"Wulin, are you sure you won"t reconsider it?" Flander asked once more, hoping to get him to change his mind."All of you will win the championships with ease if you stick together!"
However, Wulin was adamant in his decision and shook his head, "It has already been decided, we are leaving tomorrow."
"Besides, even without my group, the others would still have a good chance of winning."
Flander sighed as he wasn"t convinced by his answer but there was nothing he could do to change Wulin"s mind.
"Fine, but you may as well gather together for today. Xiao Gang will explain the rules and proceedings of the tournament." He relented.
Wulin nodded his head and gathered together with the other group once Yu Xiao Gang called for them.
Besides Tang San"s group of six, there was another four young Spirit Masters, Tai Long being one of them.
Wulin deduced them to be the subst.i.tution members for Tang San"s team.
Once everyone was gathered, Yu Xiao Gang began by introducing the new members.
Rank thirty eight power attack system Spirit Elder, Tai Long, Male, Spirit: Vigorous Orangutan. Spirit Rings: Two yellow one purple.
Rank thirty five power attack system Battle Spirit Elder, Huang Yuan, Male, Spirit: Lone Wolf. Spirit Rings: Two yellow one purple.
Rank thirty five agility attack system Battle Spirit Elder, Jing Ling, Male, Spirit: Skeleton. Spirit Rings: Two yellow one purple
Rank thirty five healing system Tool Spirit Master, Jiang Zhu, Female, Spirit: Healing Scepter. Spirit Rings: Two yellow one purple
Since Wulin"s group is not going to join Shrek Academy, Flander was forced to find some replacements.
The only one who could be considered useful enough would be Tai Long, but even he is of a lower Spirit Rank than Xiao Wu.
Not to mention, he and the other subst.i.tute members were all many years older than the main group.
However, this didn"t stop the l.u.s.tful Little Fatty and the lonely Oscar from staring at the young and beautiful Jiang Zhu.
Sadly, Jiang Zhu already knew about their reputations and knew not to get involved with the vigorous Little Fatty and the extremely vulgar Oscar.
On the other hand, she seemed to be more attracted to the prince charming, Dai Mubai.
After allowing the four of them to give a small introduction of themselves, Yu Xiao Gang directly went into explaining the rules of the tournament.
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From Yu Xiao Gang"s explanation, the Spirit Master Tournament is hosted by three main powers.
These powers are the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire"s royal families, as well as Spirit Hall.
For the rules, the most important ones to note is that killing is not allowed, and if done then the team will be disqualified.
Other than that, contestants are not allowed to use external help, such as food made from another Food Spirit Master.
This rule is tough on half of the group here, since it also bars the use of Hidden Weapons.
Rong Rong and Xue Mei were especially unhappy once Yu Xiao Gang spoke of this rule, but Oscar had his nose pointing to the sky as he bragged about his Spirit Bone.
Since Spirit Bones are considered internal, they are still allowed to be used in the tournament.
Tai Long, Jiang Zhu and the other two subst.i.tute members were especially shocked to hear that Oscar had a Spirit Bone.
After all, Spirit Bones aren"t things you can get just by wishing for it.
They would surely be shocked silly if they found out that not only Oscar, but half of the group also had Spirit Bones, with a couple even having External Spirit Bones.
After explaining the rules, Yu Xiao Gang moved onto the proceedings of the Spirit Master Tournament.
The tournament is broken up into many different stages, the first being the qualifying phase.
The preliminaries are broken up into areas, all that do not belong to a dukedom or kingdom within Heaven Dou Empire"s bounds are made to come to the Imperial City to compete.
In total, there are six areas in Heaven Dou Empire fighting for 15 spots in the finals.
Heaven Dou Imperial City, being the Imperial City and where the most battles will be held, holds five places within those 15, while the rest of the areas only have two places.
Star Luo Empire is essentially the same, mirroring the Heaven Dou Empire in size, so there will be a total of 30 teams qualifying in the finals besides the three seeded teams.
The qualifying phase is a round robin event, the team with the most victories wins a spot in the finals.
The battles are seven-member team battles, designed to allow academies to show their coordination and combat prowess as a team.
After the thirty teams have been identified, they will partic.i.p.ate in the finals. But before that, a special promotional round will take place.
The promotional battles still consist of seven members, but they are individual battles instead of team battles.
In these battles, the victorious team member can stay on the stage and fight against the next member of the other team.
Although it doesn"t decide the winners of the tournament, the promotional round is important in deciding the rankings in the finals.
If the preliminary phase showcases the teams combat prowess, then the promotional round is solely about showing off one"s own individual strength.
The finals format is a single-round elimination, with the battles being the same as the qualifying phase, seven-member team battles.
The groups will be slowly whittled down to the final three where they undergo both a group battle and individual battle.
The winner of the individual battle will get a straight path to the grand finals while the other two teams fight for the second place.
After the second team is decided, the grand final takes place, crowning the champions of the Spirit Master Tournament.
Finishing his explanation, Yu Xiao Gang then spoke to Tang San"s team, "For this qualifying phase, only three of you are allowed to fight at one time."
Seeing that they are going to be discussing their game plan, Wulin decided to leave with his girls.
"Brother Wulin, what are we going to do now?" Rong Rong hopped forward and held Wulin"s arm intimately.
"Most of the teams competing in Heaven Dou City will arrive tomorrow, so we will spend today preparing." Wulin answered as he hugged her slim waist.
Although Tang San"s team no longer had Rong Rong, they were all overall stronger than in the original, so they should still be fine with a subst.i.tute member.
Wulin took his girls to the training field and fought with them all day, making sure their teamwork was seamless.
Although they often fight together, they are usually directed by Tang San, so the Spirit Master Tournament will be the first stage that the six of them fight together.
…
"Excuse me! Where did you get those cloaks? The quality is phenomenal! Do you mind selling one to me!?" Atop a carriage, a pot-bellied man quickly stopped the pa.s.sing-by group of cloaked figures.
It was a group of six, all of them wearing identically patterned cloaks that hid the skin of their bodies.
Not only that, but they wore strange straw hats with long strips of paper circling most of the hat.
Although they were not as fascinating as the cloaks, it was easy to tell that they were of high quality and used the best materials
The only part of their body that wasn"t covered was a small part of their face above the mouth and under the eyes.
The sizes of the group were quite similar, except for two outliers, one at least a head taller than the others, and the other at least a head shorter than the next smallest, quite obviously a child.
It was also quite easy to tell the genders apart, as four of them had two mounds bulging from their chest area.
The tall figure was bulky and had broad shoulders, which indicated a male figure, while the small figure was much more difficult to tell.
However, the strange thing about the child-like figure was that there was a pair of animal ears attached sticking out from the straw hat, and what seemed to be long white tails swaying behind the child"s body.
The pot-bellied merchant was instantly drawn to the otherworldly beauty of the cloaks, its almost light deprivating darkness seemed to force his eyes to look at it.
But this wasn"t the only thing adorning the cloak, no. The real beauty of the cloak was the ethereal looking buddha"s lotus flowers.
Many small lotus flowers were beautifully patterned into the pitch-black cloak, the craftmanship was unlike anything the merchant had ever seen before, they looked so lifelike.
The lotus flowers had a strange blue outline which seemed to make it look as if it was floating in front of the cloak.
Not only that, but every movement of the cloak caused the buddha"s lotuses to swivel, seemingly coming to life as they rotated and swayed, but it was simply an illusion.
The group stopped at the merchant"s words and looked towards him lightly, "They aren"t for sale, nor can you find them anywhere else."
Wulin didn"t bother with the merchant and immediately left after a succinct answer.
The pot-bellied merchant had a strange feeling as he watched them leave but didn"t make any effort to stop them.
He was not a reckless idiot and understood that anyone wearing clothing of that quality had significant background.
The pot-bellied merchant regretfully sighed and decided it was not worth risking offending someone with great status and resumed his journey to Heaven Dou Imperial City.
Wulin"s group was led by Rong Rong over five kilometres and across many roads before coming to a stop.
Rong Rong twirled around as she lifted the hat off her face, revealing a face filled with excitement and malice.
"Brother Wulin, if we wait here, we will definitely come across an Advanced Spirit Master Academy!" She said with certainty.
Wulin took her hat and propped it back onto her head, "Don"t take your hat off, and why are you so sure about that?"
Although he couldn"t see it, he could tell that she was pouting from the sound of her voice, "Hmph! I know that the Brave Sword Advanced Spirit Master Academy will have to go through this road to reach Heaven Dou Imperial City."
Knowing that they were going to use this method to sneak into the Spirit Master Tournament, Rong Rong gathered information about the travel routes of attending Advanced Spirit Master Academies.
Of course, she was secretive in her ways, and asked round about questions to her clansman, making sure her father didn"t catch wind of their dealings.
Wulin carefully caressed her exposed cheek and thanked her, "Good Rong Rong, my darling is the best."
The other girls weren"t jealous when Wulin said this, they already knew that he loves and cares for them greatly.
Instead, they also played along as they teased Rong Rong, except for Little Jing who was genuinely excited.
The group sat together in the tree branches as they waited for the Brave Sword Advanced Spirit Master Academy to pa.s.s through.
Luckily for them, they only needed to wait an hour until Wulin"s sensitive ears picked up the sound of multiple footsteps.
Wulin cautioned his girls to get ready as they dropped from the branches, agilely landing on the ground.
Of course, this sound also alerted the headmaster of Brave Sword Academy, causing him to pause a bit before proceeding forward.
As a Spirit Saint, he was not afraid of much, and he didn"t have many enemies, certainly not any that would ambush him at this time.
Soon the two leaders were able to see the group as they exchanged gazes.
Wulin smiled lightly as he spoke, "It"s them…"