“And what about Long Chen from the Divine Sword Sect? He lit a hundred golden lamps, so he should rank ahead of those two, right?”
“These three would be twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth. What about the others?”
“The rest are still uncertain. We’ll have to watch and see, after all, this is just the group elimination round.”
The warriors who didn’t qualify to compete were bored and idle, so they always found something to do, like guessing the names of the top twenty talents.
As long as they could guess more than ten correctly, they could win a reward. For them, this was a decent form of entertainment.
However, the top ten were generally easier to guess. The further back you went, the harder it became, unless someone had an exceptionally outstanding performance. Otherwise, they really didn’t qualify to be ranked there.
The previous combat power tests could only serve as a reference and couldn’t be taken as the absolute standard.
While everyone was discussing animatedly, the matches didn’t stop.
“Ling Xiao versus Shangguan Di!”
“I concede!”
Shangguan Di, with his baby face, gave up the match against Ling Xiao because he knew he wasn’t a match.
…
“Ling Xiao versus Yu Lian!”
“I concede too!”
“Ling Xiao…”
“I concede!”
“Ling Xiao…”
“Concede!”
Just as Leng Hao had envied, the next dozen or so opponents Ling Xiao faced all uniformly chose to concede.
These people weren’t cowardly, just rational. They didn’t want to waste energy and time in a fight with Ling Xiao.
Compared to Ling Xiao, among the other disciples from the eastern sects, only Long Chen had remained undefeated up to now.
After more than a dozen matches, Lan Yu’er had lost one. This couldn’t be blamed on her, because her opponent was from the previous top ten. Her level wasn’t at that position, so naturally, she wasn’t a match.
However, even so, she maintained her consistently steady fighting style and was only narrowly defeated after a hundred moves.
Seeing this scene, the onlookers were somewhat surprised in their hearts and included this delicate-looking, relatively unknown female warrior in the top twenty talents.
Ying Wuya lost to Bai San Shao and then lost two more matches, both to opponents of similar strength to Bai San Shao. However, even so, his advancement was still no problem.
Leng Hao and Dai Yuling both followed Ling Xiao’s advancement strategy, performing very restrained.
They decisively conceded the matches they should concede and didn’t lose a single match they should win.
At this pace, their advancement was basically without any issues.
“The final match, Ling Xiao versus Zhai Jun!”
Previously, when facing Ling Xiao, Po Qianjun and Feng Mo Ting had both chosen to concede.
It wasn’t that these two were afraid of Ling Xiao; they simply didn’t want to waste energy on him in the group stage. Anyway, their advancement points were already sufficient.
However, this Zhai Jun seemed to be someone unwilling to concede.
He planned to fight Ling Xiao and defeat this Moon Flower Sect disciple who had been hyped up to godlike proportions.
“Defeat!”
Ling Xiao didn’t even glance at Zhai Jun. He directly flung out a qi sword. The qi sword pierced through the air, breaking Zhai Jun’s protective true essence, then piercing his body, sending Zhai Jun flying off the martial arts stage.
He didn’t even give the opponent a chance to make a move, because it would be a waste of time.
“Ling Xiao wins!”
The referee for the tenth group seemed to have anticipated this outcome long ago, so he shouted the result as soon as Ling Xiao made his move.
However, what surprised him was that before his voice finished, the battle was already over.
“Strong! Really strong enough! The sword move is not only bizarre but also incredibly fast. Now I can probably understand why Po Qianjun and Feng Mo Ting conceded. Fighting someone like this, even if you win, it’s probably a pyrrhic victory.”
“Now it seems this Ling Xiao can at least rank nineteenth among the top twenty talents.”
“Too low. I think fifteenth is about right.”
“Eleventh is Hong Li, absolutely no problem. This woman’s strength is so great that even Bai Qianjiao is extremely wary of her. I even suspect she could advance to the Six Princes of the Holy Dynasty.”
“Twelfth should be Long Chen. He’s a bit stronger than Feng Yaorao.”
Because the group stage had basically ended, the judgments of each warrior’s strength were more precise. The rankings of the top twenty talents, except for the unchanged top ten, had some changes in the rest.
Of course, this was just the audience’s speculation and might not be accurate.
“Thirteenth is Feng Yaorao, fourteenth should be Lan Yu’er, fifteenth is that Ling Xiao, sixteenth is Po Qianjun, seventeenth is Bai San Shao, eighteenth is Long Xiaoxiao, nineteenth should be Ning Wushuang from the Heavenly King Sect, twentieth is Gui Suishou from the Blue Water Divine Palace!”
Such a ranking, of course, couldn’t be completely precise, but based on the current performances in the group stage, the order might be wrong, but the people were probably these.
After the first round of elimination, more than two hundred people were reduced to one hundred.
And these warriors all received the title of “Human Elite.”
“Hahaha, a miracle among miracles. Among the top hundred, there are actually four disciples from our Moon Flower Sect. It’s really rare. The southern three sects have been completely eliminated. Among the eastern sects, only Ying Wuya from the Beast King Palace, Long Chen from the Divine Sword Sect, and our four from the Moon Flower Sect remain.”
Jin Guang Tianzun was extremely happy.
He was certainly happy. In the past, the Moon Flower Sect had always been at the bottom of the twelve sects, unable to even enter the finals.
But this time, not only did they enter the finals, but four people made it to the top hundred. This was truly an unprecedented grand occasion.
“Still, don’t get too excited yet. The second round will be even more brutal. Entering the top fifty is extremely difficult.”
Although Tian Yan Tianzun had a satisfied smile on his face, his words were still quite cautious.
“No matter. I believe Ling Xiao and Lan Yu’er can definitely enter the top fifty. As for Yuling and Leng Hao, just do your best. I won’t force it.”
Jin Guang Tianzun was now somewhat impatient.
His disciple Leng Hao making it to the top hundred had already overjoyed him. What could he be dissatisfied with now?
After a short rest, the second round of elimination began anew.
According to the rules, the last two groups merged, leaving five groups, each still with twenty people, and the number advancing was still ten per group.
But now the group numbers became “one.”
The original first group had the two major killers: Holy Son Ji Mingkong and Demon Eye Mo Wushang.
Of course, the advancement method for the second round was different from before.
In this round, each person in every group fought ten matches, completely randomly drawn within the group. So whether one would encounter Ji Mingkong or Mo Wushang was still uncertain.
Ling Xiao also didn’t want to encounter them so soon. First, he still needed to observe their battles. Second, exciting battles should naturally be saved for last to be meaningful.
That way, they could have the greatest impact.
Of course, if he really did encounter them, he would go all out, but he felt that was unlikely.
The people from the Heavenly King Sect also hoped he would lose the battle under everyone’s watchful eyes.
That is to say, the more audience, the better.
