Ning suddenly fell onto the ground, but he quickly rolled and got up. He looked around the place and couldn't help but ask himself, "Is this the secret realm?"
From what he was told, he assumed it was a jungle most of the time, but where he had appeared was actually grassland. As for the trees, he was told, they seemed to be a bit further in the distance.
"Huh, so it's not all forests huh? Well, I'm glad there are some scenic changes from time to time. I don't think I would like it if it were all just forests," he thought.
He then started walking through the grasses. Along the way, he tried spreading out his divine sense to see if something was on the way. Although it was about 15 meters in radius, that was plenty for him.
He happened to see a little squirrel-like beast run past him, hidden in the grass. If not for his divine sense, he would've likely missed it.
"You're quite sneaky, aren't you?" he said and immediately stopped it. They made the squirrel float into the air and out of the grasses.
"Ugh, what's with those teeth? You must be Bucktoothed Squirrel. Your bites are quite nasty if I remember correctly," he said when he saw that the squirrel had 2 abnormally long front teeth.
"Hmm… let me guess, 2nd realm of Qi Condensation?" he asked himself and then analyzed the beast's cultivation base.
"Haha, I'm finally starting to get it right." Ning was quite happy to learn that he no longer needed the skill to check cultivation bases. He was starting to be able to do so himself.
The squirrel struggled in the air, trying to move, but Ning's telekinesis was too strong. "Ah, right. I need to kill you to get points," Ning said and simply flicked its forehead to give it a quick death.
He put the corpse of the beast into the special storage bag and checked the talisman on his chest. As he had hoped, it noted down that he had 2 points now.
"Alright let's try to get more. There must be quite a few materials and beasts in the forest," he thought and walked towards the forest in the distance.
The grassland unfortunately didn't hold many beasts or plants that could be used as ingredients.
"Thankfully I at least know what the ingredients look like. That might be hard for most of the people taking part in the competition," Ning thought.
While he didn't know where he could find many of the ingredients or even the least amount of knowledge about their origin, thanks to the medical knowledge he had bought, he had a perfect idea about their appearance.
"Well, all I can hope is that the competition holders know those ingredients as well, otherwise half of what I get might be considered useless to those people," Ning said. He did after all have more knowledge regarding these things than nearly everyone on the planet.
Soon he arrived at the front of the jungle. By now, he had managed to kill a few more beasts, with the strongest one being only at the 4th stage of Qi Condensation.
While it was okay by comparison to the forest in Starsight city, when compared to his strength, they were very weak.
He had also managed to find a few ingredients along the way. He could've probably found some more if he had searched for a little longer, but he decided not to.
He looked at the talisman and saw that he had 52 points until now. He hadn't kept track of the points after the first 2 beasts, so he wondered how he got so much.
"The storage bag only has 8 beasts and 6 ingredients. Meaning, one or more of the ingredients must have really high points" he thought.
He quickly let go of all his thoughts and walked into the forest.
*******
Out in the Arena, there were thousands of people including both inside and outside who were watching the screens that came up high in the air.
Gion, Yelca, and the rest were looking at the hundreds of screens that were floating side by side. There were no sounds and the image seemed to be tied to the location so one couldn't follow a disciple around.
Thankfully, the images were from hotspots in the Secret Realm where most great stuff was at, so one could find different participants on the screen all the time.
"Hey, can you guys see any of our disciples?" Gion asked.
"Sect Master, disciple Kael is right there on that screen. 23 down, 16 to the right," an elder said.
"Oh, oh, I see. What is he doing? Fighting a beast?" Gion tried to look but the disciple was at the edge of the screen and he couldn't see what was beyond it.
"There is another one on that screen on the lower left. Seems to be one of sect leader Yelca's disciples," another elder said.
"Hoo, let me see. Ah yes, Gumi. I have quite great aspirations for him," the sect leader said. He then thought of something and asked, "Have anyone of you seen doctor Ning yet?"
Everyone turned their attention to the screen but none could find him. Even with hundreds of screens, the competition holders couldn't see the entire secret realm at all.
"Sigh, he is the strongest participant we have. He even broke through to the Foundation Establishment realm a few months ago. I would love to see him in action," Yelca said.
Everyone nodded with their sentiment.
Suddenly, the Secret realm's portal started fluctuating and before anyone could react, someone was thrown out.
"Eh? It's only been an hour, and someone is already disqualified. Poor guy didn't even get last a day," Gion said.
The participant who was just thrown out happened to be from the group in front of Gion and Yelca, so when he returned to the group, they happened to hear what he said.
"I'm sorry Elders, but the beast was too strong for me."
Hearing an 8th Qi Condensation Realm participant saying this, the two sect leaders got a bad premonition about the future.