Breakthrough!

Early the next morning, at Building 0087, where the Beiming Universe Kingdom was stationed, in the first-floor lobby.

The thousand geniuses from the Universe Kingdom had gathered together, and it was hard to keep their nerves from showing.

Of the 1,008,000 geniuses, only a tiny fraction would remain after the Trial Tower stage.

To be precise, it was less than a fraction: only 7,300 would qualify.

"Are you all nervous?"

King Qinghuan's voice rang out of nowhere. A white-robed figure suddenly appeared before them, and everyone saw him.

"Listen up, youngsters. I'll share some pointers."

King Qinghuan spoke warmly. "For geniuses at your level, as long as you don't do anything foolish, you're sure to pass the first two Trial Towers."

"So don't rush through them at the start. While the opponents generated by the Trial Towers are still weak, study their attack patterns and their strengths and weaknesses carefully. That'll help you earn more points. Understood?"

Passing on this kind of test-taking advice didn't violate the rules of the Virtual Universe Network.

Most Immortal Gods simply wouldn't dare to say such things, afraid of making a bad impression on the Virtual Universe Company.

"Understood!"

The thousand or so geniuses answered in unison, and their nerves eased.

King Qinghuan nodded with a smile, then shared some amusing incidents and anecdotes from past Genius Tournaments.

About five minutes later, a clear, gentle female voice echoed throughout the entire plane.

"All contestants, please prepare for group teleportation. You will be sent to your individual trial spaces. Countdown: 10, 9... 3, 2, 1!"

Everyone immediately grew serious.

As the countdown reached zero, an invisible force swept out, locking onto every person in an instant. It teleported more than a million young geniuses away.

Trial Space.

It was a vast expanse of deep space, dimly lit. Only a few distant stars dotted the darkness, their light faint.

At the center of this space was a small, roughly rectangular asteroid, about a hundred kilometers long and nearly thirty kilometers wide and tall.

"Whoosh!"

A flash of light, and Yu Duan appeared on the asteroid.

Before him stood seven towering ancient pagodas, each more than ten thousand meters tall.

Yu Duan raised his right hand. A screen on his wrist guard displayed his personal information and rank.

Contestant: Yu Duan (Beiming Universe Kingdom)

Points: 0

Rank: None

Trial Space: No. 00870001

Rules: Killing targets generated inside the Trial Towers earns points. The trial ends upon death.

In the first Trial Tower, each floor awards a maximum of 10,000 points. Clearing all seven floors earns a maximum of 70,000 points.

In the second Trial Tower, each floor awards a maximum of 100,000 points. Clearing all seven floors earns a maximum of 700,000 points.

And so on. Each successive Trial Tower awards ten times as many points.

How to advance: Kill all targets on the current floor to be teleported immediately to the next one; survive for more than ten days and you will also be teleported to the next floor.

Yu Duan looked toward the first Trial Tower. It was the only one with an entrance on its first floor.

"I wonder what creatures the seven floors of the Trial Towers will generate in this Genius Tournament."

The opponents generated inside the Trial Towers differed from one Genius Tournament to the next, with certain adjustments made each time, though the difficulty remained roughly the same.

Whoosh!

Weapons, armor, and other equipment appeared on Yu Duan in an instant.

The next moment, he turned into a streak of light and entered the first Trial Tower.

"Vmmm!"

In an instant, the entire space changed, becoming a vast, lifeless wasteland.

At the far end of the wasteland came a series of thunderous roars.

"Moo!!"

Then enormous beasts appeared, their bodies covered in black scales and their heads shaped like those of bulls.

There were countless of them, packed together like a black tidal wave charging from the distance.

"Black-Scaled Mad Bulls? Never heard of them."

The screen displayed information about the first floor's opponents. But Yu Duan had never heard of these dumb, low-intelligence beasts.

Rumble...

The wasteland shook violently as sand filled the air and the black tide surged toward him.

"Vmmm..."

Countless black and white streaks of light rippled out from Yu Duan, flickering like day and night, like yin and yang.

The field of black and white was woven from countless lines, without any clear boundary between them. Light and darkness intertwined completely, as though a black-and-white millstone had appeared from nowhere.

"Roar!"

The moment the black beasts entered within a hundred meters of Yu Duan, countless black-and-white lines tore them apart. A pure force of annihilation and decay ravaged their bodies.

Within a few breaths, the giant black bulls burst apart without a sound, disintegrating into bloody mist and chunks that splattered across the wasteland.

Wave after wave of beasts charged in, and before long, the entire wasteland was soaked in blood.

Countless mangled limbs and scraps of black scale armor littered the ground, a horrifying sight.

Yet within several dozen meters of Yu Duan, the desolate wasteland remained as it had been, as though nothing had happened. Of the tens of thousands of Black-Scaled Mad Bulls, not one had made it into that area.

"Whoosh!"

Yu Duan was teleported away and sent to the second floor of the Trial Tower.

The opponents on the second floor were ten thousand Rock-Armored Demon Crocodiles.

As more than a million geniuses made their way through the trials, the Immortal leaders from the various Universe Kingdoms naturally watched them.

The once-empty Central Square now had a rest area, where the Immortal leaders from the various Universe Kingdoms sat at their ease.

"King Qinghuan's young disciple is killing fast. He's already cleared the first Trial Tower."

"He hasn't used the Law of Time at all, so it's hard to tell what level he's reached."

"That Kedi from the Yuanchen Universe Kingdom is fast, too, though his footwork still needs work."

"As expected, Yalunsi is the fastest. Tsk, it's been so many tournaments since we last saw someone 'holding back their level.' I wonder what the Virtual Universe Company thinks of him."

"Hard to say. Yalunsi's talent is about on par with the average first-place winner from past Genius Tournaments. I wonder if the Virtual Universe Company will give him a chance to enter the Primal Secret Realm."

All the leaders of the 1,008 Universe Kingdoms were Immortal Gods. Some were even older than Yucheng Venerable, who was hosting this Genius Tournament. They had personally witnessed Yucheng Venerable competing in a Genius Tournament.

They had seen every kind of situation, and they understood the Virtual Universe Company's ways very well.

Geniuses?

The Virtual Universe Company was never short of geniuses.

Even the Genius Tournament champion wouldn't receive much attention unless they were the kind of talent seen only once in tens of thousands of years.

There had been contestants like Yalunsi in past tournaments.

If a genius who had cultivated for several thousand years only barely reached the level of the top thousand in the entire universe, they would almost certainly run into an unbeatable opponent during the Arena battles and be eliminated.

The same thing would happen later when they competed for spots in higher-level secret realms; they would usually fall a tier.

Besides, there were already two monstrous geniuses this time, so it seemed highly unlikely that the Virtual Universe Company would offer three spots in the Primal Secret Realm.

And if they wanted to avoid Yu Duan and Kedi possibly losing to Yalunsi, they might not even give Yalunsi the chance to compete for a top-ten spot.

While the Immortal leaders chatted, Yucheng Venerable and King Qinghuan watched the trials in a different way.

They could enter the Trial Towers themselves.

No one could see them, and they had no authority to affect anything inside the Trial Towers. That was one of the conveniences of the Virtual Universe Network.

If the Virtual Universe didn't allow it, then even two people standing face-to-face could never detect one another's presence. It was as if they were in parallel universes.

Inside one of the Trial Towers, Yucheng Venerable and King Qinghuan stood beside a young man. The young man noticed nothing, even when his domain enveloped them both; it had no effect.

"Kedi really is exceptional."

Watching the young man fighting before him, King Qinghuan could clearly sense his grasp of the Laws.

Though Kedi wasn't fighting at full strength, his every move naturally aligned with the shifting nature of space. Neither King Qinghuan nor Yucheng Venerable could miss it.

Yucheng Venerable smiled. "Teacher King Qinghuan, who do you think is stronger, Yu Duan or Kedi?"

King Qinghuan fell silent for a moment, comparing his young disciple's Law Comprehension with Kedi's before answering, "About even."

"It depends on which of them makes greater progress during this Trial Tower stage."