The Arena Battle Begins

The preliminary round has ended.

The arena duels are scheduled for one month from now.

During this month, because of his final showdown with Illusion Dream on the last day of the preliminaries, Lu Yan'an was approached by many factions. These included not only local powers from the Black Dragon Mountain Empire but also super-organizations from the Ganwu Universe Country, all hoping he would join them and hold a position within their ranks.

This caused him immense headache and frustration, leaving him no choice but to claim he was going into seclusion to focus on preparing for the upcoming arena duels, thereby rejecting their requests for meetings. Later on, to avoid these solicitations, Lu Yan'an directly delegated his communication permissions to Lord Shen, asking it to help him handle the situation.

"You brat, you sure know how to order people around! But the conditions those factions are offering are quite good. Are you sure you don't want to consider them?" Lord Shen teased him with a playful tone.

"My goal is the top ten in the entire universe! Am I supposed to sell myself out now for some meager benefits?" Lu Yan'an rolled his eyes at Lord Shen, feeling quite speechless. He knew Lord Shen was just teasing him, but did he really look like someone with so little brainpower?

"Fine, fine, you're so noble! I'll help you reject them." Lord Shen nodded immediately, stopped wasting words, and began mass-sending virtual universe messages to decline the invitations.

Twelve days after the end of the preliminaries.

Virtual Universe, Black Dragon Mountain Island, Haoyue Courtyard.

Lu Yan'an smiled as he saw the special envoy from the Black Dragon Mountain Empire to the door, then turned and sat back down in the spot where he had been entertaining his guest, picking up the tea on the table and draining it in one gulp. The taste was quite like fruit juice upon entry, but it left a lingering sweetness in the mouth; it was the "Qian Guo Drink," quite popular throughout the universe.

"Kid Lu, aren't you even a little tempted by the gift that envoy mentioned? That's the territory of ten star systems!" Lord Shen asked with interest. In its impression, Lu Yan'an was a pauper who needed its help to get by. Usually, when a poor person suddenly strikes it rich, their mindset undergoes subtle changes, but looking at him, he didn't seem to care at all.

The Yinlan Empire is a vassal state of the Black Dragon Mountain Empire, originally a primary cosmic civilization composed of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Beta Galaxy, and six other neighboring star systems.

Generally, the price of a single star system is between 100 billion and 1 trillion universe coins. In the case of the Yinlan Empire, although the conditions of the star systems are quite average, since they are adjacent and form a whole, selling them together would likely be worth around 10 Hunyuan. Adding the three additional nearby star systems, the value would surely reach around 15 Hunyuan.

The Black Dragon Mountain Empire just gave it away like that, without even a single additional condition! For a "poor person" like Lu Yan'an, who rarely had more than 200,000 Ganwu Coins in his pocket, this was undoubtedly a massive fortune! Furthermore, the Black Dragon Mountain Empire specifically stated that they would never interfere in Lu Yan'an's internal management of the new Yinlan Empire, nor would they collect taxes, yet the imperial army would still shoulder the responsibility of protecting the territory of the new Yinlan Empire.

"Heh, it's nothing more than them seeing my potential to join the Virtual Universe Company! If I fail to cash in on this potential in the end, do you think they won't find some random excuse to take this territory back?"

Lu Yan'an saw through the essence of the matter very clearly. It was just a territory worth a dozen or so Hunyuan; if you have enough potential, they can use it as a favor to give away. But once your growth fails to meet their investment expectations, heh, the territory isn't going anywhere!

"Let's not talk about such realistic things for now. The Black Dragon Mountain Empire representative also brought the data they collected, which records the super geniuses of the Ganwu Universe Country who passed the preliminaries this time, including some videos. Let's take a look! After all, one must know oneself and the enemy to be invincible in a hundred battles, right?"

Video after video played, along with a lot of text data. This was all information on super geniuses collected by the Black Dragon Mountain Empire. Many of these geniuses had already gained great fame before this Genius Tournament, and some had even been snatched up by super-organizations long ago.

"Yo, the standard of the Ganwu Universe Country is actually pretty good!" Lu Yan'an looked at the data, occasionally letting out exclamations of admiration. In the Ganwu Universe Country alone, there were hundreds who had comprehended the lower-level origin laws, not to mention those with special professions, such as beast tamers, pharmacists, and of course, illusionists.

"However, based solely on the level they've displayed, basically no one can surpass me. But the problem now is whether they are hiding their strength!" Speaking of this, Lu Yan'an couldn't help but think of Illusion Dream. In their final battle, both sides knew the other hadn't shown their true strength!

"It has some reference value, but it's not very significant. Let's just wait for the arena duels," Lu Yan'an chuckled.

Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, the day of the arena duels arrived.

The day before the arena duels, in the Virtual Universe, on one of the floating continents above the Ganwu Continent, there was a massive conference hall.

The conference hall was enormous, with rows of seats arranged one after another.

"The interior space of the conference hall is truly vast. Although it doesn't look particularly large from the outside, I didn't expect it to be able to seat 100,000 people," Lu Yan'an marveled. "The seating is also quite spacious; it doesn't feel crowded at all!"

"Quiet!"

A deep, resonant voice rang out, and the entire conference hall fell silent instantly. A man wearing purple battle armor appeared on the high platform at the front of the hall. His gaze swept over the 100,100 people below—all the geniuses who had passed the preliminaries.

"There are 100,100 people from the Ganwu Universe Country who passed the preliminaries." The man in purple armor pointed to his side, and a screen immediately appeared, displaying images of individuals. "These 100, who placed first in their respective world areas, directly receive the final spots and are qualified to represent the Ganwu Universe Country in the peak showdown among the many universe countries." As he spoke, he happened to point at Lu Yan'an's image.

"As for the remaining 100,000, they will compete for 900 spots."

"The arena duels... are divided into 'arena melee' and 'arena one-on-one duels'," the man in purple armor continued. "First, 90,000 people will be eliminated through the arena melee! You 100,000 people will be divided into 1,000 groups, with 100 people in each group. Each group will fight in the same arena, and the last ten survivors will be considered to have passed the melee."

"After the arena melee, only 10,000 people will remain!"

"The 900 spots will be produced from these 10,000 people! As for how these 900 spots are decided? It's simple: one-on-one. The winner advances, and the loser is sent to the 'defeated group'. These 10,000 people will be paired up into 5,000 matches. After the first battle, 5,000 winners will emerge, and 5,000 losers will be sent to the defeated group. And so on, the 625 winners after four battles will receive 625 of the 900 spots."

The man in purple armor paused, then continued:

"The remaining 275 spots will be produced by the defeated group! Out of the 10,000 people, 625 are winners, meaning there are 9,375 people in the defeated group. These 9,375 people will engage in a cruel and long round-robin tournament to select the final 275 spots."

"Round-robin" means that each of the 9,375 people in the defeated group must fight one-on-one against the other 9,374! In other words... each of the 9,375 people in the defeated group must fight 9,375 matches! A win earns one point; a loss or a mutual destruction results in zero points! In the end, the ranking will be based on points. Those who rank in the top 275 will get the final 275 spots!

"These details were all on the official website during registration. Those who still don't understand the format can go back and check! Now, it's time to start the one-on-one arena duels!"

The man in purple armor swept his gaze over the 100,100 geniuses below, and a buzz of discussion broke out.

The arena melee would eliminate 90,000 people at once! The 625 in the winner's group would advance directly, while the round-robin would select 275 spots from the loser's group—the intensity was brutal!

"Whoosh!"

Suddenly, in the entire conference hall, a screen appeared in front of every genius, each displaying a number ranging from 1 to 1,000.

"Do you see the numbers in front of you? That is your group!" the man in purple armor shouted. "Starting tomorrow, it will be groups one through two hundred. The entire arena melee will last for five days and end after five days. Of course, if you can't even survive the arena melee, you won't be qualified to participate in the subsequent round-robin!"

Illusion Dream, mixed in the crowd below, looked at the number "66" in front of him and revealed a knowing smile. "This grouping is quite lucky, huh!" As one of the protagonists of the peak showdown in World Area 44, Illusion Dream participating in the arena duels was definitely a case of dimensional reduction warfare!

"I wish you all success in passing the arena melee," the man in purple armor's voice echoed throughout the conference hall. "Now, the virtual universe system will teleport everyone away. Prepare yourselves well."

Hum...

All 100,100 geniuses in the conference hall vanished in an instant.