It was afternoon when Jason entered the colosseum in which the liberation tournament would be held.

The interior had been transformed a little bit and was now equipped with a raised podium which allowed more spectators to watch the tournament.

Meanwhile, the combat rings inside the colosseum had been reorganized with a specific mechanism. 

Because of that, there was more than enough space for several thousand participants to stay inside the colosseum's arena section at once.

Unfortunately, the wide-area still fell short to fit in every participant.

In the end, there had been tens of million applications of confident citizens of the Olympus federation, but only  100,000 had been accepted to participate.

There were certain requirements one had to fulfill to participate in the tournament that were tweaked after every single battle.

With the consistent increase of mana Argos generated naturally, the newer generations were bound to become stronger than the older ones.

That was if one disregarded one's attitude towards cultivation and the provided talent.

As such, only the individuals who were evidently talented in one or multiple aspects, owners of special traits, or known for their role model-like attitude towards certain situations had been accepted.

Despite that 100,000 participants were still too much, which didn't even include the descendants of higher-ups, or the human embassy.

Owing to the large number of participants, the first two tournament rounds were known as the decimator rounds, in which the true talents were separated from those who were unable to hold a candle to the others.

The exams changed for every liberation tournament, but most true talents were confident in their overall strength.

Thanks to this, they could calmly listen to the newly appointed Olympus federation's representative, who was in fact also the manager of the colosseum.

The dragonewt Jason had already seen an image of, floating in the air, right in the center of the colosseum.

He hovered at a height where he could be visible to everyone and amplified his voice before he began his short introductory speech.

"Hello dear participants, citizens of the Olympus federation, and our esteemed guests from the human race, it's that time again, the liberation tournament has finally returned, and we can celebrate ten years of having survived the great calamity.

We survived dark times, overcame the obstacles that had been thrown into our ways, and found shelter on this infant-phase planet. Some may be dissatisfied, and we are fully aware of this, but staying alive is the most important factor in order to achieve the following goals, am I right? 

As a matter of fact, we have invited new friends to participate in the liberation tournament with us to prevent a repetition of past incidents.

The human race has been attacked by other ordinary and even higher races, but we have also suffered due to them.

They had been arrogant and disregarded us, but we couldn't do much against them, in fear that they might return with stronger forces once the world bridges were to become stabler.

As such, we will have to build one strong force on Argos and come up with a solution.

In order to achieve this, befriending the human race is the easiest solution. By now, everyone should have heard about the rumors that they have gained the ability to bind beasts and use their strength, and even inherit their affinities!

Either way, back to the main topic….without further ado, I would like to introduce the first round of the liberation tournament.."

After saying this, the dragonewt paused to take a deep breath. He then took out a large machine that looked similar to a punching arcade machine in addition to an orb Jason and the other God's Children were already familiar with.

Understanding the rules was not difficult, thus Jason didn't intend to listen to the dragonewts next words.

Rather, he felt a complex mix of emotions surging up within him as he repeated the dragonewt's words inside his head and understood the true meaning behind them.

"They invited us, not to test how weak we were...but how strong our most powerful soul-awakenings truly are? That's...unexpected…"

Jason assumed that the Olympus federation was aware of how strong the human race was on average.

As such, it was obvious that mankind's cultivation base was lower in comparison to the Olympus federation that had many connections to procure cultivation resources in addition to a great place to nurture their most talented youths.

Thus, the only plausible answer Jason could come up with his current intel was that the Olympus federation was gauging whether the strongest humans of the youngest generation were valuable enough to consider the whole race as a potential alliance partner.

Not sure what to make of it, Jason couldn't help but think that it was both good and bad at the same time.

The God's Children heard what Jason said, but had been distracted because they had to listen intently to the Olympus federation's representative who was currently explaining everything about the first round and what one had to pay attention to in the universal language.

After that, he demonstrated everything so that even those who were unable to understand him earlier, got what had been said, which was evidently in favor of the God's Children.

While Jason was deep in thoughts more than a hundred punching machines were placed in a row on either side of the arena.

Several meters in front of them, a mana mastery orb had been placed with thousands of intertwined threads that were knotted together at countless intervals.

However, what astonished Jason was that he could see through the mana mastery orb, which allowed him to see them before anyone else. Through this, he could tell that all mana mastery orbs had been calibrated with the exact same difficulty.

This may be interesting under normal circumstances, but Jason hadn't known that his Emperor Eyes had already advanced so much!

'Since when can I see through mana mastery orbs?' 

Scratching the back of his head, he decided to avert his attention to the other participants who had already gone towards the open field, queuing up to show their might, mana mastery which included mana perception, sensitivity, accurate control, and so on.

The difficulty could be said to be on a high level as the mana mastery orb was already tricky.

However, the punching machine's requirement to advance was nothing in comparison.

At least, Jason didn't think highly of the requirement they had to meet in order to advance to the next round.

As a participant one had only to punch the punching machine with a single hit whose force would equal to two ranks above one's cultivation base.

That being said, one could use all means to increase their combat prowess because there were no restrictions.

Because of that, using one's trump card, certain martial art techniques that accumulated one's strength, mana, or affinity at one singular point to explosively release it, or other means to increase their strength temporarily was more than enough.

In Jason's opinion, everyone with a decent body refinement manual that has been trained to the peak of one's cultivation base should be able to have learned how to control their strength.

Furthermore, their strength should have increased too, allowing them to exhibit more combat prowess than their cultivation base revealed.

Using a common Terra-Intermediate martial art technique would already be more than enough to cross the gap of two ranks!

How could Jason have known that the combination of the mana mastery orb and the punching machine was more lethal than any other decimator round of the liberation tournament ever was?

For the God's Children, the punching machine was literally child's play, but for others, it was more dangerous than one could expect.

The pressure weighing on every participant was extreme and a single mistake in either of the first two tasks meant that one wouldn't be able to advance to the second round, thereby disqualifying one from the possibility of winning a lesser origin flame!

As everyone had practiced and toiled for years to build up their foundation and trumps for the liberation tournament, it was essentially different from how the God's Children saw the tasks.

They were only worried about the mana mastery orb, but Jason managed to calm them down.

He didn't tell them anything about the orbs but simply said that they were just like the ones mankind used, only with a higher difficulty calibrated.

This was logical, but enough to calm down the five God's Children who waited for half an hour before it was their turn.

The results of those who had been tested before had been rather disappointing to look at.

The majority failed the mana mastery orb task, without even meeting the lowest required threshold, and a large part of the minority failed miserably in the second task.

Those who had already entered the 9th Lique stage didn't have to reach the combat prowess at the Prismar stage, and an increase in their punch's strength equal to 2000 drops of liquefied mana was more than enough.

In the end, Jason was mildly interested in others' physical strength, only to find out that some individuals he had assumed to pass with flying colors were holding back, trying to fulfill the promise they had made to their families.

This promise was to hold back and only reveal their hidden trumps and secret techniques once it was necessary.

They had been unnecessarily proud and confident about their innate strength. This resulted in a lousy performance and they embarrassed themselves and their family by failing in the first round.

Only those who had realized that the first round of the liberation tournament was not to be taken lightly had been really able to pass the test.

The others failed miserably despite some of them having the necessary strength to cross the punching machine's threshold.

In the end, it didn't really matter what the others did as long as he and the God's Children gave their best without holding back too much.

Once the God's Childrens' turn was over, it would be his batch's turn to be tested, and Jason could only hope that everyone would pass the first round.

'Their mana perception should be good enough...at least if I were to consider their affinity control…'

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