Chapter 474: Entering the Secret Realm

The first stage had been completed, and the people who would be competing in the second stage had already been decided. All of his friends had made it to the second stage, and everyone from Goldencrest, except for two people Julius didn’t know, had made it as well.

Liam and Irene had both displayed impressive showings. Liam had especially demonstrated that he had gotten much more powerful since the last time that Julius fought him. Showing that he had been training very hard in the past several months in preparation for this tournament. Julius didn’t even know who would come out on top if Liam and Derek fought each other.

He wasn’t able to watch every match of the first stage, but he still was able to catch some good battles. He examined many interesting abilities, some of which were outright weird. One person must have been a chef or something, because they ended up creating constructs that resembled a variety of cooking utensils.

Large chef knives were shot toward the group of monsters, giant pans were used as shields, and he even spotted something resembling a pair of tongs, throwing a monster across the arena. It’s safe to say that this person was one of the first to reach the required hundred points and was very strong.

Julius suspected that their choice of shape for their constructs actually helped with their visualization and intent better than most people realized.

With the first stage complete, there would be a short period during which participants could relax and prepare for the second stage. Almost everyone knew that they would be entering the secret realm for the second stage. The only issue was that nobody truly knew what would occur in this realm.

Even in past years, when people entered the secret realm, there was a lack of information available to the public. They were able to watch some fights between the competitors that the Empire specially curated to avoid giving away too much information about the realm. Still, no map provided details of valuable locations.

Additionally, this realm is likely to change at any given moment. Thus, the only thing the participants could do was to continue training their skills.

Julius and his friends all trained together during this period. There was only so much to be done in this small window, but everything counted.

They were currently standing alongside many of the other people they would be fighting against in the second stage. It was similar to how they were introduced to the first stage, but now, over half of them were gone, eliminated from the competition.

He did his best not to stare at the people around him, but it was challenging for him to do so. It seemed that since he had completed the first stage, people had taken notice of him.

Previously, they hadn’t spared him a second glance. But now, he felt like a good chunk of the people around him were looking at him like he was some shiny treasure or a tasty morsel. He didn’t like it and did his best to hide behind Edgar’s broad back. It was why he had hidden inside House Zenith’s estate for the past couple of days. He didn’t want to be beset by any curious organizations.

He listened to the tournament staff explain the rules for the second stage. Apparently, there were some specific requirements one needed in order to pass to the final stage. Firstly, you need to acquire five of these so-called tokens.

These tokens had various appearances, but they all had the Empire’s insignia on their surface. Collect five of these tokens, and you will be transported to a trial. This trial varied, but from what Julius understood, it would be a simple test, and if you passed, you would exit the secret realm and move on to the final stage.

Some conditions made this more difficult. These tokens weren’t just placed in easy places to find, but they were spread all across the secret realm, forcing the participants to enter dangerous and unpredictable locations.

Sometimes they would be protected by a guardian, sometimes even more than one guardian. Additionally, there was no longer a no-fighting rule for the participants. You were able to fight against other contestants. In fact, you were practically incentivized to.

If you beat another participant in a fight, you would be able to steal their tokens to add to your own collection.

Tokens weren’t the only thing that the guardians and monsters protected, either. There were unique treasures and other special opportunities hidden in the secret realm. This was what most people actually wanted in the first place. Many people knew they wouldn’t be able to win the entire thing, but they thought they had a much better chance of finding a unique treasure that would help them improve instead.

Furthermore, specific safety protocols were in place, much like those in the previous stage. However, unlike the previous stage, you wouldn’t be transported when the armband detected a fatal strike.

No, one of the interesting functions of the secret realm was that if you were killed, you would experience the actual sensation of death, such as the pain and trauma that went along with it.

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Only upon death would the secret realm’s magic bring you back. You would be alive, but sometimes there are occasions when people have been traumatized by their experiences, especially if their death was particularly brutal.

He heard some people worried about this aspect, but Julius didn’t see the reason for it. While you could “die” in this realm, it wasn’t like you would experience actual death. He couldn’t understand why some people were scared with that assurance in place.

He also suspected that this protection was in place for several reasons other than prioritizing the lives of the participants. One of them was certainly to entertain the spectators. If death wasn’t a factor, he expected a lot of people would fight with everything they had. There was no reason to hesitate if death was no longer possible.

He was predicting a lot of violent battles in the future.

The most intriguing thing that caught his attention was the mention of time displacement inside the secret realm. According to the organizers, time moved faster inside the secret realm, meaning that a day in there wasn’t even half a day in the outside world. During this time, the spectators would be entertained by other exhibitions or magical displays. They wouldn’t be able to see everything going on in the secret realm.

Time dilation wasn’t new to Julius; he had already experienced something similar in other rifts, but it was pretty interesting to see how that would affect the second stage, considering that they would have a week to explore the secret realm, and when that time was up, they would be transported outside.

Those who hadn’t already passed the trial would be eliminated.