CHAPTER 297: WHAT A JOKE

Darian had completely brought down the New Sages Tournament. Under that pressure, the Wube family and the Blue Pole planet were forced to hand over all organization to the planet Aethel.

And it wasn’t just those two powers that felt insulted. Everyone from the planets that would have benefited from the cheating now hated Darian’s guts. That hatred practically spilled from their eyes... they would have profited big time this round, and cutting off that gain hit them as hard as if he’d killed their parents.

The worst part was that they were all sure it was impossible to be caught. Not even a Nine-Ring Spiritual Guardian could perfectly sense the fluctuations from the artifacts they’d used. They were the lowest-grade kind and could easily be mistaken for the young contestants’ ring powers.

Even if someone got suspicious, no one would have the guts to accuse everyone like that; that way, they could just smooth things over and fool people... but Darian didn’t give them the slightest chance.

The power from Darian’s curse let him sense everything clearly. Of course, if Niara hadn’t noticed something odd, he probably wouldn’t have focused on investigating. The two of them together made for a pretty scary pair.

All the young humans were taken back to the city, and soon it was announced that the tournament would restart the next day.

Darian stayed in an isolated room, guarded by Irana and her mother. Both of them were worried — with every move he made, his situation got more complicated.

During that time, Darian focused on reflecting on what he’d read in that book. The tournament’s final test was always the same: a question-and-answer showdown where everyone debated the world’s laws and the foundations of all things.

Luckily, that book was absurdly detailed on topics like that. Thinking about it, he realized the book was more of an explanation manual than a history text. Meru’s mother had done that on purpose to guide him... even if, for some reason, she didn’t like him.

A full day passed before Niara called for Darian, snapping him out of a long meditation.

When he opened his eyes, Niara noticed a strange light fade from his pupils. That was something Darian had never stopped to think about.

In the future, he’d realize two things. First, everything in that book had been deeply engraved into his soul by Meru. He could perfectly rewrite every word of it if he wanted. And also... could all that knowledge really fit into just one book?

It had been written with magic. If someone else had read that book, they’d have seen only a simple, unremarkable story. But when he read it, he received several times more knowledge, with every excessive detail included.

...

They headed to the teleportation array and were taken to the same place as before.

When they arrived, every gaze turned toward Darian. On the faces of the people, there was only admiration and gratitude — now everyone had a real shot at winning.

Irana looked to the skies and saw her mother floating beside the artifact. The young contestants’ reaction on seeing her was one of surprise — they all knew her, and she was someone very important. It didn’t make sense for her to work directly in the tournament’s organization, but she wanted to make sure nothing went wrong.

After a few minutes, she calmly looked at everyone and announced:

"My name is Tayluar. Since the organization of this tournament was offered to my planet, I’ll take on this responsibility personally."

She waved her hand, and the artifact began pouring out colorful runes, just like before. When it reached millions, she stopped it.

"I’ll make the first stage a bit simpler. Just like before, half of these runes are based on the five natural elements. To make sure there’s no chance of cheating again, you must find 25 runes whose base element is either Water or Lightning."

"Since it’s something very specific, only those who truly know their stuff will be the first to pass. Anyway, the first 100 will go through, same as before. You may begin!"

Everyone listened and got excited, starting the search right away. Picking something that specific was, in fact, impossible to cheat at with simple artifacts — only much more powerful items could help, and their use would be spotted immediately.

Without hesitation, Darian gathered the 25 runes and passed. A few minutes later, Irana and Vanh did the same.

Time passed, more people qualified, and Irana, watching the winners, gave Darian a serious look. He, in turn, just waved indifferently.

The winners so far were people from the planets that had cheated before. They weren’t the same 97 as last time — those had obviously been expelled. But they still came from the same planets, and had joined the previous round only to pad the numbers.

Most likely, their superiors hadn’t told them they had zero chance of winning. Now, since they hadn’t done anything wrong, Tayluar didn’t want to punish them and let them compete. And they had given their all honestly this time — they really did have some skill.

Darian let out a deep snort. Thirty-five people from those planets had already passed.

It was clear they had competitors good enough to take more than half the spots if they’d had those other cheaters with them. And still, their leaders had chosen to cheat out of sheer greed, just to secure more and more...

Six hours later, the hundredth winner was announced.

In the end, the participants who lost sighed in disappointment, but no one was angry. Everyone had been given a chance and fought to the very end, coming very close to making it.

From planet Aethel, six young people made it to the second round, which made Irana really happy. That was half of the ones she’d brought; the rest had barely missed it, but they hadn’t disappointed her.

"Everyone, head back. In twelve hours, at the city’s arena, the final match will take place," Tayluar said lightly before disappearing.

***

The hours passed calmly. Right now, the city’s huge arena was packed with people. Everyone who’d failed had come to watch, along with representatives from various powers belonging to the biggest human planets in the universe.

At the center of the massive stage, a hundred young humans walked in slowly.

Floating nearly twenty meters above them, a silver sphere spun gently, releasing a powerful aura.

Tayluar appeared and officially explained the rules, even though the second round was always the same.

A silver rune floated toward each participant. Basically, these runes would work as points for each competitor.

They would challenge each other with questions, and the artifact would judge the answers. If the other person couldn’t answer or if their answer wasn’t approved, they’d lose two-thirds of their points. Once they hit zero, they were out.

The first to get eliminated would take 100th place, and the rest would fill in the last positions in order. The winner would be whoever reached twenty rune points first or answered six questions in a row correctly.

That second win condition had never happened before. They were all young, and it was impossible to know a lot about every subject. Everyone would watch which topics someone was good at, then ask about something completely different to make them slip up. So at best, people would get two or three right in a row, then miss one.

Once a winner appeared, the tournament would end. Everyone’s final points would decide their rank, and if there was a tie, the artifact would review all previous questions and answers to decide the order.

The questions and answers were entirely up to each participant. It was a true competition of knowledge and study about the world.

Since they were all Spiritual Guardians, they’d already visited other universes and seen a lot of things. Anyone curious enough would have at least grasped the basics: each universe had its own laws, which could be completely different from one another. But there was still a universal law that governed all of them.

According to ancient legends from some universes, in the distant past, there was only a single heavenly law, and all universes followed the exact same rules.

But after a terrifying event, everything changed: each universe created its own unique laws. And after a long time, a more open and simple world law appeared, one that connected to all universes.

Darian was probably the only mortal who knew all of this in detail. He knew exactly how the world used to be and how it had become what it was today. He even knew who was responsible for maintaining the universe’s laws now.

Argue about this topic with him? What a joke. Darian felt unshakably confident.

A silver crystal appeared in front of each of them.

Tayluar concluded, "Each of you will activate the crystal in your hand and choose who you want to question. It’ll be one question at a time; whoever’s fastest at the start gets to ask first. After that, priority goes to whoever’s asked the fewest questions."

Most of the young people on stage were taking deep breaths, extremely nervous. Obviously, they preferred to go last — they wanted to listen to others’ questions and answers first, buying themselves time to focus and calm down.

"Begin!"

*Ding! Ding! Ding!*

As soon as Tayluar gave the signal, thirty-five crystals lit up at once without hesitation, the clicks echoing in the air.

Every single one of them locked onto their chosen target... they were close, and all eyes converged on a single person.

Darian, of course.

They were all from the planets that had cheated before. Darian was about to be attacked from all sides. If he missed the very first question, starting with just a single point, he’d be eliminated instantly and take last place.

"Isn’t that unfair?" a furious girl in the crowd shouted. But when she noticed Darian’s calm expression in the arena, she swallowed hard, her heart suddenly racing. "No! He’s gonna crush them and win even faster!"

Other young women yelled similar things, while the men nodded in agreement and cheered.

Even though Darian had offended all those planets, the way he hadn’t bowed to authority and had the guts to expose the cheating — leveling the playing field for everyone — had made a lot of people start admiring him.

On top of that, the way he was being targeted made it obvious he was under attack. Everyone who had competed and failed was rooting for him out of gratitude. Even those who had only heard about what happened, after seeing his sacrifice, didn’t want him to be taken down unfairly.

"Hahaha..." Darian suddenly laughed with contempt.

At the same time, a small dragon above his head mocked, "A bunch of monkeys... no, that’s not fair to monkeys. Just a bunch of pathetic mediocrities daring to challenge him? Dan’s gonna teach you all a lesson today. Bring it on!"