Chapter 51: Unfair Tournament


    After the show of talents concluded, it was onto to the actual tournament. Thepetitors would have one-on-one battles with a time limit of five minutes. If there was no winner at the end of the five minutes, the judges would give each fighter a score based on their perception of who would have eventually won.


    Since there were seventeenpetitors, it just so happened that two of them would have to fight it out first to decrease the pool down to sixteen. Afterwards, the tournament would follow a standard bracket structure with random seeding.


    He Zicheng drew two names at random for the first round, "Divine zing Mountain''s Fen Duanli and... Ten Thousand Flower Valley''s Zhou Ziyun!"


    The round of apuse greeted the two fighters as they took center stage on top of the tform. Only the judges remained as the rest returned to their masters. Chen Wentian felt it was quite a coincidence for Ziyun to have to fight one extra round than the otherpetitors. He didn''t feel worried as he had faith in her ability.


    Fen Duanli and Zhou Ziyun faced each other on the tform, about ten or so meters apart. Fen Duanli was the only junior sent forth from the Divine zing Mountain and was twenty one at the 3rd Level of the Mind Focusing Realm. The crowd was already cheering for Zhou Ziyun''s victory as if it was a done deal.


    "Begin!"


    Fen Duanli immediately charged towards Zhou Ziyun. His fists flung out wildly towards her.


    "zing fist!"


    The air seemed to sizzle as his fists flew by, filled with heat energy. His entire body seemed to grow hotter and hotter as he exerted more and more strength. This was indeed a basic fist art of the Divine zing Mountain but it was rudimentary in the hands of Mind Focusing Realm cultivators.


    "zing kick!"


    Zhou Ziyunzily dodged all of his blows. Chen Wentian told her not act too arrogant at first and make it look morepetitive so she let the ming idiot dance around for a minute. Finally, she got bored as she had already found the weak points in his stances with her keen senses andprehension. The 1st palm in the Neen Demon Subduing Palms slipped through Fen Duanli''s fists as it directly crashed against the side of his head.


    "Ahhhh!!"


    Fen Duanli crumpled to the ground and fainted, his neck bend oddly.


    "Winner, Zhou Ziyun!" The judges unanimously dered.


    Zhou Ziyun casually got off the stage as the audience cheered for their female idol. Lin Qingcheng gave her a hug as she arrived back to her group.


    "Wow, Elder Sister is so fierce!" Lin Qingchengughed as Chen Wentian also gave her a thumbs up.


    The next eight matches were randomly drawn for the round of sixteen and Zhou Ziyun was given thest match out of fairness. Chen Wentian and his disciples sat along the sidelines as they watched the other youthspete.


    It was rather boring as all the matches seemed lopsided in terms of talent. The Beast God Sanctum disciples as well as some others talents all seemed to win easily. A young male from the Tower of Swords seemed quite good at the peak of 3rd level of the Mind Focusing Realm. The crowd seemed to love it nheless and seemed to gain more energy as the matches progressed. Even the Yuwen sisters gained new fans as they dominated their opponents. Zhou Ziyun''s next opponent was also not worth mentioning as she won without breaking a sweat.


    A one level difference in the Mind Focusing Realm was normally not a huge difference and not insurmountable. A talented cultivator at a lower level could beat an average cultivator at a higher level through mastery of martial arts and special skills. However, here in the junior talentpetition, everybody was talented and their martial arts were powerful derivatives from immortal arts. In fact, the beast arts of the Beast God Sanctum was even more effective in the Mind Focusing Realm as they focused on improving their physical fighting abilities. Other cultivators such as the Divine zing Mountain or the cier Sect would get a huge jump in power in the Spirit Initiate Realm when they could start utilizing their elemental powers.


    The round of sixteen finished quickly and the quarterfinals matches were drawn. The four Beast God Sanctumpetitors all managed to not get drawn against each other. It was another improbable urrence from the ''random'' draws.


    The first match was Yuwen Bing against Peng Feiyu of the Tower of Swords. It was pretty exciting as Peng Feiyu was quite adept at the Tower of Swords'' prime sword art, Lonely Sword Wanderer. As they began to fight, it was clear that Yuwen Bing was at an disadvantage due to hercking a good weapon and she was hard pressed despite her cultivation advantage.


    Her art seemed to be some type of bestial transformation art that increased her physical strength and gave her elongated nails that acted like ws. However, this wasn''t strong enough to ovee the profound sword forms of the Lonely Sword Wanderer. Peng Feiyu easily kept her away with his sword and made up for the difference in their speed. Yuwen Bing tried to use her brute strength to knock away the sword but was cleverly deflected each time.


    "Cease fighting!" After five long minutes had passed, the judges ordered a stop.


    The two fighters separated, Yuwen Bing panting from exhaustion and sporting multiple cuts across her body. Blood dripped onto the ground as she looked pretty miserable. Peng Feiyu looked slightly ruffled with only a thin scratch on his neck.


    The judges took in every detail and disyed their scores for each fighter from a scale of one to ten. "The results for the first battle of the quarterfinals, our winner... with a score of thirty to twenty eight... Yuwen Bing, Beast God Sanctum!"


    "What is this!"


    The stadium with its home crowd started cheering for the winner but it was interrupted by a shout filled with immortal strength.


    Immortal Deste Sword Peng Yuefeng leaped onto the stage and red angrily at the judges. "What is this farce?" He yelled again, pointing at the scores on the judges table.


    Indeed, the scores were quite interesting to those who weren''t biased. The two lords of the Beast God Sanctum gave their disciple 9 vs 6 for the opponent while the two neutral judges each gave Peng Feiyu an 8 vs 6 for Yuwen Bing. Thus, Yuwen Bing won by two points, a result of obvious favoritism! The other sects all became alert and wary of the Beast God Sanctum. Wasn''t this simply bullying?


    Peng Yuefeng pleaded with the two neutral immortals but they didn''t care too much. Gong Liyun was busy making googly eyes at some person in the crowd and Huang Wuji seemed asleep.


    "Peng Yuefeng, thispetition is very long..." Huang Wuji looked at him with barely opened eyes but the tone was obvious.


    "Fine!" Peng Yuefeng couldn''t do anything with no support and he could only gnash his teeth and lead his disciple off the stage in defeat.


    The cheers of the crowd resumed as the next round got underway with Ji Ming winning against his opponent after a lengthy battle. The two Beast God Sanctum judges again gave their disciple lopsided scores.


    Zhou Ziyun''s turn was next. She looked at Chen Wentian with meaningful eyes.


    "Ziyun, beat them into submission!"


    "Yes, master!" She grinned, full of confidence.