Unsealing the Altar (2)

The tournament's rewards had always been jointly funded by all participating sects. Every invited sect had to contribute one or more treasures to the overall prize pool. The host would then carefully distribute them among the various realm divisions according to their rarity and practical value, awarding them to the top three finishers.

Naturally, the more precious the treasure, the more likely it was to be assigned to victors in higher-realm divisions such as Golden Core and Nascent Soul.

When the prize list was announced, every treasure would be clearly marked with its sect of origin. This not only helped build fame, but also provided a fine opportunity to forge goodwill—just imagine: if a spiritual treasure provided by one's own sect greatly aided some genius cultivator in the future, it might turn into a deeper bond and bring positive returns to the sect.

But precisely because of this, if a precious reward offered by one's sect was ultimately won by a disciple of low cultivation, the sect that had supplied it would inevitably lose face.

Thus, on the eve of every grand tournament, the various sects harbored a measure of secret rivalry when preparing their prizes.

They all calculated in private: they needed to offer treasures weighty enough to display their sect's foundations, yet they also had to consider whether those treasures matched the highest placement their own disciples might attain.

This silent contest also carried their best wishes for their disciples to strive ever upward—the more a sect believed its disciples could seize the championship, the more lavishly it tended to spend, all in the hope that its disciples could claim the crown in one fell swoop.

Of course, receiving a formal invitation and producing prizes of sufficient weight to participate in this grand event was itself an authoritative