After the award ceremony, the participants exited the venue one by one. As of now, starting with the mass selection, the one-week match at the branch venues had come to an end officially. The next competition would take place when the participants fought at the head venue for the admission quota.
Of the 1400 participants from the 12 branch venues, five ultimate winners would be selected to go to the international competition on behalf of the base city!
Su Lingyue and Su Ping had returned home.
Their mother cried tears of joy. Thanks to the live streaming of the games at the Crescent Zone branch venue on TV, she had seen how Su Lingyue had won, and how the chief of the Crescent Zone had distributed medals to the winners.
In the past, Li Qingru would have never imagined that her daughter would receive such honors.
Su Lingyue herself was excited as well. She still had a long way to go before she could reach the target that Su Ping had set for her. Nevertheless, she had made a critical step forward.
She felt an upsurge of emotions at the award ceremony. For the first time, she had a taste of the charm of honor.
Su Ping smiled at the two cheerful ladies. He went to wash his hands and sat down by the table, waiting for dinner to start.
This was bound to be a sleepless night.
The Crescent Zone had determined the Top 100 winners and the name lists of the Top 100 winners of the other zones had been published as well. That night, the 1400 participants had become the center of attention.
Regardless of their background, their financial status and whether they were unknown to fame or not, overnight, all of the 1400 people had become stars. They had worked hard for years and finally, they had received their rewards.
Of the 1400, the brightest stars naturally were the ones who had high hopes to become the champion.
Coming up next would be the selections at the main venue. Online, across different chatting forums, people were heatedly discussing the possible Top 10 winners and the most likely champion-to-be.
Who would win the championship would forever remain the most popular topic.
On the internet, videos of the Top 100 participants of all the branch venues had gone viral. Anyone could have found a video of those winners. All of the ten most promising participants’ videos had the highest view count.
The videos included their matches at the mass selection, the challenge contests and how they had won to be part of the Top 100 in their respective branch venues.
The ones with more outstanding performances had gained a heftier support rate and those who had demonstrated mediocre performances and stayed low-profile had seen a drop in their support rate.
At the same time, some who were previously unknown to the public had attracted much attention because of their excellent performance during the mass selection and the challenge contests. Those people had made their way into the list of the most promising participants.
Uptown. The Liu family estate. The mansion was ablaze with lights and bustling with noise and excitement.
Outside in the yard, a celebration party was ongoing. All the participants from the Liu family were there to celebrate. The Liu family had even invited some stars and celebrities who had added more vigor to the overall excitement.
Within the mansion, some higher-ups in the family were tasting wine and conversing.
“The Qin family boy hid himself well, as per usual. He managed to win all the contests with one eighth-rank Abysm Beast.”
“We all know that those future family heads will never expose their major pets before the finals. Anyways, about that sorry little store that was fighting against us. Have you seen that girl who claimed that she was going to be the champion? Have you watched her fights?”
“Yes, I did. About that dragon, I asked many professors that study dragons. It should be a mutated Moonfrost Dragon!”
“Of all the top-level dragons, Moonfrost Dragons rank number eight and is also rare, sort of. If this Moonfrost Dragon is her strongest card, then there is a way for us to win. But if not, then it can be tricky.”
Liu Tianzong glanced through the crowd. He sounded unconcerned. “Don’t stress yourselves over this. Brother Zilong helped me observe the girl at a closer range for me. She is just at the fourth-rank. No matter what she does, the pet she controls cannot be above the sixth-rank!
“Say that is indeed a rare dragon with great talent, the best it can do is to use powers of the seventh rank!
“Now, considering the worst case scenario, that the girl has some kind of treasures that can strengthen her mind so that she can master a pet of the seventh-rank directly, what can seventh-rank pets do? They might use eighth-rank skills at most!”
The others looked at each other in disbelief.
“That girl… is at the fourth rank?”
“Is that… true?” Although they knew that their family head was unlikely to joke about this matter, they still had doubts.
Was that store crazy? How could a fourth-rank battle pet warrior win the championship?! They had seriously belittled the value of this competition!
Of course, they were talking about the championship at the Longjiang Base City. Still, this was what all the major families were fighting for and all of their participants were the elites in their families or the young future family heads.
Even with a pet of the ninth-rank, let alone the eighth-rank, no one could say that they would take the championship for sure, unless their pets could use powers stronger than the average ninth-rank pets!
The ultimate five winners would participate in the international contests on behalf of the base city. The champions of every base city would be at least at the upper position of the eighth-rank and even the ninth-rank. Otherwise, at the international stage, anyone at a lower rank would only survive for a single round. “I thought someone important was supporting the store. Turns out, the owner is just crazy.”
“It seems that they have not only made light of us, but also of the Qin family and the Mu family.”
“Zilong is a titled battle pet warrior and he couldn’t have been wrong about the girl if he stayed at close range, unless that girl had some treasures to hide her energy. But I don’t think they needed to do that just to throw us off the scent.”
They breathed in relief, feeling that their previous worry was for nothing.
Liu Tianzong added, “The contests at the base city level will come next. All the participants will have to go through a unified test in order to pick out 1000 directly. For this test, the passing line will be the lower position of the seventh rank. We can consider ‘lifting up’ the passing line for that girl and see her true strength.”
The others looked at Liu Tianzong in astonishment.
To intervene in the Elite League was not an easy thing. Otherwise, they would have sent someone to meddle a long time before.
It seemed that… he had worked out something and found some connections?
The others looked at each other and knowingly kept their mouth shut about this.
Back to Su Ping’s store.
Having trained in the nursing pen for a night, Su Ping felt his astral powers had progressed again. He got up early and heard some noises outside.
He went and opened the door. Many customers had arrived. Some who were familiar with each other were chatting about the Elite League.
Su Ping suddenly remembered that the Elite League was still ongoing. The finals would start the following day. It came as a surprise to him that customers would return this day.
It had been a while since the store had any business, so Su Ping needed to adjust himself. He didn’t welcome the customers; he closed the door instead.
“What? Sir?”
The customers had yet to flash their smiles at Su Ping when the door was shut in front of them.
Su Ping opened the painting and shook out Tang Ruyan immediately.
She was sleeping soundly when she was thrown to the floor all of a sudden. Startled, she woke up right away. She looked around and then saw the familiar environment and that hateful man.
She loosened up her nerves; she was frustrated, once she remembered that she was still in captivity. She stood up, tidied her clothes and bellowed at Su Ping, “Can you let me know before you get me out next time?”
“Go and clean yourself up. We have customers today. Look nice because someone may show up to pick you up today,” Su Ping said while he organized the counter.
Having had no customers to attend to in a few days, Tang Ruyan seemed to have settled in her life of detainment. She had been living like an indoors woman in the painting. If she were a boy, she would have had a stubble beard.
“We have business?”
Only till then did she notice the noise outside. Her eyes glowed. Finally, people were coming! She was excited and happier than Su Ping that the store would open again. She didn’t waste any time arguing with Su Ping and hurried to the bathroom to refresh herself.
As a matter of fact, she didn’t have any make-up on. She just washed her face, and combed her messy hair so that it wouldn’t look like a bird’s nest.
