After the show of talents concluded, it was onto to the actual tournament. The compet.i.tors would have one-on-one battles with a time limit of five minutes. If there was no winner at the end of the five minutes, the judges would give each fighter a score based on their perception of who would have eventually won.Since there were seventeen compet.i.tors, it just so happened that two of them would have to fight it out first to decrease the pool down to sixteen. Afterwards, the tournament would follow a standard bracket structure with random seeding.
He Zicheng drew two names at random for the first round, "Divine Blazing Mountain"s Fen Duanli and... Ten Thousand Flower Valley"s Zhou Ziyun!"
The round of applause greeted the two fighters as they took center stage on top of the platform. Only the judges remained as the rest returned to their masters. Chen Wentian felt it was quite a coincidence for Ziyun to have to fight one extra round than the other compet.i.tors. He didn"t feel worried as he had faith in her ability.
Fen Duanli and Zhou Ziyun faced each other on the platform, about ten or so meters apart. Fen Duanli was the only junior sent forth from the Divine Blazing Mountain and was twenty one at the 3rd Level of the Mind Focusing Realm. The crowd was already cheering for Zhou Ziyun"s victory as if it was a done deal.
"Begin!"
Fen Duanli immediately charged towards Zhou Ziyun. His fists flung out wildly towards her.
"Blazing fist!"
The air seemed to sizzle as his fists flew by, filled with heat energy. His entire body seemed to grow hotter and hotter as he exerted more and more strength. This was indeed a basic fist art of the Divine Blazing Mountain but it was rudimentary in the hands of Mind Focusing Realm cultivators.
"Blazing kick!"
Zhou Ziyun lazily dodged all of his blows. Chen Wentian told her not act too arrogant at first and make it look more compet.i.tive so she let the flaming idiot dance around for a minute. Finally, she got bored as she had already found the weak points in his stances with her keen senses and comprehension. The 1st palm in the Nineteen Demon Subduing Palms slipped through Fen Duanli"s fists as it directly crashed against the side of his head.
"Ahhhh!!"
Fen Duanli crumpled to the ground and fainted, his neck bend oddly.
"Winner, Zhou Ziyun!" The judges unanimously declared.
Zhou Ziyun casually got off the stage as the audience cheered for their female idol. Lin Qingcheng gave her a hug as she arrived back to her group.
"Wow, Elder Sister is so fierce!" Lin Qingcheng laughed as Chen Wentian also gave her a thumbs up.
The next eight matches were randomly drawn for the round of sixteen and Zhou Ziyun was given the last match out of fairness. Chen Wentian and his disciples sat along the sidelines as they watched the other youths compete.
It was rather boring as all the matches seemed lopsided in terms of talent. The Beast G.o.d Sanctum disciples as well as some others talents all seemed to win easily. A young male from the Tower of Swords seemed quite good at the peak of 3rd level of the Mind Focusing Realm. The crowd seemed to love it nonetheless and seemed to gain more energy as the matches progressed. Even the Yuwen sisters gained new fans as they dominated their opponents. Zhou Ziyun"s next opponent was also not worth mentioning as she won without breaking a sweat.
A one level difference in the Mind Focusing Realm was normally not a huge difference and not insurmountable. A talented cultivator at a lower level could beat an average cultivator at a higher level through mastery of martial arts and special skills. However, here in the junior talent compet.i.tion, everybody was talented and their martial arts were powerful derivatives from immortal arts. In fact, the beast arts of the Beast G.o.d Sanctum was even more effective in the Mind Focusing Realm as they focused on improving their physical fighting abilities. Other cultivators such as the Divine Blazing Mountain or the Glacier Sect would get a huge jump in power in the Spirit Initiate Realm when they could start utilizing their elemental powers.
The round of sixteen finished quickly and the quarterfinals matches were drawn. The four Beast G.o.d Sanctum compet.i.tors all managed to not get drawn against each other. It was another improbable occurrence from the "random" draws.
The first match was Yuwen Bing against Peng Feiyu of the Tower of Swords. It was pretty exciting as Peng Feiyu was quite adept at the Tower of Swords" prime sword art, Lonely Sword Wanderer. As they began to fight, it was clear that Yuwen Bing was at an disadvantage due to her lacking a good weapon and she was hard pressed despite her cultivation advantage.
Her art seemed to be some type of b.e.s.t.i.a.l transformation art that increased her physical strength and gave her elongated nails that acted like claws. However, this wasn"t strong enough to overcome the profound sword forms of the Lonely Sword Wanderer. Peng Feiyu easily kept her away with his sword and made up for the difference in their speed. Yuwen Bing tried to use her brute strength to knock away the sword but was cleverly deflected each time.
"Cease fighting!" After five long minutes had pa.s.sed, the judges ordered a stop.
The two fighters separated, Yuwen Bing panting from exhaustion and sporting multiple cuts across her body. Blood dripped onto the ground as she looked pretty miserable. Peng Feiyu looked slightly ruffled with only a thin scratch on his neck.
The judges took in every detail and displayed their scores for each fighter from a scale of one to ten. "The results for the first battle of the quarterfinals, our winner... with a score of thirty to twenty eight... Yuwen Bing, Beast G.o.d Sanctum!"
"What is this!"
The stadium with its home crowd started cheering for the winner but it was interrupted by a shout filled with immortal strength.
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Immortal Desolate Sword Peng Yuefeng leaped onto the stage and glared angrily at the judges. "What is this farce?" He yelled again, pointing at the scores on the judges table.
Indeed, the scores were quite interesting to those who weren"t biased. The two lords of the Beast G.o.d Sanctum gave their disciple 9 vs 6 for the opponent while the two neutral judges each gave Peng Feiyu an 8 vs 6 for Yuwen Bing. Thus, Yuwen Bing won by two points, a result of obvious favoritism! The other sects all became alert and wary of the Beast G.o.d Sanctum. Wasn"t this simply bullying?
Peng Yuefeng pleaded with the two neutral immortals but they didn"t care too much. Gong Liyun was busy making googly eyes at some person in the crowd and Huang Wuji seemed asleep.
"Peng Yuefeng, this compet.i.tion is very long..." Huang Wuji looked at him with barely opened eyes but the tone was obvious.
"Fine!" Peng Yuefeng couldn"t do anything with no support and he could only gnash his teeth and lead his disciple off the stage in defeat.
The cheers of the crowd resumed as the next round got underway with Ji Ming winning against his opponent after a lengthy battle. The two Beast G.o.d Sanctum judges again gave their disciple lopsided scores.
Zhou Ziyun"s turn was next. She looked at Chen Wentian with meaningful eyes.
"Ziyun, beat them into submission!"
"Yes, master!" She grinned, full of confidence.