Chapter 36 – Betting & Competing (I)

Chapter 36

Betting & Competing (I)

The excitement is palpable, so much so, in fact, that even I am beginning to be swayed a bit.

I quickly quell that crap down, however, and continue the descent.

As we emerge from the mountain and toward the flattened areas, I notice hundreds upon hundreds of souls converge to the specific area–the central battle arena where all public competitions were held. It was the largest, the safest, and the one with the greatest number of seats.

I was actually a bit worried since I didn’t know where the tournament would be held (courtesy of Lu Qi never really giving a rat’s ass about it), but even the blind would be able to follow the crowd to the destination.

So, we simply joined the stream.

I also noticed a few Elders leading the groups of disciples. Unlike me, who only had two, others had at least ten to fifteen kids behind them. Even if tempted to use Creator’s Eyes, I held back.

Actually, on my way to the library or when I was out buying supplies, I’d randomly use them on the kids to see if there were any more ‘hidden’ talents. The results were… well, boring for the most part. Talents of most kids peaked at Mortal, and I only stumbled upon one or two with a higher one. There had been no other cases like Long Tao or Dai Xiu (save for that one other disciple whose name I’ve already forgotten…).

“Remember,” I, too, remembered something I forgot to mention, so I quickly added it before we were to go our separate ways; while they’d join the queue of disciples, I’d go upstairs to the Elder seating. Even if I’m the lowest rung of one, I still am an Elder, after all. “Only use the martial art I taught you if your life is in danger! And if anyone asks…”

“–it came to us in a dream,” Long Tao interrupted, grabbing Dai Xiu’s hand. “Yeah, yeah. Our ears will fall off listening to your warnings. Go and make some more bets with those old stooges; bleed them dry.”

“Oh,” I did my best to prevent my lips from curling up into an evil grin… but failed. “I fully intend to.”

Right, about that defensive art I made–the creation points mostly came from Dai Xiu. She actually managed to completely master the First Form; now, I don’t know whether it was actually hard or not (according to her it wasn’t), I just went by the amount of Creation Points the Quest gave me–which was a whole 100.

She did have Long Tao assisting her, and with that monster’s comprehension abilities, perhaps it wasn’t impossible…

Anyway, I had over a hundred banked and spent 80 of them creating a low-tier Earth defensive art that I called ‘Turtle’s Dominion’ because I thought it’d be funny.

They didn’t laugh.

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The method itself, like most I create, it seems, relied on Spirit Stones; the more of a ‘sacrifice’ one made, the stronger of an attack they could block, peaking at, well, the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm. It did take 50 mid-grade Spirit Stones each, so unless one had a bank behind them, it wasn’t sustainable.

But I couldn’t set them out there without any trump cards; after all, this wasn’t just your everyday ‘kids fight and compete’ event. A lot hinged on the outcome of today’s events, both for disciples and also Elders.