Chapter 160 – Snap Out and You’re Finished
(Mustang: Hey guys, this is a regular Chapter.
Ps: There’s a Sponsored Chapter coming in a short while, so don’t go too far.)
The third day of the tournament was very boring, and almost everything went according to common predictions.
Out of all the cases, only a few turned out to be exceptions, since a few people were unable to qualify after winning their first two sets. In all these cases, the person who was in line for qualification had either been injured very seriously or hadn’t been able to fully recover their energy.
All of the Quinyang Sect’s five aspirants cleared their bouts, and successfully advanced to the second round.
The Quinyang Sect’s seating area had turned in to a party hall since it was a major achievement for them, and only Luo Sheng and Luo Xiong seemed unhappy within the delegation. Even Luo Xiao Tian was reluctantly flashing a smile.
Luo Xiao Tian was quite sore to see Luo Sheng’s disappointed face. In order to help him gain fame, Luo Xiao Tian had given Luo Sheng a top grade weapon called Tian Yun before coming to the tournament, to a.s.sist him in his fights.
However, Luo Sheng had been unable to live up to the expectations, and had been eliminated in the first round itself.
Luo Xiao Tian was very disappointed with Luo Sheng in this regard, since he would no longer be able to brag about Lou Sheng to the people he’d sit and live around, in the future.
Out of love for his grandson, Luo Xiao Tian had started to dislike the achievements of Bi Fan and others.
Today’s contest ended in half a day, and the contest would resume tomorrow, starting with the allotment of groups for the second round.
After the first round’s elimination, only eighty four contestants were left.
This time, only the core disciples were allowed to go sightseeing, and the outer disciples were led straight to the Hotel by Luo Xiao Tian and Ling Xin Ya.
The second round of the tournament was even worse than the first round, since the partic.i.p.ants would be arranged into groups of three, out of which at least two would be eliminated in this round.
However, the most brutal part of this round was the fact that the winner of this round would be decided in only one day, which meant that a partic.i.p.ant would have to win two fights in the same day to make it to the third round of the contest.
Most of the contestants who had made it past the first round were quite string, and were mostly considered high level talents, which naturally means that winning two straight fights in a single day would be very hard.
“Today, your task is to rest and prepare for the tough challenges that you will be facing tomorrow.” Ling Xin Ya stated.
Luo Xiao Tian said in a solemn voice: “Tomorrow’s contest is very crucial. If all five of you can qualify for the third round, then it will play a very big role in making the Quinyang Sect famous, and will also help the Sect is making a strong stand in the list of top-five Sects.”
“We’ll do our best!” Jing Feng and the others said in unison.
Once a disciple enters the third round, the disciple’s Sect gets a few extra points in the decennial rating system. So naturally, if a higher number of students qualify for the third round, their Sect obviously benefits.
Relatively speaking, the second round is considered much harder than the first one, mainly since there’s not much time to rest between two fights. In case a partic.i.p.ant consumes too much energy in the first fight, or gets injured very seriously, then he’s bound to suffer a disadvantage in the second fight.
The eighty four contestants that still remained in the tournament were all considered elites in their respective sects, and since a large majority of them had already reached the ‘transformation’ layer, the gaps in their strengths wasn’t very big either. There were only a very few ‘enormous layer’ partic.i.p.ants who had managed to reach the second round.
Bi Fan returned to his room very early, and started practicing.
Bi Fan didn’t know which group he would end up inside, in the second round, but wasn’t bothered about it. To Bi Fan, the most important thing at this time was to practice, and enhance his strength.
Bi Fan spent the entire afternoon studying and researching the Wu Ji Sect’s trade mark skills, ‘The Tai Chi Sword’ and ‘The Yin Yang Sword’, since the Wu Ji Sect’s Wu Ji Xuan was Bi Fan’s biggest enemy and it was very important for him to be prepared to face the man at any point in the tournament.
Even though Li Qian Xun was very strong as well, Bi Fan wasn’t paying much attention to him at present.
Bi Fan was so engrossed in his training that he had completely forgotten about food and sleep, and continued to study ‘The Tai Chi Sword’ and ‘The Yin Yang Sword’ in detail. Although these two sword skills were not as complicated as the ‘Floating Sword’, they were far more complex than the ‘Fufeng double-edged sword’.
As Bi Fan continued to learn from his memories of the displays of these two skills sets, he started gaining more insights about his own sword play, which helped him in increasing his power outputs further.
Bi Fan strongly believed that continuously learning new and improved skills would help him in making his own skill sets more powerful over time.
The fourth day of the contest began, and the ballots were drawn. Based on these draws, the contestants were divided into twenty eight groups, consisting of three partic.i.p.ants each.
Bi Fan pulled out the number eighteen, which meant that he’d be last member of the sixth group; this was a good sign.
The number sixteen and the number seventeen would have to fight each other first, and then the winner would fight Bi Fan.
If Bi Fan was able to win against the winner of the first fight, and was then able to beat the loser of the first fight, he’d qualify for the next round. His main advantage, however, was that his two opponents were likely to consume a high amount of energy in their first fight. w.a.n.g Yun Fei, Ji Ying Lan, Mo Nan, Jing Feng and Bi Fan all drew numbers close to each other, but fortunately no two people ended up in the same group.
Since only eighty four people were left in the tournament at this stage, there was a high probability of facing compet.i.tion for within the same sect, especially for the bigger sects.
For the time being, they were unaware of their opponent’s names, but there was a strong possibility that they might have to face compet.i.tion from a hostile Sect.
Out of the ten disciples of the Wu Ji Sect, eight had made it to the second round. Four disciples of the Rising Sun Sect had also made it to the second round, whereas the Ba Gua Sect was being represented by three disciples, making it a total of fifteen possibly hostile partic.i.p.ants for the Quinyang Sect disciples.
The Quinyang Sect had a bad relation with these three sects, and in case their disciples ran into a disciple from one of these sects, then the fighting was expected to take a very intense route. The more intense the fighting, the higher the energy consumption would be, which would only make it harder to qualify for the next round.
Today, in order to allow each person to gain their share of the limelight, none of the fights were conducted at the same time.
Ji Ying Lan was a.s.signed the first group, since he had drawn the number two.
When the referee asked the partic.i.p.ants to prepare, Ji Ying Lan started marching towards the ring to meet his opponent.
“I hope that Brother Ji Ying Lan doesn’t get a very strong opponent, otherwise it will be very hard for him to qualify for the next round.” Jing Feng prayed.
Ling Xin Ya a.n.a.lyzed: “Good luck is in the minority now, since there are virtually no weak partic.i.p.ant left at this stage. Strength is the key from here on, and strength is the way of the world.”
Bi Fan and the others didn’t object to his opinion, and simply prepared to cheer for Ji Ying Lan.
“Brother Ji Ying Lan is such a lucky guy! Look at that, his first opponent is only an ‘Enormous strength’ layer fighter.” Mo Nan smiled.
Jing Feng said: “Perhaps this is a sign that the heavens are supporting the Quinyang Sect.”
Ji Ying Lan’s opponent was a man named Wu Guo Feng, and hailed from a small sect. He had been very lucky in the first round, since he had been put in a group full of ‘enormous strength’ layered fighters, and was already quite overjoyed to make it this far.
“Start!”
Ji Ying Lan cast out his most powerful form of the ‘Fufeng double-edged sword’, with the intention of finishing the fight as soon as possible, since he wanted to consume as less energy as possible.
Ji Ying Lan was confident of his victory, and after winning his first fight, he would have to wait for the other twenty seven groups to finish their first fights, post which he’d have to fight his second one.
Ji Ying Lan was far stronger than his opponent, plus had a specialized knowledge of his skill set, which is why he had decided to charge into action with his entire strength.
As it turns out, Wu Guo Feng was even weaker than most had antic.i.p.ated, and the fight barely lasted a few minutes. But, if it wasn’t for Ji Ying Lan’s mercy, Wu Guo Feng would have sustained some very serious injuries.
“Brother Ji Ying Lan, thank you for being merciful!” Wu Guo Feng was sincerely thankful.
“Thanks for letting me win!”
Ji Ying Lan stepped off the contest stage, and returned to the Quinyang Sect’s seating area.
Now, there were another twenty seven fights left, post which Ji Ying Lan would have to fight his second fight, so it was very important for him to make the best of this time, and recover his expended energy.
The second group’s fight had already begun, and Li Qian Xun was a part of the duel.
Li Qian Xun’s opponent wasn’t strong enough to match him, and Li Qian Xun wrapped up the fight in three strikes.
Moreover, Li Qian Xun had attacked so ruthlessly, and had brought his blade swinging down so fiercely, that he almost slashed his enemy into two, and completely stunned the man, who was left with no other option but to concede the fight.
“He’s so fierce! We’ll have to be very careful against Li Qian Xun, and we must focus against him at all times. If we snap out of it, he’ll finish us.” Mo Nan warned.
“Yes, this kid isn’t just mighty powerful, but also very ruthless. Considering the hatred between our sects, it’s best to be very careful and cautious against him.” Lin Xin Ya advised.