"We divided the candidates into groups of 10, which makes a total of 7. They'll be going into a towered holographic system," Miss Elizabeth said, pausing.
"We will have just one winner," Miss Elizabeth finally added, breaking the silence that lingered from her previous speech.
Everyone was in awe. How had they been grouped, yet only one winner was still expected? This shocked the audience beyond reasonable doubt.
The chatter began again, but this time it was an embrace of something new. The audience couldn't wait for the competition to begin.
After what seemed like 10 minutes, when all the minor issues had been resolved, Miss Elizabeth finally invited the groups to the stage.
In a quick but detailed manner, Miss Elizabeth introduced everyone to the audience with their respectful groups.
Immediately the audience heard the candidates were going to be introduced, their curiosity peaked as they began wanting to know who exactly Noah Crimson was.
But to their shocking surprise, Miss Elizabeth didn't explain them by name. Instead, she used their candidate numbers.
There was an eerie silence once she started the introductions. It was no longer the cool, anticipating crowd from before.
Most people were currently disappointed with how things turned out, while others wanted to prompt the action.
But staring at the figure on the VIP seat with the black hat on, they had almost automatically lost their courage.
Soon, all the candidates were introduced to the audience and were soon to leave.
Just as before, Miss Elizabeth calmly led them to the same room where they had dressed for the Mind Grid once again.
But this time, as usual, it was just 70 rooms set. After about 15 minutes, everyone was done with their changing, and they just randomly grouped themselves according to their actual groups and began chatting.
Derek found himself being surrounded by his group mates, starting from Lucy. After a while of awkwardness, Stella broke the silence and began talking.
Soon enough, everyone began breaking out from their shells and chatting wholeheartedly—apart from Derek, who still remained silent and composed.
Lucy, noticing this, went beside him and calmly slid her hand into his palm.
"Are you still nervous?" Lucy said, a bright smile covering her face as she asked.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Lucy added, a little shy.
Derek turned his head slowly to look at Lucy. She looked extremely charming, he thought. Her words seemed to calm the pressure Derek almost didn't feel at the moment.
Derek stared at her eyes as he gradually tightened his grip on her hand. Slowly, Derek finally nodded, turning his head away from her and focusing on the rest of the group members.
Lucy looked closely at Derek's hand. She felt the heat that emanated from his grip, but it didn't really hurt. Slowly, Lucy finally raised her head, tracing Derek's gaze back to the crowd.
After a while more, Miss Elizabeth finally came back into the room to lead them all out to where the event would take place.
Everyone quietly followed Miss Elizabeth as she led them to another section of the large building. She clearly brought them to a stop at a large door labeled The Holographic Room.
Miss Elizabeth looked at the door one more time. As part of the crew, she knew how hard they had worked on this part of the competition.
At first, they hadn't really focused much on the Mind Grid compared to this phase of the competition—simply because this phase would determine who the actual winner would be.
But given how the Mind Grid blew up, the crew knew they had work to do. The man was still all over the newspapers, magazines, and TV stations.
In fact, the Mind Grid had already broken the record for the most rewatched TV show in recent history—
Having over a staggering 160 million views a week. The board of hosts began to panic a little because they knew expectations for the next phase of the competition would be high.
Although this meant both good and bad news at the same time—good in the sense that more money would be coming in, and bad in the sense that if they screwed this up, they'd definitely be ruining this competition for life.
Miss Elizabeth finally turned back, looking at the candidates to pass them her last words of advice.
"The last TV show you guys went for made you and this show so popular. So you guys should not forget to plug in your best. Who knows—maybe in the nearest future, when applying for college or a job, just partaking in this contest might actually be significant," Miss Elizabeth said, rounding off her last words as she turned to begin opening the door.
After a series of combinations, the large blue door finally creaked open.
Miss Elizabeth led the candidates into an extremely large room.
Everyone gazed at the edges of the room in amazement. The floor was white and relaxing—so were the other walls and the ceiling.
The room was so empty that even mere whispers could echo for seconds before fading.
Derek and the others glanced through the room for seconds—it was really so big they couldn't even picture the four corners of it.
Miss Elizabeth stood silently by the door as they stepped into the room. Although she followed the crew around, she wasn't really a tech wizard, so she wasn't able to tell exactly what was going on.
But as far as she could tell, an estimated 100 trillion dollars had been put into this particular project—for the holographs to look, feel, and be more human-like.
According to her knowledge, this could be the most human-like holographic room in existence currently.
Miss Elizabeth gradually snapped out of her thoughts and reached toward a switch. Just before clicking it, she turned once again to the candidates.
"Remember, we will have just one winner," she said, finally turning on the switch as she left the room.
Almost immediately, 10 blue screens appeared in front of the candidates, clearly symbolizing the 10 groups.
Each screen had a number written on it with a green Start button. Everyone, assuming it was based on their group, immediately formed up in front of the holographic screens with the corresponding numbers.
And finally, they clicked the Start button. Almost immediately, a new message appeared on each screen:
"Congratulations. You have finally begun the Holographic Tower."