Skip To Win

Luck plays a key role in every competition.

This time, the same could be said with the mechanism of the matching announced by Governor Cui.

"There will be a lottery to determine the initial order of the ten contestants. The tenth place to fourth place can only challenge up to the third place. The third place can challenge the second place, while only the second place can challenge the first place."

"The challenge will start from the tenth place. You can only challenge someone who has rested for at least a match. There will be a total of five cycles. This means five turns for each contestant. At the same time, you cannot challenge someone again if you lost against him or her, unless that someone got defeated by another contestant after your past match."

"Are we clear about the rules?"

The crowd went into uproar by the last minute change in rules. Several informants from the Governor Palace had already propagated the double elimination system the higher ups decided.

However, since the organizers decided it, the audience and the contestants could only brace for the effect of this sudden change.

After a lottery performed by a third-party, the preliminary placings were announced to the public.

"Bai Ningshuang, first place. Xu Kai, second place. Su Peng, third place. Hesha, fourth place. Murong Youyou, fifth place. Ling Jingjing, sixth place. Zhong De, seventh place, Huo Zun, eight place. Xana, ninth place. Purple Jaguar, tenth place."

Bai Ningshuang smirked at the outcome of the lottery. She couldn't help but express her gratitude for her master for upgrading her luck aptitude.

Getting the first place naturally brought her benefits such as only one contestant could target her every round. This would undeniably enable her to hide her trump cards much longer.

And that one contestant, Xu Kai, knew that he wouldn't be able to defeat Bai Ningshuang in an all-out battle.

The others needed to rethink their options twice since the format of matching involved some strategy.

After a short break, the official referee finally called Purple Jaguar.

"I challenge the fifth place."

Murong Youyou, the one in fifth place, asked the official referee first. "Senior, if I concede in this match, will my turn be skipped since I will become the new tenth place?"

"Yes." The one who answered was Governor Cui. "The turn always rotates from tenth place to second place, regardless of the contestants. However, each contestant can only have one turn per cycle."

"Thank you, Governor Cui." Murong Youyou took a deep breath before facing her opponent. Just like her, the others realized just how precious being in second place and first place.

The battle between Murong Youyou, a water-based early-stage emperor, and Purple Jaguar, an early-stage Fourth Tier body refiner and early-stage archmage, began shortly.

Naturally, the cultivation realm of Purple Jaguar only contributed a bit to his overall combat due to the huge gap compared to his opponent's realm. But complimenting his reckless and blow-for-blow tactic was his body refining.

A solid slap from a 4th-tier body refiner could gravely injure an emperor if not careful. This was the reason why Purple Jaguar blow-for-blow tactic was effective.

Moreover, body refiners could endure injuries better than cultivators with their body field. In life-or-death scenarios, the former would likely escape and survive than the latter.

This didn't mean that cultivators had no advantages against them. The versatility and wide range of available combat options are among the advantages of cultivators. Domain is another important edge of them.

Naturally, these pros and cons can be solved easily if one practiced both cultivation and a body refining like Long Zhu. Another way is using overwhelming strength.

It was obvious that neither Murong Youyou nor Purple Jaguar had the strength to overwhelm these pros and cons. Therefore, a battle of combat awareness, reaction speed, and combat decisions unleashed between the two.

However, aside from winning this match, the two also needed to think if being injured this early would influence their performance later.

Thus, after dozens of clashes with no clear winner, Purple Jaguar and Murong Youyou decided for a tie. According to the official referee, a tie would mean that Murong Youyou could retain her spot but Purple Jaguar could also challenge her again in the next round.

On the viewing platform, Ji Chen was watching the proceedings and recalled that Murong Youyou was the same lady who won against the top genius of her rival sect.

After asking the others, he learned from his gossipy brother Long Zhu that something seemed to happen and the entire group from the Fire Reverence Sect disappeared from the city. They left no reminders or clues.

"That is too strange." Ji Chen muttered with a frown.

How could a group of great emperors suddenly vanished overnight without witness? He felt uncomfortable as if something bad was going to happen.

Back to the battle stage, the official referee called Xana, the ninth place, for her turn. She settled for seventh place.

"I challenge the seventh place."

Zhong De, the seventh place, decided to concede after five exchanges. His hedgehog fortress tactic crumbled against Xana's relentless ice-based attacks.

At the end of the match, the spectators could see his trembling figure.

"They are not going all out because of the boring matching system."

"Boring? Hmph! You just don't know how to strategize!"

"Yeah. I think someone who might represent our kingdom also needs to be smart. This matching system is actually a good practice."

Regardless of the whims of some audience, the competition continued with Huo Zun directly challenging the third place.

Su Peng, the third place, showcased his mastery of using his wind domain and coupled with his spear, each attack he created surpassed the reaction speed of many of his peers.

He was the genius of a top force in a first-rate city. Naturally, he had his own pride and decided to battle with Huo Zun, one of the favorites to win the top spot of the competition.

It was just the special fire domain placed Huo Zun at the forefront of the competition.

The cheers of countless fans he had in Whitedrift City echoed in the venue.

Nevertheless, Su Peng still tried to defend his third place.

"Wind Execution!"

Dozens of progressively bigger wind blades rapidly materialized in the midair and shot towards Huo Zun from multiple directions. It was as if these wind blades wanted to execute the whole battle stage.

"Sky Incineration."

In response to these wind blades, the sky turned dark orange as violent flames flickered out of nowhere, seemingly want to twist the surrounding space.

Sizzle!

Intense heat distorted the sky above the battle stage. A widespread propagation of faint dangerous orange flames swallowed all the whistling wind blades.

A huge fire tornado gradually formed which quickly broke up into smaller ones before creating a continuous exploding fireworks in the sky.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The two geniuses continued their exchanges until Su Peng's arm was grazed by a residual energy of a fire attack.

"I concede." There was no need to humiliate himself more so Su Peng accepted his inferior capability against his opponent.

After exchanging tokens with Huo Zun, he returned to his sect's viewing platform to recuperate.

Since Xana became the new seventh place, she was skipped by the referee officer and directly called Ling Jingjing.

"I'll skip."

After her, Murong Youyou descended from a viewing platform only to say, "I'll skip."

And before the official referee could ask Hesha, the latter's voice was heard loud and clear.

"I'll skip."

Three successive skips got to the nerves of spectators but they knew it was the wisest decision since conserving energy for next rounds should be the main priority.

"How about you, Xu Kai? Are you skipping as well?" The official referee still asked even though it was obvious that he would get a negative answer.

"No, I'll skip too."

What a joke? He didn't want to get beaten by the silver-haired lady. He knew Bai Ningshuang had a peerless sword art.

"We are going to take an hour break. After that, the challenge will start again from tenth place."

An hour later, Purple Jaguar once again tried to take the ninth position by challenging Zhong De and by a slim margin, he successfully won the match.

The titled Tortoise Shell Emperor couldn't keep up with brute punches being thrown to his hedgehog fortress.

Su Peng didn't bother to waste his energy and announced a skip, followed by Xana , Ling Jingjing, Murong Youyou, and Hesha.

"I seem to have come to the wrong place. Is this the venue of competition?"

"You too? Hey, hey, this is a skipping class! You got the wrong venue."

"I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if one of them will execute the skip attack."

"I can't believe many woke up early just to watch this competition."

The disappointed crowd could only voice out their dissatisfaction by sniding remarks and intentionally making their voices loud.