The arena wasn't very anywhere near its full capacity. Usually, for an event like this, one might expect audience members from all across the Pedestal Plane to make their way here. However, what everyone was truly excited about was the Final Selection Tournament, this Wild Card Tournament was much less appealing to those who had traveled far and wide, leaving the arena at only about a quarter of its capacity.
Still, this was only because it was the first day of the Wild Card Tournament. On the final and third day, there would be no shortage of individuals who would make their way here. After all, of those who fought on the third day, a good portion of them would enter the final tournament.
There was a total of ten thousand participants. Ryu stood emotionlessly among them, the space around him practically completely cleared out as usual.
'How anti-social.' Ailsa teased, swinging her long slender legs about as she sat on Ryu's shoulder.
Ryu didn't respond. Though his expression was cold, the fear others had toward him had little to do with how opposed to socializing he was. The innate pressure his body gave off was simply too fierce.
Body Realm cultivators tended to give off a kind of space warping pressure since all of their strength was concentrated in their limbs. Qi Realm cultivators could more easily hide their strength due to the fact their dantians existed in another Plane. Combining this with the fact that Ryu's bodily strength was nearing the Half-Step Immortal Ring Realm with the fact he had four Ancestral Grade bloodlines running through his veins and those with weak constitutions found it difficult to even breathe around him.
Throwing this to the back of his mind, Ryu focused on the rules of the tournament. Things were fairly simple. The first day was an elimination tournament. Each person would fight a minimum of five times and a maximum of six.
Essentially, one had to win three of their four matches to qualify for the second day of competition. If one won three times, there was no need for a fourth battle. However, if one lost once, they would be provided a final chance.
The second day of competition would be a rerun of the first day where this process was repeated again except with two of three wins being the goal.
Finally, the third day would cause a bloody hell. All of the remaining participants would have to battle each of their remaining opponents once. There would be two points provided for a victory, one point for a draw, and none for a loss. Only those who were top ten in points would be allowed to take part in the Final Selection Tournament where they would become part of the final thirty-two.
This alone made it clear the difference in status among the Pedestal Plane regions. Of the thirty-two, only four were from the Outer Ring, only eight were from the Inner Ring, while the Core Region received a full twenty, ten of which would come from this Wild Card Tournament, and another ten of which were provided seeded positions.
In the end of it all, ten of the thirty-two would be allowed to enter the Ice Devil Legacy World.
"… We will begin right away. When your identification badge flashes, sense your senses within similar to how you would use a spatial ring to find your designated area. Good luck to you all."
The moment the announcer finished his spiel, the pressure mounted.
Badges began to flash one after another as the fifty battle platforms had their referees take their positions. It seemed that things were growing lively.
'The five Sixth Order Clans sent their youths here too, it seems.' Ryu sneered inwardly. It seemed they wanted to monopolize all twenty positions, and it seemed they really could do it.
If it wasn't for this, this so-called Wild Card Tournament wouldn't even be worth it for Ryu. Though these were still small fries to him, there were still certain aspects of his combat abilities that he could use them to hone.
Ryu's badge flashed. It seemed he would be among the first one hundred to fight. With a leisurely pace, he made his way to his fighting platform and leaped upward to land on its large square stone tiles.
"Reeve Huidemar. Ryu." The stage judge confirmed the names of the two participants, receiving a nod from them both.
Reeve frowned. He had sighed a breath of relief hearing Ryu's lack of a last name and was even feeling confident. But he suddenly realized that he couldn't see through Ryu's cultivation. What was going on?
"You may begin." Unfortunately, he didn't receive much time to think about it as the stage judge activated the protective formation and stood in the sky above them.
With a thought, Ryu sent out a Peak Fourth Order corpse puppet. It wasn't a puppet among the first he refined as those had been destroyed in the Mortal Qi Small Realm. Ryu had spent a year training in the Inner Ring forests, so he came across a people who overestimated themselves quite a bit. He used the opportunity to gain himself a few test dummies.
His corpse puppeteering was much better now than it had been in the past, but he still wanted to temper himself to greater heights.
The stage judge raised his brow. 'A necromancer…? Still, it's only a Fourth Order Puppet while his opponent is of the Lower Divine Vessel Realm. His body should be quite powerful, why is he a necromancer?'
Unfortunately for Reeve, he didn't have the keen insight of the stage judge. He was too far away from Ryu to sense the strength of his body especially since Ryu had taken measure to hide the pressure he gave off. Only those within a few feet of him would sense it. This error in judgement caused Reeve to smile widely.
"So you're just hiding your cultivation with a treasure. Had me worried for nothing. You can go down now."
Even though Reeve knew the fact Ryu had a Fourth Order corpse puppet meant that he could also control Fifth and Sixth Order corpse puppets, he had good reason to conclude that Ryu didn't have such measures. Since when was finding the corpse of a Divine Vessel Realm expert so easy? Let alone a Connecting Heaven Realm one? Plus, this Ryu had no backing, he obviously had no one to get these corpse puppets for him.
A saber with a bronzed edge appeared in Reeve's hand as he charged forward, not even bothering with the corpse puppet and aiming directly for Ryu.
Ryu hardly reacted to this. Instead, he slowly felt the tendrils of death qi worm about the corpse puppet's body. And with deft qi control, he began to pull on them with his mind like puppet strings.
The corpse puppet shifted, its movement technique beautiful and enigmatic as it cut off Reeve's approach.
"Huh…?" Reeve was stunned. He couldn't even think to counterattack with his saber and could only dodge the glaive the corpse puppet held, retreating with quick steps.
'… His corpse puppet might be weak, but his combat sense and experience is high. That technique just now was definitely an Earth Grade movement technique, yet he simplified it down so that a Fourth Order puppet could withstand it.' The stage judge's eyes glimmered as he looked toward Ryu with more curiosity.
Ryu calmly assessed the battlefield, having his corpse puppet press forward with its advantage.
The gap between the Peak Spiritual Severing Realm and the Lower Divine Vessel Realm was large. Not everyone could bridge the gap, least of all a corpse Ryu snatched from a lowly mercenary. This corpse puppet didn't have Ryu's talent or bodily strength, leaping cultivation levels to fight was extraordinarily difficult for it.
However, this was exactly why Ryu chose to do this. The harder the task, the better. Everything he did was a training moment for him.
The corpse pressed forward with [Slice], its glaive descending with a fierce momentum.
Reeve finally regained his footing, sweeping his saber upward and knocking the corpse's blade to the side.
The corpse's arms flailed, its guard broken and chest open to attack. Reeve wasn't as adept at finding Death Seals, and Ryu had also gotten much better at hiding him, so he believed his best bet was to cut the corpse down until it could no longer be controlled, and now he had his opening.
He bore down with a sneer. He had been caught off guard earlier, but now this was over.
Just as his saber was about to bisect the corpse puppet, a blinding silver light approached him much faster than he could react. He felt the kiss of death in that moment, but the light inexplicably didn't care for his neck, but rather parried his sword, leaving a nick that should have no doubt cut it cleanly had the attack not surprisingly disappeared and giving the corpse puppet time to recover.
'Just then I used a large range of motion to substitute for lack of power, but this left me open to being countered. I need to get better at wielding quick and simultaneously controlled, large bursts of qi without tearing my corpse puppet's meridians apart… I need to understand the limits of my corpse puppet the same way I can sense my own limits… not that I've found my limits yet…'
This was a bit of a struggle for Ryu. His own Chaotic Silk Meridians had no such limiters, he could push his qi to the brink without worrying about injuring himself. This was part of the reason for his obscene combat prowess. However, his corpse puppets obviously didn't have an Ancestral Grade set of meridians.
'For now, I'll continue this battle until he's no longer useful. I'll need to react faster next time so I don't have to use [Vector Eagle] again, a normal [Vector Arrow] will do… '
Ryu calmly analyzed and adjusted his strategy, completely oblivious to the wide-eyed stage judge above.
'Can I dodge that attack?' A cold sweat matted the back of the stage judge. He suddenly understood that this match was nothing but a farce. This Ryu was using Reeve as a grinding stone…