the bone transformation surgeries. Now he just has to wait until Stone gets used to his new skeleton and then do the marrow transformation surgery.
Sam felt really satisfied with the current level of development.
After all, he fancied himself as a creator. This is the greatest creation until now.
He even wanted to celebrate a bit.
While Sam is enjoying the success streak his from all sides, there is a meeting happening between all the deans.
"So, the format for the Inter academy tournament is decided. As usual, we are going to select ten people from the region for the Individual tournament and a group of ten from a single academy for the group competition.
Usually, it would have already been decided who those ten individuals be. But this time the competition is a bit tough.
The ranks are a bit dynamic and many students from different academies are performing well. Zeus Academy has two students in the top five for every tournament. It is a good year, I must say.
One of the deans said with a smile on his face.
"Yeah, the top spots also have so much competition this time. Gambler's Academy really gave us a great surprise this time. That candidate Sam is a force to be reckoned with. I heard that he was specifically brought here with a special recommendation and a bunch of privileges.
Where did you get him, Dean Wharton? Did you bring him to save some dignity for your academy?"
Dean of Hephaestus Academy asked sarcastically.
Wharton who looked bored said with a lazy tone.
"You should be asking how that guy managed to get so many privileges from the Zeus Academy. He even got the pass to enter all the towers in Olympian academies. It looks like your students are about to break the record.
Sam might just visit your academies and increase the record again. Then I wonder where you hide your ugly ass face.
Be prepared to console your students though, the next time it would be way too traumatic if my estimation of him is right."
As they were speaking suddenly the assistant of one of the deans came running inside.
The deans looked at him in askance.
"Sir, that guy Sam. He just entered the Zeus tower once again. White was just about to break his record, but he just came and ascended faster than before."
Wharton laughed out loud.
Sam is celebrating.
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