Alex walked back to the seating area with his master and the other disciples and sat along with the rest of the group.
"Master, why didn't we left the 3 back there, their competition should start anytime now, right?" Alex asked. He wasn't sure why Ma Rong brought Wan Li and the rest back to the seating area.
"Oh, it won't start right away. Since this is the fun part of the competition, we will have more audience now, as well as special guests soon," Ma Rong said.
Alex found it a little disappointing that what he loved doing, and what many loved doing wasn't fun to watch for many other people. More than half the audience only liked watching the fights.
To be fair, that was where the cultivators shined the most, but it still stung a little knowing that production competition was a little more niche.
"Oh" "ah" "Woah" "oh lord" "they're here
Multiple small murmurs appeared from the crowd. Alex wasn't sure what was happening when suddenly Ma Rong poked him.
"What's wrong Master?" he asked.
"You— You said that the guy who tried to capture you wore red right?" Ma Rong asked.
Alex felt that this was a weird time to ask the question, but he still answered, "Yes, Master. Red robes, why are you asking me this?"
"Are you absolutely sure it was just a simple red robe?" she asked.
"Yes Master, I'm sure. I saw it with my own eyes," Alex said.
Then, Ma Rong slowly pointed her fingers to somewhere in the sky before turning towards Alex and asked, "Are you sure the robe was not Crimson?"
Alex could see a little bit of fear in his Master's eyes. He slowly turned his head to look to the sky where her finger was pointed and saw a bunch of people flying in the sky.
Despite the city being a no-fly zone, there were people flying there. However, more importantly than that, the people were all wearing red robes— Crimson, to be exact.
"Th— That's the man Master. The one at the second last," Alex said seeing the man with the spiritual sense. His face seemed like he was bored but still needed to come here.
Seeing the people's reaction, their color of robes, and their freedom of flight, even Alex could guess who these people were.
"They are— " Alex turned to Ma Rong in shock who simply just nodded and said, "The Royal Family."
Alex felt shocked and looked back at the flying group of people. There were around 6 people in the group of flying people.
Surprisingly, he knew more than just one person flying right now. That was the girl behind the couple at the front.
'It's her,' Alex thought, remembering back to the time he helped the few female girls.
"Master, who are they exactly?" He asked.
"You see the person at the front? That is the emperor of the Crimson Empire, Fu Zexian," Ma Rong said. Alex looked at the man, and he looked like he was in his 30s.
"So, the one behind him is Gao Xia, the empress?" he asked. He remembered reading about the royal family. But reading about someone and knowing it from seeing was completely different.
"Yes, and the one behind them is the princess, Fu Wuying. Followed by the second prince, Fu Yuhan. The last two are the High Princes, the Emperor's little brothers. The one on the front is Fu Zemin, and the one behind him, the one that wanted to capture you is the notorious third brother of the Emperor, Fu Zexi," Ma Rong said.
Alex looked at the man with cold eyes. If Alex hadn't been quick on his head, he would've probably been dead right now and was reincarnated to a random location.
'Sigh, whatever. Let's just forget about it. Once I return back, I won't have to worry about him anymore,' Alex thought.
The Royal family landed on a platform at the highest spot on the south end of the coliseum, where the sun would be behind them most of the time.
Alex looked towards them and saw a bunch of people below them as well, with almost the same height, but not quite.
"Who are those people, Master?" he asked curiously.
Ma Rong looked to the side and said, " Oh, those are the nobles. The Dukes, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, and Barons of the empire. There might also be the ministers, but I don't really know them."
" I see," Alex said.
Fu Zhen walked up to the stage and bowed towards the royal family before speaking.
"Good Morning ladies and gentlemen, fellow Daoist. Let me welcome all of you to this wonderful day where we will have the battle competitions of this year's Annual sect Competitions."
"Besides just the battles, we also have many short and long competitions set up for today and the following days. All of which is very much fun."
"So without any further speech, let me bring on the competitors for today's competition. Everyone, please come on to the stage," Fu Zhe shouted.
"I will take the disciples, sect Master," the Second Elder said and stood up before taking the three disciples to the arena.
The audience waited for a bit before the participants finally walked out. Alex and the rest looked at the ground before the hoard of disciples finally arrived at the stage.
Just the sheer number of participants for the single battles was staggering. Alex wanted to count the number of participants, but it was so many that he just didn't bother.
"Finally, here we have all the participants for the Single battles," Fu Zhen spoke. "However, as you all can see, there are just too many to have a single's battle."
"There are exactly 317 people taking part in the singles battle, which as you can see is not an even number. So, to fix that issue and bring the number of participants down to a manageable number, we will now start the prelude to the Singles battles, The Damage test."