"I can't find him,' Wuying said after searching for about 5 minutes.
"Maybe he is not here. I can get the guards to search for him if you want," the Emperor said.
"No, need. Maybe he already left the capital," Wuying said while sounding a little disappointed.
"Big brother, I will leave now. I need to go check on my wife," Zemin said as he stood up to leave.
"How is she by the way? Any improvements?" the Emperor asked.
"No, not really. Lai Qing is still trying to find new pills that might work for her, but nothing is really happening. It seems not even he has any idea what to do in this situation," Zemin said with a sad face.
"Sigh, I will do something to search for people that might have some idea. Don't lose hope," the Emperor said and watched his brother leave. He then looked at Zexi and asked, "Don't you want to leave too?"
Zexi looked outside the arena with a curious smile and said, "No, No I don't think I will."
*******
CLANG
Swords clashed on the stage as both of the fighters pushed each other back. One of them threw out a golden slash towards the other, while the other one parried it to hit a barrier behind him.
Alex and the rest of the tiger sect were upon the seating area watching the fights.
"Sigh, I guess we won't see interesting fights until around 64 people remain. Two more rounds of Single Battles to go, I guess," Wen Cheng said.
"Are people doing nothing but hiding their abilities to not give away their advantage?" Alex asked.
"Yes. So the battles are very straightforward and easy to get bored of," Wen Cheng said. "Still, you should learn a few things from today's battles."
"First of all, as you can see, cultivation base isn't everything. Look at that guy named…. Macks? Maks?"
"Max," Alex helped Wen Cheng with the pronunciation.
"Yes, that guy. His cultivation base is at 9th Meridian Tempering realm, Yet he is barely keeping up with his opponent that has 8th Meridian Tempering realm."
"From that name, I can tell he's one of the new cultivators that have popped up recently around the empire. He has so much cultivation base, but because he rushed to where he is now, it's not properly stabilized, and thus he can't use the full capabilities of his cultivation base."
"Sigh, I don't know what sort of idiot let that guy into the competition," Wen Cheng said.
Alex knew these things already, but he had never seen a rushed cultivation base be this bad. It was like the player couldn't even release all of the Qi in his body at once.
'Well, I'm glad I didn't rush,' Alex thought.
Max was throwing out attacks, but none of it were landing on the opponent. Soon, he was overwhelmed by his enemy's attack and got defeated.
As soon as one match was over, they immediately called out the other 2 pairs. With 4 pairs fighting at once, the competition holders could continuously have multiple battles going on without any downtime.
"Oh, it's brother Wan," Alex said looking at the stage. It turned out Wan Li had the number 9, the next pair going to the stage.
His opponent was someone who Alex remembered had gotten 9th Meridian Tempering in the Elemental puppet.
"Brother Wan doesn't have time to learn how to fight, so he shouldn't have much fighting experience. I wonder how he will fare up against his opponent. He should be fine through just his raw strength right?" Alex asked.
The referee made the two stay on the opposite side of the stage. Wan Li took out a sword while the opponent took out a quarterstaff.
"Begin," the referee said.
ZZZZOOOMM
A red-colored attack immediately flew off of Wan Li's sword the moment the competition began.
"Wha— " the opponent couldn't even say anything as the attack hit him directly in the chest and threw him out of the stage.
"Match Over," the referee said and gave Wan Li one of the 9 paper slips that he had taken from both of them.
"That was fast," Alex thought.
"Your first ranking disciple is not bad when it comes to fighting I see. Much better than when you came to me," Wen Cheng said.
"Shame we didn't get to see his actual fighting style," Wen Cheng said. "Guess, we will have to wait for tomorrow."
"How many competitions will take place tomorrow?" Alex asked.
"Hmm… Given that we end on the Singles battle, tomorrow's might also start with a Singles battle, since that is what they want. After that another set of competitions, followed by another Singles battle that should bring the number down to 32," Wen Cheng said.
The fights weren't very fun to watch, but Alex didn't have a problem with that. Wen Cheng was steadily explaining anything and everything he thought Alex should be aware of in combat.
When he saw puppets or beasts, he explained how one should fight against multiple opponents at once.
"Always go for the weaker one first. If you don't they will end up being annoying, and hamper your battle a lot. If you ever come across a beast or a puppet that is weaker than its master, beat it first."
"However, if it's the master that is weaker, then you have an easier chance to victory. As long as you defeat the master into unconsciousness, unless the beast is very intelligent, the puppet will be unresponsive and the beast will just be a normal monster," Wen Cheng explained.
Alex nodded when he heard this information and kept them in his mind.
"Your best chances at fighting users with long-ranged attacks like that guy with the bow with to get in so close that he can't use his weapon anymore. See, that's what his opponent did just there," Wen Cheng explained while looking at the fight between two people end.
"Oh, the next contestants are both focused on elemental techniques if I remember correctly. This should help me explain something important that I didn't have the time to previously," Wen Cheng said.
