Start of the tournament

Bai Yun stared at the new room they were in. It was a large square room. In the center, a large circular ring was drawn. This was probably where the battles were going to take place. On top of the walls of the room, they could see small windows that led to rooms from which people could view their battles.

The moment they arrived there, Bai Yun's god sense sensed a few perceptions sweeping over him. He realized that there were quite a good number of people here to watch the matches. The fact that they passed the Insect World must have increased the attention placed on them.

Bai Yun frowned when he felt their presences washing over him. He realized that they were all in the soul step.

In a place like the Yellow city, the most powerful people, the movers and shakers, would be in the dao step. The people in the qi step were either youngsters or rabble. Most of the administrative tasks were handled by soul step cultivators. And even if there were dao step cultivators who were alarmed by the fact they cleared insect world, they would at most send soul step cultivators to watch over the battles. After all, no matter what, they were still in the qi condensation realm.

Bai Yun knew that there was no way anyone in the qi step to notice that he was wearing a disguise. At the same time, people in the dao step would be able to see his true face in an instant once they took a closer look. But for people in the soul step they would only be able to tell that there was something wrong with him, and maybe conclude that he had hidden his identity by using a disguising technique. And that too, only when they looked closer with their perception. Of course, if they had an innate ability that could see through the disguise, then it would be useless.

Bai Yun initially thought that no dao step cultivator would come to this test as it was only a routine event. He did not expect to run into so many messy situations, like having three celebrities in the roster, as well as passing an unpassable test. But now the situation had spiraled out of control. But he would be fine as long as a dao step cultivator did not show up. After all, it was not illegal to use a disguise in the hunter union. While not many, there were still some who did so. The Hunter Union was confident that no one could cheat their system and take multiple cards per person. So they allowed this.

Bai Yun collected himself. It seems as if no one had found out about his true identity. He turned his attention back to the organizer, who was now standing in the middle of the stadium.

"Hello and welcome to the third round of the gold test." She said. No matter what happened, the people of the hunter union maintained their professionalism. "I would like to inform you that many people are watching the tournament and that you might be able to get good recommendations to join major powers."

Most of the people here were excited at the prospect. In the qi condensation stage, the strength of an average person and a person from a major power did not vary too much. Once their strength increased, the difference in strength would also widen. It was the reason why a lot of people who came to take the gold test, not for the gold card, but for opportunities and experience. Though there were also those who would wait to attempt this to gain battle experience.

"The test will be a simple knockout type tournament. Since there are twelve people in the tournament, the first round will have eight people fighting each other. Four lucky people will have a free pass to the second round. We have drawn up a chart for the tournament. Please take a look. The order of the fights, as well as the people who will be fighting, has already been drawn up by a random draw."

A second later a giant screen appeared on the wall opposite them. The tournament matchups were projected there. Bai Yun saw that both he and Gong Ming had gained the free pass in the first round.

The first battle in the first round was between Song Hui and another participant. The rounds seemed to have been arranged in such a way that the four of them who were considered as the strongest would not meet up before the semifinals.

Soon they called upon the first set of fighters in the tournament. As Song Hui and the other person entered the stage, the rest of them retreated to the viewing area.

"I will explain the rules of the match. The matches happen in the ring. No pills or external resources can be used once the match begins. The match will be considered as over only when either one of the participants has been knocked unconscious, declared defeat or has been knocked out of the ring. If both participants are knocked out of the ring at the same time, then the match will resume until a winner is decided. In the case of a draw, we will choose a winner. Also, please note that we will not intervene if one of the participants is in danger but does not admit defeat. But the judges will intervene if one of the participants shows intend to concede but is not able to declare defeat. Finally, even though deaths are unavoidable, willfully killing your opponent is prohibited in the match."

Once the rules of the match were introduced, the organizer moved to the edge of the ring. Song Hui and her opponent moved to the opposite sides of the ring. Song Hui had her whip out and was visibly excited at the prospect of the fight. Her opponent on the hand was visibly gulping. He was a member of the defensive group and had seen her fight first hand.

"Begin" The organizer declared once the two of them took their stance.

The fight ended without any surprise. Song Hui immediately attacked her opponent with her whip, while he tried to close the distance to her. But by the time he reached halfway to her, she broke through his defenses and landed a strike on his arm. From then on the fight ended in less than thirty seconds by which Song Hui's opponent admitted his defeat.

Bai Yun shook his head while watching this. Even though she was not at all proficient in her whip technique, Song Hui's whip technique itself was quite powerful. It would be rather difficult for someone who does not know how to fight against a whip user to handle her.

Once this fight was done with it was time for the second fight to begin. Bai Yun watched this fight quite intently as he would have to fight the winner of this fight.

The fight between the two ended very quickly. When he saw the fight Bai Yun was dumbstruck. The only way to describe the fight was by calling it idiotic. The two people on the stage simply ran up to each other when the fight began and used their ultimate techniques straight away. One of these was a palm technique while the other was a fist technique. The palm and fist collided, and the two of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Then the fist user overpowered the palm user and send him flying out of the ring and was declared as the winner.

Bai Yun was thankful that the God of Swords was not here when these two fought or he would have started a massacre.

He had thought that the people who had fought their way through War would be able to keep their cool and fight properly. He had no idea why they would fight in such a stupid manner. But after thinking it through for a moment he understood their reason for doing so. They weren't fighting to win, but to show off in front of the people who were watching them fight.

The third fight was between Zhang Zi and another person. This fight also ended with no suspense and Zhang Zi won the fight in an instant, sending the opponent flying using his shockwave spear.

In the fourth fight the person from the attacking team who had survived fought. Unlike the second fight, both people in the fight used weapons. The one from the attacking team used a sword, while the other person used a staff. Bai Yun got ready to watch a good fight. But he was soon let down. The two idiots simply rushed at each other and used their battle skills straight away. It took Bai Yun all of his willpower not to go up and strangle the two idiots when he saw that. After this the sword user somehow overpowered the other person and wounded him in the process, causing him to win in the process.

Once the first round ended the group was given half an hour to rest. During this period everyone chose to rest. But neither Bai Yun nor Zhang Zi was able to rest since Song Hui captured them and kept on chatting with them. Well, Bai Yun and Zhang Zi mostly listened. Even Bai Yun was impressed by the strange little girl's optimism and brightness.

Once the second round began, they changed the order from the first round. Thus the first fight was between Zhang Zi and one of the people who had escaped fighting in the previous round. His opponent was the only woman other than Song Hui who had made it through the second test. Bai Yun was surprised to find that she was an archer.

Once the fight began she immediately rushed away from Zhang Zi, putting distance between them. From then on she started to snipe Zhang Zi. Bai Yun was surprised to find that her techniques were very good, being both fast and accurate. She even disrupted Zhang Zi's attack and used her movement technique to maintain her distance.

Bai Yun was surprised to find such a dark horse. From the discussions of the surrounding people, Bai Yun realized that she was from a long line of archers, but her family had declined in recent years. She was so good in the second test that she was the main reason the defending group was able to defend against the flying insects. Bai Yun looked at the tournament board. Meng Qi. He read her name. She was the only person he deemed talented enough to make Bai Yun remember her name from the rubble other than the three celebrities in this test. He wasn't sure about Gong Ming, but she had a slight chance of winning against even Song Hui.

But she was up against Zhang Zi. After a while, he got irritated and then created an extra-large scale shockwave. Even though it was not enough to defeat her due to the distance she was maintaining, it did cause her to miss a step. In an instant, Zhang Zi had covered the distance between them and she admitted defeat soon after.

The next fight was between Gong Ming and the sword cultivator from before. Bai Yun was excited to see Gong Ming fight, but he was easily disappointed. He went in wielding a sword and then just used the direct method to overpower his enemy with a stronger technique and win.

The third fight was Song Hui's and she won without any suspense. After this was finally Bai Yun's tun.

He walked up to the ring and stared at his enemy. It was the fist moron from the second match.

Once the judge declared start, Bai Yun's opponent ran at him, once again using the fist technique he had used in his first fight. Bi Yun's face twitched when he saw this. He didn't move and allowed him to approach him.

Once he reached close enough, he thrust his fist forward. Bai Yun sighed when he saw this.

Bi Yun calmly took a step to the right, then used that foot as a pivot to rapidly rotate. A second later, his opponent stopped as Bai Yun's sword came to rest on his neck.

"Will you admit defeat, or should I continue." Bai Yun asked sweetly.

"I, I admit defeat."

With this, the final four was decided.