Grandeur

When Ma Wensheng finished speaking, it was as if frost and snow had descended upon the hall. Jiang Shaohuan's face had gone deathly pale, and even Gao Pan's usual arrogance had vanished. His rugged face was so grim it looked ready to drip water.

What could one hundred thousand gold buy? With that kind of money, one could buy the life of a peak Qi Sea expert.

The Black Dragon Hall had tens of thousands of men. After expenses, its annual savings amounted to no more than ten thousand gold. One hundred thousand gold represented ten years of the Black Dragon Hall's hard-earned wealth.

"Hall Master Gao, now you should understand why the Hall Master bestowed upon you this Alchemy Hall–made inferior-grade magic robe, worth two thousand gold."

Ma Wensheng was quite pleased by Gao Pan's grave expression. His main task this time was to impress upon Gao Pan the importance of the decisive battle. He had complete confidence in Gao Pan's martial prowess, but when experts of the same rank contended, there was no such thing as guaranteed victory. Miss one calculation by a hair, and the tables could turn. The Black Dragon Hall, of all people, could not afford such a reversal.

Gao Pan shuddered, then said solemnly, "I, Gao, will not fail in my mission!"

"Excellent! I also believe you wouldn't joke around with your own life."

As he spoke, Ma Wensheng took a small black box, about the size of a matchbox, from his waist pouch. Inside lay a silver ring, with a delicate little snake coiled at its center, its design quite distinctive. "This was also bestowed by the Hall Master. Should anything unexpected happen in the arena, all you need to do is channel your palm force and lightly touch the snake's head. A green ray will shoot out. This green ray is the stinger of a Hundred-Year Green Light Bee King. It can pierce nearly anything, and once it enters the flesh, it releases a potent poison. One sting is enough to bring down even a giant beast. Anyone below the Body Tempering Stage has no defense against it. Even a Qi Sea Realm expert would have to avoid its edge."

As soon as he finished speaking, Ma Wensheng channeled his palm force and lightly touched the snake's head. A green ray, barely visible from a few paces away, shot from the carved ornament on Gao Pan's shoulder armor, piercing a tiny hole through it. It flashed past, flew another dozen yards, and embedded itself in a pure-copper, gilt pillar.

The green ray was so hard that the inferior-grade magic robe made by Alchemy Hall was like rotten bamboo before it, pierced with ease. It was so fast that even someone as powerful as Gao Pan couldn't make the slightest move to dodge as it passed through him.

Ma Wensheng hurriedly plucked out the green ray and returned. Holding it in his palm, he showed it to them. Only then could Jiang and Gao see what it really looked like.

The green ray was tiny, only a third the length of an ordinary sewing needle. It was pure green as jade and fine as a hair; lying in his palm, it was almost impossible to see.

After showing it to them for a moment, Ma Wensheng broke the snake ring into two semicircular halves and carefully tucked the green ray inside the band. He put it back together, then handed it to Gao Pan with great solemnity. "This thing is extremely powerful. With it as a final safeguard, this battle should be assured. But I must remind you that it's expendable. Once it touches flesh, its poison will be released. Though it's a fine treasure, it comes at a steep price: this single green ray is worth one thousand gold. The Hall Master may be generous and magnanimous, but I hope Hall Master Gao won't use it unless absolutely necessary. I also believe that with your ability alone, Hall Master Gao, killing that madman will be child's play."

"Generous and magnanimous?"

Gao Pan grumbled inwardly, but all he could do was nod repeatedly and agree.

Everyone knew that the Black Dragon Hall's Hall Master was a miser beyond compare. Even the golden armor robe Gao wore now had only been lent to him temporarily by the Hall Master. Once the battle was over, he would have to return it.

Thinking of the Hall Master's love of wealth and his ruthless cruelty, Gao Pan resolved not to use the green ray unless absolutely necessary.

Otherwise, even if he won, he would still have lost.

The hourglass made of crystal was perfectly round and gleaming. Xu Yi had been staring at it for some time.

After taking his leave of Gao Junmo, he had been led into this extraordinarily quiet room. The person who showed him in had pointed to the hourglass by the window and told him that he would take the stage once all the sand had run through.

The door creaked open. As the last grain of sand fell, the young man in blue stood by the doorway and said, "Time's up. Come with me!"

After winding through a series of turns, they entered a lift. Xu Yi was still wondering what powered it when it came to a stop. The young man in blue led him east, and a moment later, they entered another lift.

Xu Yi was astonished. They had just descended more than fifty yards. Could they be going down again? If they sank any farther, wouldn't they end up underground?

While he was still wondering, two beeps sounded from the young man in blue's waist. The lift started moving again, slowly rising.

This time, however, the young man in blue didn't go with him. Xu Yi stood alone inside the lift car.

Looking closely, he saw that this lift differed from the previous one. Its surrounding walls were fixed; only the iron plate beneath his feet was rising.

After it climbed more than a dozen yards, light suddenly appeared in the darkness overhead. A few breaths later, everything before him opened into view, and Xu Yi found himself standing in the center of the martial arena. At the same time, he saw a golden-armored brute rising from the ground ten yards away.

As Xu Yi looked at Gao Pan, Gao Pan spotted him too.

By the time Gao Pan's gaze landed on him, Xu Yi's own vision was already in disarray.

Xu Yi would swear on his life that even in the 3D blockbusters of his later era, he had never seen anything so grand and magnificent.

The martial arena beneath his feet stretched hundreds of yards in every direction. Its floor wasn't paved with the usual blue stone slabs; it was made entirely of Heavy Iron mixed with adamantine, then ground rough with blue sand. Looking down, it was like standing in the middle of a black sea. An arena this vast didn't seem meant for human combat. It would have been more than large enough to serve as a battleground for two wild beasts.

If the arena beneath his feet had left Xu Yi stunned, then the towering stands surrounding it nearly made him question his sanity.

Those weren't stands at all. They were four enormous city walls, enclosing the entire arena.

The stands rose a hundred yards high and were packed with a dense sea of people as far as the eye could see. From the enormous sign atop one section, Xu Yi learned that these stands could hold tens of thousands of people.

To bring every spectator as close to the arena as possible, the stands had been designed with ingenious curves and recesses. From afar, they looked like an ancient colossal serpent, roaring at the sun and swallowing the sky.

Yet even such ingenious design couldn't prevent the stands from rising halfway into the air to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. From that height, anyone looking down would see the two people in the arena as nothing more than black specks.

To solve this problem, the Guang'an Prefecture Governor had specially visited Alchemy Hall and invited a Grand Master Craftsman whose skill was profound beyond measure.

With peerless craftsmanship, the Grand Master Craftsman had devised a brilliant solution: on the sky opposite every section of the stands, he had created magnificent projection walls, which enlarged and projected the fighters' images onto them. This ensured that everyone could watch the combat clearly and realistically.

And to provide the ultimate sensory experience, the Grand Master Craftsman had set up sound-gathering arrays around the arena, ensuring that even the faintest sounds—the thud of a punch landing in flesh, the whisper of a long blade cutting through the air—would reach every spectator's ears.