Among the people participating in the young mage's magic competition, only top 360 mages would be able to go to the third stage. As many mages were able to pass the first stage because of the low threshold, the second round focused on choosing only the absolute bests among them to continue with the tournament.

The first round was something like a qualification round. Anyone passing the first round would at least be able to mention that to their workplaces and that would be their proof of competence. But big and famous places did not put much importance on the first round as it was completely theoretical with no practical value.

On the other hand, they did pay a lot of attention to the people who would be able to qualify for the third round. That was because the second round was completely practical and anyone doing good in this round was definitely experienced and would be useful for any organisation.

For this round, the mages needed to do some practical tasks that new mages usually needed to do when they joined any organisations. There were also research projects for mages who did not join any business organisation and mostly worked on magic research and development. Combat mages also had specific jobs for them to finish.

Completing each task would give them a certain amount of points. The difficulty of the tasks were the basics on which the points were given. For completing a harder task, one would be able to gain more points and vice versa. The participants were free to choose any tasks that they liked from a list of over 1000 of them. Almost all types of tasks were present in the list. So no one would be able to say that they were unlucky and the task that person was good at was not on the list.

Each participant would be given a time limit of eight hours and they needed to complete their chosen tasks within this time frame. They needed to understand their own self well as choosing more tasks and failing to complete them would give them a penalty and their overall points would become less.

...

Mekina was a little bit worried about this round as she was fired from her previous job because she was unable to do one such task properly. So she was very serious when she started doing them. But very soon she was surprised to notice that she was having a very easy time with these tasks and they were significantly easier than the tasks she usually tackled in her former organisation.

Just like that she found herself absorbed in her work and was actually able to finish all her chosen work before the time limit of eight hours was over. In the remaining time she would have been able to finish at least one more task, so she was a little bit disappointed that she was not able to maximize the points as she did not believe in her own capabilities.

After the eight hours was over it was time to check the results. As the competitors were performing their tasks, the big screen in the arena was showing some of them there. Many people were interested in the new girl who was suddenly able to become the second ranker and the previous round and many kept their eyes on her. Almost all of them were quite satisfied with her work. The way she moved was very well practiced and that meant she was definitely very experienced with these kinds of tasks.

When the results were announced, it turned out that this time Mekina was able to take the third place. Actually the amount of points she could get from the tasks she had chosen was only enough to barely qualify her for the top 10. But there was a bonus points system in this round that gave a certain amount of bonus points to the competitors whose final result in the task was above average. And that was how Mekina was able to reach the top spot.

But that was not the most surprising thing in this round. The most surprising thing was the fact that Dorothy was not the top scorer for this round. Instead the top scorer was a girl named Ganyu who had barely managed to clear the first round. She was not even ranked among the top 100 let alone top 10. But still she was able to get the top spot in the second round.

The management committee showed her performance in the second round on the big screen and everyone was dumbstruck to see it. The way Ganyu did all the tasks was amazing to look at. She actually did two and even three jobs together and was able to handle all of them together without wasting any time or resources. She was not the fastest at finishing those jobs. But as she was multitasking, she was able to finish more jobs than anyone else in the time limit that was given.

Not only that but she was also extremely familiar with her own capabilities which was a great thing for anyone. When she was done with all her chosen jobs, only one minute was left on the clock. That was truly an eye opener for everyone. Even if she got eliminated in the next round, she was definitely going to get many offers from big companies for sure.

...

Even Dorothy was dumbfounded after seeing the way Ganyu handled her work. She was not an arrogant person but she did have some confidence in her own self that she was very good at taking care of the practical jobs too. But now it turned out that there was someone better. With this she became even more serious about the competition and decided to give her one hundred and ten percent in each of the following rounds.

As for Mekina, she was very happy with her ranking. Especially because she noticed that if she had chosen the last job to be a high difficulty but highly rewarding one, then her points would have been higher than Dorothy's. So she became more confident as it was possible for her to even defeat one of the best for this competition.

At first she only wanted to do a good job in the competition to show everyone that she was not a waste. But she had never thought about winning this or even reaching the final rounds. But now she was becoming more confident in not only reaching the final rounds but also to rank high in this tournament.

She clapped her chicks and decided to go all out. If she was going to dream big then she was going to aim for the absolute top. With her mind made up, Mekina became determined to aim for the first position of this tournament.

With all the competitors getting serious, the third round started.

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