CHAPTER 117: BEGINNING OF THE SEMIFINALS

Chapter 117: Beginning of the Semifinals

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It had been almost three days since Zhu Rong had locked himself inside the cultivation room of the pavilion, and in that time all the elimination and initial matches at the academy had already taken place.

Starting from tomorrow, the main matches would take place, and from then on the first contestants chosen to be part of the group traveling to the secret realm would be selected.

It was already evening, only a few hours left until midnight, the end of his training period in the cultivation room.

This time Zhu Rong had chosen a high level room, since the concentration of Qi inside it was anything but low.

Not that he really needed it, considering the enormous reserves stored within the Red mist inside him.

That said, over the past two days, after finishing the creation of his two cores, he had cultivated them until they reached the fourth stage and formed the first inner layer of the golden core in each.

With the wood element, rare as it was, the process went smoothly and he managed to create it in just under ten hours.

But the same could not be said for the ice core.

Since he didn’t have a large amount of ice Qi to absorb and condense in his dantian, Zhu Rong had to rely on pure Qi and convert it into ice Qi, something that took a lot of time.

Just raising the core from the first stage to the third required a full day of nonstop cultivation, and once he reached the third stage, things only grew more difficult.

He spent the rest of the day refining ice Qi to push the core to the peak of the third stage, and now that he had succeeded, he was ready to break through.

"Haaa, this should be enough for now."

He had raised his core to a high enough level that he could connect it to the others and form a seven core formation.

This was still within the first stage of the Elemental Extremities of Dao technique, and to step into the next stage he would need another core, making eight in total.

Although the idea of advancing to the second stage of formation was tempting, since he was certain the benefits would be significant, he also knew that the only element currently within his reach among those remaining was lightning.

And as he had already seen, lightning was extremely problematic to develop, not to mention the difficulty of obtaining the resources necessary to cultivate its core.

He had already tried searching in the city, and he was certain that even though resources of this element were hard to come by, it shouldn’t have been impossible to get his hands on at least a few of them, even if they were very expensive. But to his surprise, he came back empty handed, not finding a single one.

It seemed someone had swept clean all such resources in the past two months.

He had a vague idea of who it was, and thinking about it, he could only shake his head, unsure whether to laugh or cry. After all, he was the primary cause of this unexpected situation.

Even so, although it was unexpected, he didn’t dwell on it.

The very fact that she was gathering such resources, despite their extreme cost, could only mean that her progress was going great.

By now, he was certain she had already reached the peak of the fourth stage, if not already broken through to the fifth.

But this realization also made him understand that that day was drawing ever closer, and at the thought of it he felt neither sadness nor anything of the sort.

On the contrary, he was curious to see what she would choose to do.

In the end, he let out a sigh, calming his mind as he cast away all useless thoughts.

None of this mattered for now, he had only a few hours left to reorganize the formation of his cores inside his dantian, so he couldn’t waste any time.

So, as he returned to meditation and began rearranging the elemental core formation within his dantian, time passed quickly, and soon the next day arrived.

It was morning, and although there was still an hour left before the start of the tournament, the arena was already filling up, with participants from every year gradually arriving, all wearing solemn expressions.

After all, they knew today’s battles wouldn’t be like those of the past few days.

Now the fights would be mixed, and one might find themselves facing either a first year or a third year opponent.

Needless to say, this put a lot of pressure on those who had already struggled to make it this far in the earlier matches.

Today’s battles would be even more intense, and if they couldn’t surpass their own limits, they would lose, essentially making the efforts of the past days meaningless.

For many, this was a constant source of stress. For others, who fully understood the extent of their own strength, it wasn’t much of a problem.

Though the tournament had been organized mainly to select the five participants for the expedition into the secret realm, it was also an opportunity to test oneself and display one’s abilities before the entire academy.

For third years, this might not have been too important, by then they had already established a certain reputation both within the academy and outside.

But for those in their first or second year, this was a chance to stand out before the instructors.

If they gave a strong performance, there was a chance one of the instructors might take them under their wing and cultivate them properly.

For all those without a deep background, such a prospect was very tempting, which made them especially determined to win.

In the end, everyone who had entered the competition had their own goal for doing so.

That said, it should be noted that among the 50 students fighting today, only a small portion were first years, with most of the group made up of second years.

This was only natural, nobody expected much from first years who had joined less than five months ago.

In that time, the most one could expect was for some of them to break through the first stage, perhaps progressing halfway toward the second.

The very fact that there were still first year students participating was a sign that there were many promising seedlings among this year’s new batch.

This was also the academy’s way of seeing firsthand exactly which of these seedlings had real potential.

The rules for today’s matches had already been explained to everyone, so once they arrived, all were gathered in a single area to wait for the start.

Unlike the previous days, when everyone had been split into small equal groups to determine the strongest, this time, with the number of participants reduced from nearly 500 to 50, the tournament would be much smoother.

The power of all participants at this stage wasn’t low, so each battle would require more time.

Today’s tournament would follow a double elimination bracket format, with all students divided into a first round of 25 matches

From this round would emerge 25 winners and 25 losers.

Unlike a normal single elimination format, to allow everyone to give their best and to have a small chance at returning, there would be one additional round giving those who lost their first battles another shot.

Of course, this rule had a strict limit of two losses.

If someone lost their first match and then also lost the second, they were eliminated without much thought.

But if they won, they would continue on.

Needless to say, with half winners and half losers, there would be an odd number of participants at times. In such cases, one student would be randomly chosen to advance without fighting.

This possibility was very tempting, and many hoped to be the lucky one to receive it, though the condition was to at least win the first round.

After the first round, the second would have winners face winners and losers face losers, creating four groups of students:

those who won both times,

those who had won once and lost once, both for winners and losers, which would make two groups of twelve students, totaling twenty four,

and finally a fourth group of twelve, those who had lost both times, permanently eliminated from the tournament.

And so it would continue until a single ultimate victor remained, the strongest of all, who would secure their spot.

For the remaining four, based on performance and victories, the instructors would decide who to take and who not to.

Of course, toward the end of the tournament, it would already be clear who most of the chosen ones were, but in case one or two remained uncertain, the instructors would decide among themselves.

That, however, was for later.

Each round would consist of thirty minute battles, and once one ended, the next would immediately follow, giving those who had already fought time to rest and prepare for the following matches.