Chapter 217 Contention for the Top Tier (Part III)

The same moment the two had shouted that they were going to give up, two ice dragons immediately descended and sent them out.

David laughed out loud. His plan had succeeded.

The first and third stage in the Regional Selection were mainly independent trials, thus making it almost impossible for examinees to interfere with each other.

The battle arena in fourth stage relied solely on one’s abilities, unless he could find a chance to poison him. However, it was much too difficult to poison someone in a Regional Academy.

Therefore, his final and only chance was during the second stage, ‘Contention for the Top Tier’. It was only in this stage that he could tap on the strength of the ferocious beasts. He had researched many methods, but had eventually decided on the beast-luring incense.

However, it was probably forbidden for them to bring the incense as it was, since, if such things could be used, it meant that so could all sorts of other items, including acid, poison, or kerosene. The purpose of the examination would have been lost, and this was something that the examiners would definitely not allow to happen.

Therefore, he had almost given up on using the beast-luring incense when he thought of something.

Other than growing and leveling up naturally, another way that ferocious beasts could level up was to devour various heavenly and earthly treasures. Countless ferocious beasts had turned berserk after having accidentally taken a large amount of heavenly and earthly treasures.

Many ferocious beasts had also, after devouring heavenly and earthly treasures, evolved into another type of ferocious beast.

Therefore, the method that David had chosen was to bring in heavenly and earthly treasures through the human body. He spent a total of seven days and up to ten thousand gold to feed these two Knights an endless supply of them. He had also forbid them from doing any kind of exercise or cultivation, in order to prevent them from a.s.similating the medicinal properties.

Through this method, he finally managed to get their blood filled with the medicinal properties of a tremendous amount of heavenly and earthly treasures, which meant that their blood now contained an essence which would attract countless ferocious beasts.

The essence of these medicinal herbs, mixed together with beast-luring incense, held a fatal attraction to any ferocious beast.

‘A blind man is still but a blind man,’ David coldly thought to himself, ‘no matter how sharp your hearing is, or if you’ve attained Heaven’s Perception.

‘No matter how hard to try to hid it, you won’t be able to hide the fact that you’re blind. You won’t be able to see the world beyond the ten-meter radius around you, so you won’t be able to notice the bottles of blood attached to the arrows.

‘Your biggest flaw is the fact that you’re blind. It’s no use no matter how much you try to hide it.’

In that instant, more and more ferocious beasts started going crazy. Their eyes turned bloodshot, fixed in Fang Xingjian’s direction. In the next moment, they all swarmed toward Fang Xingjian like wild waves.

Governor Devitt’s brows twitched, but in the next moment, he smiled.

Yaris, who was a distance away, modeled the air to send his voice to Devitt, asking, “We’re letting them go?”

Devitt replied, “This does not count as cheating. It can be considered… resourcefulness.”

Armstrong, whose face was filled with scars, also said, “One must use the brain in battle. There’s enough people who only know how to tackle with brute force. We can’t have only these kind of people in the ranks of the Conferred Knights, right?”

Devitt nodded, “If he had merely used beast-luring incense, then he would simply be relying on external objects. But what he has done is worthy to be called scheming. You guys must be more careful when differentiating between the two.

“Moreover…” Devitt smiled, “do you think that the compet.i.tion has ended with just this? There’s a total of one hundred Knights here. How many of them are fools? Each one of the one hundred Knights have their own ways of thinking, their methods of doing things, and varying levels of cultivation. How could the result be clear with all these factors?

“Scheming is merely used as support. In the end, they still need to rely on their own abilities.”

While they were talking, the waves of maniacal ferocious beasts were already swarming toward Fang Xingjian.

Many Knights who were already prepared to fight now saw, to their surprise, that the beasts had chosen not to fight against them, but were heading for the center of the maze.

Holding onto a silvery white sword, Hamil sent a level 12 huge wolf flying with a slash. Just as he was about to give chase, he noticed that the wolf, after tumbling once, just wanted to dash past him.

His gaze flickered and he dodged the huge wolf. He then noticed that all the ferocious beasts which had been charging toward him were now bypa.s.sing him. In the beginning he took the chance to kill a few, but then something occurred and he stopped altogether.

‘What happened?

‘Well, since I can save my energy, then there’s no need for me to waste my strength. First, I’ll wait and see if there’s any chances.’

…

On another side, Rota activated her Effulgence Weapon. Combined with her silver spear, it pierced through spatial gaps, thrusting into the head of a ferocious wild boar from over a hundred meters away. She then flicked her spear a couple more times and sent a ferocious tiger into the air.

Looking at the ferocious beasts which were all trying to pa.s.s by her and ignoring her, she had no intention to let them off.

‘Something has obviously gone wrong with the ferocious beasts. To think that so few of them are actively trying to attack me now…

‘But I should take this opportunity to kill more of them.’

Rota’s considerations and her understanding of the information given by Governor Devitt kept flas.h.i.+ng in her mind.

‘Hmph, when ordinary people partic.i.p.ate in the Regional Selection, they only think about increasing their cultivation level and about how they can pa.s.s the stages.

‘But I know that the most important factor in the Regional Selection is the Governor, who is the head examiner.’

In the Empire’s eight regions, there was a total of eight Governors, each of them placed in charge of the Regional Selection in their respective regions. And other than the Pantheon Monument Observation and the arena battles, the first two stages were decided by the respective Governors.

The stages and the set targets represented each Governor’s preferences.

‘Governors are humans too, and obviously have their own preferences. Some of them prefer head-on battles, some of them prefer the use of intellect and scheming, some of them prefer launching a killing attack after hiding in the shadows, some of them prefer righteousness, some of them prefer sneakiness…

‘With different preferences, each of the Governors would, of course, have different ratings of the examinees in the first two stages.’

Rota understood well that if she wished to gain an advantage in the first two stages, she had to understand Governor Devitt’s character and preferences. She needed to figure out the main examiner’s intentions.

Rota had obviously tried to do that, and she knew that he hated those who did not put in effort during battles, but liked those Knights who took the lead and attacked valiantly.

This was what trying to fathom the thoughts of those in the higher level meant.

Somewhere else, it was Manny’s first time displaying his true strength before others. Without using any weapons or defensive equipment, he was attacking with his bare hands. Each time he attacked, his palms sent out hints of gravitational Waves, and each ferocious beast he targeted was knocked down to the ground, with either their organs damaged or their bones smashed.

Basically, he had paralyzed a large number of ferocious beasts, keeping them next to him.

Manny thought to himself, ‘I wonder how many people have realized that there’s a limit to the number of ferocious beasts. As the number of ferocious beasts we have killed increases, as the scent from the beast-luring incense turns increasingly faint, the number of ferocious beasts around us will reduce as well. When that time comes, those who can push through till the end will be those who will be able to continue in the rhythm of killing at least one ferocious beast every ten minutes.’