"This actually makes very good sense. They had it the same way back a year ago too and this worked perfectly," Zhou Mei said.
"Why though?" Alex asked. "If the singles battles are the main attraction then, why not have it all be done at the last, instead of spreading it thought like this?"
"It's mostly to keep the competition interesting. If the audience knew that the Singles battle was at the end of the day, they would just leave for the day and come back when the singles battle starts," the Second Elder said.
"Yes, if they do it like this, they can retain a lot more audience. Also, this helps the participants something other than just fighting continuously," Ma Rong said.
Alex nodded when he heard those. "By the way, are those 4 races going to take place at the same time? Isn't that a little disadvantageous for the Beast taming sects?" Alex asked.
"No, all the competitions you see in the list will take place one after another," Ma Rong said.
"Alright, quickly look at what you want to take part in. I will call out the competitions and you raise your hands. Aside from the Singles which will take 4, every other competition is still going to only take 3," Ma Rong said.
"Singles take 4?" Alex said with surprise. There was nothing about that in the announcement or the list.
"Yeah, its an information the competition holders don't reveal, but you can have 4 competitors in the singles competition. That usually gets thinned by the first competition," Ma Rong said.
"Isn't that unfair? How are the new sects supposed to know that?" Alex asked.
"The world is not fair. If they are worth the 4 spots, they will find out on their own," Ma Rong said.
"Alright choose now, Singles," Ma Rong asked.
Wan Li and two others raised their hands. One was a girl with a 6th Meridian Tempering realm cultivation base and a man with an 8th Meridian Tempering realm cultivation base.
Anywhere else, these two would be a core disciple for sure. But in the Hong Wu sect where they measured achievement in terms of Alchemy, these two could only remain inner sect disciples.
"We can do 4. Anyone else?" Ma Rong said and looked around the group, but soon realized that they didn't have a very high cultivation base.
"Never mind, you guys won't even pass through the damage test," she said and moved on to the next competition.
"The normal race one?" she asked.
2 disciples raised their hands. One of them was the man from just now. He hadn't taken part a single time the last 4 days, so he had all of his 3 chances still.
He also raised his hand in another competition.
"The Maze run?" Ma Rong asked.
Alex immediately raised his hand, so did the other girl. This was the competition Alex was looking forward to joining after seeing its name on the list. Mazes were intriguing, to say the least, and Alex was more interested in it since it was a race as well.
To him, this was much better than the normal races.
Ma Rong asked for a few more competitions, but no one really wanted to take part in them. "Alright, Second Elder, go take them to their seats, I will get them registered," Ma Rong said and walked towards the registration place with the few of them including Alex and Wan Li.
Once in the registration place, they waited around for the others to free up spaces before it was their turn.
Alex looked around while waiting and tried to find a sect that had red robes like the man from yesterday. He found a few red robes, but none of them matched the shade of red the man was wearing.
'Is his sect not here?' Alex wondered. He looked to another sect, that wore red robes too. It was the sect belonging to Luo Xing, Luo Mei's half-sister.
Ma Rong noticed him looking at them and softly asked, "Is it them?"
"No, the shade of red doesn't match," Alex said.
"Yu Ming?" suddenly someone called from the side. He hadn't been using his spiritual sense, so he didn't sense anyone coming.
He looked to the right and saw that it was Wen Cheng.
"Master, Good morning," Alex said.
"You changed your face? Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing's….uh, well something's wrong, but I can't explain here," Alex said.
"How did you recognize him?" Ma Rong asked curiously.
"Oh, he's used this same face before when I took him to… uh somewhere," Wen Cheng stopped himself at the last moment.
"To that alchemy place? You take my disciple into your sect and hope to still keep secrets?" Ma Rong said with a smirk. She seemed to be thinking of something but didn't let it show on her face.
"Tsk. I should've known with how loose his mouth is," Wen cheng said.
"Anyway, are you taking a part in the Singles battle? You can win against anyone below Mind Tempering realm, but you can't go past the first competition to even get to the actual battles," Wen Cheng said.
"Oh, no. I am taking part in the Maze run," Alex said.
"Ah, that's… that's going to suit you. You might actually be too good for that," Wen Cheng said as he fell into thought.
Luo Mei arrived and greeted Ma Rong before turning to Wen Cheng and said, "Master, We are done."
"Oh, ok. Before that, this is your Junior brother, remember his face," Wen Cheng said.
"Huh? Yu Ming? Why is your face changed?" she asked. Alex gave the same question.
"Alright, we will leave. Looks like it's time for you to register as well," Wen Cheng said.
Alex nodded and walked forward with the other disciples to get registered. The others registered for their own one and Alex registered for the Maze run.
Once that was completed, the group returned back to their seat and waited for the competition to start.
