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With everyone"s jaw wide agaped, no one had a single clue as to what was going on here.
To think that Sui Shunyuan would just surrendered just like that, could it be that he felt like he could not win the battle as well?
"Noo!! My money! Why did he chose to surrender?!"
"This is something that I couldn"t come into terms with! He was already winning the battle and had pushed his opponent by making use of their own attacks, why did he lost on purpose?!"
A lot of the crowd cried out, feeling that they had been wronged by Sui Shunyuan. The latter was already in an advantageous position but chose to surrender instead!
"Hmm.. Could it be that he thought he had shown enough of his abilities in that short battle?" Duan Li thought in his mind as he cupped at his chin.
In fact, some of the audiences started to think along the same lines as well. This was because the duel was just a formality between the shortlisted applicants, a platform to showcase their capabilities.
Since it didn"t really matter whether one would win or lose, as the final verdict would be in the hands of Duan Li himself, then why bother showing all their cards upfront?
Perhaps it would be better if they only showcased a glimpse of their power. That way, they would retain the mystifying nature of their full abilities, which might instead, increased their value a whole lot more than if they showed all of it!
To make an a.n.a.logy, in an auction, a single piece of rock with a mostly unknown nature behind it, would fetch quite a high price because people wanted to discover its true secrets.
But this doesn"t just work on everything. They must first have that profound attractive effect which makes people wanted to know more about it.
This was exactly the kind of situation that Sui Shunyuan was making right now!
"It seems like not only is the nature of this man is far from ordinary, he even has the ability to scheme as well... interesting!" Shen Lu remarked, his interest was piqued.
On the platform, Xu Rong was pretty much dumbfounded as well, and then turned furious on the spot.
This was because even though she won, in that final few moments, it seems as though she was no match and was controlled by the other party since the very beginning instead!
But since things has ended as such, there was no way she could really do anything about it.
"Hmph! I"ll just display my full power in the second round then!" she harrumphed as she stepped down from the platform.
When they both returned back to their seats, Xu Rong turned her head to glared at the direction of Sui Shunyuan all the time. The latter though, completely ignored her as he just crossed the both of his arms on his chest, closing his eyes and smiling, reverting back to his dull appearance.
"Hateful!" Xu Rong spoke out between her teeth as she stomped her legs down.
...
With his keen eyes, Duan Li was currently making his judgement onto them. Sui Shunyuan was someone with an ability to possess something and the intelligent mind to scheme. Meanwhile, although Xu Rong was a little bit haughty, she knew her limits well and does not push things too far.
In his eyes, both were extremely capable. But he knew full well than to make an early judgement, as the battle was far from being over yet.
At the same time, the crowd had already finished putting their bets onto the next contestants as Shen Lu"s voice rang out.
"The third battle will begin soon! Would Fei Longwei and Ti Bao take their respective positions on top of the platform please?"
As soon as the name was called out, the man with the black robe, known as the "Dark Reaper" stood up and walked towards the platform slowly.
"Ohh! So his name is called Fei Longwei? This name got a cool ring to it!"
"I"ve placed all my bets onto him, because I"m pretty confident that he would win and become the champion without a doubt!"
"Me too! The guy is an ex-member of the Subjugation squad, it would be a no-brainer to not place one"s bet onto him!"
All the crowds were excited for this battle, even Duan Li and the rest of his party were looking forward to this battle.
The person called Ti Bao was bald with a generic face to him. Looking at his appearance, he seems to be more like a monk from some temple far away in the mountains, rather than a student of the academy.
"Begin!" Shen Lu shouted out.
"Benefactor, I was informed that you had practiced the dark arts which was closer to the power of the demons. I shall help you to cleanse yourself from this unholy power!" the bald monk Ti Bao spoke out.
"Purifying Mantra!"
He then proceeded to chant some form of a long mantra which causes his whole body to shine golden. Next, this glow flew over to Fei Longwei as it surrounds the latter.
This mystifying power of Ti Bao seemed as though it was intent in seeping through the body of the other party by penetrating the pores.
"Paltry tricks. Perish." Fei Longwei spoke out coldly.
"Dark arts: Qi Infection!"
When he used this ability, the previous golden glow wriggled as though something was choking at it. Slowly, that golden glow turned dark, before becoming black entirely!
"Y-You! What have you done to my holy chant?!" the bald monk Ti Bao shout out, unable to believe that his holy powers just got engulfed by the power of the darkness!
"Wasting my time. Disappear!" Fei Longwei spoke out once more as he used another skill arts.
"Dark arts: Darkness Whirl!"
BOOM!
A dark and insidious aura erupted forth from him, as they swirl out like a raging typhoon and crashed against the body of Ti Bao.
"AAAARGHHHH!!"
Ti Bao screamed out with a tragic cry as he was thrown over across the platform and then crashed over at the barrier, after which, the sheer impact had caused the latter to be swiftly knocked down unconscious.
"..." everyone.
Another anti-climatic battle!
"That b.l.o.o.d.y bald monk got instkilled! HAHA!"
"This battle just went way too fast! Ten breaths has not even pa.s.sed yet!"
"Who cares! I already had the feeling that the bald monk called Ti Bao or whatever he is known as, were nothing to begin with! Now that the battle was swiftly over, perhaps the next one would be good!"
The crowd cheered as the majority of them won their bets and managed to make a quick money out of that battle.
Duan Li was sitting on his throne as he turned his head over to Shen Lu and Shen Murong by the side.
"Who was the one that had shortlisted him? I don"t think he is that strong enough to make it into the shortlisted roll.." he asked curiously.
Since Ti Bao had that 3 Star rank Warrior token on his waist, that means he was shortlisted by them since they were in charge of shortlisting Warrior cla.s.s applicants.
"Eh.. I guess that was me. When I looked through his applicant form, it was stated that he was close to being 4 Star rank Warrior and thought that he was quite decent." Shen Murong spoke out as he cupped his chin.
This underperformance, could it be that the other party was just that strong that he couldn"t even manage to hold out for a bit?
Shen Murong shook his head.
What a waste!
...
The next few battles swiftly commenced over after that as the crowds alternated between cheering, yawning and exclaiming in shock.
Out of the seven matches after the third battle, the notable ones were from matches number five and the last, tenth battle of the first round.
The fifth battle was coincidentally between two Alchemist which was funny to watch. Instead of battling with each other, they instead took out pills one after another to show off to their opponent.
In particular, was the Alchemist called Guo He. Duan Li was amused by this man because the other party had challenged the opponent to concoct pills. Whoever concocted more pills within a period of time would win the battle, and he won.
Not just that, Guo He"s method of concocting, while slightly unorthodox, could produce a lot of pills within a short amount of time. Although Duan Li could probably produce far more pills than the other party, in a group battle, his battle prowess was what was needed the most instead of his concocting skills.
Thus, having another person with such a swift concocting skills to rely on in a group battle, would definitely be handy in a situation as such.
His overall capabilities however, does not pale in comparison with another Alchemist, called Teoh Cheng whom also won his battle against another Alchemist using in the same way and method. So Duan Li hoped that in the second round, these two would meet together and battle it out!
The tenth battle, which was the last match of the first round, could be said to be devastating. This was because coincidentally, the two of them were Seniors both in the Core formation realm, and their resulting duel was that, the platform was reduced to a rubble!
After all, the might of those in the Core formation realm was not something to be underestimated. But after battling for a long while, it was apparent that no one would win if they did not stake their lives into it. Thus, they both made an agreement with each other to resolve the battle with a rock-paper-scissor instead.
...