Soon, the day the tournament officially began arrived.
The Drawing Ceremony was held the day before the tournament began, and Xu Sanshi represented the Tang Sect in drawing lots.
Among the 167 Participating Teams, the luckiest would draw a bye. Clearly, Xu Sanshi was not quite that lucky.
Thus, as the true Defending Champions of the previous tournament, they would be taking the field in the First Shift.
As for the bye in the First Shift, the Sun Moon Empire officials had decided to give it to the Shrek Academy representative team.
Thus, the team led by Huo Yutong advanced directly to the next round and would receive the full twelve points.
No one objected to this preferential treatment. After all, Shrek Academy had achieved far too much glory in this tournament. They deserved it.
In a sense, it also protected the other teams. At the very least, they would not run into Shrek Academy in the First Shift.
At dawn, when the first ray of sunlight lit up the eastern sky, the streets of Mingdu already presented a strange sight.
Soldiers clad head to toe in silver armor stood in two lines, beginning at the entrance of Mingyue Hotel and extending outward as far as the eye could see.
Compared to the previous tournament hosted by the Star Luo Empire, Mingdu, the continent's largest city, could clearly accommodate far more people. It was only natural for the Sun Moon Empire to mobilize its army to maintain order.
Under the protection of the soldiers' orderly formations, the 167 Participating Teams, nearly two thousand people in total, set out from Mingdu.
The competition grounds were in the eastern outskirts of Mingdu. Once they left the city's buildings behind, they could see it in the distance.
The competition stage stood ten meters