Selection Tournament Begins
The Selection Tournament arrived as scheduled.
Gu Ding arrived at the competition venue on time, but by then almost everyone else had already arrived. The venue was packed with people, and there was noise everywhere.
Of course, there are others that came later than Gu Ding.
One of them appeared less than twenty seconds after Gu Ding arrived, but his appearance was completely different from Gu Ding's low-key arrival; it was extremely luxurious.
The man was a handsome, blond- Golden-haired Youth looked quite young. He was sitting in a carriage made entirely of Violet Blood Crystal, which was being dragged along by six First Sequence true god-level Unicorn Cloud Beast.
When the carriage appeared, it did attract the attention of everyone present, and even Gu Ding couldn't take his eyes off it for a moment.
Only the Sea Emperor was somewhat dismissive, giving a rather unfavorable evaluation. "All show and no substance. What's the point of carving so many decorative patterns on the chariot? Violet Blood Crystal is a material that is completely unsuitable for forging any kind of weapon or armor. As for the Unicorn Cloud Beast, it is almost one of the least offensive monster races in this world. Apart from being a little fast, it can be said to be completely useless."
A lot of discussion arose from the crowd.
"It's Kelsa. He's widely recognized as one of the ten strongest people in Wu La City below the true god."
"I heard that he captured all six Unicorn Cloud Beasts by himself! With the cultivation of Nine-and-a-Half Star Half-Step True God, capturing First Sequence true god-level demon beast, and even capturing it alive, is enough to show how strong he is."
"That Violet Blood Crystal carriage is said to have been carved from a single, enormous piece of Violet Blood Crystal!"
From these discussions, Gu Ding also gleaned some information about this guy named Kelsa. He hadn't intentionally inquired; he'd just overheard it. But this information helped Gu Ding roughly determine the strength of the strongest being below the True God level in Ula's main city. In Gu Ding's opinion, while Kelsa had an impressive air about him, his strength was far inferior to his own.
Besides Kelsa, there were several other guys who made similar appearances, and one of them was even more outrageous.
That guy's name was Jia Geer, and he was also a Nine-and-a-Half Star Half-Step True God. Unlike most people in this world who were tall and strong, he was the tall and thin type. He was 3.5 meters tall, with his legs alone taking up 2.5 meters. Moreover, his arms were short, less than a meter long, making his whole body appear extremely disproportionate.
Most notably, his "mount" was a human, and not just one person, but a human chair composed of more than twenty strong men.
The moment Jia Geer appeared, the arena quieted down considerably.
Gu Ding only heard a few people whispering.
"It's Jia Geer..."
"Why would he come to our Wu La City? If it were him, no one would be able to compete with him for first place."
"'Tyrant' Jia Geer. He's skilled in soul attacks and can enslave beings far stronger than himself. I can't think of anyone who can stop him from taking first place in this competition."
Gu Ding also noticed that most of the other party's "mounts" were indeed at the level of Second Sequence- or Third Sequence True Gods, and there was even one at the level of Fourth Sequence True God.
However, Gu Ding frowned as the other party arbitrarily enslaved humans. With such strong mental power, he could easily enslave monsters of equal strength, but this guy named Jia Geer chose to enslave humans.
Of course, there were other show-offs as well. However, most of them were at the level of Nine-and-a-Half Star Half-Step True God. As for the truly powerful True Gods, they all chose to keep a low profile, with only a very few making a grand entrance. Compared to those few Nine-and-a-Half Star Half-Step True God, they were insignificant.
Of those who made a public appearance, Gu Ding saw seven of the top ten strongest individuals below the True God level; the other three chose to keep a low profile. Gu Ding did not see any of them.
Even so, Gu Ding had a rough estimate of the strength of the ten strongest individuals. The seven he had seen were between the late stage of the First Sequence True God realm and the late stage of the Second Sequence True God realm, and the remaining three he hadn't seen shouldn't be too far off in strength. Gu Ding's current strength was at the peak of the Second Sequence True God realm; even without using his Emperor Body and soul attacks, he should be able to crush all his opponents.
Before the competition officially began, the vast majority of participants had already arrived.
And the city lord, Capson, who was to host the event, finally appeared.
Wu La City is a main city, and its city lord is naturally very powerful, being a strong Ninth Sequence true god.
Upon seeing the slightly graying hair and beard of Capson, Gu Ding sensed something amiss. The aura emanating from Kapson was no weaker than that of William he had encountered in the underground black market. Clearly, Kapson, like William, was desperately suppressing his cultivation's rise to prevent himself from advancing to the Tenth Sequence.
"Welcome everyone to Wu La City as our competition venue..." Capson was clearly used to similar occasions. One moment he was serious, and the next he had a warm smile on his face, making it impossible to tell that he was acting strangely.
After spending more than ten minutes exchanging pleasantries, Capson finally got to the point, "This Selection Tournament will still be divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Those at the Peak-rank God below belong to the beginner level, those at the Half-Step True God level belong to the intermediate level, and those at the True God level belong to the advanced level. In each level, only three thousand winners will be able to participate in the preliminary rounds of the real Martial Dao Tournament; everyone else will be eliminated."
"Let me start by talking about the number of applicants. There are 590,000 applicants for the beginner level, 870,000 for the intermediate level, and 280,000 for the advanced level."
"In order to complete the selection quickly, our first match will be very tough." At this point, Capson paused, glanced at everyone, and then continued, "There will be one arena for every 10,000 people. Within one hour, there must be no more than 1,000 people left on the arena. If there are more than 1,000 people, everyone on the arena will be eliminated."
"The person who set this rule is very clever. This way, 90% of the participants will be eliminated in one competition. With 10,000 people in one arena, only 1,000 remain, ensuring the survival rate of the strong. After all, with 1,000 spots, it avoids a situation where two strong competitors will inevitably be eliminated, thus preserving the strongest participants to the greatest extent. Also, setting a one-hour limit prevents some people from being unwilling to fight for various reasons, causing the competition to last too long. With this time limit, to avoid being eliminated, the participants will definitely work hard to drive away other participants." The Sea Emperor gave his evaluation after listening to the content of the first competition.
"Given that our Wu La City only has one hundred arenas, and the number of participants in the intermediate level is relatively large, the competition will begin with the intermediate level. Everyone should go to the arena according to the number they received: those below 10,000 go to Number One Arena; those from 10,001 to 20,000 go to Second Arena; those from 20,001 to 30,000 go to arena number three... and so on. Anyone who goes to the wrong arena will be considered to have automatically forfeited their qualification for the competition!"
"Now that we've said all that, let's begin the match. Everyone, go find your own ring!" As soon as Capson finished speaking, many people rushed out.
Gu Ding then casually asked Sea Emperor, "I think my number is 9527? Am I right?"
"That's right!"
"That's Number One Arena." Gu Ding then stepped towards Number One Arena. (To be continued~^~)