Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Until the next when he was dragged to the Immortal Academy, Buggy couldn’t believe that he was still alive. Ever since seeing that women at the inn yesterday, he felt that sense of terror coming from his bloodline. As an insect race, of course he knew that it was a warning, no, an outcry from his genes, with the same message sent to him repeatedly: he was gonna die, he was gonna die, he was gonna die…
He could swear on his queen that this person in front of him was absolutely the big devil in the legends! Besides, such heritage of insect race had never been wrong. With such a premonition, it had no doubt that it would definitely die in the hands of the person in front of him. He didn’t even think of resisting, because it clearly knew that it couldn’t resist at all.
But a miracle happened. The person didn’t attack him, but merely tied his antennas into a knot, and then… left.
He thought that he didn’t die immediately because of the blessing from the queen, until he met that person again two days later, in front of his shop. This time, the outcry from their bloodline became even stronger: he definitely, absolutely, would die!
But a miracle happened again, and she still didn’t attack him. When he was thinking when on earth was she going to, and had yet to get an answer, he was already at the gate of Immortal Academy. And they talked about teaming up with him to participate in the competition.
He finally understood. It seemed that she… was not going to kill him?
Buggy touched his own hard body. He was really still alive!
“Rest assured, I promise you are fine!” Lonemoon saw through the thoughts of this silly bug with a single look. He patted his shoulder and said, “You just need to follow us.”
Buggy looked at Lonemoon, and then at Yi Qing at his side, and eventually, after mustering all his courage, at the person nibbling at a fruit. Every nibbling sound made his heart race.
He took a deep breath, before asking weakly, “I… won’t die?”
“No!” nodded Lonemoon.
“My legs won’t break?”
“No.”
“My body won’t be dismembered?”
“… No.”
“My race won’t be massacred?”
“No…” How deep indeed was his racial trauma? Hello?
He finally let out a sigh of relief. Some strength also returned to his feet, and he no longer needed to be dragged along by Chef. But still didn’t dare to step any closer towards Shen Ying. He hid at Lonemoon’s side meekly and tried to reduce his sense of existence.
Seeing that Buggy’s issue was settled, Lonemoon finally started looking around them. Many came to the first round today, and the scene was much more of a spectacle than when they queued up for registration. The whole hill was thick with crowds. Besides, the people were dressed in all kinds of manners. Some were dressed in long robes like them, some were dressed magnificently, some were dressed in the modern way, and others were dressed in all kinds of strange manners.
Only then did he truly feel the chaos of this ‘end of void’. It was like looking at a historical illustration, when people from all kinds of planes mixed together. But fortunately, most still belonged here. Besides, he could vaguely feel the Spirit Qi or Immortal Qi on some of the people.
Especially that group in front, who was the largest in number. All of them wore long, blue robes, similar to those in charge of registration at Immortal Academy. He could roughly guess that these were probably the disciples of Immortal Academy. There were varying amounts of Spirit Qi and Immortal Qi on all of them. He suddenly knew what this Academy taught after all: probably just the methods of cultivation, like them. At once, he felt somewhat secure. This competition was probably similar to cultivation as well.
There seemed to be more than a thousand people on the whole hill, all gathered in groups. The numbers of each group varied, with the least being around a dozen, and the most being more than a hundred. Lonemoon’s group of four looked rather pitiful in comparison.
With so many people, it seemed that Buggy was right before about Immortal Academy having quite a reputation.
They arrived rather late, so they didn’t wait long before the gate of Immortal Academy opened and several elderly men covered with Immortal Qi walked out. Lonemoon looked carefully and discovered that all of them had the cultivation of Mystic Immortals. The one with highest cultivation was only a Stygian Immortal. He seemed to be the person-in-charge of the Academy.
They didn’t do much useless talking. After a few sentences of the opening address, they directly announced the competition to begin. Among them, four walked out at the same time, who directly went up sword-riding and started conjuring seals. Soon, a gigantic array appeared in the air above, which became brighter and brighter. Immediately there was a distortion in the sky, and in a short while an entrance similar to that of a mystic realm appeared.
Immediately after, the ground shook, and a huge white stone tablet rose slowly and stopped directly underneath the entrance to the mystic realm.
The Stygian Immortal with the highest cultivation among the elderly men finally stepped forward and opened his palm, revealing a small triangular flag. Only then did he explain loudly,
“Distinguished disciples of all academies! This first round of competition requires you to enter the mystic realm in groups of four. In the mystic realm, there were a total of 100 array flags like the one in my hand. So long as you get any of the array flags and persevere until ten days later to exit the mystic realm, you will win.”
He glanced over the crowd present and continued to speak, “It is very dangerous inside this mystic realm. There are countless beasts. I believe that all of you have the participation token with you. Should you meet any crisis that you are unable to solve, you can break the wooden token and transport yourself out of the mystic realm. But for anyone who exiting the mystic realm early, the whole team would be eliminated, even if there were some among them who has array flags.”
He talked through the rules in detail, before pointing to the blank stone tablet and saying, “The competition starts now. You only need to place your participation token in front of the stone tablet to verify your qualification, and then you can enter the mystic realm.”
Once this was said, those close to the stone tablet immediately started walking towards it with participation tokens in their hand, and started rushing into the mystic realm. After all, the earlier one entered the mystic realm, the faster they could discover ownerless array flags.
In less than ten minutes, the square which was originally full of people saw more than half of the people gone. Lonemoon looked back at that group of disciples from Immortal Academy, who didn’t seem to be in a rush at all. Actually, not one of them had moved.
When most of the people in the square had left, Lonemoon finally led the group towards the stone tablet as well. When they were close, he realized that it was just a recording tablet. He took out his participation token and swept it across the stone tablet, and immediately, the words of “Invincible Academy” appeared on the stone tablet. Its position was on the left side and at the bottom. Like the other academies, a “zero” was written below it. Lonemoon thought about it and decided that this was probably to record the number of array flags gained.
And the wooden token in his hand also separated into four, on which the words “Invincible Academy” appeared.
He turned and gave everybody one. And without more lingering, he gave Yi Qing behind him a look and then went up on his sword, dragging Buggy behind him. They entered the mystic realm above.
