In Azure City, the arenas for wagered battles were divided into three levels: True God Level, Void True God Level, and Eternal True God Level. At each level, battles took two fixed forms: fights to the death, with life itself at stake, and fights with other wagers.
Fighting was forbidden in most of Azure City. Personal grudges were settled on the arena platforms.
To improve quickly, most fighters also chose to challenge opponents slightly stronger than themselves.
Some old-timers who had been unable to break through for ages chose wagered battles, even fights to the death, to force out their potential.
Over time, wagered battles became immensely popular in Azure City.
The city's three great arenas were its most popular destinations. Every match drew a packed crowd.
For beings with such long lives, watching a match or stepping onto the platform themselves was a welcome diversion through the endless years.
After leaving the Thousand Treasures Pavilion, Luo Feng and Morosa flew straight toward the Eternal True God Level arena. Azure City was vast, and teleportation was forbidden, so flight corridors had been left open outside the no-fly zones.
The Eternal True God War Zone covered a radius of over a hundred million kilometers. Built much like a stadium, it was surrounded by tens of millions of spectator seats.
Besides watching in person, spectators could buy a "Realm Stone" issued by the You Mountain Empire. It worked much like a space accessed through consciousness. The stone contained a strange space that could reproduce reality, perfectly recreating even many fluctuations of the Laws and making spectators feel as if they were truly there.
Once an owner refined a Realm Stone, a sliver of consciousness could enter its space and watch the match with virtually no difference from being there. The space could reproduce reality almost perfectly. It replicated fluctuations of the Laws at the True God and Void True God levels with essentially perfect accuracy, and even reproduced more than ninety percent of the fluctuations of the Laws or Origin at the Eternal True God level. The difference from watching in person was less than ten percent.
The Eternal True God War Zone.
Directly before the arena entrance stood a finely crafted gray stone stele, hundreds of thousands of meters tall. At its top blazed three golden characters: "Azure Rankings."
The Azure Rankings did not rank fighters by their number of matches or win rate. They ranked the hundred strongest fighters in all of Azure City, from strongest to weakest. Everyone listed was widely acknowledged as one of the city's top hundred.
At number one was none other than Azure City's lord, Evil Eye!
Second was Zhan Tianxing, master of the Celestial Star Pavilion, foremost of Azure City's eight great powers.
Third: Azure Nether Demon Lord.
Fourth: Blood Witch Lord.
Fifth: Flame Man Brand.
Ninety-ninth: Banming True God.
One hundredth: Desire Demon Niaordo.
Anyone outside the rankings who had the strength could challenge the fighter in hundredth place at any time. He could not refuse, and a successful challenger would take his place on the list.
That was why the fighter in hundredth place was also called the Azure Rankings' gatekeeper!
To keep him from being challenged constantly, however, the arena had established a rule: anyone outside the rankings who issued a challenge had to stake either his life or his entire fortune. The choice of battle and the size of the wager belonged to the fighter in hundredth place, provided the wager was at least one hundred Qiankun Units and did not exceed what the challenger owned.
Anyone hoping to enter the rankings had to think carefully.
The same rule applied when a lower-ranked fighter challenged someone above him. The higher-ranked fighter could not refuse, but could choose the form of the battle or the wager.
That was why the Azure Rankings were considered the most reliable ranking of strength, with no inflated reputations.
"The top hundred haven't changed."
Luo Feng studied the list. It had remained unchanged for decades, exactly as Montanaro's information had said.
Montanaro had supplied detailed intelligence on all hundred fighters, so Luo Feng knew something about them. Even the weakest, the Azure Rankings' gatekeeper Desire Demon Niaordo, stood at the very top of the fourth tier among Eternal True Gods. As for Evil Eye at the top, he had been capable of killing beings at the Eternal True God Pinnacle dozens of Eras of Reincarnation ago. No one knew how strong he was now.
Evil Eye might not have been the strongest in close combat, but his illusions were the most terrifying. No one had shaken his position as city lord in dozens of Eras of Reincarnation.
Beside the Azure Rankings stood a large screen that normally displayed ongoing matches. It was blank now. Evidently, there were no fights today.
"Battles in the Eternal True God arena really are rare." Luo Feng shook his head and headed for the registration desk.
Every True God, Void True God, and Eternal True God who wanted to fight had to register at the arena first. Only then could they issue or accept challenges.
At the registration desk.
"My lords, registration requires a divine-power test first." On learning why Luo Feng and Morosa had come, an elderly member of the Alien Race broke into an unusually warm smile. Newcomers to the Eternal True God War Zone were rare, yet two had arrived at once. "Please follow me, my lords."
Luo Feng nodded.
The old man led them to a stone stele only about ten thousand meters tall.
"My lord, simply send your divine power into the stele," the old man said with a smile.
"All right." Luo Feng casually sent out a thread of divine power. It sank into the stele, and faint ripples spread across its surface. A dazzling golden light flared, then gradually faded as the stele returned to normal.
The golden light meant he had passed.
"You've passed the divine-power test, my lord. And you, my lord?" The old man turned to Morosa.
"He doesn't need to. Please take us to register." Luo Feng smiled faintly, and Morosa bowed to him.
"Of course. Please follow me."
The old man paused, but asked no questions.
He soon completed Luo Feng's registration. The 283rd Eternal True God registered in Azure City was "Galaxy." Luo Feng was still accustomed to the name he had used before. It sounded natural to him, and it carried his hopes. He wanted the name Galaxy to ring throughout the Origin Continent.
"Galaxy." Luo Feng looked at the token in his hand. The two Huaxia characters for "Galaxy" appeared on its surface.
Everyone registered at the arena received a personal identity token. It held basic information on the other 282 registered fighters. Inside was something like a Realm Stone's space: by sending his consciousness into the token, its owner could enter a virtual world with much the same functions as Humanity's Virtual Universe in the Primal Universe.
Challenges and responses to them were handled through these identity tokens.
With his token, Luo Feng could challenge anyone except the top ninety-nine on the Azure Rankings. If the other party accepted, the match would be arranged.
Likewise, if someone challenged Luo Feng, he could accept.
I wonder if anyone will challenge me. A staff member had said that news of every new registration was immediately sent to all registered fighters. The moment someone new entered the arena, everyone else would know.
The old man at the desk had also said newcomers usually received plenty of challenges. He had even made a point of reminding Luo Feng, "If you don't want to fight, you can refuse."
Azure City did not necessarily produce even one Eternal True God in an Era of Reincarnation, so newcomers to its Eternal True God arena were few and far between. In the past, almost every newcomer had only recently broken through and was relatively weak. The old-timers were hardly going to pass up an easy target.
They had no reason to think a powerful Eternal True God had suddenly joined. They knew the names of the Eternal True Gods in the Azure Domain and even the You Mountain Nation who had not registered at the Domain Prefecture City arena. If an unfamiliar newcomer appeared, they might as well challenge him.
Sure enough, Luo Feng had barely finished wondering when his token vibrated.
"A challenge already. From Guangyan True God, with a wager of thirty Qiankun Units of Source Crystals." Luo Feng smiled. Someone had come to hand him money.
"Hm? More? Two at once, both wagering ten Qiankun Units of Source Crystals." The token vibrated again, and Luo Feng's smile widened.
Newcomers really were easy targets!
But Luo Feng did not mind being targeted. The more challenges, the better.
His token kept vibrating.
"Twenty already? In such a short time?" Luo Feng laughed. "Why does this feel familiar?" He could not help remembering his days at the Ancestral God School in the Primal Universe.