Gathering herbs?
Everyone couldn’t help looking confused after hearing what the host said.
After all, not a single one of them had expected that the first round of this tournament would be gathering herbs.
Wasn’t this…a bit too simple?
It didn’t seem like something fitting of a first round in a tournament like this.
But no one said anything since they knew that it wouldn’t be this simple.
Since it was a tournament of this caliber, they were certain that the gathering herbs that they mentioned would be something that would be on a much higher level.
The host didn’t say a word as if he was trying to keep everyone in suspense.
But when he saw that everyone had calmed down and was waiting to see what he said, he finally started speaking again.
“As everyone expects, this herb gathering will not be held in a normal place. Instead, it will be held in a place that I’m sure that everyone has heard of before.”
The host didn’t keep going and instead pointed at a hill that was behind him.
This hill was far off in the distance, but it was still considered within the Martial Might Sect territory. However, none of the guests from the other sects had gone near that hill during the time that they had been here since it was one of the forbidden places of the Martial Might Sect.
Unless one had special permission, they weren’t allowed anywhere near that place.
As for the reason why they weren’t allowed near that place, it was because that place was a special place for the Martial Might Sect.
Just asking any disciple of the Martial Might Sect would allow one to find out the name of that place.
It was the Ten Thousand Beast Valley.
This was the special garden of the Martial Might Sect where they grew their best herbs and allowed spirit beasts to live. This was killing two birds with one stone as it allowed them to cultivate herbs naturally and raise spirit beasts for their disciples.
After the host pointed at that hill, there was something that suddenly flew out from that hill.
This thing went all the way up into the sky before suddenly exploding in a burst of light.
A firework, it was a firework.
What followed was a complete fireworks display that gave off several beautiful explosions.
Though this definitely would have looked much better in the night than in the middle of the day.
However, that wasn’t what most people cared about.
It was the fact that the fireworks had been shot over that hill which confirmed that this was indeed the place that they were going to collect herbs from. This meant that the Martial Might Sect was allowing outsiders in their special garden.
Even if they weren’t able to take anything back with them, there was no way that the Martial Might Sect would be able to tell if they used herbs during the round.
So this was basically the Martial Might Sect allowing the other sects to explore their private treasure hoard.
Wasn’t the Martial Might Sect being too generous?
But it turned out that this wasn’t everything as the host suddenly said, “For the herbs that you bring back, your points will be counted based on the value of the herbs. At the same time, you will only have to turn in half of the herbs that you collected. The other half will be yours to keep.”
Everyone looked at the host with shocked looks when they heard this.
Many of them even had to poke at their ears to make sure that they had heard the right thing.
However, it seemed that they hadn’t been mistaken.
Wasn’t the Martial Might Sect being too generous?
After all, it would make perfect sense for the Martial Might Sect to take everything that they collected since these things belonged to the Martial Might Sect in the first place. They were the ones that had grown the herbs and caught the spirit beasts, so it was all things that belonged to the Martial Might Sect.
Just allowing the other sects to go into this place was already considered generous since it was silently acknowledging that the disciples of the other sects would use these herbs while there. This was giving them a chance to obtain precious herbs that would help their cultivation or even give them special powers.
That was more than enough in this kind of world.
But now they were saying that they were allowed to take half of the herbs that they gathered?
That was just too generous.
After a long silence, there was one person that started and then more people started cheering as well. They all cheered for what the host said, which caused the host to reveal a smile.
But there were also people that didn’t cheer.
There were people that had their brows knitted and had looks of suspicion on their faces since…this was just too shady.
After all, there was no reason at all for the Martial Might Sect to do something like this.
Lin Fan had the deepest look of thought on his face since he thought that this had something to do with the two from the Five Great Sects. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the Martial Might Sect to do something like this that would just hurt them.
This was sharing their resources with the other sects, something that wouldn’t benefit them at all since the sects wouldn’t hesitate to backstab the Martial Might Sect if they became strong enough to defeat them.
So what were those two from the Five Great Sects planning?
It had to be some kind of trap inside of the Ten Thousand Beast Valley, right?
They were planning on taking the disciples of the Love Sect hostage so that he would have no choice but to try and convince Mu Bao Bao?
If that were the case, then there really was nothing that they could do.
It was no wonder they had been kept under surveillance over the past few days.
They didn’t want the Love Sect to find anyone to cooperate with, so they couldn’t escape this trap.
Least of all, they wanted to keep the Love Sect from contacting the Demon Palm Sect.
After the host finished introducing the first round, he said, “Before we bring you over, please make your final preparations. We will begin in half an hour.”
Half an hour to prepare, that seemed a bit long.
So people that had sharp minds immediately knew what this preparation time was for.
It was to allow them to find teammates to go into the Ten Thousand Beast Valley with.
This first round was a test of gathering herbs, but a place like the Ten Thousand Beast Valley was dangerous to go in alone. Even in their small groups, it wasn’t certain that they would be safe.
So they were allowing the participants to form their own groups to go in with.
More people meant that it would be safer, but it also meant that they would have to split their points more.
So there were pros and cons to forming larger groups like this.
But there was no group that came over to form a group with their Love Sect.
It seemed that everyone had already heard the rumours and they weren’t willing to form a group with the Love Sect group. It was either looks of fear or looks of hostility that were cast in their direction.
Whoever had spread these rumours had made sure to do everything that they could to ensure that no one would work with the Love Sect group.
If Lin Fan had to guess, it was most likely the work of the two from the Five Great Sects.
If there were others near the Love Sect group when they put their plan in action, then that would just be troublesome for them.
So they didn’t want anyone working with the Love Sect group in the end.
Or that was what Lin Fan thought, but…
There were two groups that came over to the Love Sect group.
However, they weren’t here to offer an alliance to them.
These two groups seemed like they had come for different reasons.
The leader of one of the groups suddenly came forward and stood in front of Xiao Ming.
Xiao Ming raised a brow as she looked at this person with a confused look.
Then in front of everyone, that person suddenly kneeled down and said, “Beautiful miss, would you go on a date with me?”
There was only silence that followed after this person said this as no one could believe that he would actually say something like this.
But it was made even worse when that person suddenly reached out to take Xiao Ming’s hand.
Before he could, Huang Xie and Yu Huang stepped forward to block him.
In a strange sync, they said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
That person looked at the two of them before just ignoring them.
He looked like he wanted to push past them to go over Xiao Ming, but the two of them pushed this person back.
It was only then that this person said, “Do you mind? I’m trying to talk to this beautiful miss, not to two bumbling fools.”
Huang Xie and Yu Huang were both enraged when they heard this and they pushed this person back before saying, “Who do you think you are?”
“Who am I? I’m glad you asked.”
With a snap, his followers suddenly came forward with baskets filled with flower petals and started sprinkling them in the air.