[Eleanor’s POV]The day had flown by pretty quickly, and soon the twenty four hours were over.I’d never seen Damon like this before, he had looked like he was at his wits end, was utterly tired and had given up.He’d been working hard since the first challenge, and I appreciated this, but I wasn’t going to let myself get eliminated due to his negligence.I’m sure he knew this too, we all had something to lose or gain, and we would all stop at nothing to get what we wanted, no matter what the cost.Before the challenge, I had a goal coming here, and I wasn’t going to let him be a distraction.I needed this internship program, if I couldn’t get this role, I would be forced to go back to Oxford. I didn’t want this for myself, I didn’t want to be controlled for the rest of my life, like a leash was on me. I wanted to be free! Free to explore! To live my life! To make friends, to fall in love.My goal weighed heavily in my mind, and I had everything to lose if I was eliminated.I had to

“Tell me, we’re a team, remember?” She said.“Of course, well I won’t go into all the details but…after you left the lobby to go find some help, or people who could vote for us, it got me thinking. Every rule had to have a loophole, and I was sure that this wasn’t an exception. And I was right, the one loophole they had was to vote for other teams, using team names,” I said.“Go on,” she responded.“Now I’m sure you’re aware that if you manage to get even a single vote asking you to go through to the next round, and none voting for you to be eliminated, you can progress. And there was no specific rule about team names, so I went and asked an official to change our team name. He was skeptical at first, and informed me about how changing team names could potentially result in us being eliminated, as we would have to find new votes from scratch. I already had that covered, and told Kevin to vote for us, granting us the single vote that pushed us to the next round. Now I’m sure you’re pro

****The next day.I was in the lobby looking for an official. I had a certain I’d sure I wanted to address, and basically needed permission for something.After searching for a while, I finally found a man standing at a desk, operating a computer.I walked up to him and spoke.“Good day Mr?…” I paused for a moment as I looked at his name tag. “George, Mr George Whitmore,” I said.“Good day candidate, how may I help you today?” He asked and smiled.“A lovely morning isn’t it today?” I responded.“Why of course, the weather is certainly very inviting,” he responded.“Back at my old house I would spend mornings like this in my pool, basking in the early morning sunlight,” I said.“Sounds like you have a lot of fun Mr Damon,” the man said.‘So he knows who I am? Well I’m not surprised given that Anon is here,’ I thought to myself.“So you do know who I am?” I asked.“Why of course sir,” he responded and we both laughed.“Either way I’ll cut to the chase Mr George. I like permission to go

****The night of the same day.I returned back to the Corporate Assessment Gauntlet hotel feeling motivated.Things didn’t go as I had planned, but it was all my fault for not preparing and practicing for the pitch more adequately, as well as making proper research and taking into account a bunch of other things.This didn’t bring me down emotionally. I chastised myself, and would prepare more adequately for the next meeting.Negotiations hadn’t broken between Blackstar and Pineapple, we had adjourned it to a later date, as they needed time to consider our offer and take into account a lot of other stuff.I was fine with this, I would have enough time to focus on other important things, like the third challenge.‘I wonder what it has to offer, the official said the challenge would begin tomorrow, and I currently don’t have any information of the details of the challenge, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see,’ I thought to myself.I finally walked into the lobby as I was in the c

Looking around I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who was calm about the situation.Everyone else seemed to have an indifferent opinion toward the situation, and handled the news pretty easily, even Eleanor.These twenty two of us currently standing in that room were the best of the best, elites, intellectuals in terms of quick thinking and accurate analysis.Now the competition would only get harder from here, the small fry had already been eliminated, and I was facing tougher opponents now.‘I like this, to be able to compete at such a high level. I just want to have fun this round, these are all people who once upon a time I would look up to, and try to emulate their lifestyles as students, but now, we are all equals and I consider them as fair game,’ I thought to myself.We waited once again for the rules to be announced. After a short while, another official mounted the podium to speak to us.“Now candidates, I'm here to relay the rules of the third challenge to you. You are ad