Just as before, many in the crowd seemed to be familiar with the way that the Trial Master handled things. Those that had no idea what was going on finally followed the example of the ones in the know and waited patiently. In just a few moments the Constellation Shell Mirror began to glow. The many hexagonal mirrors on it began to emit light into the air, beaming towards the heaven like a set of gigantic searchlights. The lights continued to twist and transform until finally a few minutes later the lights completely converged. The ‘cloud’ of light began to take form above the stage, creating four huge flat panels facing in each of the cardinal directions. The four panels would easily be recognized as huge view screens by those on Earth, but in this world they were a rare occurrence and only powerful cultivators would have seen similar methods.
There was a collective gasp from the commoners as they saw ‘moving pictures’ for the first time. Each of the four view screens faced in a different direction and let everyone see a huge mountain valley. Before anyone could get a good grasp on what they were looking at, a person suddenly appeared near the center of the stage. The suddenly appearing person’s robes were torn up and they were bleeding from multiple places on their body. They had a dejected look on their face.
“That’s Xiao Yumu!”
Some of the people in the stands recognized the bloodied person and quickly the news that he was one of the geniuses in the tournament quickly spread. The Trial Master merely gave Xiao Yumu a quick look over before waving him off, “You’re the first one out. Please exit the stage.”
The view screens hadn’t even finished setting up the view of the first round and there was already someone who was knocked out. The tournament’s first round was so vicious! At that point the screens above finally cleared up and gave them a bird’s eye view of the valley. A whole variety of different terrain was available. A plain covered in high grasses, at least four different types of forests, a few dozen rolling hills, lakes, rivers, and a small sandy desert. The valley was surrounded by large mountains that provided snow covered regions, rocky canyon passes, and loose slopes covered in scree. At various places within the canyon dust and debris had been blown into the air and the sounds of battle had broken out.
What the crowd wasn’t expecting was the sound of roars and screeches. It wasn’t just the geniuses alone inside the Constellation Shell Mirror. The view screen panned over the whole valley for a few minutes before it split in half. The upper half continued to display a larger overview of the whole valley, but the lower half split into four smaller screens that zoomed in on some of the conflicts that were occuring in the valley. It rapidly switched to the most exciting and dangerous moments. Most of the conflicts at this point were various types of Demonic Beasts that suddenly had a young genius enter their territory. As such, the beasts were chasing the cultivator’s around. The cultivator’s on the other hand knew this was a survival tournament. They weren’t getting graded on how many beasts they could defeat, but how long they could last.
More of the geniuses started to appear on the stage, each looking quite the worse for wear, but each of them was still alive. While those related to the failed geniuses were sad, they were even more grateful for the existence known as the ‘Trial Master’. As long as they didn’t break the rules, the young geniuses that competed in tournaments that he oversaw always came back alive. Before the Trial Master the Dou Kingdom was just like the other kingdoms and every genius tournament would lead to the deaths of dozens of their best cultivators. In order to discover and temper their most excellent first grade talents they would in the process sacrifice many of the second grade talents. Only those with the highest level of talent were usually able to reach the highest levels of power. They chose to throw away hundreds of great generals in order to find a handful of overlords. It was reasonable, since a person at a higher rank could easily destroy those at a lower level, but it didn’t make anyone happy.
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The Trial Master was able to change that practice for the Dou Kingdom. He let these geniuses compete, yet was always able to pull them back from the brink of death. This was why he could be so unbridled when it came to following his rules. As an individual, even as powerful as he was, he would have been overrun by the families of those rule breakers. The great contribution of keeping so many geniuses alive gave him far more supporters than enemies. There were so many geniuses battling all over the place that four screens were far from enough to show off all the exciting events. More and more of the geniuses appeared on the stage, many of them cursing loudly. One of the screens focused in on that burly sleeveless man, Song Lu Tian.
Unlike the other competitors that seemed to be focusing on running from the Demonic Beasts, Song Lu Tian was already hunting the other participants. A group of three had formed and they were battling a pack of Demonic Beasts. The beasts looked like wolves the size of an oxen. In addition they had huge necks and mouths, from which rows of shark like teeth emerged. Shark Tooth Wolves. The three geniuses combined their efforts, each of them forming huge energy weapons and swinging them towards the wolves. One of them had a trident glowing with lightning that he stabbed towards the wolves. The second had a large recurve bow, forming an arrow out of energy he placed it on the bow and fired it rapidly. The third had a large round shield that covered him from neck to knee, from which emitted golden metallic energy spikes or blades. The shield’s armament shifted to different configuration as he swung it. Forming blades on the edge as he used it to chop, then forming spikes on the front when he was using it to block.
Song Lu Tian didn’t seem to care. He rushed in like a freight train, stomping forward and sending the wolves flying with a few kicks. Rushing up to the group of three, a group of nine swords appeared behind him. The swords didn’t seem to match at all, but they flew out from behind his back and each of them stabbed into a different wolf’s neck. At the same time he held up one hand, extending just the index and middle finger to form ‘sword fingers’. As he got closer those two fingers of his started to glow with a silver light. He swung his arm, using his fingers like a sword and in just a dozen swipes of his hand, the three cultivator’s were covered with blood and disappeared. Each of them found themselves standing on the stage. One of them looked down, thinking his wounds were only superficial. The Trial Master just pointed at a small bead of blood that was on his throat, indicating how he was saved at the last instant.
The nine swords spun in place vertically like a fan blade, each of them beheading a wolf. They quickly returned to Song Lu Tian, clumping together for him to hop on top. The nine blades being used as a method of transportation, he rode them off into the distance, escaping from the pack of wolves on his makeshift hoverboard.
Riding on a flying sword was something reserved for those of a higher rank, the amount of energy it took to move them through the air was considerable. Carrying a person atop a flying blade while also achieving a decent speed was almost impossible for everyone else at the third rank. An expert in the crowd leaned over to one of his comrades, “That was a Sword Formation. Song Lu Tian truly is as amazing as everyone claims.”
After resting a few minutes, Song Lu Tian returned to hunting other participants. Sometimes dropping down from the sky to assassinate them, other times just sending a swarm of flying swords to do the deed, but most often he would just charge in and slash them with his fingers like before. The eliminated geniuses could only slowly leave the stage and curse their bad luck. Song Lu Tian seemed to have no order to his hunting, merely targeting whoever was closest to him and aiming for groups first. At this rate, wouldn’t the tournament be over far faster than everyone thought?