32 Prepare for the Round Robin Points Battles!

As Yun felt herself dying from the claws in her throat she had a strange feeling. As she began to black out the world didn't spin and she didn't have flashbacks of her life. There was nothing at all.

Suddenly, she opened her eyes and took a deep gasping breath, reaching for her throat!

As she looked around, there were very few others visible. Nearly everyone who was here was sitting down in a meditative pose. Standing, she felt a burst of wooziness pass over her before she regained her balance, then walked to the door.

Outside was the same large pagoda as before, but this time she was walking out of it from the inside. She realized at this point that the tower she had been in was all an illusory battle-array. Within it you could feel death take you, but instead of true death you would be ejected from the array once you passed out.

Yun, on exiting the tower, was greeted by an Elder and given a token representing her total number of kills. She learned from the token that each Volvaka slain had different points values depending on what floor they were killed on.

First floor, one point.

Second floor, two points.

Third floor, four points.

Fourth floor, eight points.

Fifth floor, sixteen points!

The tokens didn't even list beyond the fifth floor for this tournament, as no disciple was capable of achieving the sixth floor. The Elders waited another half of a day before the final challenger left the tower.

"Cultivators, all of you here have now experienced true life and death battles, and all of you have experienced defeat. Do not let this defeat your martial heart! This was a challenge designed to eventually kill you. No cultivator would be able to remain on the lower floors and commit eternal slaughter, as this would not fit within their martial heart that requires challenge."

"We will now give you the scores, starting from the first place in this Fate Tower. As you are called out, step forwards and line up in order at the cave entrance. We will divide the remaining competitors into three groups yet again."

"First competitor, 605 points, spent four days on the fifth floor..."

"Second competitor, 586 points, spent six days on the fifth floor..."

"Third competitor, 552 points, spent one day on the fifth floor..."

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"Eighth competitor, 413 points, spent twelve days on the fourth floor, Huli Yunlong!"

Finally she had been called, she was in eighth place for points and had reached the second highest floor. Nobody beyond the top four competitors had actually reached the fifth floor, and among the top ten no other had spent as long on the fourth floor as she had. Most of those above her had accumulated points from massive amounts of slaughter on the third floor, the desert, and had only proceeded to the fourth floor for a brief time before the tactics overwhelmed them.

Continuing down the line, more and more competitors were called forth to line up. Finally, they reached the cutoff point for cultivators to pass this round by points. At this time, Yun was worried for her brother. Fenglong still had yet to be called upon.

"One hundredth place, sixty four points, spent one day on the third floor, Gu Jian."

Once again, her brother was not called. This caused Yun to be incomparably sad for him. He had worked so hard these past few rounds and had gotten this far, to only fall behind by so little.

Suddenly, the Elders called out again. Another sixty four point competitor who spent a few days on the third floor, but it was also not Fenglong.

And finally, the Elders called out once more, one hundred second place. This competitor also had sixty four points and had spent less than a day on the third floor, but this was also not her brother.

Fenglong was eliminated from the competition!

The eliminated participants were all gathered together in a large group, then split in two to board the barges. The two eliminated barges both held just over five hundred competitors, while the victors barge held exactly one hundred and two. The tie for the final place had resulted in two extra fighters for the next round, but the Elders seemed nonplussed by this. They just had to enforce the limit on the number who entered the final tournament, and all phases before that were fluid.

Traveling for a few hours on the barges, they reached the southern tip of the Volcanic Ridge mountains and discovered a large set of arenas laid out with spectator stands built into the cliff side. Each arena was a large circular platform rising out of the water line by nearly five meters. Every one of these stages was only around fifty meters in diameter, and each of them had a pattern inlaid in the incredibly hard stone, laying out a grid on the circle of one meter boxes.

These arenas all surrounded a single larger arena. This arena was easily at least five hundred meters across, and was also a stone platform projecting out of the water. On the top of this platform the grid that was laid out was in five meter squares instead of one meter. All the stages laid out around this stage combined could not even equal its size!

"All of you will be competing here. You will rest on the main stage for this phase, and you will compete on the small stages. Each competitor will compete four times each day, eventually fighting every opponent that remains. Wins will earn you two points, losses will lose you one point. The top fifty competitors will move on to the final tournament, where they will compete for the final crown."

The Elders gave them the rules! This meant that the battles were about to start. The maximum value that any competitor could get was 202 points, but that was for perfectly winning all matches against the other 101 competitors! Each competitor could easily do the math. Over the next 25 days they would do battle four times per day, once at the very beginning of the day, once mid-morning, once mid-afternoon, and once at the end of the day. The final day they would have a fifth battle, this only due to the extra competitors they weren't expecting to have.

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The next morning Yun woke early and was placed in her first match, the young Canis she was facing was completely dominated by her use of the spear and was easily knocked off the platform with very little effort. She never once used the blade of her spear!

Over the next twelve days she continuously won her battles, only occasionally needing to use her full power to drive her opponents to admit defeat or fall over the edge. She had now gained 96 points towards her victory in this phase.

In the following six days after this she continued to win easily, but encountered three opponents who managed to knock her off the stage, whether through tricks or aggressive tactics, she had now lost three battles and had a total number of points equaling 141.

Finally, seven more days later, she was in her final day. She had fought numerous opponents to this point and had only lost another twelve rounds. Some of her opponents had dominated her fairly well in this battle, using the small space and her small stature to win more easily. Most of these enemies she could have defeated given a larger space, but there were a few she was not confident in victory against.

Final battle, dusk of the 25th day!

Yun mounted the stage and discovered to her delight that her opponent was that same Gu Jian who had tied for last place in the Fate Tower, and also the same that had fought with her in the first phase, the race through the forest!