Lin Yi sat cross-legged on the platform atop the highest Crystal Pillar, his eyes half-closed, seemingly immersed in cultivation.
In truth, however, his soul power had spread like an invisible net, quietly covering the entire Ultimate Arena.
Between the Crystal Pillars, fierce battles were underway.
After their initial shock and hesitation, the other contestants had finally begun to use their precious challenge opportunities with caution.
The roar of colliding energies and the radiance of interwoven laws rose and fell throughout the arena.
Lin Yi's spiritual sense swept calmly over each battlefield, taking in every subtle movement.
His expression remained impassive, but deep down, a knowing smile had quietly surfaced.
Just as he'd expected.
He had keenly noticed an extremely important trend: when choosing their opponents, the Spirit Race prodigies were all avoiding the Human Race contestants in tacit agreement!
As the absolute core of the Pan-Spirit Alliance, the Spirit Race made up the vast majority of the 1,000 contestants who had advanced to the Ranking Tournament—over sixty percent.
If they had wanted to target the Human Race contestants, then even though Hui Yao, Xing Yu, and Bai Feng were reasonably strong, the repeated challenge-and-defend format of the Ranking Tournament would have put them under immense pressure. Their rankings could well have fallen, and some might even have lost their precious places in the finals.
Yet the Spirit Race contestants on the battlefield seemed to have reached some sort of unspoken consensus.
Whenever their gazes passed over the Crystal Pillars occupied by Human Race contestants, they barely lingered before quickly locking onto other targets.
Lin Yi even clearly saw one Spirit Race prodigy who had evidently been about to challenge the Crystal Pillar occupied by Hui Yao. But after a brief hesitation, he paused, then abruptly changed direction and chose to