255 Space
Alex looked at the coliseum arena being set. He then looked at the schedule handing in the air and was confused.
For the 8 AM schedule, there was going to be 4 different competition at once. Alchemy pill recognition, Artifact Material recognition, Talisman paper ingredients, Poisonous Material recognition.
'They are going to have 4 different competitions at once?' he thought in surprise. 'Yeah they are is quite large, but so are the number of people. If nearly 100 people take part in each competition, how are they going to manage it on the stage?' Alex wondered.
Suddenly, something weird happened on the ground below. The arena that was a bit larger than a football field suddenly grew to two times as large, without actually increasing in size at all.
"What?" Alex said in shock. A lot of other people throughout the audience were shocked a little too. Even Wan Li was shocked.
"What? You guys haven't seen it yet? Hehehe," Fan Ruogang said with a smug smile. She had been here last year as well and had seen this happening before.
"Master, what is going on? Why does it look like everyone in the arena just shrunk down and the area doubled?" Alex asked.
"That's… thanks to a space formation employed by the Royal Fu academy," Ma Rong said.
"Space… formation?" Alex said slowly trying to figure out what that meant. Before he could even come up with an answer, however, Ma Rong explained.
"They basically manipulate the space inside the arena to make it larger or smaller as required," Ma Rong explained.
"Manipulating space…" Alex couldn't understand just how complicated this topic was. Space was something he couldn't imagine being able to interact with, let alone touch, and yet here it was in front of him.
'Damn, this game is something else,' he thought. Suddenly, he thought of something. He had seen space manipulation before. He had ignored it previously because it was a game, however, it seemed everything in the game was on purpose. So, maybe this one was too.
"Master, is this the same thing as what they do to storage bags?" Alex asked.
"Storage bags are a little different. The thing we see in front of us is people using a formation to manipulate space to stretch and shrink it was required. However, in a storage bag, it's actually a part of space ripped directly from our world and put into the storage bags," Ma Rong said.
"What? People can rip space apart?" Alex asked in shock.
"Haha, no. Maybe people can, but not when making storage bags. They instead use a special formation passed throughout the ages to drag the space into a premade bag. Of course, the bag has to be made out of special materials to be able to handle space being put inside it, but I do not know how they do it," Ma Rong said.
"It's a heavily guarded secret amongst the Granite Forest sect and the Southern Sanctuary sect. We don't know exactly what is used to make the storage bags. But we can guess that it's probably not very expensive given how cheap storage bags are," the Second Elder said from the side.
"I see," Alex said. The other disciple also nodded as they learned something new today.
Fu Zhen walked up to a newly set stage and started talking. His voice seemed to be amplified as he started speaking.
"Welcome to the Crimson Empire's Annual Sect Competitions. I am going to be your main host going forward. We are truly excited to have every one of you here," he said.
He went on to speak some more flowery words and told the audience about the competitions that were going to take place today.
"Wan Li, Fanfan, go and get ready. Your competition is up next," Ma Rong said. It was nearly 8 AM and the competition would start at any moment.
One of the elders stood up and took the three disciples to the gate.
Soon the stage was separated into 4 different parts and the competitions were going to start. Disciples started gathering along the different stages and the audience waited with bated breaths.
"Ah there they are, it's starting," one of the disciples said when they saw Wan Li and Fan Ruogang walk into the coliseum arena. They walked to their respective spot where the competition was taking place.
The host was a middle-aged woman for the alchemy contest and she started explaining the competition rules.
"Here are the rules of this competition. Each one of you will be given a single blank talisman to write your answer into. You will be given a Pill made by the alchemists working for the Royal Alchemist. He is the founder of this current pill and it is your job to find the ingredients used to make the pill."
"You only need to write as many ingredients as you can recognize. Each correct answer will award 2 points, and each incorrect answer will deduct 1 point. In the end, a half an hour later, the one with the most points wins."
Suddenly, an image appeared behind the woman. "This is all the information you will get regarding the pill and what it does. At 15 minutes mark, we will also feed one of the pills to the Pill Swine, and you can look firsthand what the pill does."
Someone brought out a pill swine to the stage and kept it there for later. Wan Li and Fan Ruogang waited for the pill to be handed out.
"If you yourself eat the pill or were found to have cheated in any way, you will be instantly disqualified from this competition and will lose all remaining turns to participate in the upcoming competitions," the woman said.
Similar explanations were going around all throughout the coliseum arena as all the different sect disciples were getting ready.
Wan Li and Fan Ruogang were finally handed a pill after some time along with everyone else, and at exactly 8 am, a bell rang, announcing the commencement of the competition.
