Volume 3: Chapter 23 – The Grand Xiuda Tournament
Three days passed by in an instant. The Radiant Battle Squad now had a basic understanding of one another. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time for them to get to know each other better as they were forced to leave for the tournament.
The tournament was being held in Xiuda’s largest plaza. The plaza was larger than 10 football* fields combined. They had built 51 stages in the plaza long ago. Besides the stage in the center meant for the semi-finals and the finals, the rest of the stages were being used to conduct matches. After drawing lots, we were put into the 198th group while Bi Qi’s Wind Dragon Battle Squad was put into the 803rd group. We still haven’t encountered any members of their squad.
The five of us arrived at the stage. Everyone around the stage was part of a battle squad while spectators were located on elevated stands outside of the stage. There were also many newly built pavilions and seats for spectators.
After looking around, I noticed that the majority of the participants were dressed like warriors while only a few people had different professions. I wore the matching uniforms of my squad, white warriors clothing. We planned on hiding my magic as much as possible during the preliminaries.
The tournament rules were explained by the organizers just prior to starting the tournament. According to the lots we drew, we wouldn’t fight until the third match. Judging from their appearances, the first battle had only ordinary warriors on both sides. The most they could manage was to simply chop at each other as there wasn’t even a single Earth Knight participating. In the end, the winning squad won 3-2.
The second match was virtually the same. We nearly fell asleep watching these matches before the 198th group’s judge finally announced, “The third match, the Radiant Squad versus the Steel God Soldiers Squad.”
Xing Ao laughed. “Isn’t this Steel God Soldiers Squad actually just a rusty pile of iron?” We all burst into laughter in amusement. Xiu Si said to me, “To save time we’ll directly face off against the other team.”
I nodded in agreement.
We arrived on the stage and stunned the audience with our matching white uniforms and uniformly towering height that was greater than 180 centimeters. From the other side of the elevated stage came the sounds of heavy footsteps. Bang, bang! Damn! They’re exaggerating too much.
The Steel God Soldiers Squad appeared. They really are overbearing! All five were fully equipped with heavy black infantry armor and an average height of more than 2 meters. Combined with their two handed greatswords, it seems they aren’t lightweights after all!
Xiu Si whispered into my ear, “Ah, they’re really calculating. The space on the stage is very limited, so they plan to charge us in an attempt to knock us over and win!”
I answered, “It’s a pity that they encountered us.” We laughed with our hearts brimming with confidence.
Naturally I had to go forward to negotiate with them as the team captain. They happily agreed to a team fight as it was advantageous to them.
The judge announced the start of the battle with a whistle. Immediately, all five Steel God Soldiers brandished their greatswords and rushed us together. While their vigor really was incredible, their speed simply was too slow. Dong Ri, Xiu Si and I didn’t move at all. We just stood at the edge of the stage with Gao De and Xing Ao holding their greatswords in front of us. Xiu Si had told me before the battle, that if it’s possible we should win with the least amount of people.
When the five opponents reached us, Xing Ao welcomed them with a roar as a faint yellow battle spirit enveloped his greatsword. The two swords crossed and the originally bold and vigorous opponent was blown away by Xing Ao’s slash. Xing Ao had also greatly nicked his opponents greatsword in their exchange.
The rest of them were all beaten by Xing Ao. After clashing with him a few times, all of the opponents were unsteadily swaying from side to side. Gao De grumbled, “You didn’t leave any for me and took care of them all by yourself.” All of the other competitors in the audience stared at us foolishly. Many of them were annoyed that we had only used one person.
I walked to the front and stopped Xing Ao from continuing his assault. I said to the opponents, “I advise you all to surrender. Surely you realize how great the gap is between the strengths of our squads.”
The opponent’s boss propped himself up with his sword and heavily said, “Brother, just now was your teammate using Earth Battle Spirit?”
I nodded my head. “That’s right.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at what followed.
The five opponents went up to Xing Ao and knelt before him while their boss spoke. “Big brother, please accept us as your disciples. We participated in this tournament in the hopes of finding a master proficient in battle spirit.”
Xing Ao’s face turned red. He had practiced martial arts his whole life but had never before encountered such a situation. Xiu Si came to his rescue and told our five opponents to find us once the tournament was over and gave them our contact details.
It wasn’t easy for us to leave the Steel God Soldiers Squad. On the road back to the academy after finishing our first battle, Gao De kept prodding Xing Ao by saying, “Ah, not bad. Brother already received five disciples on the first day of the tournament. Haha. If all the battles in the future are like this, we’ll be able to form our own legion!”
Xing Ao ignored him and asked Xiu Si, “Boss, do you think I’ll be able to accept them?”
Xiu Si smiled. “From what I’ve seen, they’re simple and frank men. There shouldn’t be any problems with accepting them as your disciples. As for whether you should accept them or not, that’s up to you.”
Carrying on, each day we participated in one group battle. All of the battles proceeded smoothly for us with Xing Ao, Gao De and Dong Ri defeating all of them. Xiu Si and I just watched them with the detached view of bystanders. In 10 battles, we had 10 victories, allowing us to proceed from the 198th group into the semi-finals.
In between each of our battles, we would go watch Bi Qi’s Wind Dragon Squad’s battles. All of their battles were unexpectedly won by just one person at the rank of Earth Knight, letting them effortlessly enter the semi-finals. From beginning to end, we didn’t see any other members of their squad. Teacher Wen said that he feared this person was the weakest of Bi Qi’s team. Our situation wasn’t looking too hopeful.
After concluding the preliminary battles, we were given two rest days before we were to draw lots again. The first round of the knockout competition would take place over four days with us participating on the third day. In other words, we had four days to rest. We were quite pleased with this arrangement. We didn’t go scout out our opponent’s strengths, instead we unceasingly practiced building up our skills as a team. While Dong Ri’s battle spirit didn’t progress much, he undoubtedly saw the most progress. He was already able to use some elementary light magic by relying on his natural elven affinity with the elements and my guidance with magic power. Furthermore, he was able to greatly increase his strength by fusing the elementary light magic, Light Arrow, with his own arrows.