Mystic Radiance Star has a small number of students each year, but its facilities are more than enough to accommodate all the first-year students from the three academies.
The audience seats were already quite full.
The Freshman League will last for three days and three nights, followed by a six-day official Academy League Freshman League.
Players from the three academies participating in the official league, along with headhunters from various league teams and numerous conglomerates, all came to watch the games and discover promising new talents.
Many more people who couldn't attend in person watched the game via online livestream, and various private betting operations of all sizes were also being held covertly.
As for the official Academy League, they are organized by legitimate betting companies.
"I wonder what the prizes will be this year?"
"It won't be bad, especially for the top few."
The contestants entered the equipment area to wait, while the crowd in the stands made excited guesses.
Not long after, the deans of the three colleges appeared on the top stands, dressed in their respective college uniforms.
The dean of the Mystic Radiance Academy is an elderly woman with red hair, who has served as dean of Mystic Radiance for over three hundred years.
But she looked only in her fifties, with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes like fish tails. Strangely, her pair of bright green eyes shone with a childlike liveliness.
Beside Dean Mystic Radiance Dean Bai, who was gazing down at the Ocher Soil ' area, and Dean Azure Jade Academy, who appeared stern and unsmiling.
"Every year's new students make me feel that the times are progressing and humanity is flourishing."
Dean Mystic Radiance's voice was calm and unhurried, resonating throughout the entire venue.
When she's silent, she seems like a kind and gentle ordinary person, but when she speaks, she has a magical quality that draws everyone's attention.
" Awakened are humanity's most precious asset, which is the origin of the Freshman League's competition format."
"As a senior, I hope everyone here can understand through this experience that for an Awakened, being stronger than many opponents is not the most important thing, nor are resources the most important thing... returning alive is the most important thing."
"Life comes first, competition second. This is the reward for this competition. We hope everyone achieves their desired results."
As she spoke, she gestured, and a list appeared beside her.
The Freshman League, with tens of thousands of participants, offers corresponding rewards to the top 1,000.
At the top of the list, they shine even brighter—
Third place will be awarded one E-grade Empowerment Stone and 500 Integral;
Second place will be awarded a Grade D Empowerment Stone and 1000 Integral;
The first place winner will be awarded a Grade C Empowerment Stone and 5000 Integral!
As the list of prizes appeared, the contestants watched with bated breath.
The higher the grade of the Empowerment Stone, the greater the improvement it brings. This is especially true for high-level Awakened, as low-grade Empowerment Stone provide minimal growth, while only high-grade Empowerment Stone can bring effective enhancement.
However, judging from the number of Awakened, high-level Empowerment Stone are even rarer. Their value increases Geometry with each upgrade, especially Empowerment Stone of Grade C and above.
This year's awards are slightly higher than in previous years.
While the Ancient Wilderness treasures awarded in previous years were of considerable value, their effects varied from person to person. Only the Empowerment Stone were useful to all Awakened.
These rewards are tempting even for the children of tycoons, not to mention the various investments attracted by the high ranking.
Wen Jing looked at the C-grade Empowerment Stone reward at the top with a determined look in his eyes.
While others use Empowerment Stone like opening blind boxes, she can actually obtain a C-level supernatural talent!
The announcement of the awards immediately livened up the atmosphere.
Each contestant was making their final preparations. Amidst tension, anticipation, and trepidation, the countdown of the last half hour reached its final ten seconds.
All participants have completed the virtual reality integration.
10, 9, 8... 2, 1!
The numbers in the darkness in front of the contestants disappeared.
A continent pieced together with various extreme terrains appeared in the holographic live stream. Points of light flickered, and then figures appeared one after another. All the contestants had arrived at the arena.
As soon as Wen Jing landed, he felt the biting cold wind blowing, and large snowflakes were falling from the sky.
Her first landing site was a pure white polar canyon landscape. Looking around, there was a bottomless glacial ravine not far ahead, and the sound of seawater crashing against the glacier could be faintly heard.
Suddenly, Wen Jing turned his head and looked in one direction.
"Waaaaah--!"
Almost at the same time, a wild beast's howl rang out.
The next moment, through the wind and snow, a burly white-haired figure Extreme Speed towards her.
"Encountering Mimicry Wilderness Beast right at the start? What bad luck..."
Wen Jing grumbled, but calmly went to greet him.
Chapter 94
The creature that attacked Wen Jing was a white-haired giant ape that was over two meters tall.
The creature was covered in thick, long fur, had blood-red eyes, and roared at Wen Jing with sharp fangs. Its large, fan-like paws swung towards her.
No, she doesn't like this white-haired, red-eyed one!
Wen Jing twisted to the side, his figure appearing behind the opponent, and kicked the giant ape in the back of its neck, targeting the nerve center.
The giant ape was strong and its thick fur provided excellent cushioning. Despite the heavy blow, it did not lose its mobility and quickly got up to fight again after a stagger.
Wen Jing exchanged blows with the giant ape for more than ten rounds, and after understanding the strength of the Mimicry Wilderness Beast in this map, he finally killed it with a single blow.
"Because the Mastermind has never seen a real Wilderness Beast, it can only simulate it...?"
Under her watchful eye, the giant ape didn't drop anything after its death; instead, its body merged into the glacier beneath its feet and disappeared completely.
In terms of physical strength and combat power, the giant ape and the beasts Wen Jing encountered in the Knotted Rope Maze were roughly the same strength.
The difference is that the Mimicry Wilderness Beast lack some of the wild instincts, but possess a more logical response based on precise calculations from big data.
This 'pseudo-human feeling' is essentially the same as the fluid robot you encounter during a standardized test.
In the past, Wen Jing would have only had a vague feeling about it, but now he can easily tell the difference.
The true state of life is unstable; it can erupt in anger or flee in fear.
The state of the Mimicry Wilderness Beast is always stable, and its logic can be deduced.
If you understand the opponent's attack methods, rhythm, and logic well enough, it's actually easier to deal with than normal Wilderness Beast.
Standing on a nearby high point, Wen Jing looked around and saw the black sky on the horizon that represented the restricted area. He could roughly determine that his initial landing point was in the middle of the circular continent, near the edge.
This is probably the initial drop point for most players.
All players' activity areas should proceed from the periphery towards the center.
Only a Luck few will land in the center of the continent right from the start; otherwise, it wouldn't fit the purpose of the competition.
After Wen Jing defeated the first enemy on the map, other players across various regions of the event continent also encountered various events...
Others also encountered attacks from Mimicry Wilderness Beast;
Some players spotted glowing resource markers nearby as soon as they landed;
Some noticed the commotion in the distance and chose to actively hunt down other players;
Some people headed directly towards the very center of the mainland.
The first player was eliminated five minutes into the match.
If the initial drop hadn't ensured spacing between the players, the speed would have been even faster.
[ Red Earth Academy player ' Lu Se ' has been eliminated, ranked 16732]
[ Red Earth Academy contestant...]
The spectators weren't surprised; in any competition, the students from the Red Earth Academy were always the first to be eliminated.
For many students at the Red Earth Academy, the first threat they face in the league is not from other players, but from Mimicry Wilderness Beast, or even extreme environments.
"I'm a terrible swimmer, glug glug..."
In a turbulent body of water, three students from the Ocher Soil were struggling to swim towards the shore.
Those that can fly have already taken off and run away. The lucky ones found floating objects on the water. The worst are those Wilderness Body are neither good swimmers nor individuals.
Falling into the water wouldn't be a big deal for Awakened with their physical strength and coordination; the key issue is that there are other threats in the surging waves of this place.
Two black dorsal fin spines emerged from the water's surface, circling the unfortunate group and drawing beautiful, perfectly executed spirals around them.
The Mimicry Wilderness Beast in each terrain region are naturally adapted to the terrain.
"Splash splash splash..."
Since the three of them could neither fly nor were their Wilderness Body aquatic creatures, their arrival in this area was a disastrous start.
Fortunately, we're only a few kilometers from the shore. If we can just hold on...
"Ah! You--!!"
As they got closer and closer to the shore, suddenly one of them let out a scream, and the other two instinctively looked in the direction of the sound.
The student from Ocher Soil, screaming in agony, was glaring angrily at the sky.
Above the water, a contestant dressed in Azure Jade school uniform floated in the air, looking at them with a mocking expression. "Unexpectedly, there's an unexpected gain here."
The moment after he struck from above, a wave churned beside the victim, and a dark gray figure emerged, pulling him into the water.
The remaining two people's spirits sank to the bottom upon witnessing this scene.
As if things weren't bad enough, the sharks and Wilderness Beast in the water already posed a serious threat to their lives, and now there was a flying Azure Jade student 'harvesting' them from the sky at any time.
Just then, Yu Yang caught a glimpse of what seemed like a familiar figure on the shore.
" Wen Jing! Wen Jing!"
As a close classmate, Yu Yang ranks among the top in the college when it comes to finding Wen Jing, and he rarely makes a mistake.
At that moment, he didn't know if he was hallucinating, but he shouted for help at the loudest voice he had ever used.