Chapter 30

"Then I guess I have no choice but to give it my all!" Timothy responded with a big grin on his face. Even if he could not place in the top five due to his lack of combat experience, by using his overbearing strength and techniques, according to his thoughts, it would be weird for him to not even place within the top ten.

"Do not act so overconfident!" Master Sei told Timothy in a very stern tone. "If you think that you could underestimate any opponent, you are setting yourself up to lose. Proceed with caution and work hard to improve executing your techniques. Just the fact that you are able to face many opponents in such a small amount of time, means that you should be able to gain quite a bit from this tournament!"

"Too bad there was no discussion about any prizes that come from the tournament." Timothy thought to himself as he began making proper preparations with his master. Master Sei was very clear that he would not be assisting him during the tournament. As much as he wanted to be very hands on with Timothy, Master Sei knew that the fastest way for him to grow would be to allow him to experience his own hardships and find the right answers all on his own.

According to the entry pass that the elder gave to him, Timothy read that no weapons or equipment was allowed to be used or worn during the tournament. It would be a true contest of skill and strength and not about the wealthiest youth. If such things were allowed, it would not be easy to truly pinpoint which youths had the highest amount of cultivation potential!

The next day, Timothy and his family all headed to the tournament area. Arthur and his mother decided that they wanted to support Timothy so they of course would be attending along with little Joshua who was seemingly very popular with many of Boulder Village's citizens due to how little and cute he was.

As one would expect, there were many youths who were standing in a line in order to sign up for the tournament and to receive instructions for the layout. Each youth was given two pieces of paper with the same numbers on them and would put one in a big box while placing the other on their clothes.

Suddenly, Timothy felt many stares on him as he made his way to the line. At first, these stars were just out of curiosity, but as he looked towards some of the stronger looking youths who were competing, Timothy felt a little more pressure. No one was strong enough to conceal their aura, so Timothy was able to tell right away who would most likely be his fiercest competitors.

To his surprise, there were at least seven youths that had the same level of cultivation as himself, but there were at least a dozen or so others who were close to breaking through and entering into his level as well. At first, Timothy was very confident that he would be able to enter the top ten of the tournament without any issues, but now it seemed as if he was not careful, that he would barely reach the top twelve.

A big pressure entered into Timothy's body as he realized these things and saw that some of the stronger youths seemed to have different scars or rough skin which proved that they went through quite a few trials of life and death and have lived to tell the stories. However, Timothy still chose to stand in the line and enter the tournament. As his master told him, even if he did not do well, he would learn quite a bit which would help him on his path to immortality.

As time passed by, it was getting close to Timothy's turn to officially enter the tournament and receive his number. Some chatter began to happen in front of him as a very overbearing youth put his number in the box and stood to the side and actually sat cross legged as if he wanted to spend every available moment cultivating in order to rise his level.

"That crazy Jacob is at it again. I suppose that is the reason why he is considered the strongest contestant of the tournament, if I had the patience to cultivate all day every day, I would also show quite a bit of improvements!" one youth told another as other small groups of youths in line began to state similar things.

One of the lessons which Master Sei had Timothy learn since the beginning of his training, was that part of the path towards immortality consisted of hard work and that by working harder than one's peers, would eventually allow said cultivator to expand their horizons and surpass their previous bottlenecks.

As another youth pointed out, Jacob came from a smaller clan who farmed all day and all night because they lacked enough cultivators to do other types of tasks. Therefore, the reason Jacob worked so hard at every chance he had, was to not only make his clan proud, but like Timothy, to change their destiny concerning their future. An idea flashed in Timothy's head when he heard this, but he would wait to act out the idea.

He wanted to potentially use this Jacob as a future guard for his own family and to rope him in very early whether it was through financial means, or to ask Master Sei for some suitable techniques to bribe him with. It was very rare for Timothy to come across both genuine youths his age as well as hard working. Therefore, even if he did not place in the top ten to earn the technique his master would give him, at least he could try speaking to Jacob about such arrangements.

It was unfortunate, but although Boulder Village had such a tradition with their youths, no VIPs of schools or organizations would show up to attend and pick up those who had bright futures. In truth, the achievement of placing high within the tournament could be used while approaching these schools and organizations, but the village seemed to have a poor reputation with those located within Mist City.