Mao Ning

Gu Guangzhi went up to Batman's corpse and looked for gu worms. As expected, all of them were alive. He took all of them. He then searched for prize tokens. There were two on his body. As he looked at the moon bats flying around aimlessly, he looked for a suitable gu worm from his spoils. He found a Rank 3 Bat box Gu. It was storage type Gu for bats similar to Gu Guangzhi's Wolf crown Gu. He spent some time to refine it and used it store all the bats flying around. Since he hadn't enslaved them, he had to forcefully shove them into the Bat box Gu. The huge moon bat that Batman was riding on was a Thousand beast king and it flew away quickly and Gu Guangzhi was only able to catch the ordinary moon bats and hundred beast kings among these moon bats and iron bats.

He looked up and found that the way marking the exit had changed on the ceiling. It meant that during his fight with Ironman and Batman, the previous exit closed and a new exit opened in another location. It was unknown to the participants if any of their competitors had used the exit so it built a sense of urgency. Gu Guangzhi made his way towards the exit as didn't want to get left behind in the preliminaries. He wanted to advance to next rounds to challenge himself. So he quickly made his way to the exit.

At the exit point, a gu insect was flying around. This was a Rank 3 Rescue rope Gu. It was owned by Jia clan members so it had the will of the Jia clan members in it. When a gu master poured primeval essence to use this gu, it would bring the gu master outside the maze to a location decided by the Jia clan gu masters. Then the Jia clan masters would take back their Rescue rope Gu from the gu master who had just used it. This arrangement was necessary because Rescue rope Gu was a life saving gu if used properly. It was thus a costly Rank 3 gu insect. So Jia clan didn't want to lose it.

Gu Guangzhi sensed another pair of footsteps approaching the exit location with his Tremor sense Gu so he fastened his pace. He reached the exit location first and started pouring his primeval essence into the Rescue rope Gu. However, another gu master soon reached the exit point. "You! I'm not letting you win!", said the other gu master. As Gu Guangzhi heard the female voice, he turned around to see who it was. 'Oh, so it was Mao Ning. It seems that Jia Gui has set my reward high. She seems really eager to kill me.'

A vicious blazing whip was making it's way to Gu Guangzhi. Gu Guangzhi used Bamboo swamp Gu and Turn Rock Gu to protect himself from the fire whip. The defensive swamp shield shattered but Gu Guangzhi was able to activate the Rescue rope Gu and exit the maze. Mao Ning face's was flushed with anger. She cussed in rage but Gu Guangzhi had safely reached the exit point. He handed over the Rescue rope Gu back to the Organizers waiting in the exit room. There were seven other participants in the room.

'Hmm… It seems like more than one exit opened at a time in the maze. If I had stayed back to fight with Mao Ning I wouldn't have moved on to the next round!', thought Gu Guangzhi. Soon after, two more people made their way out of the maze and the round was officially over. The winners were declared and Gu Guangzhi was one of them. Soon all the participants were gathered in the exit room. It was time for the gu exchange using participant tokens. In traditional arena matches, the winner wold choose one gu insect of their choice from a loser right after the match ends. But since this was a large round with royal rumble format, the participants weren't allowed to leave till the gu exchange was made.

Gu Guangzhi proceeded to find the snow path gu master's whose participant token he had. Initially Gu Guangzhi wanted to take the snow path gu master's vital gu insect as it seemed very interesting however he learned that this gu insect could only be used if it was made into a gu master's vital gu. So he decided to take the Rank 3 Snowflake Gu. As he was about to leave, he spotted Mao Ning. She seemed to have three participant tokens on her. 'Hmm… It seems she can handle herself quite well. I wonder how long it would take for me to finish her.', thought Gu Guangzhi. Mao Ning noticed Gu Guangzhi and walked up to him.

She said sarcastically , "I heard that Jia Fu invited you personally into his faction due to your battle prowess so I wanted to fight with you in the arena but it seems you only know how to tuck in your tail and run."

Gu Guangzhi simply smiled and replied, "I wish we could but Jia clan leader has strictly forbidden battles outside the arena. Perhaps, your wish will only come true next year."

Mao Ning replied, "You wish! I'll fight you in the next round so be prepared! The next round is going to be a traditional one on one match, so you can't run like today."

Gu Guangzhi made a confused face. She didn't qualify in the preliminaries. Why would she fight him in the next round? Looking at Gu Guangzhi's confused expression, she said, "Haha. It seems you don't have the full picture. In this round, only the fastest gu masters to exit the maze have qualified. Not the strongest! So how can the competition continue if only the weak gu masters advance? So the organizers have allowed for the winners in this competition to sell their spots in the next rounds. That way, gu masters who are confident in their strength can buy their way into the next round to aim for better prizes. Weak gu masters who have no chance of winning the next round can make a quick profit this way and the organizers can earn a commission. There is no official announcement about this yet but I'm sure they'll make one after the preliminaries. I'll make sure to buy the spot against you in the next round so be prepared!"

Gu Guangzhi was once again amazed at the Jia clan. What million primeval stones pool prize? It seems like Jia clan will be the one to make a hefty profit by the end of this competition! As he was thinking about all the ways in which Jia clan was making its profits, Yu Wen Zi walked up to him and congratulated him on the victory.

"That was a good match. I've been spectating the match on the screen using Recon sight Gu provided by the Jia clan. You were able to fight with a Rank 3 peak stage gu master on you own. How did it feel?", asked Yu Wen Zi.

"It wasn't as difficult as it seemed. I would rate my fight with Bai Ning Bing much higher.", replied Gu Guangzhi.

"Of course. But after some time into the fight with the enslavement gu master, you fought very defensively and even reverted your transformation back to human form. Why is that? Were you running low on primeval essence?"

"No. I had a weird feeling about the moon bats I faced at the time. They seemed similar to my water wolf in some way. So I took a step back. It turned out that those moon bats were different from ordinary ones. They were much sturdier and deadlier. If those moon bats had grown more, maybe they could even take on a Rank 4 gu master as a swarm. I've stored them in Bat box Gu. I'll sell them quickly to other gu masters for a good amount."

"Huh? Didn't you say they were very powerful? Why don't you raise them yourself?", asked Yu Wen Zi.

Gu Guangzhi sheepishly grinned and said, "I'm fairly certain that their strength had something to do with the metal path gu master I killed this round. Now that he's dead, I don't think they can be raised anymore. I'm filled with the Jia clan's spirit of making money. So let's sell these quickly to unsuspecting gu masters and make some quick profits."