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After Xu Rong and Fei Longwei were chosen, Duan threw his gaze back at the remaining contestants.
"Before I choose another 3 of you, let me just summarize on what I"ve seen during the previous few matches." Duan Li said.
"Wu Jin and Dong Jinghai, both of you are senior students of the academy at the middle stage of the Core formation realm. Your experiences so far led you two to have better grasp on real battlefields to react accordingly. In addition, your individual matches against each other were the most intense in my opinion."
"Wei Shang and Wei w.a.n.g, you two are from the Wei clan that has numerous way to conceal yourself from your opponents. Not only that, because the both of you are twins, your actions were highly synchronized. It would be a nightmare for your opponents to think of you two as separate individuals."
"Yun Bo and Ti Bao, the both of you had stood firm in protecting your defensive formation regardless on what had happened to the vanguards back then. This shows that you two could follow order to the very end, even in the most dire of all situation. Such bravery to remain mission critical is definitely a commendable course of action."
"Sui Shunyuan, your possession arts would be a powerful tool against any of your opponents. The versatile nature of it meant that you could very well use it creatively in a way that your opponents does not expect you to. Such surprise elements to be held in your hand at all times would make you advantageous in almost any kinds of situation."
"Guo He, to produce such pills that its effects would only kick out after a battle ends, is already a testament to your formidable skills in pill concoction. If I am not mistaken, those pills that you had handed out back then were modified Spirit Consolidation pills which has a 30 percent more effectiveness as compared to the common grade 1 of its version sold on the market. Impressive!"
Duan Li sighed out inwardly, it was so tiring and troublesome to speak out sentences so rigidly and serious like this, but as a Lord, he had to at least act the part and give out powerful insights in order to awe the audience.
...
As Duan Li made various feedbacks and commented on each of them, the contestants soon realized that, not only was the other party monstrously powerful in strength, he was also equally intellectual and in fact, comparable to those Strategist cla.s.s with that keen observation of his!
Furthermore, there was not a speck of disdain and the feelings as such when the other party pointed out to them. In fact, it even feels like the other party was trying to guide them into the most suitable path that they should focus on next time!
Even the audience felt the same way as they listened to Duan Li, as if the latter was conducting a beneficial lecture for them.
"This junior Lord, Duan Li, is really formidable, it seems like he is one of those rare type of an excel-in-all-fields person eh?" a person said as he cupped at his chin.
"Indeed. With both powerful strength and intellect at his disposal, he is destined to walk the path of greatness!" another person added while nodding, feeling impressed.
By the side, the elderly man Mu Bai smiled as he recalled a certain quote of wisdom.
"Powerful strength without powerful mind leads to you being used by others. Similarly, Powerful mind without sufficient strength causes you to surrender your fate onto another"s hand."
"This was the vicious cycle of curse for almost all cultivators in the whole Tian continent. But in him, I only saw the figure of a dragon that had always been standing at the top.. he.. is the one!" said the elderly man Mu Bai to himself.
...
After a few moments of silence, everyone had became quite anxious as to who Duan Li would choose next.
After a slight cough and drinking a cup of water to sooth his dry throat from speaking for so long, Duan Li breathed in air as he continued.
"Guo He, I guess it would be a no-brainer to not have such an astounding Alchemist within our ranks. Welcome to the party." Duan Li spoke out with a nod.
The audience cheered and clapped their hands loudly. Most of them had already expected this though, as a functional party would definitely require at least one Alchemist that could change the tide of a battle with their pills and elixirs.
"Thank you Lord Duan Li, I, Guo He, hereby swear on a pledge of loyalty to serve under you." Guo He said out loud as he clenched his fists in excitement.
"En. Next, Wei Shang and Wei w.a.n.g. With the mystic arts in concealing yourself from others, you would make a great ambush squad as well as for rear-guards! You can catch just about almost anyone off-guard with such sets of skills. Therefore, I welcome you two to the party!"
Hearing this, Wei Shang and Wei w.a.n.g immediately jumped up in excitement. With this, their numbered days and years of living in poverty had finally came to an end!
"Thank you Duan- I mean Lord Duan Li! We swear our loyalty to you and would do anything you ask of us!" Wei Shang kneeled using one leg followed by Wei w.a.n.g.
With that, all the 5 slots were now taken.
The rest of the contestants sighed and was saddened by the fact that they were not chosen by Duan Li. But recalling that Duan Li would recruit once more when he reached the 2 Star rank Lord cla.s.s in the future, they still had high hopes to eventually be able to join him.
Until then, they would just have to train and cultivate harder.
Shen Lu then whispered something to Duan Li as the latter"s eyes flashed. With an amiable smile towards everyone, Duan Li made a small closing speech for the audience as a gesture of appreciation for spending their time on watching the matches today.
After that, with a slight awkward cough, Duan Li pa.s.ses the floor back to Shen Lu, as he departed swiftly along with his followers including those new recruits of his as well.
"Well everyone, with that, the Duel match has just officially ended! Regarding your bets, I have made it more convenient for everyone to claim it through the Jiu Bank company directly later on. Goodbye!"
Pshew!
After saying that final sentence, Shen Lu immediately bolted off into the distance.
Huh?
Only now did the audience started to realize, Duan Li and his part had all already left, and they were the only ones left in the Duel hall.
Why are they leaving so quickly? Did they perhaps, had a simultaneous stomach ache breakdown from all those nervousness before to finally kicking in?
Then, thinking back to that last sentence of Shen Lu, they finally seemed to caught onto something that had their entire faces paled like a group of corpses!
BOOM!!
One of the audience smashed his fist onto his seat, creating a huge depression, and his countenance unsightly.
"d.a.m.n it! Those guys are getting away with our spirit stones! If they deposited all of those to the Jiu Bank company, there is no way we could raise a dispute anymore!" he said with gritted teeth.
"Curses! It must be that crafty Shen Lu fella! He must have predicted that we would raise an issue regarding the bets in the end of this all!"
The crowds began to howled out in rage as their faces darkened. Most of these were those that had betted All-ins or a large portion of their wealth during the final round back then.
After all, if such a huge number of crowd were to open up a dispute claiming that they suspected Duan Li was committing fraud on them, using the reason such as the latter misleading them to all bet against him, it would not be hard to actually get back their lost spirit stones.
This was why most of them did not really care about it back then. They too were a bunch of shrewd people as well. If they won, jackpot! If not, they would just get back their money!
But who would have thought that they had overlooked this?
The Jiu Bank company was the official national bank of the Empire to store one"s financial a.s.sets securely. However, as the national bank with integrity behind them, they would not condone any form of money that was brought illegally and would definitely check on how Duan Li had managed to get so much money from.
But, since the source of that money was their bets in today"s matches, and there were a lot of witnesses around that could testify there was no unfair rules or conditions was being set up against them, they would definitely lose the case if they raised an official dispute against Duan Li through the bank.
Instead, the bank would take an action against them for the fellony of trying to commit robbery!
Now that would be one h.e.l.l of a situation that they had to resolve!
"Hurry! We"ve got to capture them and take back our spirit stones before they reach the Jiu Bank company!"
"Even if I were to lose an arm and leg over this, I will get back my lifetime savings!"
"Go! Go! Go!"
CHASE!!
Psheww!
The crowds then bolted off to the sky one after another.
As their numbers were more than a thousand, they appeared to look like a swarm of bees from the distance, ready to cause havoc to the world!
Throwing a swift glance and scanning the whole area from the sky, with their combined line of sight, it didn"t took them long before the could find Duan Li and his party moving towards a certain direction.
"There they are! CHASEE THEMM!!"
Psheww!
Psheww!
Psheww!
When the people on the ground saw the entire scene playing before them, their countenances turned grim as they became fully alerted.
"What happened? Has the other Empire finally gave it their all and started to invade us?!"
"Hah! I"m gonna ma.s.sacre them all!"
However, a keener observer found the whole situation to be weird.
"Wait up guys, look! They were all chasing towards that group of people over there!"
When the crowds swerved their heads to look into that direction, they immediately realized that what the person had just said was true.
"Why are they chasing those people?"
Are they perhaps, demons?
...