Chapter 314 - An Array Masters' Fighting Powers
Not long after Sima You Yue and the rest had reached the battle ground, people from the Sage Pavilion, the Alchemist Masters Guild, the Armament Masters Guild, the Beast Tamer Masters Guild, and the Array Masters Guild entered the grounds.
One from the Sage Pavilion, two from the other guild, a total of nine others. The Palace Master of the Sage Pavilion and the holy daughter accompanied Wu Lingyu, and behind them followed the Elders of each Guild, and they made their way to the spectators’ stand. One of the organisers stood at the front and announced: “Greetings, everyone. I am the host for today. Today will be the first day of this tournament, and it is also the first time in twenty years that we are ordering the ranks, and I am extremely happy to cordially invite His Highness from the Sage Pavilion to witness and spectate this event. At the same time let us invite…”
Sima You Yue looked at the host, who continued gabbing on for a long time, and marveled at this ability to waste everyone’s time with the nonsense that was coming out of his mouth.
After a long time, the host finally announced, “We will officially start today’s competition. Three different platforms and there will be three matches held concurrently. Let me explain the rules before we start. There are five Family Clans, the older generation will send four competitors, the middle-aged generation, eight and the youngest generation, sixteen. They will each compete within their respective categories. Following the order of victors, the person in the last place will go through a second round of battle. Alright, this time, let us begin with the oldest generation. Each Family Clan, please send two representatives to the stage.”
Five Family Clans, twenty people, twenty high-ranking powers. Twenty number plaques, each family with a different colour, and you couldn’t choose who in your family you would send. Sima You Yue stood on the stage, and realised that in the Sima Family, other than one Eighth Grade Spirit Paragon, two Seventh-Grade Spirit Paragons, the last one left would be Sima Lin. And even if all these years his powers had grown, and grown in ranks with Sima You Yue’s help, he was only a Fourth-Grade Spirit Paragon. Meanwhile, the representatives of the other family clans were of either the eighth or the ninth grade, and they barely had an advantage over their competitors.
“Will it be okay if Grandpa Lin goes up?” Sima You Yue asked worriedly.
“Relax, my Grandfather had said so before, that although his ranking is not high, his fighting power is barely lacking. Just watch.” Sima You Yang assured her, sitting on her right. Sima You Yue knew that they were all Array Masters in their own right, but she had never seen a duel between Array Masters, and she was curious as to how all this would turn out. But if we think about it, that old fox would not let the Sima family be taken advantage of, and since Sima Lin has gone up, it was probably because it has all been fixed before the match started. But this time, there are many high ranking Spirit Paragons, so he shouldn’t have had to send Sima Lin up to fight. The members of the other families saw Sima Lin’s rank and grading, and scoffed, saying that the Sima family has no one remaining in the previous generation, thus they had to send such a low ranking Spirit Paragon up to duel. But Sima Lin did not react to their mockery, and determined to let his mockers shut their mouths in defeat.
Sima Lin’s duel was set to be in the first stage, and the spectators had thought that he would not be able to withstand even a blow from his opponent. But he used his aura and the movements of the area to defeat the Li family’s Eighth Rank representative within ten movements. When the referee announced the win, the whole square went into an uproar, that even when he had returned to the Sima Family waiting ground, it was hard to get the crowd to settle down.
How did he win so easily? His opponent was greater than him by four whole grades! Sima You Yue was in great shock as well – this fight between Array Master was indeed stronger than imagined!
“Oh, I guess that when he returned and trained pitifully, he started to be able to have an effect on how he is able to control space in the battle ground.” She said, rubbing her chin. “No wonder my master said that Guild Masters are powerful. I guess he was not just referring to using arrays during battles, but controlling airspace as well!”
The older generations’ battles usually do not end so quickly. In fact, there was no other battle that took as little time as Sima Lin’s throughout the day. There were a total of ten battles, with three running concurrently at each time, but it still took a whole day before this leg of battles ended.
Sima You Yue carefully looked at all the battles between the Masters, and thankfully, the protective forcefield was strong enough, so that the people on the battle podiums were kept safely apart from the participants. Had this not been so, all the participants would be busy running around trying to hide from the spillover effects of the battles, and would not be able to appreciate the duels.
Sima You Yue learnt some handles from each battle, and merged whatever new tricks she had learnt with her own skills, which allowed her to gain much from her time watching the competition.
When the first day of the competition had ended, and each family returned to their homes to rest. While Sima You Yue and the rest of the younger generations’ members were leaving, they they bumped into Li Mu and the other man at the exit, and along with them was Jade. Sima You yue saw them walking towards them and slowed down, so that they might bump into each other.
“You Yue.” Jade greeted them first.
“Miss Jade” Sima You Yue nodded, and then looked at Li Mu.
Li Mu knew that she had did it on purpose, as he had seen them leaving, but that they had slowed down on purpose in order to bump into them. The people around them noticed that they had met, and all stopped in their tracks in order to see the drama that could unfold.
Li Mu’s face was long with unhappiness, but he still bowed to Sima You Yue, greeting, “Boss.”
“Please get up.” Sima You Yue said dryly, as though she was enjoying it.
“You Yue, You Yang, this is my Senior Brother Han Mo. Senior Brother, this is the people that I had told you about before. Sima You Yue, You Yang, You Lin…” Jade introduced the Sima family to Han Mo.
Han Mo was attractive, but though he was smiling, it gave off a feeling of having evil intentions, because that smile was cold. Han Mo nodded at them, and then looked at Sima You Yue, saying, “I heard that you had a competition with Li Mu, and I heard that you are very strong.”
“I am of course better than him by a little, if not, how would I have defeated him?” Sima You Yue said.
“If you wish to, why don’t you come to the Guilds’ gathering after this?” Han Mo said, holding out a gold coloured invitation.
Sima You Yue mindlessly took the invitation and smiled, saying, “If at that time I feel like it, perhaps I will come?”
“I hope we will be able to meet at that gathering. There are things I have to attend to at the Guild, I’ll excuse myself first.” Han Mo said as he nodded at her, bringing the members of the Guild with him.
“Fifth Brother, will you attend that gathering?” Sima You Le asked.
“I’m not interested.” Sima You Yue packed the invitation into her space ring without taking a look.
“I heard that the prizes at this gathering’s competition are of great value.” Sima You Yang said.
“Are there prizes for other occupations? For Beast Trainer Masters and for Armament Masters?” Sima You Yue asked.
“There are.” Sima You Yang replied.
“Let’s ask Fatty and the rest later if they would like to be there, anyway, I’m not that interested in attending it.” Sima You Yue said.
“I think Han Mo is rather interested in you, and I hear that he can be quite adamant, if he wants to see you there, he will definitely find a way to make you participate.” Sima You Le said.
“Is that so, let’s just see if he has that kind of ability.” Sima You Yue said. “Let’s go.”
The next two days were for the middle-aged generations to battle, and Sima You Yue did not stay to watch the competition, but stayed in the courtyard to train, only waiting for the younger generation’s battles to commence before she would return to the competition grounds. Compared to the previous two times, the Sima Family’s condition did not look favourable. In fact, they were rather poor, ranking last amongst the five families. If they do not win at least ten battles in the younger generation’s leagues, they would suffer utter shame and embarrassment.