[...and that is the complete report of how your cousins did in their respective battles,] Nepherage said to cap off their report in regards to their lord’s cousin.
Zhen Liu had a pleased expression on his face once he heard the news....well, mostly pleased.
’Alright, cool. Looks like all seven of us managed to pass this rigged ass test...but they also appear to sohow access your guys abilities in a more pronounced manner than grandfather, why?’
=Oh, I can answer this, rember how we ntioned that doing a formula overlay, possession thing, would result in side effects if the possessed was weaker than the kaijin? What you are seeing is a stabilized version of that.=
’Stabilized?’
’Oh...neat.’
=Indeed. Now, I suggest you turn around because your cousins are here to celebrate their victories.=
’Boo-yah.’
________________________________________________
Due to the following scenes being in primarily Tide Tongue, the standard quotation marks will be used.
Thank you.
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"Sir! Of the fifteen warriors we entered into this contest, over half have already been eliminated via this lottery alone. Should we attempt to eliminate so of the winners and sneak in the rest?"
"No need to do any of that, this actually works in our favor. Of course, if we want to ensure that, we will have to interfere in what the upcoming format will be."
"What format are you thinking will help us, sir?"
"Well..."
________________________________________________
"And that’s the sixty-fourth entry! The qualifiers are now over!"
"WOOOOO!"
One hundred and twenty eight warriors had initially entered into the Zhen Clan’s competition, aiming for honor, glory, connections and fat monetary rewards.
Unfortunately, over half of these warriors, sixty-four in total, had been eliminated via this brutal battle lottery.
Of the warriors eliminated, a small amount were simply eliminated outright because of their terrible luck, a slightly larger minority had simply failed to eliminate their opponents in a tily manner, while a great majority of them drew opponents that had soundly trounced them in the arena, either by being outmatched by professional warriors, their fellow contestants proving their superiority or being overpowered by mysteriously well-trained aether beasts.
The last ti anyone had checked, the Zhen Clan wasn’t normally in the business of training and acquiring beasts, so this last type of challenge was unexpected to say the least.
Regardless, the sixty-four remaining combatants had proven themselves to either be stronger or luckier than the rest and now had the honor of actually participating in the main event.
But now the question remained, what were the organizers going to do with the sixty-four contestants remaining?
The Zhen Clan had a reputation to be a bit...eccentric when it ca to their own competition, and not just because it was open to the public.
The clan matriarch was a firm believer that all of their disciples had to be prepared for every possibility regardless of its source, be it man made or nature, and that included their own tournants.
As such, when this first round ca to an end, and as the last of the contestants either left the arena in sha or entered the rest area with pride, the crowd had already begun to discuss what was going to happen next.
"They gotta do a single elimination bracket, right? There are way too many people here to do a round robin kind of deal."
"I don’t know about. If they just broke up the contestants into groups, I could see them doing a round robin."
"They could also be doing a battle royal format. I hear that kind of tournant style is very popular in Dozing Salamander. You know, ten n enter, one man leaves?"
"Well whatever the case may be, we’re about to find out now. Look up there."
For the entirety of the first round of this competition, the Hero Elder Zhen Xun Po was in charge of administering the marbles and challenges to the contestants.
However, now that his part in the tournant was done for now, he decided to give way for another elder to take the stage, making sure to hand off the [Myriad Marble Garden] treasure to his replacent as well.
Floating in to replace Zhen Xun Po was a middle-aged, bespectacled man wearing a neat silk outfit.
Many mbers of the crowd familiar with the inner workings of the Zhen Clan recognized this man as being the Wisdom Elder, Zhen Lung.
The Wisdom Elder looked over the crowd, waiting for them to go silent, before finally speaking to them.
"Ladies and gentlen," Zhen Lung began, "you have witnessed firsthand how important luck can be in determining one’s fate on the battlefield."
"Talented individuals who could’ve gone quite far in this tournant, eliminated by sheer chance, but by that sa sheer chance, a weakling who had no future managed to beat them. Now isn’t that unfair?"
A minority proportion of the crowd murmured in agreent with the Wisdom Elder’s words, but a grander majority simply wanted to know what the next part of the tournant was going to be.
"Now, I know what you lot are thinking: ’why elder, if it is indeed unfair to have weaker and less talented warriors make it this far on just luck alone, shouldn’t we try and focus on skill and knowledge for the next?’ And to that I say...yes."
After finishing this hypothetical conversation, Zhen Lung proceeded to channel aether into the [Myriad Marble Garden], causing it to produce a different effect from before.
Countless marbles began to flow out of the treasure, each of them having been marbles that hosted contestants who qualified for the actual tournant itself.
Before everyone’s eyes, sixty-four different colored marbles floated upward, forming into eight groups of eight.
Once the groups had been made, Zhen Lung proceeded to tap on the [Myriad Marble Garden] treasure, causing the groups of marbles to produce eight different displays, showing eight by eight grids, containing eight different nas each.
This all made for an impressive sight, as evident by the crowd oohing and aahing.
"For the next round of the tournant, we shall be doing a Round Robin set-up to determine who will be our top eight finalists!"
________________________________________________
"Round robin, huh? Damn. I was kinda hoping for a single elimination so I wouldn’t have to worry about soone trying to strategize against ...," Zhen Xing complained.
"That’s a lot of grids though. Wonder how many of those I can actually beat," Zhen Tai muttered as he looked for his na in the tables.
"On the plus side, it looks like we won’t be fighting each other at any point," Zhen Yue pointed out.
"Unless the finals is top eight fighting each other via single elimination...," Zhen Guo wondered.
"Doubt it." x 6.
A little after they had won their matches, the Zhen branch Clan scions had all convened in the rest area of the main clan’s arena.
They had spent a few monts bragging about how they managed to won their respective matches, thanked Zhen Liu for the "inspiration" for their new tricks and just generally be rry over the fact that they managed to beat their challenges despite them being five to one.
Of course, Zhen Liu himself couldn’t help but think that such a challenge was definitely rigged, but he kept that thought to himself.
They all felt good about it, there wasn’t any need to spoil the mont by pointing it out.
Regardless, it was in the midst of this small celebration that the format for the next round was announced, as such, all seven of them could see for themselves what to expect in this next leg of the tournant.
While a lot of them were used to the idea of beating on each other for the sake of competition, they used to do that at ho, they still all had a collective sigh of relief at the fact that they didn’t have to do that.
After all, it was a lot easier for at least one of them to win their family’s "redemption", if they were in separate groupings like this.
Now the only thing they had to worry about was whether or not they could beat the people they had to face in their respective robin.
"Hey, now that I think about it, does anybody know the na of that guy who defeated the Thunderscale Dragon Otter?," Zhen Hai asked. "From what I’ve heard, that guy is the favorite to win this thing."
"I think his na was...Jin Ren Yan? Sothing like that?," Zhen Feng answered with a confused look.
"Did y’all an Ren Jin Yan?," Zhen Xing corrected.
"Yeah that!," Zhen Hai agreed.
"Any idea where’s he at? Because I may like to fight, but I do not want to go toe to toe with that kind of guy."
"I think I saw his na over...oh."
"What’s with the...oh."
The Zhen clan scions had hoped that maybe, just maybe, the tournant favorite guy would’ve been in his own separate grid away from the rest of them so that they could all reach the top eight together without any incredibly difficult fights.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
As the branch clan scions stared at Ren Jin Yan’s na, they realized he was in the sa group as one of them, in fact, he was in the sa group as one of their strongest fighters.
Zhen Liu.
"Oh, fuck sideways...," Zhen Liu cursed as he saw the na himself.
’Did...did I tempt fate?’
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