"If Hong can become one of the last ten survivors, he'll still have a chance of making the top thousand in the reincarnation battle afterward."
As the tournament continued, Hong's turn soon arrived. The order of appearance for the three of them was Luo Feng, Hong, and Shen Fei. They competed on different days: Hong on the second, Luo Feng on the third, and Shen Fei on the fifth.
Shen Fei naturally had faith in Hong's talent. His only regret was that Hong had had too little time to develop. Given a few more years, he would have had a chance of taking first place in the finals and joining the Virtual Universe Company. With his talent, even if he started in its lowest-ranking Doomsday Secret Realm, he could work his way up to the Primal Secret Realm through subsequent qualification battles.
Although Giant Axe later took Hong as his disciple, that happened many years down the line. The intervening period was hardly short. Judging by when Luo Feng became a Domain Lord and was sent out on assignment, it was roughly two hundred years. By this world's standards, two hundred years was nothing, but for a genius like Hong, it was an entirely different matter.
Of course, that was not the most important reason. With Hong's talent, delaying his development by a few centuries would not be a major problem, just as Shen Fei would not wait until he became an Immortal in this world before leaving. If Hong could make the overall top thousand in this Genius Battle, however, he could change one thing: his relationship with Ji Qing. The status of a Virtual Universe Company genius, even a member of the Doomsday Secret Realm, would be enough to change certain things.
In the original story, Hong had