CH-13: The Tournament Starts

After four days of continuous training, the day we would learn our seedings and the points we earned from the comprehension exam finally came. Everyone gathered at the venue and waited for the officials to arrive. Unlike Deans, the Institute had countless officials who were of Foundation Establishment and Altar Activation. Every teacher was a Golden Core True Person. After a little wait, Yuan Zhang Shufa came forward to announce the results, everyone was shocked that a Dean was doing this personally. 'Could it be?''

"Ahem. We have assessed and calculated your results. This half-decadal education period had 300.343 participants for the comprehension exam, with only 128.000 remaining after the examination. You will be given points for how much of the scripture you completed. For those that are not seeded, you will be placed according to your ranks which I will announce just in a minute, but before that, I have an announcement to make." 'Here it comes!'

"There was one participant who exceeded our expectations so much, that we had to make an exception. Axel Lin of Lin Clan, come up!"

'Wait, this does not feel like a disciple-master ritual, am I in an award ceremony or something?'

"The scripture we gave you was Calm Mind Sutra. With the Qi infusions, it would then turn into one of our prized meditation sutras, the Calm Mind And Peaceful Heart Sutra. Participant Axel not only finished the fastest, but he also improved on the meditation technique! Such a feat has never been done in my time as a Dean, so I discussed with other Deans as to how to give an appropriate reward. We agreed upon giving him 10.000 contribution points, and bestowed the title of Scholar Of Eminence! With this title, he shall have access up to the 5th floor of the Library after his graduation, for life." I was stunned, it was the 5th floor of the Institute Library we are talking about here!

'With this title, I will have access to 5th Rank techniques, scriptures, battle and weapon arts and spells! When I would be just a Foundation Establishment Master!' It is almost as good as becoming his disciple!'

"Now with the rankings, as you would have guessed, the first place goes to Axel Lin, the second place to Iyana Jiang, and the third place to Emmanuel Xue. You can check your rankings from the board." Amongst the crowd that was checking their rankings in a hurry, there were the first Lin Clan branch juniors, cheering for their young master.

-"Lin Clan is the greatest! Seventh Young Master is the greatest!"

-"A feat that has never been achieved before, that's our young master for you!"

-"Scholar Of Eminence, such a grand title, our young master is the best!"

"Alright alright, calm down everyone. Check your rankings and get ready for the tournament, I don't want anyone below the top 500!"

With that we came back to the inn first, only to leave for the arena in the Rising Central City, called Rising Warriors Coliseum. We were not the only ones with such thoughts, as most of the admitted participants came to hone their skills. There I met someone totally unexpected.

"Young Master Emmanuel, I didn't expect to meet you here. I thought you would be writing poems about being young, adventurous and chivalrous, as we have such values brought forward due to martial exam."

"I certainly did not either, I thought you would be reading all day, it seems like it is the only talent you have."

"No need to be so competitive, Amanuel. I know I can't hold a candle to your dual spiritual roots of Heavenly and Earthly Grades. With your extra grade of 'Earthly', you are more versatile than me, who can only read books."

"You!"

"Oh, it seems I'm not available to humour you, my fiancee is looking for me. She is quite shy with strangers, now if you would excuse me."

Locking on to Iyana, who had "friendly" spars with the local warriors, I walked towards her.

"Now you are even using me as an excuse."

"What can you say, I just don't like the guy. Anyways, do you want to watch a show?"

"Will it have face-slapping?"

"As much as you want."

A WEEK LATER

The tournament had a simple system, battle royale to first sift through the numbers, then single-round eliminations up till the final. Contrary to my predictions, they put all the seeded players within the top 256, clearly wanting to reduce the pull the Prominent Clans had on the Institute. As we had 128 seeded participants, another 128 would be sifted through the battle royale. The battle royale would be held in a pocket realm, which is as big as the Rising Central City itself. In the realm, there were 128 barrier formations, that would slowly shrink as time passed. The battle royale would take 3 days, then the tournament would start. Every day we would move up one round, just taking a bit longer than a week.

As with every secret realm that served to test something, we had means of watching those inside. Everyone had gathered in front of the secret realm, and then the official spoke.

"Battle royale will be held in this secret realm, divided into 128. Everyone in the pre-eliminatory rounds will be given a formation sigil, when the barrier of the formation touches you, you are eliminated. If someone takes yours, eliminated. If you take more damage than you can handle, eliminated. You will be in groups of 999, everything goes except fatal force and crippling. Those who do so will be punished accordingly!" Having said so, the official then gave out the sigils. "Martial exam begins now!"

Every pre-eliminatory participant entered the spatial portal, sigil would make sure they were randomly placed.

"Did you get the sunflower seeds?" Every female protagonist in ancient civilization setting always keeps some kind of snack to watch shows, be it sunflower seeds, melon seeds or any kind of nuts.

"I have melon seeds. Make do with that."

"Too bad, I had prepared something special. Since you have yours, I guess I will keep it all to myself."

"Wait, what are you talking about?"

Bringing out the popcorn I made, I spoke as if I was a master salesman(conman).

"I call this 'Breakthrough Corn'. It is made by drying the spiritual corn through fire spells, getting the kernels, and cooking them with oil and salt. Depending on the oil you use, the flavour changes. Very tasty and easy to make, good for occasions like this."

"Is that so? Then give me some."

INSIDE THE SECRET REALM

Ye Tian spawned in a forest area. After checking his immediate surroundings he carved out the insides of a tree. He didn't want to be found so early. Keeping a peephole for the barrier he went inside and hid. Meanwhile, there were contacts already. But instead of the unusual battling, people seemed to team up. A fierce-looking participant took charge.

"Let's show that arrogant bastard who is in charge here. How dare he come to the Institute with such measly talent of quintuple roots!"

"You're right boss!"

"Let's give him a lesson!"

Although they did know that Ye Tian was special, they did not- they could not accept it. Because if even a quintuple-root trash could be special, why weren't they? Instead of facing their insecurities, they went on to vent out their frustrations, leading to the current state of things.

The group encountered many other participants, those who did not join would be gotten rid of and eliminated. This continued for the next three days. Now there was only an hour left to the battle royale. Having not found a single hair of Ye Tian, the group was agitated.

-"This trash, could he be eliminated already?"

-"Three days and no trace of him, should be so."

-"That damn bastard, I wanted to be the one who beat him! How dare he lose before facing me!"

Meanwhile, Ye Tian was still hiding inside the cavity he carved out.

'I got lucky, the formation shrank with me as the centre so I didn't have to relocate. It should be alright to get out now, there shouldn't be much time left.'

He got out of the cavity and did some stretching moves. Just then...

-"Boss! I found him!"

"Shit, my luck is so bad!" He ran towards the participant who shouted, taking him out in three moves.

'There is a team after me, I should end this quickly.' Like all protagonists who want to lay low, he couldn't pass the opportunity to blow his cover just to face slap. He hid on top of the tree, waiting for the group to show up.

"This way! I heard it from here!"

Body Building practitioners had enhanced senses of sight, smell and hearing. Which would be enhanced even more with Qi Refining, as they could enhance the parts with Qi.

-"Damn it, where did he go!"

"Snake-like bastard, come out if you are a man!" No one showed up. As a protagonist, how could he let such words get to him?

He watched as one of the participants in the group strayed towards where he was, stopping just below him. Ye Tian suddenly shot out, catching the stray one by surprise. He reached for his sigil, easily breaking it.

"He is there, catch him!" Other members noticed him.

A game of catch started. Ye Tian had incredible speed and impeccable footwork, running around trees and using them to sharply change his momentum. As the chase dragged on, he took out most of the group by using the terrain and his footwork.

"You bastard, did your father only teach you how to run!" The chase went on till they reached a canyon.

"Heh, see huff where you run huff now." Although he and his goons were out of breath, Ye Tian showed no signs of tiredness. Assessing the group's Bodies, Ye Tian answered with a confident smirk.

"Bring it on, I was itching to test my body this whole time."