A Suspicious Coincidence

As the participants of the first preliminary round returned to the arena, the expected applause was absent, and the stands completely quiet.

'What happened? Aren't they supposed to be excited?' Li Zhu was slightly confused, since no tournament he had ever been to had such unenthusiastic spectators.

He soon discovered the reason for silence, though, as his eyes turned to the center of the arena. There, disciples were extremely busy, moving what seemed to be bodies onto padded carts, off to who knew where.

'Are those people dead? How could that have happened!?' Li Zhu stared at the bodies with shock, not understanding how so many disciples could have been killed in a simple preliminary round.

Li Zhu had lived through many gruesome scenes, and was quite accustomed to death and killing. That said, killing was prohibited in this tournament, so at most there could be one accident, but not the five or so people being carried away at this moment.

Confirming his suspicion, the elder who had introduced the round flew into the arena, before speaking up, "I know many of you may be surprised about the deaths which occurred in the preliminary round. As far as we know this was coincidental, and will not happen again. to prevent such violence in our sect the elders will be more prepared to rescue disciples, and everyone who killed someone in the tournament will be disqualified, as well as investigated thoroughly. It is highly probable that this was just a series of tragic accidents, but for the safety of our disciples we wish to understand if there was an underlying motive to the killings."

Changing from her sad expression, though, the elder changed tone a bit, stating "Having said that, we live in a cruel world, and I hope all of you use this incident today as a driving force to grow stronger! Though it is unfortunate for the people who passed away, this is not the last time that you shall witness death, since the Endless Sword Continent is unforgiving!"

As an elder of the Flaming Saber Sect, the woman had probably lived through much violence in her life, and although the deaths of disciples was quite sad, many more died outside of the sect than the five who died in this tournament.

'Can five people just be killed accidentally?' wondered Li Zhu, suspicious of the motives of the killers. Most of all, he could not understand how an elder had not stepped in at the right time, and saved the victims.

'Something is not as it seems here!' concluded Li Zhu, though at the moment he did not have any concrete evidence, only a hunch.

Having addressed the killings, the elder did not give the audience any time to talk, as she immediately went on speaking, "Now that the first group has been reduced to twenty participants, it is time for the second group to go through the preliminary round, too!"

"Due to the deaths in the previous round, us elders have decided that any participant who kills another disciple shall be severely punished, regardless of how intentional it was. All participants with bronze sign up tokens can now enter the vortex and begin the preliminary round. remember, if an opponent is too much to handle all that you need to do is give up, and an elder will bring you back to the arena" the elder was worried that some disciples would be too afraid to enter the tournament, so she made a point to reassure the participants that this round would be much safer than the previous.

Although some weaker participants were slightly worried, they were still determined to fight their way into a higher rank, and win fame and rewards for themselves. Generally, all cultivators wished to grow stronger, and there were very few people who feared death more than weakness in this continent.

Hua Shu was among the crowd heading to the vortex, having chosen a suitable bow to fight with.

Since the sect did not allow participants to bring their own spirit weapons to maintain fairness, they provided weaker weapons of every type for weapon cultivators, who were the grand majority of people in the Endless Sword Continent.

Although the weapons provided were not spirit weapons, they were still high quality, and could at least resist the energy which would be infused in them with the skills of the cultivators, without breaking.

As well as Hua Shu, Li Zhu stared at one particular man, who Yu Hui had specifically told him about.

Song Fai was a member of the Song family, one of the four great families of the Crouching Tiger Kingdom. What was special about the Song family was that it was extremely small, with only about fifty members. The reason they were considered one of the strongest forces in the kingdom was the individual strength of their members, who could beat any other member of the strongest families in individual combat, including the royals.

As all Song family members, Song Fai was a summoner, and he had formed contracts with two extremely powerful beasts, which the Song family bred and kept for their descendants. Of course, as most summoners, his spirit beasts were stored in a spatial treasure which could contain living beings, so Li Zhu did not know what beasts this man had.

Song Fai was the second strongest outer sect disciple, having only lost to Xiao Heng and his spirits.

As all the participants walked in the vortex, the landscape was displayed onto the arena, where all spectators could see the fights.

Surprisingly, this time the illusion world was not a forest, but a rocky desert, with large canyons. This was probably done to prevent disciples who had made plans from seeing the forest to have any advantage. Although planning ahead was generally a good skill to have, in this tournament the elders were mostly testing how well disciples could perform under pressure, and how they overcame challenges with split second decisions.

As Li Zhu sat on the sidelines, he decided to watch only a few of the battles, and use most of his time to recover his strength completely after the multiple fights he had. Although gathering information on his enemies was a good strategy, Li Zhu only really cared about Hua Shu and Song Fai's fights, and was more worried about managing to completely heal his arrow wounds by the next fight he would have.

Just as Li Zhu had expected, the second preliminary round did not last long, since it was set in a desert. Although there were hiding places in the canyons, it was still much more open than a forest, so the fifty or so people in the illusion world very quickly began fighting against each other, sometimes causing large battles with over ten people to form.

Song Fai surprisingly laid low, and simply sat down on one corner of the desert, waiting for the round to end. No disciple in their right mind would choose to fight him, so he managed to avoid any fighting in the preliminary round.

Hua Shu, instead, fought as much as she could, participating in every fight that she stumbled into, to gain battle experience. In a fight between cultivators, battle experience was often the key to victory, so Hua Shu did not want to let go of the opportunity to fight other ninth stage cultivators, which was otherwise quite a rare occurrence.

Although she met a few dangerous situations, Hua Shu was after all an archer, so she could keep her distance from opponents, and not many disciples could break through her barrage of arrows.

In the end, Hua Shu passed the preliminary round with only a few light injuries, her fighting spirit never faltering.

This time around, no disciples died in the illusion world. This was probably due to the increased punishment for killing, which discouraged even the more violent participants from going overboard. Furthermore, elders this time were very close to the fights as they happened, in order to swoop in at the first sign of danger.

After all, a sect would not want their disciples, and ninth stage ones at that, to die in a simple tournament, where killings could be easily avoided.

As usual, the judge elder for the tournament stepped into the arena, ready to announce the next round.

"Congratulations to all forty participants who have passed, and good luck to those who haven't. The next two rounds will be fights of one person against another, to determine the ten strongest participants of this tournament. You only need to win two fights, and you will be part of the top ten, and enter the inner sect!" the elder sounded excited a she quickly explained the two rounds, as though she was excited to see who wold come up on top.

"As always, the sect will award generous prizes to the strongest disciples, and the rewards are as such: top forty, which is all the people who passed the preliminary, will receive ten Cultivation Enhancing spirit pills, each worth about a hundred spirit stones. Top twenty disciples will receive the ten Cultivation enhancing Spirit pills, as well as two weeks worth of Spirit Palace entry for free." As the elder listed out the rewards, the crowd gasped, envious about the people who would win these prizes.

"Finally, the top ten participants... from fifth place to tenth will receive all previous rewards, as well as the chance to get one free skill from the Flaming Saber library for free, as long as they stay within the first four floors. Second to fourth place shall receive all that, as well as one spirit plant of their choosing from Phoenix Peak lord Shen Zan's own garden. Finally, the winner of this tournament will receive all previous rewards, and one spirit weapon of their choice from the sect's treasury!"

Even Li Zhu was impressed by the prizes that the sect was willing to give out, since he knew how much spirit weapons were worth. Hua Shu only had a spirit bow because her family had one of the two only spirit blacksmiths in Crouching Tiger Kingdom, but the Flaming Saber sect must have gotten such treasures from either past masters or other countries.

'I need to get into the top four!' was Li Zhu's goal, since he really wanted to find a spirit plant to strengthen Buddy's bloodline. As a Spirit Beast's bloodline grew stronger, they could learn new skills, which Li Zhu was looking forward to greatly.

'Although it may be tough, I only need to win two more fights to enter the top ten! That is the first step to reaching my goal, and I will not let anyone block my path!' Li Zhu thought, with a determined look in his face.