By the time Wang Xiong notified Lin Wu of the duel's starting time, Lin Wu had already made a plan about how he would retrieve the source crystal of the spirit Qi spring. The only thing left for him was the analysis of the barrier that the system would complete in five more hours.

"Senior, the duel will be starting in fifteen minutes at the central battle stage. I'm heading there now." Wang Xiong spoke over the jade slip.

"Mmm, go on and be careful. Just do your best." Lin Wu replied.

"I will not disappoint you, senior." Wang Xiong said in a respectful tone before stopping the connection.

~huu~

"Now to just wait and watch. If trouble really arrives, I'll need to interfere…" Lin Wu muttered to himself before moving towards the location that Wang Xiong had mentioned.

The central battle stage was about three kilometers away from the spirit Qi spring that Lin Wu was at. The central stage was a rather simple name that was given to an entire building complex.

There were multiple stages set up in there, along with seating areas for the audience. It looked quite similar to how the martial arts tournament arenas looked in his past life, except these were much bigger and the materials used were also stronger.

After all, any common cultivator here would split the floor apart with a casual attack if they used the same standard of materials they used in Lin Wu's past life. But this was not the only feature that the central battle stage had a formation array that prevented stray attacks from getting to the audience and also to stop the audience from interfering in the fights.

There were smaller stages that would be used for a longer tournament for the initial rounds, and then one main stage that was the biggest one. This one also had a lot of space for the contestants to fight, along with the audience to sit.

It was in this very arena that Wang Xiong was going to battle. Since he was fighting someone who was quite well known and influential in the sect- a core disciple, there was no way a low leveled stage would be used for it.

Lin Wu saw that a lot of the seats were already filled and even a few elders were in attendance. They had their own seating area and were looking with calm expressions. There was a reefer starting at the edge of the stage who was also at the Nascent soul realm, albeit at the Adolescent stage. Evidently a junior elder.

"Hmm… they have pretty nice infrastructure I must admit…" Lin Wu said upon seeing everything.

"Pity, it's not really effective against the system." Lin Wu said with a chuckle before adding, "system… create a virtual interface for the formation array of the central battle stage."

~Ding~

——

TARGET SELECTED: Central Battle Stage

ANALYZING PARAMETERS: New variables found

CREATING VIRTUAL INTERFACE: Please wait patiently…

VIRTUAL INTERFACE CREATED: Battle stage formation array interface

——

Lin Wu looked over the new interface window and saw that the controls for the stage's formation array were now added there. He would now have no problem if he entered the premises of the central battle stage.

Lin Wu got closer and his spirit sense freely entered the area. He checked all the people in the audience without much trouble even though they felt his spirit sense. But to them, it did not seem like the spirit sense of a cultivator. Rather for them, it was just the central battle stage's formation array doing its regular scan of the area.

Even the elders calmly sat as the spirit sense passed through their bodies. Though a few frowns did appear on some of their faces.

"Hmm… seems like we need to do maintenance work on the formation array soon. It used a much stronger scan than was needed." One of the short bearded elder spoke.

"You think so? I thought it was normal." Another elder that had a crooked back stated.

"No, even I feel that it was a bit stronger than normal. Maybe the calibration got skewed due to the large number of people entering at once. After all, we haven't done a full maintenance on it for a while now." Another elder that had white hair but a smooth unwrinkled face replied.

Lin Wu heard their words clearly and raised his brows.

"I guess, this is just luck." He muttered to himself.

He then looked for Wang Xiong, who he found to be standing on one end of the stage. The man looked to be calmly looking at the stage, or more accurately to the other end. Here another man was standing, a frown present on his face.

'So this is the core disciple that Wang Xiong is going to fight… what was his name? Oh yeah, Niu San.' Lin Wu recalled.

He checked his cultivation as well and found it to be just as Wang Xiong had reported, being at the Infant soul stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

Lin Wu watched as the referee moved up to the stage and raised his hand to calm down the audience.

"Today… we are here to witness a duel." The referee said as he took a look around the audience. "The duel is according to the wishes of the two duelists, and would follow our standard rules of the sect. There shall be no killing, but everything else is allowed." He continued.

~WOOOO~

The audience couldn't help but get excited and shouted out loud. For them, it was not every day that they got to witness something like this and they were looking forward to seeing a core disciple fight.

There were even bets going around on who would win. The odds were of course in the favor of the core disciple Niu San but Wang Xiong had a higher multiplier on him. Still, those who liked to gamble placed their bets on him without hesitation.

"Go on, go on. Place as much as you can… after all, this will all be mine… hehehe!"