Chapter 1201: Chapter 1080: Top Eight
The competition continued, offering a visual feast with each match, imrsing everyone in the excitent.
Gamblers found new ways to bet, and the number of betting organizers was countless. Participants were like carp swimming across a river, predicting the outcos of each battle and wagering on who would advance to the top eight.
People of the Xuan Realm were inherently competitive, and especially among cultivators, it was not uncommon for disagreents to escalate into fights.
For the sake of cultivation resources, spiritual dicine, cultivation techniques, martial arts, and spiritual artifacts, people could kill and rob without being noticed. Although ordinary people didn’t possess great strength, their competitiveness was no less diminished.
Street fights were common, and when a type of gambling erged, these people quickly shifted their competitive nature to gambling.
As the matches continued day by day, the gamblers beca even more excited, with many risking their fortunes and even their lives.
Naturally, so rejoiced while others lanted. Where there were winners, there were also losers. The winners were elated, their spirits soaring, while the losers were dejected, as downcast as withered eggplants.
No matter how long the competition is, it will eventually end. As ti passed, the round-robin tournant gradually ca to a conclusion.
Ultimately, after the final match, the top eight list smoothly erged, marking the end of this stage of the competition.
The absolute genius of the Chu Family, Chu Hong; Luo Xiaolin from Tianyuan Sect; Qingxuan from Qing Xuan Sect; and Ye Fan all advanced to the top eight with flawless victories, effortlessly securing their positions, making them hot favorites to win the championship!
Wang Qingshan’s disciple, Zhang Taiyi, also entered the top eight. Surprisingly, Tong Qianchen also advanced to the top eight, while Shen Tu and Jin Zhanfei were eliminated.
The last two spots were taken by the second genius of Tianyuan Sect, Zhang Yuanyi, and the second genius of Qing Xuan Sect, Lin Feng.
The top eight were divided among the Three Great Sects and the Chu Family!
Xuanwu Sect alone had three people advance to the top eight, shocking everyone and prompting speculation that Xuanwu Sect, after a long period of silence, might be rising high-profile again this ti.
No matter what others thought, in any case, the competition had its own rules; victory was victory, and defeat was defeat. Reality was brutally harsh, leaving no room for complaints.
Even though the Chu Family only had Chu Hong in the top eight, he was also the person most likely to laugh until the end, so no one dared to underestimate the Chu Family.
Whether it was ordinary spectators, loose cultivators, participants, or representatives of various forces, all sighed.
The current landscape of Tianyuan State had ford a pattern represented by Xuanwu Sect, Tianyuan Sect, Qing Xuan Sect, and the Chu Family. It had beco very difficult for other small sects or the other four great families to rise.
In the coming decades, unless one side rapidly declined, the pattern of the Three Great Sects and One Family would not be broken.
The group stage lasted for five days, almost daily delivering exciting matches for the audience, thoroughly igniting everyone’s emotions.
Whether they were ordinary spectators or those who traveled from afar to watch the competition, including those secretly dispatched by major forces, they all eagerly anticipated the upcoming knockout stage.
This year’s talent competition had the best quality in years, with the top eight competitors being incredibly strong, promising even more spectacular future matches.
Even those who didn’t make it to the top eight did not leave.
Since many competitors just outside the top eight had the sa number of points, they had to participate in ranking matches to compete for the last two spots in the top ten, making the competition even more intense.
…
After the group stage concluded, City Lord Lei Bikuan held the draw ceremony for the quarterfinals, as arranged beforehand.
In fact, this draw not only determined the next opponent for each of the top eight competitors, but also their opponents in the semi-finals. Its importance was self-evident!
The quarterfinal draw ceremony raised the excitent of the talent competition to new heights, with everyone eagerly anticipating it.
Lei Bikuan announced the rules of the draw: Representatives from the Chu Family, Xuanwu Sect, Tianyuan Sect, and Qing Xuan Sect could take the stage to draw the next opponent for their camp’s top genius.
“It’s just narrowing from eight to four; it doesn’t matter who we draw!”
Chu Yuankong was very confident. Originally, the relationship between the Chu Family and Xuanwu Sect was decent due to Chu Feng, but now, it was almost irreconcilable.
Xuanwu Sect could not give up such an outstanding disciple as Ye Fan, and Ye Fan had crippled Chu Feng and previously defeated the second genius of the Chu Family, Chu Yue, in the contest. Their conflict was longstanding and difficult to resolve.
“Less talk, draw lots on the stage!”
The elder leading the team from Tianyuan Sect snorted coldly and took the stage with the elder leading the Qing Xuan Sect.
“Hmph!”
Shen Xin snorted coldly, glanced at the three, and also stood up to head toward the stage.
On the platform, a table had already been set up, with a drawing lot tube on it. Inside the tube were only four sticks, each with a na on it, representing the remaining four of the top eight.
Ye Fan couldn’t help but chuckle when he saw the bamboo tube on the stage. It resembled the drawing lot tubes used by fortune tellers in ancient Huaxia, who road the streets conning people.
Drawing lots and divining has long been practiced in Huaxia, with many popular temples having similar drawing lot tubes. After sincerely kneeling and praying, people would shake the tube or simply draw with their hands, and the verse on the drawn stick would predict the outco of their wish.
Many of these verses are interesting and catchy, much like doggerel but not quite, and certainly, their anings are ambiguous.
This was a back road left by itinerant fortune tellers to themselves, known in their jargon as “drawing and retracting linked circles,” allowing a sentence two completely different interpretations, thus avoiding awkwardness for themselves.
The drawing ceremony was simple, with no possibility of cheating under the watch of everyone; however, the four nearly fought during the drawing.
The reason was simple: everyone wanted to be the first to draw, and no one was willing to fall behind. In the end, even City Lord Lei Bikuan couldn’t do anything but let them fight it out, leaving it as sothing unseen.
After a round of fierce competition, the four each drew a stick, and only then did they stop.
City Lord Lei Bikuan looked at the sticks in their hands one by one and then announced the quarter-final matchups.
The first group, Chu Hong from the Chu Family VS Lin Feng from the Qing Xuan Sect.
The second group, Qingxuan of the Qing Xuan Sect VS Tong Qianchen of the Xuanwu Sect.
The third group, Ye Fan of the Xuanwu Sect VS Zhang Yuanyi of the Tianyuan Sect.
The fourth group, Zhang Taiyi VS Luo Xiaolin of the Tianyuan Sect.
Each announcent from City Lord Lei Bikuan stirred a wave of gasps and applause from the crowd, who were almost going wild.
When all the results were out, the chatter in the audience reached a peak, with everyone from ordinary people with no cultivation to loose cultivators and other eliminated contestants discussing the round from eight into four.
“I think the upcoming matches hold no suspense, as everyone is very clear on their strengths, and the excitent lies in how many moves it will take Chu Hong and the others to win.”
Many believed that Chu Hong, Qingxuan, Luo Xiaolin, and Ye Fan could defeat their opponents and ultimately advance to the top four because they were the hottest contenders for the championship this ti, and the others were just supporting roles.
However, so disagreed, feeling that since Zhang Taiyi and the others had managed to make it to the top eight, it already showed their strength, and they might indeed pull off an upset.
Moreover, Zhang Taiyi was originally the top core disciple of the Xuanwu Sect, and his strength might not necessarily be weaker than Luo Xiaolin and Qingxuan.
Although Qingxuan and Luo Xiaolin won in the group stage by an overwhelming margin, that was because their opponents were geniuses from small sects or small families who couldn’t compare in strength, but Zhang Taiyi and the other three were different; their strength was capable of instantly defeating those small sect disciples, and they were practically on the sa level.
Small sects or small families lack the profound heritage of the three major sects and five great families, and their cultivation resources and martial arts can’t keep up, so their slight inferiority in strength is inevitable.
However, Zhang Taiyi and Tong Qianchen, the second genius of the Tianyuan Sect Zhang Yuanyi, and the second genius of the Qing Xuan Sect Lin Feng were all disciples of major sects, with almost identical talent and cultivation resources, so defeating their opponents in the round of eight advancing to four was not impossible.
For a while, the whole stage was abuzz with discussions, turning into a chaotic ss.
“Ahem… The competition for advancing to the top four will be held in three days, so everyone should go back and rest.”
“Additionally, I want to announce sothing. As everyone knows, we have the Tianyuan Secret Realm, which opens once every ten years, and only ten people can enter each ti. This ans that besides the top eight contestants, there are two more slots. These two slots will be selected from contestants other than the top eight—the two contestants with the most points will earn the qualification to enter the Tianyuan Secret Realm!”
“Because several contestants have the sa points, an additional contest must be held to decide the other two entrants into the Tianyuan Secret Realm, as well as the alternate slots. If any top eight contestant encounters an accident during the contest and cannot enter the Secret Realm, their slot will be selected from the alternate contestants, still based on points!”
Faced with the chaotic scene, Lei Bikuan had to cough to silence the crowd before continuing with the announcent about the additional contest.
However—
The audience clearly had little interest in the additional contest and continued discussing the quarter-finals and their respective champions in mind.
“Kid, let them witness the power of the ‘Thunderclap Treasure Skill’ in the upcoming eliminations, and keep your mouth shut tight!”
In the crowd, just as Ye Fan was about to leave, Elder Xuan suddenly transmitted this ssage to his mind.
…
…
PS: Second update, another update at midnight!
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.(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welco to support it by voting at Qidian(qidian) with recomndation tickets and monthly tickets; your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian to read.)
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