Chapter 248: Prelim Rankings, Everyone Shows Their Powers! Sudden Enlightenment, Sword Principle 10! Normal Strength, Full Firepower!
“Damn! The brother behind me flew up!”
“What’s this, there’s Superman too… Holy shit, it seems to be Shangshan Che!”
“Quick look, quick look, it really is that Shangshan Che!”
“Shangshan Jun—can you sign on my clothes?!”
After Shangshan Che flew out from the crowd, just a few seconds later, he was already discovered by the numerous spectators who came to watch the match but were blocked on the street.
Shocked “holy shits” and delighted screams rose one after another.
But Shangshan Che had no time to care about what the sea of people was thinking.
Because he had scanned the ground all around once, but hadn’t seen any sign of the match venue at all.
Not to mention the venue, he couldn’t even see a single advertising flag outside the venue.
At this time, someone below shouted: “Shangshan Che—look up! Look up!”
Many people followed suit, booing him to look up.
Shangshan Che raised an eyebrow, pondering if everyone was treating him like a CT player, not looking up, huh.
But seeing more and more people shouting, Shangshan Che had no choice but to lift his head a bit—otherwise, with them shouting nonstop, even pure passersby would feel uncomfortable.
Then, Shangshan Che, looking from bottom to top, saw a city.
A floating city.
The enormous building, even floating hundreds of meters in the sky, was enough to make ordinary people on the surface feel its grandeur.
Its ring-shaped appearance looked like a gigantic floating flying saucer, with sunlight flowing over the silver-gray surface of the building, wrapped in a translucent blue membrane, giving an explosive sense of technology at first glance.
Venue?
This is actually the match venue for the Seed Battle?!
Even Shangshan Che couldn’t help but be stunned.
No wonder they said the match was in central Tokyo, no wonder Sister Nanjo said a few days ago that it needed to be kept secret.
Shangshan Che shifted his gaze, roughly estimating that the diameter of this building was nearly a kilometer.
A one-kilometer building…
Even if it wasn’t solid but mostly hollow, it was hard to imagine how to make it stably hover in Tokyo’s city center while ensuring absolute safety.
Even bringing a hundred Shangshan Ches couldn’t achieve something like this.
But looking at the crowd below who seemed to have known about it long ago, it was probably that the Special Affairs Office had already issued a notice, but he just hadn’t checked in the past few days.
At this moment, above the gigantic venue, the name “Shangshan Che” was flashing, the spiritually enhanced light so conspicuous even at noon.
Shangshan Che activated Spirit Control Technique, continuously stirring the spiritual power beneath him, using the reaction force to slowly fly upward.
—If competitors without cultivation-related Onmyōdō couldn’t come up, how would they?
It took a full two minutes, and after expending quite a bit of spiritual power, Shangshan Che finally passed through the blue membrane on the venue’s surface and stepped onto solid ground.
He stomped his foot and found it no different from exerting force on the ground.
Terrifyingly stable.
“You must be competitor Shangshan Che, right?”
A staff member in a blue fluorescent outfit smiled and approached, handing him a small black iron badge,
“This is your important credential for participating in the Eastern Region Seed Battle this time, please keep it safe.”
“Got it.”
Shangshan Che took the badge and found the front blank, while the back was engraved with his name.
“Next, please go to the rest area and wait a bit first.” The staff member bowed and raised his hand, “Or, if you want to enter the venue directly to watch, that’s fine too.”
“—Alright alright, come over after getting your stuff.”
At this time, Nanjo Emi’s voice interrupted Shangshan Che’s hesitant thoughts: “You’re the last one.”
He turned his head and saw Nanjo Emi standing at the doorway of another passage, waving at him with a tired expression on her face.
“Alrighty.”
Shangshan Che obediently prepared to follow behind Nanjo Emi into another open area.
But as soon as he crossed the threshold, Shangshan Che’s footsteps suddenly halted.
Instinctively, he looked around.
Thus, completely different Ghost God’s Might all around stimulated Shangshan Che’s nerve endings to numbness and chill,
“Felt it?” Nanjo Emi, walking ahead, slowed her pace and came to his side with a smile, “The Great Officers from Tokyo Special Affairs Office District 23 are all here now.”
In silence, Shangshan Che stiffly took in everything around him with his gaze, feeling his breathing become difficult and sticky.
Now, the Ghost God level existences standing before his eyes had already exceeded thirty.
All of Tokyo, even most of the eastern region’s official Ghost God levels gathered here.
“Sister Nanjo, what are you guys doing here…”
After hanging the Hannya Mask on his waist, Shangshan Che finally felt his breathing a bit smoother.
Of course, this also drew some puzzled gazes from Ghost God levels that shifted from indifference.
“With so many seeds from the Special Affairs Office together, we have to guard against them being wiped out in one go.” Nanjo Emi replied casually.
But moments later, even she seemed to feel this reason didn’t hold up, so after reaching the Arakawa Ward rest area, she explained,
“Today is the first day of operation for this 【Sky Dome One】.”
Nanjo Emi elbowed the wall,
“Though unlikely, if something goes wrong and it crashes, with everyone here, it won’t fall to the ground at least.”
This did resolve Shangshan Che’s earlier doubt.
—With dozens of Ghost Gods present, even if this floating venue lost control due to super shoddy construction, it could be annihilated into particles in an instant.
Shangshan Che nodded and sighed: “Making the Seed Battle match venue this impressive, the Special Affairs Office really put in the effort.”
“Who said this is the match venue?”
Hearing the rhetorical question, Shangshan Che puzzledly looked at the seeds around waiting to go on stage, whom he recognized very well: “If this isn’t the venue, what is it?”
“Of course it’s a war weapon, it’s just temporarily acting as the venue.”
Nanjo Emi made a gun shape with her hand, biubiubiu-ing naturally: “If those Eternal World Factory Owners can make it, how could we not?”
Shangshan Che opened his mouth, recalling the terrifying near-one-kilometer diameter, and swallowed hard with some difficulty.
—Such a huge thing floating in the sky, how many personnel, supplies, materials, and weapons could it carry at once?
—But the target is too big, easy to shoot down.
But the Special Affairs Office surely thought of such a simple issue, so no need for him to worry.
“Awesome…”
Shangshan Che savored it, then puzzledly frowned again: “Wait, how would the government approve such a project?”
This Sky Dome One, terrifying in both materials and required technology, must have massive funding behind it.
And the Neon government…
“Government?”
Nanjo Emi laughed: “This superior-yet-actually-backward thing was already nominally dead after the last top-down comprehensive inspection.”
She shrugged helplessly and sighed: “Unfortunately, we originally wanted to cooperate fully with the government, which would definitely achieve 1+1>2 effects.
Sadly, this government is so corrupt and incompetent, even after the First Wave it didn’t fundamentally change, regrettable.”
“So, we have to…”
Nanjo Emi made a cutting motion with her hand knife.
WTF, this government flew too far, silently completely sidelined.
Fair enough, if they had any use at all, they wouldn’t be completely useless.
Shangshan Che’s mouth twitched; before, just thinking about taxes he inevitably paid bending several times into others’ pockets made him uncomfortable all over.
Now it’s good.
He used Eye of Interpretation to examine the slender yet precise Onmyōdō patterns flowing with spiritual power on every inch of the ground, marveling.
Thinking that taxes turned into a sky city floating in the air, Shangshan Che felt great.
Since today’s Sky Dome One was just for trial use, inside there were only forty-nine seeds from Tokyo’s twenty-three districts to complete the preliminary selection.
So the preliminary selection progress in the venue was relatively slow, and there weren’t many ordinary people in the audience seats.
But the live stream team was fully prepared.
Many professionals carried ridiculously expensive machines, carefully moving around, broadcasting the scene to various platforms.
Shangshan Che blinked, and at the position where he could faintly see the center of the venue, he saw a slightly unfamiliar face emerge from the darkness.
He said: “This is… the seed from the same district as Saito Ryuichi, Takizawa Kai? This spiritual power fluctuation is so conspicuous, like a light bulb.”
The boy in cheap clothes, overflowing with powerful spiritual power fluctuations, went on stage empty-handed.
Clearly facing just a two-and-a-half-star peak strength puppet, his expression was quite serious.
“He’s the seventeenth, you’re near the end with plenty of time left.” Nanjo Emi yawned, “Everyone else arrived in the morning, you’re the latest.”
Shangshan Che was shocked: “Then what did ‘next one’ just now mean, does it loop every hour?”
Nanjo Emi nodded: “Pretty much, but every half hour, and your name was up there the whole time.”
“Tch…”
Shangshan Che’s words about to spill out were abruptly interrupted by the violent spiritual power sweeping through the arena.
Boom rumble!
In his sight, the blazing sea of fire that nearly filled the hundred-meter diameter arena slowly dissipated.
The boy named Takizawa Kai breathed a sigh of relief, smiled at the camera and sparse audience after, then stepped down.
Shangshan Che’s eyebrow twitched,
“Really… cannon to kill a mosquito, probably the puppet bro was burned without even ashes left.”
—This Takizawa Kai really was as the data said, a complete turret-type Onmyoji, just standing there and raising a hand unleashes full strength.
“He’s naturally Five Elements Spiritual Body, big fireballs, big water balls, big earth balls at will, messing with you.”
Nanjo Emi smacked her lips,
“And the Special Affairs Office missed him in the first talent check, good thing Y passed by the countryside and grabbed him, or this talent almost got lost.”
After Takizawa Kai, every subsequent seed showed considerable strength against the puppet that could be crushed with a flip of the palm.
Most seeds even exposed some killing moves, slaying the puppet before it could act.
No time to think much, Shangshan Che who memorized every move of the previous entrants’ pupils shifted, and he stood up from the soft seat.
Because Minamoto Shizuka, in plain clothes with Hotarumaru at her waist, went on stage.
She kept her head low, as if staring at her toes.
The all-steel puppet landed on the arena, with spiritual power injection, the spell lit up, and the puppet’s eyes shifted from dim to bright.
In that instant, Minamoto Shizuka drew her sword.
A clearly visible black suddenly appeared in everyone’s sight, making the puppet about to roar and intimidate the competitor freeze.
The blue blade returned to its scabbard.
Click.
In the sound of blade guard colliding with scabbard, the puppet split straight into two.
From afar, Shangshan Che who clearly witnessed this sword and put himself in the puppet’s place heavily exhaled.
A flat blunt phantom pain appeared on his torso.
Clearly, Shangshan Che couldn’t block this sword.
But if Shangshan Che went all out with a sudden Darkness Sword swing, Minamoto Shizuka might not block it either.
Because the attacker just needs to consider how to land the slash and maximize damage.
But the defender has much more to consider.
“But the gap exists, need to face it squarely.”
Shangshan Che took a deep breath, sinking his attention back into the previous scene, this time from Minamoto Shizuka’s perspective.
Immediately, a wondrous feeling enveloped his thoughts.
Step forward.
Then draw the sword.
Nothing else.
Simple and pure.
To slay the enemy, just do these two things.
Accompanied by the black sword light flashing again, Shangshan Che dazedly opened his eyes, only to find the whole world had slightly changed.
In some places, it became… more complex.
Yet in this complex world, Minamoto Shizuka could swing such a simple sword.
This, perhaps, is the reason for her strength.
A series of prompts popped up, refocusing Shangshan Che’s gaze.
【You had an insight and entered a state of epiphany, your trait·Sword Principle（9%） has now become Sword Principle（10%）!】
【Due to your trait·Sword Principle reaching 10%, your understanding of “Sword Principle” has deepened further!】
【Due to your trait·Sword Principle reaching 10%, your understanding of all things related to swords has deepened!】
【Due to your trait·Sword Principle reaching 10%, damage of all your sword skills has been slightly increased!】
【Due to your trait·Sword Principle reaching 10%, you have grasped a little knowledge of “Sword Domain”!】
Huh?
Even Shangshan Che himself was stunned.
The Sword Principle stuck at 9% unmoving, just broke through so simply due to some inexplicable substitution?
Sensing something, Nanjo Emi turned her head and found Shangshan Che’s qi beside her seemed slightly different.
This feeling was familiar, probably a breakthrough in some internal aspect.
But breaking through just by watching as an spectator?
Such a good thing exists?
Coming back to his senses, Shangshan Che who hadn’t had time to think about other things finally felt sincerely puzzled,
“—Sister Nanjo, why does everyone show so many moves beating a puppet, is there some benefit?”
“Because the elimination tournament ranking is based on the forty-nine seeds’ performance in the preliminary selection, higher rank means bigger advantage in the elimination tournament.”
Nanjo Emi forcefully held back her question, explaining dryly instead.
Staring at the “threads” chaotically drifting before his eyes, Shangshan Che fell into thought.
I see.
He understood the meaning of this rule.
Because everyone wants a higher rank, they must show a few hands against the puppet.
But showing too much makes it easy to be targeted and studied by opponents.
How much to show and how much to hide is a test for each competitor.
So, what should he do?
Shangshan Che thought carefully, and had an answer.
—Go all out with his normal state.
—Equip two incarnation gears, fully activate breathing technique, Five Thunder Technique, Three-stage Thrust, plus Little Jia’s convergence debuff.
Thus, the puppet would surely turn to a pile of charred remains before it could even open its eyes.
And this was merely half his strength, or even less.
