Chapter 90

The main reason he chose to enter a tournament was so that others would approach him. At the moment networking meant everything and he wanted to hire quite a few employees for his company that were trustworthy and could be more permanent. It would be a decent method for him to just hire a handful of mercenaries, but the issue with mercenaries, was that they were always looking for higher paying jobs.

What Timothy wanted was to build a true foundation for his merchant company so it was not just experts he needed to worry about hiring, but he also needed to hire those with matching backgrounds to run the company during his absence. It was too bad Jacob was not around, because the two could have taken turns running the company as they went off on short but fruitful journeys to test their strength and find more treasures.

Seven hours had passed very quickly as Timothy heard a knock on the door. Due to the tournament's capacity being filled so early, it was actually going to begin earlier than expected. This would happen on occasion so Timothy was not surprised, but instead very pleased. He wanted to enter and possibly win very quickly so that he could move on to the next step of his plans.

The first thing that the employee had Timothy do, was to pour both his energy and battle Qi into an Energy Crystal. With an energy crystal, the employees could see how strong each contestant was in every tournament, and could give a clear overview before the tournaments began. This would allow those who bet on said tournaments to feel better about what they were betting on.

The employee was rather surprised that Timothy was not even twelve years old, and already, he was an Elementary level seven dual cultivator. This put him to place as a top five out of the forty experts competing in the tournament. To his surprise, Timothy was also handed an artifact that would show him how many people were betting on him whether they were in the audience or just awaiting the results.

This was also standard practice, because for every round Timothy was able to place in, a small portion of the overall betting amount would be going to him. This was a way to make sure that the coliseum was being fair to both those who were betting and those who were competing in order to guarantee returned business.

The grand prize of the tournament that he was in, was actually a Water Destiny Stone. When an Energy Refinement cultivator used a certain type of technique, it would allow them to place all of their understandings of an element they had a high affinity for, into a destiny stone which could be used by another to grasp a portion of said expert's understanding.

Although this was a good way to help aid those who were closely related to said expert, it actually took quite a bit of energy which would take quite some time to recover from as well as a handful of ingredients. Therefore, destiny stones were rather rare because in most cases, it was not even worth creating one since no one was able to fully take on what was within said stones.

This was actually good news for Timothy, because it was clear he would not have a personal use for a Water Destiny Stone, but if he were to win, there might be an Energy Refinement expert who needed one to help guide them in the next step of their cultivation to get through a bottleneck. Therefore, Timothy felt no reason to hold back any of his power during the tournament even if he had to quickly deal with a very weak opponent who would be unlucky enough to face him.

And so, the tournament began and Timothy was actually in the first match. As he exited his personal waiting room and headed into the back door leading to the arena, Timothy felt a large bright light hit his face. After recovering from the light, he saw that there were at least two hundred thousand people within the arena cheering. If it was not for his strong soul, he would have most likely been struck frozen from such an insane looking sight!

As he basked in the cheers of so many people whether for or against him, Timothy walked towards the stage in his corner as he looked towards the other corner where his opponent was located. It was surprisingly an individual around nineteen years old and this individual was clearly a Body Refinement expert as he was not wearing a shirt, only his shoes and a pair of shorts. It was unclear to Timothy if this opponent of his entered this tournament to compete, or to try to find a wife using his physique.

The judge appeared between the two as he stated the rules of the tournament just so that those who were not betting, would understand what they got a ticket to see. Once he finished announcing the rules and introducing Timothy and his opponent, the judge told the two to begin before exiting the stage. Due to his speed, Timothy calculated that he must have been an Advance stage expert.

And so accompanied by loud cheers, Timothy's opponent began to charge over to him. From what he could gather, his opponent was barely an Elementary level five expert which meant that he himself just needed to use his battle Qi and a small amount of it in order to end the fight quickly. After a small barrage of fists hit him, Timothy's opponent collapsed from pain and exhaustion as the judge named Timothy the winner of the match.

As he exited the stage and began to head back to his individual waiting area, Timothy surprisingly did not hear a single negative remark coming from the crowd. It turned out that even the audience realized that the match would be a quick one and that he would surely win. This made Timothy think back to the tournament he was a part of back in Boulder Village, where he met and recruited Jacob for the first time.