The governor made sure to spread the news of the compet.i.tion and its prizes across the region and it showed to be successful. The prices of each ticket was affordable, but with so many people to watch in the crowd, it could be said that the village's economy would boom during this time.

With only being able to pay a street vendor who was selling food instead of sitting in a restaurant, Tommy felt that he should have been treated better due to his overbearing background. This was until he looked once again at the entrance token he was given.

"With over two hundred contestants, I wonder how the organizers will set this compet.i.tion up to only last for three days?" Tommy thought to himself as he walked towards the small stadium.

Entering the stadium, attendants were working diligently to direct all of the contestants like Tommy towards the right areas. With over two hundred youths showing themselves at once and over one thousand spectators present, the stadium was bustling in excitement.

"Young master, please use your token to confirm your ident.i.ty. Due to the volume of young experts like yourself competing, the governor decided to hold a preliminary test on the first day." an attendant told Tommy as he pulled out his token to confirm his entry.

"Oh?" confirming Tommy's ident.i.ty and realizing his background, the attendant couldn't help but to gasp while giving Tommy one more look over. "It seems that young master has quite the background, unfortunately, that does not allow you to jump right into the compet.i.tion without going through today's test."

"And what is today's test?" Tommy couldn't help but ask in a polite tone. Although he was upset that his ident.i.ty was not enough to excuse him from a test like this, he knew that it was not the attendant's fault and that he could only treat her kindly to increase his face publicly.

"Young master is wise to ask. After confirming even the new arrivals who chose to partake, the number of entrants exceed three hundred. Therefore, the governor is having each entrant enter into three different fights to determine the top one hundred while eliminating the other two hundred plus." the attendant explained to Tommy carefully.

Tommy with his background was good enough to be treated as a VIP, but according to the governor, even if it was someone from the royal family competing, they were to be treated like everyone else. In this set of circ.u.mstances, the attendant wanted to show Tommy face, but to also treat him well enough to possibly receive favor from his clan as well.

"I see, well thank you for all of this information. If I need anything else, I hope that this lovely attendant can a.s.sist." Tommy told the attendant before resting on the side as he scouted his compet.i.tion.

Of the over three hundred compet.i.tors, Tommy realized that six of them were at the second cultivation level of the Apprentice rank. However, all of the rest were at least of his level of strength. He was not very worried, because he did not recognize any of the contestants and so it meant that even with similar or higher cultivation levels, they were less experienced than he was.

Deep down, he was content that he would still need to overcome six cultivators, but that the rest of the compet.i.tion would give him little to no problems. Which meant, that even if he did not place in the top four, that he would at least win something which made him feel great.