257 Rules of the Competition

The competition continued as per usual. There were always two or more competitions taking place at once in the arena and people could see whichever one they wanted.

"Is us being able to individually hear and understand the different competition something to do with formations?" Alex asked.

"Yes. It's a formation that only provides sounds based on which screen you are looking at," Ma Rong said.

Alex focused on the competition regarding formations itself. The goal of this competition was for the participants to recognize which flags belonged to which formation and gather the different materials that were used for those formations.

He was in part curious about this competition in part because it had to do with formations, and in another part, because the familiar girl was taking place in it.

After several minutes people started completing the competition one after another. The girl didn't take long to gather them, but she wasn't the fastest either.

The top 3 winners were Sky soaring sect who won 1st and 3rd, and Royal Fu Academy who won 2nd place.

"The Royal Fu Academy is quite terrifying, aren't they?" Alex asked, not really looking for an answer.

"They are the Royal Academy after all. A place where only the best and brightest go to. You don't really hear its name when people talk about sects specializing in certain aspects, but make no mistake. They are amazing at every single part of cultivation," Ma Rong said.

"Haha, True, True. It's collected so many points throughout the different annual competitions that it probably has enough to go a step beyond the 1st grade too," the Third elder said from the side.

Alex sat there, watching the competitions for a while longer. He saw sects that focused on poison, sects that focused on the talisman, sects that focused on music, sects that focused on artifact making.

Finally, it was his turn for the competition.

An elder stood up as he took him, Zhou Mei, and another disciple to an area inside the coliseum. They reached a separate room where people were made to go past a certain barrier.

Alex didn't know what was happening, but he did as everyone did and walked past it. He felt his Qi fluctuate a bit as he moved past the barrier giving him a weird feeling.

"Oh, so it's just checking my qi to see if I am taking part or not," Alex realized.

They were then taken to the arena. Alex walked past a certain area, and suddenly he felt as if the world around his had expanded by a lot. The audience who were just a few dozen meters away were suddenly hundreds of meters away.

'Can I possibly get used to such a magical phenomenon?' Alex wondered.

The place they were going to take the competition in was a little different from the ones for Wan Li's turn. The disciples were made to stand in a line with a curtain behind their backs.

They were then made to give away their storage bags and store them in a box that could only be opened by them.

A man wearing black robes walked up on the stage and started speaking.

"Everyone, Welcome to the Ingredients Recognition Competition. I will be your host and competition holder for this competition."

"I will now explain the task and the rules of this competition," the man said.

"Behind every one of you is a curtain hiding a hoard of ingredients that will remain invisible to you until you cross a certain line. Once you go past the line, you will have exactly 5 seconds where you can pick an ingredient."

"Each ingredient will give you points of anywhere from 10 to 1 points. How do you know which ingredient is cost what? Easy. All you have to do is look at the list of names hung in the sky when you enter the curtain."

" You can only pick ingredients that are in the list. Picking up any ingredients, not on the list will result in you earning negative 5 points."

"You will go 5 at a time and you will have to cross the line on my command. Speaking at any moment throughout this competition will have you immediately disqualified."

"Not physically touching the ingredients, and choosing more than 1 ingredient at a single turn will have you disqualified."

"Delaying to return back after the 5 seconds have passed will have you disqualified."

"There are exactly 100 ingredients on the list, and the exam will end when all the ingredients on the list are gathered," the man said.

Everyone nodded once they understood what the competition entailed and got in a single queue, waiting for their next turn.

The ones at the front of the queue had a higher advantage than the ones at the back, but the competition holders didn't seem as worried about that for some reason.

'There must be some level of difficulty in this exam that going first won't give a large enough advantage,' Alex thought.

With 5 people going in every turn, Alex was in the 4th group, while Zhou Mei was in the 2nd. The last disciple was around the 11th group, but they didn't care about that.

Soon the competition started. The first 5 people walked past the curtain and no one on the other side could see what was inside.

"Go," the host said and the people in the queue could hear some scurrying. After 5 seconds passed, 5 dejected young men and women walked out from behind the curtain.

They weren't allowed to speak so they couldn't vocalize their current feelings, but if they could, they would surely say the words like 'Hard' and 'Difficult' for sure.

Maybe some would even use the word complicated.

'It isn't so simple after all,' Alex thought.

Next up was Zhou Mei's group. They too went in and were given the signal to proceed. 5 seconds later, all 5 disciples came out with similar emotions on their faces.

Zhou Mei was clearly frowning from the difficulty of the task. The same was the case for the 3rd group of disciples as well.

Next up was Alex's turn.