A Strange Rule
Hearing the voice, Su Yun turned to look, the voice came from a disciple of the Quick Blade Sect.
The one who spoke was a big sized man with thick eyebrows, dressed in his yellow robes with a metre long thin blade.
“What’re you looking at?” The big sized man had a sinister face, he walked over with glaring and ferocious eyes as he roared.
“Nothing.”
Su Yun replied indifferently, and turned to leave.
“Senior brother, you scared that little brat away!”
“Be careful that others would stare at you behind your back! Hahaha!”
“Hahahaha”
Laughters came out.
“If he had some balls, I would have respected him, but he didn’t even have the balls to look back at me, so lamentable, hahahahah!” The thick eyebrows man laughed, and stepped into the competition grounds arrogantly.
Naturally, Su Yun didn’t bother to pick a fight with them, he had glanced over their proof of qualifications and saw that majority of their fighting strength were around 3000. In the Sky Central City, it might be a huge number, but in New Deer City, especially for such a grand competition that had attracted various large powerhouses, it was too insignificant.
Participants of fighting strength at around 3000 were everywhere, even 4000 was quite common, but many of them had concealed their fighting strength like Su Yun, so people were not able to pick out the experts from them.
Just then, a few floating pavilions that were built extremely meticulously entered Su Yun’s eyes.
All of these pavilion rooms in the sky was suspended without anything supporting them, their walls were decorated with relief sculptures and the bottom portion were swivelling. They were extremely mystical, the doors hung flags with faint shadows in them. There was one pavilion room at the north, south, east and west, with frameworks of golden color, the dazzling gold was extremely prominent.
“All of them, which are a few trading organizations, are the sponsors of the competition. The 1 million cultivation coin prize is also given by them.”
Just as Su Yun was looking at the pavilions, a voice came out by the side.
He turned his head to see a frail looking young man standing beside him. He had a very skinny and pale face. Dressed in light blue robes, he kept a short and neat hair, with fighting strength just barely over 2000, he was roughly a sixth stage Spirit Star Realm cultivator.
“You are?”
“Lu Zhan Yuan.”
“Su Yun.”
“Nice to meet you!” Lu Zhan Yuan smiled: “Brother Su, are you here to participate in the competition as well?”
“If I wasn’t, why would I be standing here?”
“Haha, that’s true, that’s true.” Lu Zhan Yuan scratched his head and laughed awkwardly, he then asked: “Brother Su, what is your fighting strength?”
Su Yun laughed, he did not hide anything, and was about to take off concealing treasure that shrouded his proof of qualifications.
But just then, Lu Zhan Yuan extended his finger and pointed to the participant card in his hand: “You don’t have to go through so much trouble, your fighting strength is written here as well.”
“Oh?” Su Yun took his card and looked at it, only to see that there was a row of golden words written on it.
Participant Name: Su Yun. Fighting Strength: 3537. Group: D.
“3000 plus fighting strength? Brother Su’s strength is surprising!” Lu Zhan Yuan was moved.
“Is 3000 fighting strength very high?”
~Although my current fighting strength is not only at 3000 now.~
“In any case, you are stronger than me.” Lu Zhan Yuan laughed bitterly, showing his card to Su Yun.
Su Yun glanced at it, and then asked: “You are also in group D? What does this subgroup thing mean?”
“Brother Su, you don’t know about it? This competition is split into four different groups, A, B, C and D, there are the least people in Group A and the most in Group D, Group A basically consists of the ones who have the highest chance of being victors, that group is where the geniuses and elites are! Any one of them, placed in any parts of the Ultimate Martial World, are existences not meant to be underestimated, while Group B is also an outstanding group, they are all famous participants. Group C are people who are not that famous, but there might be a few experts there, Group D also has its experts, hehe, like you, brother Su.”
Lu Zhan Yuan suddenly stopped talking, his tone of speech had changed as he laughed.
Although he said it like that, but Su Yun knew what he meant.
~What experts, Group D are just participants served as a stopgap.~
“Brother Lu, are you here to get number 1?”
“How is that possible?” Lu Zhan Yuan laughed bitterly: “I am only here to gain experience and see the world and spar with experts. I hope to learn a few things.”
With that said, he waved his hands: “Brother Su, let’s go, we can go and rest at stage D.”
“Alright!”
Su Yun nodded and the two arrived at the area D, which was the last place in the competition grounds.
Although the resting area for Group D was the last resting area, it was extremely crowded. With participants huddled in groups of two or three, there were a few discussing about cultivation techniques, some who were occasionally looking towards the direction of Group A, B and C and were talking softly.
The two of them found a corner and sat down, the area was recently built, and aside from the four floating pavilions, the rest of the place was extremely simple. Especially for resting area D, it seemed to be made from many big rocks and although they were ordinary rocks, they were able to grant people some recovery of Profound Spirit Qi, but it was extremely negligible.
Upon sitting on the rock, Lu Zhan Yuan took out a pile of pills and ointment out from his storage pouch, along with many charms meant for medical purposes, he then lifted up his clothes and started pasting the charms on his chest and places where he could potentially get injured.
“What are you doing?” Su Yun was confused.
“Preparing!” Lu Zhan Yuan continued pasting the charms and talked: “This competition has attracted many talents and although it has also attracted people like me who have average strength, it is extremely hard to obtain opportunities like this to spar with experts. Ultimately, this is also a competition, you should know that this competition allows you to raise your fighting strength? Since it allows the growth of fighting strength, this competition must allow battles with their lives on the line. Although outside the competition, the evaluators are all experts and will timely stop anyone from dying, humans are still humans and not gods, there are bound to be accidents. Furthermore, it is normal for people to lose their limbs in such battles, so making a few preparations before is better.”
“What? People will die?”
Su Yun was startled.
“Of course, I remember there was a similar competition a few years ago, and 12 people died! It was not that the evaluators did not do anything, but it was just that they were not strong enough, there are a few participants that had strength far higher than that of the evaluators!”
Lu Zhan Yuan said: “But you don’t have to worry, the people in Group D are not much and if there are truly accidents, the evaluators are able to settle it!”
“…”
Su Yun was speechless, following what Lu Zhan Yuan had said, he looked at the evaluators and saw that there were four people, two male and two females, they had treasures that concealed their strength, thus he could not evaluate them, but around them, there were many people discussing about the four people, which allowed Su Yun to realize that the four people were famous in New Deer City.
On the left most side was a middle aged man called ‘Zhang Guo Hao’. Dressed in brown loose robes, he had a goatee and a moustache with a thin frame, his eyes bright and full of expression.
Next to him was ‘Li Gui Fang’, an old lady with some white hair and wrinkles on the forehead.
On the right was a man called ‘Lui Gu’, he looked extremely young with a long face, but in truth, it was rumored that he was over 300 years old with astonishing cultivation and great talent to boot.
Beside him was a young lady called ‘Xiao Zi Ru’, said to have only recently arrived in New Deer City. She was very beautiful and delicate with high cultivation, the reason for her fame was because many experts desired to be dual cultivation companions with her.
All the spectators had finally entered the grounds and the big gates to the competition grounds were sealed. Aside from that, the few rather high-end taverns around had people packed in them.
~Seems like New Deer City’s competition has attracted many people.~
A mellow and full short person stumbled onto the gigantic middle competition platform in the center of the competition grounds. Seeing his clumsy appearance, the spectators erupted into laughter.
After climbing up the stage, this man laughed in embarrassment, he then activated a bit of his Profound Spirit Qi and started speaking, surprising people with his rather attractive and sweet sounding voice which was contrasting to his fat appearance.
“Thank you, various spectators, guests and participants, for greatly supporting this year’s competition, I will be your host Zhu Wen, please take care of me.”
With that said, the fatty bowed and then continued to speak: “In addition, I will introduce the evaluators for this competition along with the rules and of course, the competition prizes.”
“We have fortunately invited Zhang Guo Hao, Li Gui Fang, Liu Gu, and Xiao Zi Ru, the few masters to be our evaluators and judges, all competition matters will be conducted by them, the way the battle will be conducted is like a battle for life and death, but if someone is about to be killed, the various masters will immediately stop it at first notice, so I hope that everyone will take note of that.”
“The champion of the competition will be given a million cultivation coins kindly sponsored by ‘Hua Wei Chamber of Commerce’ and ‘Yu Shuang Auction House’, aside from that, the champions will obtain a top grade pill sponsored from both great Trading Organisations, after consuming the pill, it will supply the champion with 30 years of cultivation, these pills are worth cities!”
Shu Wen said loudly.
Upon hearing that, the entire place flew into a commotion.
A million cultivation coins along with a pill that could supply 30 years of cultivation, that was many years of cultivating, how many cultivators would want that? WIth that, they would take a huge leap and be ahead of others.
But what Su Yun cared more about, were the owners of the two great organizations.
~To be so generous, they are most likely not ordinary people.~
The second place and third place also had prizes, but were not as attractive as the ones for the champion, after Shu Wen reported the prizes, it did not stir the crowd as much.
“Alright, less talking! Let the competition begin now!!”
Shu Wen ended his speech abruptly, although he was not a host that could speak well, he understood how to observe the crowd, he had already sensed the impatience in them, and immediately jumped to the main topic.
The crowd immediately flew into a commotion after Shu Wen shouted.
“Now, we will begin with Group D’s drawing of lots, participants, your card will light up if you are selected to battle, so please pay attention and prepare to head on stage!”
Shu Wen shouted, at the participants area, the spirit cultivators all looked at the cards in their hands, in the blink of the eye, two white lights erupted from among the crowd.
It was two participants from Group D.
The two stood from their seats and looked at each other and cupped their fists: “Please advise me!”
“Please!”
With that said, the two of them immediately appeared on stage in the next second, something completely unachievable by people of the Sky Martial Continent.
On one side was a fighting strength of 1900 and 2200 the other, they were considered the weaker ones amongst the participants.
Following the sound of a chime, the two engaged in battle.
The disparity of strength between both parties was not wide, thus the battle was rather equal, and after an incense stick worth of time, there was still no apparent victor.
It was a battle between Spirit Star cultivators after all, thus the battle lasted longer.
Right then, Xiao Zi Ru who was below the stage suddenly stood up and looked at the two of them expressionlessly.
“Every competition has a rule of an hour battle, once the battle exceeds an hour, if any of the participants are to forfeit to end the battle, the person who forfeited must accept the punishment of breaking one arm and destroying a stage of cultivation as punishment!”
The moment the cold voice said that, the entire competition grounds became silent, even the two spirit cultivators on stage stopped fighting and looked at Xiao Zi Ru in shock.
There were no such rule written in the registration at all!