The summer in the Heavenly Lake Empire was not extremely hot. In the night, Qin Wushuang was walking on the pine and cypress road in the yard behind the Pine Crane inn. This Pine Crane inn held a quiet spot amidst the loud streets. It’s backyard was rather quiet and away from the disturbing noise of the secular world. Qin Wushuang extremely enjoyed the feeling.
Qin Wushuang raised his head to look at the sky. The starry sky was resplendent with stars. It appeared vast, yet deep as if each star possessed limitless secrets, unknown to people.
Qin Wushuang’s heart was calm as still water. As he was taking a stroll on this little road, he suddenly heard light footsteps. When he looked back, he saw a white figure that appeared elegant and graceful beneath the starry sky.
"Junior Brother Qin." That person also smiled lightly when he saw Qin Wushuang. He walked over.
"Senior Brother Wei, are you taking a walk here too?"
"Yes, only four or five days until the Friendly Competition." Wei Yi sighed with sorrow.
"Yes, all the young elite warriors from all the three empires in the east will be coming. Whether they are a mule or horse, it will be shown during the competition." Qin Wushuang responded.
Wei Yi looked at the vast starry sky and fixed his voice: "Junior Brother Qin, you’ve only entered the sect for one year, most likely, you don’t know many things. Do you know why the three big empires are treating this Friendly Competition with so much importance?"
"I truly don’t know, please help to solve my confusion."
Wei Yi sighed: "For this matter, it’s hard to describe in a few words. To the east of the Three Eastern Empires is the Endless Eastern Sea. This Endless Eastern Sea is one of the top mysterious areas in the entire Tian Xuan Land. It’s extremely big and thousands times bigger than the human countries. To the human world, that Endless Eastern Sea is a taboo place, and off-limits. However, because of this, the human countries are extremely curious about these taboo places. It was rumored that in the Endless Eastern Sea, it is filled with fortuitous opportunities and different miraculous creatures. In the past, adventurers from the Three Eastern Empire would also go challenge the Endless Eastern Sea. However, rarely would people come back alive. Thus, afterwards, the three Empires formed an agreement. They sealed off the Endless Eastern Sea. Regardless of which country, they would not allow any adventurers to enter the Endless Eastern Sea on their own…"
Qin Wushuang listened patiently. When he had just entered the sect, he also heard his teacher, Tan Zhongchi mentioning a few places. He said that humans could not enter those places easily.
One of the names was this Endless Eastern Sea. He never thought such story was behind it.
"Senior Brother Wei, what is the relationship between the Endless Eastern Sea with the Friendly Competition?"
Wei Yi nodded, and continued to say: "After the Three Eastern Empires had reached an agreement, they were quiet for a few dozen of years. However, later on, they felt that it was such a waste to not explore the Endless Eastern Sea, a place filled with enormous treasures. Thus, the three Empires promised to have a friendly competition between the three empires. They would use the ranking from this competition to form groups to explore the Endless Eastern Sea every twenty years. The spots would be reduced by the ranking. The victor country could get ten spots. The second place only six, and the last one would only have four spots."
"To explore the Endless Eastern Sea?" Qin Wushuang felt doubtful, "Since that is a taboo place, why explore?"
"Such exploration would only be scraping the surface. At most, they would go as deep as three thousand miles and would stop at that point. Although three thousand miles of distance is threatening, it’s still tolerable. Once past the three thousand mi
les in the sea, each step would be filled with danger. The waves would be bigger than the sky and the water would boil rapidly. Whirlpools and tsunami would come at you at anytime." Wei Yi sighed, "I only heard these things when the seniors were chatting. I don’t know the exact details of exploring the Endless Eastern Sea."
Finally, Qin Wushuang understood that in the end, the Friendly Competition was to fight for a spot. This way, the opportunity to explore the Endless Eastern Sea would be an incredible opportunity. Or else, the Three Empires would not have gone after these spots with so much .
Senior Brother, has there be any great harvests through the exploration of this Endless Eastern Sea?"
"I never heard about any great harvests!" Wei Yi said with a smile: "However, each sect had apparently enjoyed some benefits. Or else, for these thousands of years, how could they be so passionate about this Friendly Competition?"
When Qin Wushuang thought about it, he found that it made sense. If there were no benefits, how could they care about such an empty rankings? Naturally, regarding exploring the Endless Eastern Sea, the competition for the spots held great meaning.
This world shared similar principles with his former world. No one would get up early if there were no benefits. For sure, there were some internal reasons for the three Empires to work this hard.
"On the surface, all major sects are eligible to participate in this Friendly Competition. However, realistically, those little sects were just decorations. For this Friendly Competition, the main competitors are the Stargaze, the Archaic Mysteries and the Dragon and Tiger Sect. The others were just dispensable little shows."
Suddenly, Wei Yi laughed coolly and asked: "Junior Brother Qin, for this competition, do you have any personal goals?"
Stunned, Qin Wushuang shook his head: "I know nothing about the rules of this Friendly Competition. I don’t even know what we are competing on. Of course, I cannot talk about personal goals. However, I see that the Head Palace Master and my teacher are extremely passionate about this Friendly Competition. It’s obvious that they are treating this competition with great importance. Since the seniors are extremely passionate about it, we should fight with all we’ve got to get first place and make them happy."
Wei Yi nodded seriously: "That’s right. Since you know nothing about the rules. I have just investigated the rules. Let me explain these to you since we are free now."
Qin Wushuang said leisurely: "Yes, I am looking forward to it."
For the past half year, Qin Wushuang had been staying concealed in the Qin Mansion. He also left immediately after he had met with his teacher when he returned to the Stargaze Palace. Tan Zhongchi was also preparing to tell him the rules after they had arrived at the Heavenly Lake Empire to prevent him from being distracted. Today, they had just regrouped and Tan Zhongchi had no time to explain to him the rules.
Wei Yi opened his mouth to speak: "The Friendly Competition is somewhat like our year-end exam in the Stargaze Palace, and extremely different. There are three rounds. Each country can only send sixteen young disciples to participate. These sixteen disciples are also tastefully chosen. The number one sect of each Country would send in ten, the other sects would send in six. In total, it would make up sixteen spots."
When he said this, Wei Yi stopped for a moment and continues: "The first round will not calculate marks, it would be a disqualification round. Among the total forty-eight people in the three countries, half will get disqualified. The remaining half would automatically enter the second round and start the true competition."
"Disqualify half of the numbers? Is it disqualifying half the numbers in each country, or regardless of your nationalities?"
"Regardless of nationalities, half will get disqualified!" Wei Yi said seriously, "Although the first round does not record marks, the competition has already started in the first round. Regardless of the good and bad performance one has done in this round, it would decide the number of people proceeding into the semi-final. Think about it, if the result from the first round is not favorable, it would be troublesome when we have less than eight people enter the semi-final. It is because one more person, and one less person in the semi-final would serve as a determining factor. Unless, there is an existence from the other country that could take down two."
"One person taking on two people?" Qin Wushuang smiled, "Me and you, are equivalent to two Initial Stage, this should not be a problem?"
"Of course it’s not a problem." Wei Yi also explained with a smile, "However, each country has a Middle Stage warrior. Thus, such advantage would be offset against each other. Of course, this time, the Stargaze Palace has two Middle Stages. This advantage could become our determining factor. If the other two Empires has no trump cards, and only had one Middle Stage warrior, then we would take the upper hand greatly. Most likely, it would decide the final flow in the competition."
Wei Yi sighed: "Along the way, I could also feel the expectation put on me from the other disciples. And I can feel the pressure as the head Senior Brother. At that time, I thought that if you were still alive, for sure, the Stargaze Palace would face an entirely different situation. Indeed, you are still alive. You didn’t know that with your appearance, you could say that half of the pressure has been lifted off my shoulders."
"I also look forward to facing the enemies with Senior Brother Wei Yi and to grab the ultimate honor for the Stargaze Palace."
Wei Yi smiled: "Back on topic. The first disqualification round is similar to the martial arts student exam regarding the format. However, the content is somewhat different. Just know this in your heart, by then, you will know the exact rules. Compared to your martial arts student exam, there will be less elements of chance, but more stable elements. They will be much more stricter on you regarding your strength, and the stages. The difference between the strong and the weak ones will be apparent. Thus, it’s not one hundred percent that there would be no unexpected events."
"After the disqualifying round, the second round will also be exams of variation of exams. It will be graded with marks. As for the Third round, it is the main melody—A martial arts competition!"
A martial Arts competition would be the most popular and the most straightforward method in the Tian Xuan Land. Although this method is somewhat common and simple, it was also the most convincing.
Qin Wushuang had finally understood the reason why the Stargaze Palace wanted to hold a year-end exam each year. Since the competition was held frequently, it was targeted toward a specific goal and not meaningless.
Of course, it was targeting the Friendly Competition!
Hearing his words, Qin Wushuang felt much more reassured when he knew that the format and the content would be similar. If the competition was to be like this, it would not be strange to him.
However, Wei Yi said: "Junior Brother Qin, this martial arts competition is different than the one at the Stargaze Palace, in which we would upgrade after levels. There is no lottery. In other words, it’s not a disqualifying competition, but has the cruelty of the disqualifying rounds. You will either continue, or lose."
"Oh?" Qin Wushuang felt curious, "Senior Brother Wei, what is the exact content in the martial arts competition?"
Hearing the words from Wei Yi, Qin Wushuang had developed new interests in the rules of this martial arts competition.