With the Under-30 Unlimited Arena title all but guaranteed, choosing someone else to compete in the Inner Palace Arena, where they had no confidence of winning, would only reveal their weakness by letting a Prodigy die on the eve of the Yellow River Assembly.
It would be better to forfeit that event outright. That would make them look stronger.
And yet, forfeiting one Inner Palace Arena and one Outer Tower Arena still showed less confidence than forfeiting both.
But...
At this Assembly of Prodigies from Various Nations, what gave Jing Kingdom the confidence to claim the title of strongest Prodigy among all the nations?
There was no anger on Ji Zhaonan's face at being looked down on. He simply said calmly, "Among the Prodigies of my generation in Jing Kingdom, there are only a few worth mentioning. The only ones I need to consider are Zhao Xuanyang and Chunyu Gui. In a sparring match, Zhao Xuanyang has a slight edge, while Chunyu Gui and I are evenly matched. But if it's a fight to the death, I'm confident against either of them."
That calm was the confidence forged at the edge of life and death, time and again.
Those two Prodigies were also the opponents he had prepared for at this Yellow River Assembly. He had never considered any other possibility.
With the intelligence networks of the six great powers under Heaven, the Prodigies qualified to contend for the title were more or less all in view. Whether they were on the list or not made no difference. Keeping someone secret until the very end, as Jing Kingdom had, or switching people at the last minute, as Mu Kingdom had, only made them seem petty.
Mu Kingdom had its reasons, of course. And Jing Kingdom was so powerful that no