Skysea Alliance Tournament, Part 4

A couple days later, once the rays of the sun pierced through the horizon, Wu Zhangkong and the five students departed from the academy. Their destination: Eastsea Square located at the city's center.

Gloxinia and the others wore Eastsea Academy's uniform. This time, Director Long Hengxu joined the children and Wu Zhangkong.

They were heading out to the Skysea Alliance Tournament to participate in the individual, three-man, and five-man competitions. The goal was to become the champion in all of them.

There was another team representing the academy apart from Gloxinia's group, though they were from the advanced division.

The latter team would be participating in the fifteen to twenty youths division while they wouldd participate in the 10 - 15 youths division. Gloxinia spotted a couple of familiar faces among the crowd. The first was Xu Xiaoyan's older brother, Xu Xiaoyu. To his surprise, the other one was the beautiful senior sister he met during his first days at Eastsea Academy, Liu Yuxin.

It was clear that Liu Yuxin hadn't spared him a thought. Instead, her gaze was glued on the face of a man with fluttering white robes, never letting him out of her sight. Her eyes were practically in the shape of hearts.

"Xiaoyan, let me know if they try to bully you." Walking past the five students of class zero, Xu Xiaoyu showcased a display of force. It seemed like he had forgotten about getting defeated at Gloxinia's hands...

Xu Xiaoyan rolled her eyes at him. "Just worry about yourself. At least make it through the preliminaries this time."

At such a statement, Xu Xiaoyu's expression stiffened. "Of course. Everyone on our team has at least three rings this time. We'll definitely achieve a good result." They were participating in the team competitions as well. This was not just any team event. It was the most illustrious one—the seven-man team competition.

The corner of Xu Xiaoyan's mouth twitched.

From their conversation, one could see that Eastsea held some hope of glory at the tournament. In fact, their chances of victory were pretty high.

As Eastsea City was ranked number two among all the cities in the east coast, achieving glory and maintaining their status was a crucial goal and a touchy subject.

The Skysea Alliance Tournament was so large that it required not just the five first-class cities on the east coast to host it but had even summoned the aid of some second and third-class cities. Eastsea City had produced dismal results for a first-class city in the previous tournaments. Both the academy and the city's government lost much face.

It was no wonder that Long Hengxu's proposal to create a 'class zero' for their newly found geniuses was approved so quickly.

If things continued on like this, then Eastsea City's prestige would definitely suffer. The city's bustling economy might also be adversely affected, plummeting the markets. The academy was placing their bets on a group of ten-year-old children this time, hoping that they would showcase the city's potential at the Skysea Alliance Tournament while also gaining the support of the city's government.

After all, they were only ten years old. Their future was limitless.

Crowds of people and luxurious soul busses assembled at Eastsea Square to set off together.

The square was in chaos as the representatives of every association participating in the tournament organized themselves.

There were even representatives from other academies.

The Skysea Alliance Tournament had numerous events, including mecha and battle armor competitions.

Like how Eastsea City held an embarrassing position in the alliance, the Skysea Alliance were ashamed of their rank in comparison to the rest of the continent. Although their economic status was unrivaled, whether it were battle armor masters, mecha pilots, mecha technology, or the quantity and quality of soul masters, they ranked near the bottom in all of these elements.

The cities that dominated these categories were the Sun Moon City and Heaven Dou City. As for Shrek City, it could neither be evaluated by the Federation properly nor be put on the same scale as the others. Basically, Shrek City exceeded their comprehension.

"The teachers and students of Eastsea Academy, board your bus now." Hearing this, the teachers began leading the students onto the sixth bus.

Without a single break in her stride, Gu Yue sauntered forward and kicked Xie Xie out of the way, plopping down on the seat beside Tang Wulin. Xie Xie could only settle for the next best thing and sat next to Xu Xiaoyan. Unfortunately for him, however, Xu Xiaoyu picked him up and stole the seat beside his sister.

"You…" Xie Xie was annoyed, but he could do nothing against the much stronger Xu Xiaoyu. He sighed to himself and sat next to Gloxinia.

In all honesty, Gloxinia had always given Xie Xie a strange feeling, almost as if he was simply acting every time they interacted.

The Xu siblings sat right behind Xie Xie and Gloxinia. As he stared at Gloxinia, a scowl materialized on Xu Xiaoyu's face. He hadn't forgotten after all! He simply hid his anger.

After facing defeat at the hands of Gloxinia, indignation and depression had filled his heart. As time progressed though, Gloxinia appearing in his dreams more and more frequently. Every once in awhile, Gloxinia's face would pop up in his conscious mind.

'She is so young, yet possesses such power and an amazing martial soul. Just how formidable will she be once she matures?'

This girl piqued his curiosity, as well as some of his other sentiments. Xu Xiaoyu, was unfortunately convinced that Gloxinia was actually a female instead of a male..

Xu Xiaoyu was easily considered an outstanding elite in the advanced division, but that was just within the walls of the weak Eastsea Academy. He would be entering an advanced academy in a year, walking on his chosen path in life. Despite aspiring to be a battle armor master, he struggled with the fact that this was an exceedingly difficult occupation. In particular, the process of making battle armor required more than just money. Not only would he have to pour his all into cultivation, he would also need to divert his time and energy into battle armor research. He was already seventeen years old; though his potential was not lacking, it was unknown whether he had it in him to realize such a goal.

If he could not obtain a suit of battle armor for himself, then he would just have to settle with becoming a mecha pilot.

There was a reason battle armor masters were recognized as the strongest—the path to becoming one was difficult and few ever succeeded.

The chances of failing were simply astronomical. In order to craft a battle armor successfully, one needed to accomplish multiple steps: refine rare metals, forge them, create a design, craft it, and then maintain the final product. The troubles of obtaining and owning battle armor were tenfold to that of mechas.

To obtain a suitable mecha, one only needed to hire a capable mecha designer and craftsman. But regarding battle armor, this process was much more convoluted; one needed to be personally involved in the creation of one's battle armor. This was to determine the most suitable path such that the armor becomes an extension of one's body.

Such a feat was not something just anyone could accomplish. It was a taxing road. Hardly any battle armor masters could create a complete set of battle armor even after ten whole years of painstaking work. Even if they did somehow finish a set by then, they might find that their growth during the years of forging rendered their final product obsolete. Once again, one would have to start anew. The act of creating battle armor truly was a form of torment.

If too much time was spent on developing the battle armor, then one's cultivation may fall behind. When that happens, they would become even weaker than a mecha pilot. However, mechas were also tremendously powerful and their gigantic bulk gave them many options.

For these reasons, Xu Xiaoyu decided on specializing in mecha control. He would walk down the path of becoming a mecha pilot when he entered an advanced academy.

'I might not have much hope of becoming a battle armor master, but I wonder if she can pull it off? She already has three rings at ten years old and will definitely hit four rings by the time she turns fifteen. I can't even compare to her in terms of potential!'

He did not feel any jealousy toward Gloxinia. In fact, he was confused by his own turbulent sentiments.

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Words: 1482

Author's Note: Sorry for the late upload, I was cooking D:

Also, sorry for the info dump at the end, it's important info if you don't know about battle armors already..

Thank you for so many collections and powerstones!