BXBX NOVEL Chapter 173 - 173: 172: The Open Audition Ends!
Chapter 173 - 173: 172: The Open Audition Ends!
Even with another round-robin ranking competition upcoming, time seemed rather plentiful.
Throughout this month, Du Gang practically spent his entire time in the Killing Field.
In one month, he had participated in almost two million bouts of combat.
Each bout lasted a few seconds at best, while the slowest fights stretched out to the full ten minutes.
The results were quite impressive. Over the course of a month, his progress in the mastery of his Sharp Element had reached forty percent. Although it was not as fast as the Critical Strike Mystery, the pace was still quite acceptable.
One day, the round-robin ranking competition finally began.
For Du Gang, the importance of this ranking competition was not particularly high as its outcome would not affect his advancement to the elimination round.
However, for the local imperial heirs, the ranking competition was of paramount importance.
This was related to the honor of their families and their ranking among other imperial heirs.
Of course, Du Gang was not entirely indifferent to it. He had his eyes on the prize of ten thousand Stellar Crystals for the first place.
Ten thousand Stellar Crystals would be sufficient for him to exchange for the rest of the methods of his martial art.
The rules of the round-robin ranking competition were publicized.
From 100 to 64: All participants will be randomly paired up, two in a group. After 10 rounds, the top 64 scorers will go through, with bonus points given for quick wins.
From 64 to 32: The rules are the same as above, except each person only needs to fight two matches. Two consecutive wins means immediate advancement, two consecutive losses means immediate elimination. Those with one win and one loss compete for the remaining advancement spots.
From 32 to 16: Eight people are divided into four groups. Each group will play a seven-round round-robin tournament. The top four scorers from each group advance to the next round. Ties are decided by extra games.
From 16 to 8: Four people are divided into four groups. Each group will play a three-round round-robin tournament. The top two scorers from each group advance to the next round.
From 8 to 4: Four people are divided into two groups. Within each group a three-round round-robin tournament will be held. The top two scorers from each group advance to the next round.
Championship: Four people are divided into two groups. Within each group, matches will be held. The losing contestants from each group compete for third place, the winning contestants will compete for the championship.
Looking at these complex rules, Du Gang was stunned, “What the heck? Why does this tournament seem even more complex than the previous one?”
Barbara laughed, “It’s normal for it to be complex. For the residents of White Dragon Mountain, the round -robin ranking competition is the most exciting event to watch…”
“Because, for all the previous competitions, there were no actual battle videos, only numerical rankings…”
“This time, the round-robin ranking competition will not only release the videos, but also live broadcast them…”
“When the time comes, all sorts of commentary will appear. People can watch the matches while listening to their favorite commentator…”
“Of course, the most important aspect is the stakes. The round-robin ranking competition can be said to be the biggest gamble within White Dragon Mountain; for every match, a massive number of people place bets…”
“So, do you want to bet on yourself?”
Barbara asked with a smile.
Du Gang thought for a moment and then shook his head to refuse.
This competition was different from the one in the Milky Way Galaxy. In the Milky Way, he was the strongest and the most powerful, so he could play however he wanted.
This time, however, was not as safe. He had watched the matches of the top fifty imperial heirs. They were all very strong, and even he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to win.
“Alright, if you’re not betting then it’s best not to get too involved. Get in there, it’s about to start!”
Du Gang nodded and entered the virtual universe once again.
He was still transported to a separate arena.
In the sky, the characters ‘From 100 to 64’ and a leaderboard were hanging.
This time, the leaderboard wasn’t connected to the previous points but rather had its own scoring system. In addition to the top 100 advancing to the top 64, the scores also served as a standard for judging draws.
Since, very often, both sides were unable to secure a victory by the end of the ten-minute match, it was necessary to involve the scores and determine the victory or defeat according to the accumulated points…
After not too long a wait, all one hundred participants took their positions.
[Random Pairing, Begin!]
Following the system’s announcement, the hundred participants were dispersed onto fifty arenas, two contestants in each, ready to compete.
Upon arriving at the arena, Du Gang still stood in a state of immobility. His opponent was not particularly strong, with a reputation of being around the eightieth or ninetieth place, so his luck seemed pretty good.
There was also a five-minute countdown hovering over their heads.
This time, the opening time was quite long, not only to allow spectators to place bets but also to allow them to learn more about the contestants.
Detailed information about each contestant were made available online.
Aside from some basic information, the tournament also revealed the total number of matches that a contestant had played and how many they had won during the Open Audition.
Du Gang, tri-domain of the Gold Element, Rank One Stellar Level, total matches: 81, victories: 53, draws: 28 (losses due to point difference).
Essentially, his draws were due to dragging the matches to their ten-minute limit.
The online audience was astounded to see Du Gang’s statistics.
“This is the power of ultimate speed. Apart from victories, there are only draws!”
“Yeah, this guy really broke into the round-robin ranking competition just with his speed!”
Many people only saw Du Gang’s speed and did not notice his other efforts. In fact, he may have been eliminated in the Open Audition if he had relied only on his speed.
Compared to Du Gang’s mundane record, the records of others were decidedly more flashy.
Chen Feng, Week Quad-Domain, Ninth-Rank Stellar Level, total matches: 62, victories: 62.
His record was brilliant. He had essentially advanced round after round during the Open Audition, so compared to Du Gang, he had participated in 19 fewer matches.
In comparison to him, Xiong Cang’s performance fell slightly short.
Xiong Cang, a Fire Element with a quadruple Domain, at the Stellar Level Ninth Rank, has competed 63 times in total, winning 62 rounds.
Xiong Cang had to compete one more time than Chen Feng because he lost once.
Apart from Chen Feng, there were two other participants who maintained an undefeated record among the released competitors.
Lei Qiang, a Thunder Element with a quadruple Domain, at the Stellar Level Ninth Rank, has competed 62 times in total, winning all the rounds.
He is a participant whose ranking is consistently in the third or fourth place.
Qiao Jin, a Gold Element with a quadruple Domain, a Mind Master, at the Stellar Level Ninth Rank, also has won 62 rounds in total out of 62.
At this moment, the most popular contenders for the championship on the internet are basically between Chen Feng, Lei Qiang, Qiao Jin, and Xiong Cang.
Xiong Cang is slightly less competitive than the other three, considering that he lost a round to Qiao Jin.
Besides these participants, the other competitors have more or less lost some rounds, resulting in them not being as popular as these few.
The five-minute preparation time passed quickly and fifty arenas started their games simultaneously.
The moment the game began, Du Gang launched his Skyward Third Transformation.
This time, his opponent was a Wind Element with a quadruple domain. Seeing Du Gang disappear, this participant also chose to move at high speed.
However, he didn’t realize that he walked right into Du Gang’s trap. Du Gang wasn’t afraid of his opponent moving, he was afraid of him not moving.
For this reason, Du Gang purposely slowed down a bit, creating an illusion for his opponent that he could be caught up with if he went all out.
Then, as his opponent picked up speed, Du Gang quickly finished his counterattack by borrowing the opponent’s force.
“Bang!”
The Wind Element competitor was directly eliminated.
Time spent: 3 seconds!
At the same time, the scoreboard changed. [First Place, Du Gang, Points: 200]
[Second Place, Chen Feng, Points: o]
At this moment, games on other arenas have not finished. Only in Du Gang’s arena, the first game was over with Du Gang securing his first victory.
Meanwhile, the virtual universe erupted again. “Holy shit, what kind of ghost is this Du Gang?!”
“How is he in first place again?
“Does this guy have some secrets with points? Why every time when there are points involved, he always comes first?”
In an instant, many people who had originally forgotten about Du Gang ran into the official website’s live streaming room where Du Gang was.
At this moment, the game was already over, and Du Gang remained standing on the arena, quietly waiting for other games to finish.
Therefore, all those who had just entered his live-streaming room clicked on the replay.
This was a video that lasted only three seconds.
At the start of the game, the image of Du Gang on the arena disappeared in an instant.
Then, without even taking a tenth of a second, his opponent also disappeared.
After that, there were countless shadow images on the arena that nobody could clearly see.
In short, these two shadows chased each other relentlessly.
In the end, at the third second, Du Gang appeared, and his opponent was already gone.
“Holy shit, was that some kind of godly fight?”
“What did I just watch?”
Everyone was flabbergasted, completely clueless about what had happened. At this point, there was a special button under the video after it ended. [Slowdown by 100 times: 100 White Dragon Coins]
Suddenly, everyone swiftly paid to watch the video again at 100 times slower.
This time, the video still showed only afterimages. However, during the latter half of the first second, everyone saw a glimpse of the Wind Element participant.
Both of them moved so fast that even at 100 times slowed down, they still couldn’t be seen clearly. However, the Wind Element participant revealed his characteristic in a frame of the video, allowing everyone to recognize him. “What the hell? Is Du Gang actually running away?”
The frame where the Wind Element participant was exposed already revealed some situations to everyone.
Originally, everyone imagined that it must be Du Gang chasing and his opponent fleeing.
However, the result was contrary to their guess: Du Gang was the one fleeing, and his opponent chased him!
“This is literally…”
The spectators were at a loss for words.
“Du Gang’s opponent, isn’t he overestimating his abilities?” “Yeah, with his skill level, he dares to chase Du Gang!”
Netizens started to discuss lively.
At this moment, they finally acknowledged Du Gang’s strength, no longer treating him as a tri-domain controller but as a formidable player.
Ten minutes passed quickly, and the second round of random matching began again.
This time, Du Gang was matched with an Earth Element contestant.
After waiting for another five minutes, giving the audience enough time to place their bets, the competition finally began.
At the very moment it began, Du Gang swiftly entered the Ten Thousand Shadow Spear Mode.
Instantly, the entire performance stage was filled with the shadows of his spear.
Then, after just two minutes, he successfully delivered the ‘Sky-Defying Spear Strike’ and triumphed over his opponent.
This time, the time he took to win was not too fast, not too slow, putting him in the middle position, which caused his previous first place ranking to drop sharply.
“Hoo!”
Many people online gave a sigh of relief.
“I thought Du Gang was going to start a points slaughtering mode again!” “Me too, I was relieved when I saw his rank drop from first place!”
In the following matches, Du Gang had pretty good luck, with 6 victories and 2 draws. The two draws were deemed one win and one loss based on points. Therefore, his final score was 9 wins and 1 loss, which easily got him into the top 64!
The round of 64 to 32 was still contested via the matching system, but only two matches were required.
Two straight wins would allow one to advance, two straight losses would result in disqualification, and one win and one loss would result in a playoff.
In the first match, Du Gang had a stroke of luck, encountering an opponent who was not too strong. After a brutal two-minute clash, he took the victory.
However, in the second match, he met a guy ranked in the top ten on the points leaderboard.
This time, the two of them battled it out for a full ten minutes without a definitive winner, and the outcome was only determined based on scores.
As Du Gang’s score was not as high as his opponent’s, he was declared the loser.
This time, a total of 22 contestants achieved two consecutive victories, 15 people were beaten twice in a row, and the remaining 27 players won one and lost one match each.
The 22 contestants with two wins in a row advanced directly into the top 32.
The 15 contestants who lost twice were directly eliminated.
The remaining 27 contestants who won once and lost once continued to compete for the remaining 10 advancement spots.
And the competition rules for the 27 to 10 matches were pretty interesting.
Based on the scores of the remaining 27 contestants, the ten with the highest scores would defend their position on the stage.
The remaining 17 contestants would challenge the stage, each getting one chance. The winners would ascend the stage while the losers would descend. Interestingly, Du Gang’s score was just enough to put him in the tenth spot out of the 27 contestants.
In other words, he also had to choose a stage and defend it.
Stage 10 was the one Du Gang had to defend, and certainly, according to scores, the contestant on stage 1 was undeniably stronger.
This time, ten stages were placed in one space and underneath, stood 17 contestants.
The audience could now see all the contestants’ screens.
At this point, the 17 contestants were in a difficult situation, unsure of whom to choose, or they simply didn’t want to be the first to choose. After all, observing how others compete and learning more about the competitor’s abilities would benefit them.
In the end, it was a Fire Element contestant with a more explosive temper who directly chose to challenge Du Gang on stage 10.
When they saw someone challenging him, the other 16 contestants naturally became less anxious. They all gathered around stage 10 and started to watch.
“I’m Du Gang, the defender of Stage 10!”
“I am Huang Shi, the challenger of Stage 10!”
The two introduced themselves briefly and the match began.
As before, Du Gang chose the shadow spear attack at the beginning, continuing to accumulate critical hits.
After trying and failing to pursue Du Gang, the Fire Element contestant quickly established an Advanced 5000 meter quad-layer domain.
There was indeed a difference between a 10 meter domain and a kilometer domain.
The stage was only ten thousand meters long and wide, so a 5000-meter domain occupied nearly half of it.
This significantly limited the space in which Du Gang could move about.
However, with Du Gang’s Folding Mystery augmented with the Friction Mystery, it was still not that easy to restrict him.
The opponent used every trick in the book but ultimately couldn’t catch Du Gang.
Three minutes into the game, Du Gang used the ‘Sky-Defying Spear Strike’ again.
This time, the ‘Sky-Defying Spear Strike’ failed!
The ‘Sky-Defying Spear Strike’, after all, wasn’t truly defying the sky. When pitted against only a 10-meter range quad-layer domain, its effect and power were exceptionally strong.
However, when the opponent’s domain size expanded, the ‘Sky-Defying Spear Strike’ could only advance about a hundred meters before being immobilized by the increasing suppressive force.
The previous draws were the result of Du Gang being stuck like this: anytime he faced an opponent whose four-layer domain spanned over a hundred meters, it became increasingly difficult to take them down.
Therefore, for the remaining time, all he could do was dodge, barely dragging the match out to the full ten minutes.
“Ten minutes have passed, the challenger has not won, the challenge has failed!”
The Fire Element domain owner was unwilling to admit defeat, but in the end, he was removed from the stage by the system.
After seeing this, the remaining contestants had lost hope for challenging Stage 10.
Du Gang was too fast, they didn’t think they could catch him, and their domain level was lower than that Fire Element contestant’s. As a result, no one dared to challenge Du Gang again.
So there he was, idling on the stage, watching the remaining 16 contestants continuously challenging the other stages.
One hundred and sixty minutes later, the competition officially ended. The ten contestants still on the stage obtained the last 10 promotion places.
From 32 to 16, this time it was eight people in one group, divided into four groups for a single round-robin system. Each person fought seven rounds, and the four strongest contestants advanced.
This time, Du Gang seemed to have hit rock bottom. Chen Feng and Xiong Cang, two hot favorites to win the championship, were in his group.
Aside from them, the other five contestants were also incredibly powerful, or to be more precise, their Domains were all above the kilometer level.
It didn’t mean that they had specialized in training at the domain level, but rather that they had inadvertently reached this stage during their comprehension of the Mystery.
Therefore, when competing with these people, Du Gang had drawn all of his seven matches in splendid fashion.
However, based on the scoring rules, Du Gang had the lowest score among all the contestants. Thus, even though the seven matches ended in a draw, they were all declared defeats for him.
“Phew-”
“Du Gang has finally been eliminated!”
“Yeah, he’s practically monopolized all the draws in our competition this time!”
In previous years, whatever the competition, there were basically wins and losses. It was very rare for someone like Du Gang to have only wins or draws from beginning to end.
And just like that, Du Gang’s challenge match ended. He was ranked 32nd!
After leaving the competition space, Du Gang and his friend spent time in a private room, eating and drinking.
“You’ve been going non-stop for so many days, Du Gang. You should just take a break today and watch the rest of the matches!”
His friend said while sipping on a cola.
Du Gang thought for a moment and agreed. He had been way too tense, and his nerves didn’t get a second’s rest.
Practice should actually be done in a relaxed state!
“Alright, I won’t practice today. Let’s see who ends up winning the championship!”
He wasn’t too anxious right now. The tournament committee had already announced the start date of the knockout round to be in half a year’s time.
This meant that Du Gang had half a year to train. With his talent, he should be able to fully comprehend the Sharp Gold Mystery at the very least. If he was lucky, he might even be able to fully comprehend another Mystery.
When he started watching the match, Du Gang finally got a glimpse of the true power of the Mind Master.
Qiao Jin, the only Mind Master among the top 100 contestants, was also the only one to remain undefeated from the preliminaries to the finals and then to the challenge matches.
That’s right, in the matches from the top 16 to the top 8, Qiao Jin was in the same group as Chen Feng. Not only did he take a metal skateboard under his feet reaching one-fifth the speed of light, but he also had a weapon at nearly one-third the speed of light.
While it was described as a weapon, it could actually be more accurately described as ten thousand weapons.
During an attack against his opponent, Qiao Jin’s weapon would suddenly split from one flying sword into ten thousand flying swords, instantly killing Chen Feng, who had an Earth Element domain level four.
This move even gave Du Gang a chill because he felt that Qiao Jin had not used his real power. If he let everything out, he might be even stronger!
So, even if his speed had reached half the speed of light, if Qiao Jin could simultaneously control ten thousand flying swords at a third of light speed to carry out encirclement and blockade, he wouldn’t be able to escape!
“It’s a good thing that I didn’t encounter Qiao Jin in the previous matches!”
In the video, Qiao Jin looked very cold. He was silent throughout and generally only used two tactics, one was stepping on a shuttle-like skateboard, and the other was the small sword he threw.
Another undefeated player, Lei Qiang, was also defeated by Qiao Jin in the matches from the top 8 to the top 4.
The final competition results were very close to what the internet had predicted.
Qiao Jin came in first, Chen Feng was second, and Lei Qiang and Xiong Cang were third and fourth, respectively.
After the match ended, Du Gang received the rewards for this open audition.
As he was ranked 32nd, the organizing committee awarded him 100 Stellar Crystals.
He directly exchanged these Stellar Crystals into 1.2 million points.
Together with his previous one million points and five billion White Dragon Coins, he had a total of 2.7 million points.
Of these, 2 million points were used by Du Gang to exchange for the seventh-rank technique from the ‘Critical Strike Spear Technique’.
The remaining 700,000 points were converted into energy for his body to absorb, pushing his body size from 10001 meters to 10071 meters.
After all of these preparations were done, Du Gang began to take stock of his circumstances.
He now had three different Laws at his disposal.
The ‘Light and Dark Secrets’ in the Light and Dark Element, provided him with both Blinding Mystery and Hidden Mystery. Even though both of these were at the Grand Mastery stage, Du Gang didn’t use them in the competition, not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t get a chance.
The ‘Red Gold Spear Technique’ in the Gold Element, with one Rank-Six technique and one Rank-Seven technique, he was able to comprehend both
Sharp Gold Mystery and War Gold Mystery, both of which were at the Grand Mastery stage.
The ‘Critical Strike Spear Technique’ with one Rank-Six technique and one
Rank-Seven technique, currently he only comprehended the Critical Strike Mystery and trained it to the Grand Mastery. He hadn’t started on the Rank-Seven.
The ‘Peak Spear Technique’, a single Rank-Six technique, he has only progressed 40% in the Keen Edge Mystery.
The ‘Skyward Nine Transformations’ in the Space Element, in nine volumes. As
Du Gang’s horizons expanded, he discovered that it contained nine different
Mysteries. However, he only grasped two: the Friction Mystery and the Folding
Mystery. The progress of these two Mysteries was very slow. The Friction Mystery had only reached 10% progress, and the Folding Mystery, which he had been using, had always been at 1% progress.
After taking stock of his situation, Du Gang started quickly preparing a plan for the next six months.
The only factor limiting his power now was the lack of Domains, leading to a low Domain weight.
If he, like the other contestants, had four Domains, he was confident of winning first place.
So, this time, he planned to spend half a year, training the Keen Edge Mystery to reach four Domains, and then concentrate on the Rank-Seven ‘Critical Strike Spear Technique’ in order to make further progress.
Compared to training in the manor outside, he preferred staying in the Life Space because it was safe enough here. Without his permission, no one could enter.
Moreover, if someone came looking for him, they wouldn’t think he was in the Storage Ring, because for a Storage Ring to support life, its value would be immeasurable, and there wasn’t one in the entire White Dragon Mountain Kingdom!
After explaining some miscellaneous matters to his friend, Du Gang finally stepped back into the Life Space and began his training..