A month passed in the blink of an eye.
The Promotion Tournament of the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament finally raised its curtain amid eager anticipation.
But unlike the noisy bustle of the preliminaries, the Promotion Tournament had an entirely different atmosphere.
To protect the participating Soul Masters' privacy, and to avoid unnecessary trouble and security issues, no ordinary spectators were allowed to watch the Promotion Tournament.
Of course, that did not mean there were no spectators at all.
However, everyone seated in the stands was a dignitary of the Heaven Dou Empire—members of the imperial family, prominent nobles, senior sect figures, and specially invited guests.
The Promotion Tournament was still divided into two regions, one for each great empire.
The thirty teams that had made it through the preliminaries competed within their respective empires.
The three teams that had already secured places in the grand finals did not participate in this Promotion Tournament.
On the Heaven Dou Empire's side, fifteen teams, including the five that had qualified through the Heaven Dou City preliminary region, had completed registration that morning and gathered at the tournament venue.
The venue for the Promotion Tournament was entirely different from that of the preliminaries.
It was the Heaven Dou Empire's Royal Hunting Grounds.
Located fifty kilometers southwest of Heaven Dou City, the grounds covered a vast area of varied terrain, with forests, hills, rivers, and open plains. They were used by members of the imperial family for hunting and training, and commoners were normally forbidden from approaching.
Ten thousand knights of the Royal Knights Order patrolled and guarded the perimeter while also training there. They rotated every three months, taking turns training to maintain their combat readiness.
At that moment, the atmosphere on the great drill ground deep within the hunting grounds