148: First Round

First Round

One of the elders of the sect walked up to the fighting arena and started giving a speech. The elder was going to be the main host of the competition and would thus be in charge of the battles today.  1

Ning looked around and was quite surprised at how many disciples from both sects were ready to fight here today. 

'Can they even finish it all in a single day?' he wondered. However, he soon realized that there was going to be more than a single battle at a time. 

'Ah, so that's how they are going to speed up the competition huh?' he thought. 

Over 50 disciples from each sect were called up to the stage and made to pick up some pieces of paper with numbers on them. 

"The matches are going to be one on one battles where everyone that got the same number will fight against each other regardless of the sects you come from," the host said. 

"The purpose of the competition is to select the best of the best amongst you guys to take you to the Triennial Tournament that will take place in the hub island in 5 months' time. The ones selected from this competition will be put through rigorous training so that you can end up being the best you can be in the next 5 months," the host said. 

The disciples got excited hearing that such change would come soon to them if they could only succeed right here. 

'15 disciples from this group of 2 sects right? That's not really a lot,' he thought. He wondered how Starsight city handled this when they had 3 different sects that could make up the 15 disciples list. 

'Pure Cleansing sect probably didn't get a lot of spots since they aren't so good at fighting,'  Ning thought. 

Suddenly, the arena started separating, surprising Ning who was staying to the side. A few elders walked out from inside, both of them consisting of the two sects. 

4 of them walked onto the stage while the rest walked up to next to Ning and stayed there. Ning greeted them and they greeted back. 

Ning was wearing an elder's clothing so they didn't dare be disrespectful. 

They struck up conversations and Ning soon came to learn that they were actually referees for the competition and would switch with the ones on the stage from time to time. 

Finally, the competition started and 8 disciples were called on stage. 5 of them were from the Blue Dragon sect and 3 from the Red Tiger sect. Without even the robes, just based on their body types, the two disciples were easily separated. 

The Blue Dragon sect disciples had a lean body and usually held some sort of weapons, while the Red Tiger sect disciples were body cultivators with big and buff bodies that didn't like using weapons. 

The 4 pairs were randomly chosen by themselves so, 4 of the disciples from the Blue Dragon sect and 2 from the Red Tiger sects had to fight their fellow disciples.

However, that didn't mean they were going to go easy on them. As soon as the competition started, the disciples immediately rushed to attack the opponent as fast as they could. 

This was a contest of raw strength and skill, and as such none of them held back. They used various weapons and fought with each other to the best of their ability. 

The four referees looked after the competition on the 4 different stages and made sure the disciples didn't accidentally hurt each other more than they should.

2 of the fights ended normally, while the other 2 continued on. Different abilities flew through the air and another one came to a close as well. 

The final one was between the two sect's disciples and the disciple from the Red Tiger sect nearly heavily injured the disciple from the Blue Dragon sect. Was it not for the elder stopping him in time, the outcome would have been disastrous? 

Ning immediately stood up to go check on the disciple, but everything was fine, so he returned back to his seat. 

"Brother Ning must really care for the disciples of the sect. You ran up there so quickly," one of the elders said. 

"Haha, it's nothing like that. I was just doing my job as the doctor of the sect," Ning said. 

"I see, I see. By the way, how old are you, Brother Ning? You don't look very old," the elder asked. 

"Me? I am…" Ning hadn't calculated his age in a long while. "… around 22 years old," he said. 

"Oh wow, only 22? Those disciples up there are probably older than you," the elder said. The few other elders around him got surprised too. 

"Haha, I doubt that is true," Ning said trying to sound humble. 

The few elders talked for a little longer as another set of fights took place in the arena. Some of the fights took a long while, while some were over in an instant. 

Ning checked the cultivation base of every single one that came to the stage and was honestly surprised at how weak everyone was. 

Even though he thought that after comparing the disciples with himself, the strongest disciple on the Blue Dragon sect was at the 8th Qi Condensation realm, and the strongest disciple on the Red Tiger sect was on the 8th level of body cultivation. 

He had them both beat in their own game. However, he didn't tell anyone that. He was simply a doctor and wasn't even a disciple, so he would just take the 5 spirit stone he was given until his system would come back and then make some other plans.

The elders switched places and the referees changed. The disciple's fight kept on continuing for the next hour or so. The battles themselves were quite fun to watch and honestly very entertaining. 

However, since Ning was always on edge about someone needing immediate medical care every time the fight got intense, he couldn't enjoy the better battles at all. 

In the end, the entire first round of battles ended and not a single one of them required Ning's attention.

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