In the fourth round, the five representatives of the Black Heaven Sect achieved total victory over the other five orthodoxies!
That feat had earned roaring cheers from the audience.
Just as everyone was chanting the Black Heaven Sect’s name, Chu Kuangren went before the participants and immediately, without a word, used the Spring Breeze Healing Technique on them. A gust of soothing breeze swept past the participants, rapidly recovering their injuries.
Soon, their exhausted bodies were as good as new.
Everyone gulped in fear when they saw that technique in action.
None of them knew how many techniques Chu Kuangren still had hidden up his sleeve. He was just too unpredictable!
“Alright, now, do you guys need more IOUs?”
Chu Kuangren glanced at the Linghu Clan Head and others.
Jun Yi’s eyes instantly lit up upon hearing that. “Sect Leader, were you betting with them again?”
“That’s right, the Linghu Clan Head and others are so generous. Since they were in such a hurry to hand out their soulstones, it’ll be rude for me to reject their offer.” Chu Kuangren laughed.
His words made everyone so mad that they could explode.
However, there was nothing they could do.
“How much did you win this time?” Jun Yi asked excitedly.
“Hmmm… Let’s see… My bet with the Linghu Clan Head is a hundred million, then there’s five hundred million with the Sky Emperor Palace Lord, three hundred million with the Thunder Falcon Tribe, and another three hundred million with the Overlord Sage Tribe. That’ll bring me to around a total of one billion and two hundred million top-tier soulstones.” Chu Kuangren chuckled.
At that, their eyes gleamed brightly.
Adding the previously-won four and a half billion to the current one billion and two hundred million, the total would be five billion seven hundred million top-tier soulstones. That was a frightening amount of soulstones even for a sage orthodoxy!
“Five billion seven hundred million top-tier soulstones in the bag, huh? I’m afraid the value of all the Championship’s prizes combined will not be worth more than two or three hundred million top-tier soulstones, yet our Sect Master has already won five billion seven hundred million simply by betting alone. How terrifying.”
Nangong Huang gulped and said, “In the Black Heaven Sect’s history, there has never been a Sect Leader who’s accomplished such a feat before.’
“Our Sect Leader isn’t just the youngest Sect Leader, but he’s also the most skilled in generating money for us. This is simply remarkable.”
Jun Yi praised with a revered look in her eyes.
With that, the Linghu Clan Head and others had no choice but to sign an IOU under Chu Kuangren’s pressure. Even the Sages who had their backs had shuddered at their loss this time, let alone themselves.
“If any of you guys still want to bet next time, please feel free to find me.”
Chu Kuangren chuckled.
Everyone almost coughed blood when they heard him.
‘You think there’s still going to be a next time?’
They had already suffered great losses just by betting with him twice. If there were to be a third time, there was a chance that they might even lose their orthodoxy’s territory as well.
“Everyone, the group matches have since come to an end. The next event shall be the semifinals, which will be held two days later.”
“As for the contestants advancing into the semifinals, they’re namely the Overlord Sage Tribe from Group Alpha, Tempest Mountain from Group Bravo, Sky Emperor Palace from Group Charlie, and Black Heaven Sect from Group Delta!” The Twelfth Prefect’s voice rang out from the judge’s booth.
Chu Kuangren let out a faint smile. “Oh my, these three orthodoxies don’t seem friendly with my Black Heaven Sect at all. I hope they won’t join forces and gang up on us because that’ll be very scary indeed.”
He may have said that, but there was no trace of fear on his face at all.
In fact, it was more of a mockery if anything.
However, it was indeed true that the Black Heaven Sect’s relationship with the Overlord Sage Tribe, Sky Emperor Palace, and Tempest Mountain was not great.
Tempest Mountain was one of the best swordsmanship orthodoxies in the Firmament Star, so it was needless to say that they had gone head to head with the Black Heaven Sect many times.
As for the Overlord Sage Tribe, Chu Kuangren had once forced their Graygrill Sage to cut off his arm and taught their Young Emperor Chang Tian a lesson as well.
The Sky Emperor Palace may not have had bad blood with the Black Heaven Sect, but because they had lost two bouts of bets, it was no surprise that they eventually held a grudge against Black Heaven Sect.
Although the other orthodoxies were fortunate to have only lost one or two hundred million soulstones, the same could not be said for the Sky Emperor Palace. Besides losing one billion and five hundred million soulstones, they had lost two Sage weapons to the Black Heaven Sect too, and on top of that, all their cultivation techniques had to be made known to Chu Kuangren as well.
Then again, who was to blame for that?
Who was the one that had their eyes on the Godly Phoenix?
“Chu Kuangren, we shall meet during the semifinals!”
The Overlord Sage Tribe Leader snorted coldly and left after that.
Both the Tempest Mountain’s Sect Leader and Sky Emperor Palace’s Lord too glared at Chu Kuangren for a while before they left with their respective sky-prides.
The championship then started to prepare for the semifinals event.
Meanwhile, the names of the four orthodoxies that were advancing into the semifinals had already spread throughout the First City. This especially rang true for Black Heaven Sect, whose name had become well-known among the people.
Now, every cultivator on every street and alleyway in First City was talking about the Black Heaven Sect’s remarkable performance in the championship.
The names of sky-prides like Lan Yu and Nangong Huang were even more renowned.
On that day.
Lan Yu was just recovering from her cultivation state
Upon sensing the energy in her body, she murmured, “I didn’t expect the consecutive battles would allow me to be on the threshold of the Late-Stage Honorable.”
At that point, she was only one step away from becoming a Late-Stage Honorable.
After that, she could break through and become a fully-fledged Honorable!
With her talents and Chu Kuangren’s years of nurturing her, she could most likely battle a Boundary Sage, at least, when she broke through to the Honorable stage.
Other than Lan Yu.
Nangong Huang and the others had also gained quite some experience from their respective battles against the other sky-prides. Among other aspects, their Daoist core alone was sufficient to keep them diligent in their cultivation from then on out.
Two days soon passed by in a blink of an eye.
The sky-prides’ familiar entrance into the arena was welcomed by the sound of the audience cheering and chanting.
After two days, Chu Kuangren and the others had appeared in the arena once again!
“Check it out, Sect Leader, that Thirteenth Prefect has returned.”
At that moment, Jun Yi pointed at the adjudicator’s booth and said.
Chu Kuangren then looked in that direction.
All he saw was the Thirteenth Prefect, who had left angry because he lost one hundred million soulstones to Chu Kuangren, sitting in the adjudicator’s booth again.
“Just ignore him,” Chu Kuangren replied indifferently.
“Alright.”
Chu Kuangren then took a look at his surroundings.
Besides the orthodoxies that were taking part in the semifinals, he noticed that the other unqualified orthodoxies were there as well. It seemed like they wanted to watch the rest of the championship before they left.
At the adjudicator’s booth, the Thirteenth Prefect stood up and said, “Everyone, I welcome all of you to the Sky-Pride Championship’s semifinals!”
“Before the semifinals commence, I first have a few things to clarify. Based on the discussion that a few of us adjudicators had over the past two days, we have decided to implement two additional points to the championship rules.”
“Firstly, we’re going to get rid of the points system and no longer use points to determine the rightful winner. From now on, all the orthodoxies’ accumulated points accumulated thus far shall be nullified.”
The audience immediately burst into an uproar.
Everyone could tell which orthodoxy that new rule was targeting. It was the sect with the highest accumulated points, and that was Black Heaven Sect.
“D*mn, what’s with this rule?”
“They’ve worked so hard to earn those points, what’s the point of canceling it? This is just too unfair.”
“Sigh, I guess it’s beyond the organizer’s control. I mean, who would’ve thought that the Black Heaven Sect would get so many points? If they don’t remove the point system, then the other orthodoxies will have no chance of winning at all. They might as well crown the Black Heaven Sect as the winner right now.”
“That makes sense.”
The Overlord Sage Tribe, Tempest Mountain, and Sky Emperor Palace had no issues regarding the adjudicators’ intention to remove the points system. In fact, they were fully supportive of the act because otherwise, they stood no chance against the Black Heaven Sect with the points system.
“Oh, it’s fine if you guys have decided to remove the points system. I think it’s meaningless to win that easily anyways. But to remove all our points without prior notice, you must have something to compensate us with, right?”
Chu Kuangren said to the Thirteenth Prefect.
“Yes, of course. As compensation, the Black Heaven Sect who has the highest accumulated points is allowed the right to choose their opponents in the semifinals,” the Thirteenth Prefect explained.
“So I suppose that means we can choose any orthodoxy to be our opponent, right?”
“Correct.”
“This compensation makes no difference at all.”
Chu Kuangren snorted before he swept his gaze across the three other orthodoxies.
“I’ll go with the Overlord Sage Tribe then.” With no intention to target any one of them, Chu Kuangren randomly selected one among the three orthodoxies.