The Second Round Tested Comprehension, and Chen Du Was Overjoyed
Chen Du leaned back in his chair, going over the Star Domain Lord's words in his mind again.
Why did he come to the Azure High Martial World? It was to quickly improve his strength and rush back to Blue Star to deal with the Kema People fleet.
But during this time, he has been solving problems in the most direct way.
Slaying behemoths, destroying starships, suppressing Extraterrestrial Races —it was exhilarating!
But the journey was arduous; every path was paved with hardship and difficulty.
But this is the Azure High Martial World, with a level cap of Seventeenth Tier.
The Human Alliance here rules over 8,880 star systems, with a population of 50 trillion trillion, and countless other guide races.
In such a vast world, talent itself is a form of hard currency because the ceiling it can reach is extremely high.
He suddenly remembered the way the Star Domain Lord had looked at him earlier. There was scrutiny, expectation, and something else he hadn't paid much attention to before... investment.
The Star Domain Lord personally contacted us; he was placing a bet. He was betting on him.
His biggest asset is not his current strength, but his age and talent.
A seventeen-year-old at the Ninth Tier could potentially reach the Tenth Tier, Eleventh Tier in the future.
If he becomes a core member of the three major powers, the resources, intelligence, and connections he can mobilize will far exceed what he could achieve alone.
Even a tiny bit of something leaked from between the fingers of those super-strong individuals is enough for him to break through his bottleneck.
More importantly, with this identity, when he returns to Blue Star to fight the Kema People, he won't be fighting alone.
Behind him stood what could be an entire star field, or even the shadow of one of the three major powers.
The energy that a young, super genius can unleash and that of an elderly person nearing the end of their life are vastly different.
The reason why the Kema People were in such a hurry, even at the cost of arriving ahead of schedule, was probably this.
They are not afraid of him now, but of him in the future.
They feared his growth, feared that he would gain powerful backers, and feared that he would become a true threat to the Extraterrestrial Races of Blue Star.
Therefore, they must eliminate him at all costs while he is still at the Ninth Tier and before he has truly established himself.
Chen Du slowly exhaled. He had been thinking about how to fight, how to kill, and how to confront the enemy head-on.
But the Star Domain Lord's words about "unexpected benefits" showed him another possibility.
If you walk this path well,
He put the Spirit Realm headband back on and retrieved the information he had filled out when he registered.
In the "Competition Goals" section, he had casually filled in four words: "Do my best."
Now, looking at those four characters, he slowly pressed the edit button and retyped a new line.
Go further, get more.
He now understood that the Kema People were indeed nothing more than lackeys in his eyes.
On the day of the competition.
Chen Du put on the Spirit Realm headband, and his consciousness sank into that pure white space.
He found his own teleportation coordinates according to the room number on the notice, and then stepped inside.
A flash of white light, and suddenly the view opened up before me.
He stood in the center of a huge circular hall, the dome of which was so high that the top could not be seen, and the four walls were flowing light screens that constantly refreshed various data and images.
Around him, beams of white light appeared one after another, and after each beam of light dissipated, a young man with a composed aura emerged.
Some had cold expressions, some had piercing eyes, and some had the power of laws subtly flowing around them, causing the surrounding air to distort slightly.
These people are all Ninth Tier geniuses under five hundred years old, and each one is a monster who has fought his way out of billions of martial artists in their respective star fields.
Chen Du glanced around and saw that there were more than two thousand people, almost filling the entire hall.
They came from various star systems and planets under the 0771 Star Domain, and some even came from extremely remote corners.
The methods of the Spirit Realm are indeed incredible. A star field is so vast, yet the Spirit Realm can cover every corner, simultaneously pulling more than two thousand Ninth Tier geniuses into the same virtual space.
The hall itself was like an independent miniature world, making it almost impossible for Chen Du to distinguish between reality and virtuality.
Just as everyone was whispering among themselves, a figure slowly emerged from the high platform in front of the hall.
He was a middle-aged man, tall and with a square face. He wore a dark gold robe and had a restrained aura, yet he gave off a sense of oppression as if he were facing the entire starry sky.
He stood there, like an insurmountable mountain.
The hall fell silent instantly, and all eyes were on him.
That aura was terrifying!
The middle-aged man spoke, his voice echoing through the hall. "I am the host of this round of eliminations. Congratulations to everyone for advancing from the first round. However, in the second round, only the top 230 will be selected. That means that out of the 2,300 people present, only one-tenth will remain."
Upon hearing this, many people frowned.
Out of 2,300, only 230 were selected, resulting in a rejection rate as high as 90%.
The first round was one in a million, this round is one in ten.
It seems like the competition is more lenient, but in reality, most of the contestants in the first round were only at the third or fourth rank, or even the fifth or sixth rank, while all 2,300 people here are at the Ninth Tier.
Eliminating 2,070 people from a group of Ninth Tier geniuses is far more difficult than the first round.
At the Ninth Tier level, everyone is a genius that appears only once every ten thousand years on their respective planet, and everyone has immersed themselves in the laws for hundreds of years.
To rank in the top ten of this group is easier said than done.
The host continued, "This round tests your comprehension."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the entire room, his voice steady and powerful, "Perhaps some people think that the Ninth Tier is already very strong. Breaking through to the Ninth Tier within five hundred years would make one a top-tier existence on any planet. But I tell you, the Ninth Tier is far from enough."
What our three major forces truly need are experts at the Twelfth Realm or above. Breaking through from the Ninth Realm to the Tenth Realm is more than a hundred times more difficult than your breakthrough from the Eighth Realm to the Ninth Realm, and the required comprehension is also more than a hundred times greater.
Breaking through from the Tenth Realm to the Eleventh Realm is a hundred times more difficult, and breaking through from the Eleventh Realm to the Twelfth Realm is ten thousand times more difficult, requiring more than ten thousand times the level of comprehension.
In other words, if your comprehension is insufficient, even if you are given more resources and the best cultivation techniques, you will have absolutely no chance of breaking through to the Twelfth Realm or above.
The hall was silent, and all two thousand Ninth Tier prodigies wore solemn expressions.
The vast majority of them reached the Ninth Tier before the age of five hundred, making them figures who would be revered as gods in the outside world.
But at that moment, the host's words were like a bucket of ice water, washing away all their pride.
The difference Ninth Realm and Tenth Realms is a hundredfold.
From the Tenth Realm to the Eleventh Realm, it's a hundredfold increase.
The eleventh to twelfth, ten thousand times.
Of the 2,300 people in their group, only 230 advanced.
Of these 230 people, how many will actually reach the Twelfth Realm? One or two out of ten? One or two out of a hundred?
Chen Du stood in the crowd, listening to these words with a calm expression.
In reality, he was also overjoyed.
In the Celestial Master Realm, it took him sixty years to reach the Ninth Tier.
The Red Sun Immortal Realm, the Spirit Martial Realm, and the Heavenly Human Realm —each world was built up step by step.
But he also knew that comprehension was precisely what he had in abundance.
However, this is based on one premise: even if his comprehension is exceptionally high, the time allotted would still be far too short.
That's often the limit; within a few decades, you have to break through to the next level.
It's important to understand that the difficulty increases significantly with each breakthrough to the next realm, almost doubling in difficulty.
The further you go in making breakthroughs, the more time you need to accumulate experience.
Chen Du's most brilliant talent lies in his comprehension.
[Divine Revelation Reading], [Achieving Lie Dormant in Achieving the Dao Through Anger], [Stunning Everyone with a Single Cry], and the comprehension boost from system rewards.
His comprehension is likely a thousand times, a hundred times, or even ten thousand times greater than that of others!
He's determined to get one of the 230 spots!