“Ladies and gentlemen, the sixth qualification round will begin in fifteen minutes! Contestants take your place!”

A soft yet energetic female voice backed by inconceivably deep Qi rang throughout the colossal coliseum and got everyone’s attention. Ryu looked away from the brown robed group that was giving him looks of contempt. The group staring at Ryu in return also did the same thing. A paramount aura came from the announcer floating mid-air at the center of the arena. This dominating aura was without doubt in the Sovereign Domain. The only time Ryu had felt the force of such an aura was from Alexis!

The person speaking was not showing of her prowess nor is she hiding it. She was a middle-aged woman with unworldly beauty. Even men who had found life-long partners felt their heart skip a beat when they saw her. Her charms were enough to sway the hearts of those who swore never to love. Coupled with the fact that she is in the Sovereign Domain, she is like a deity in front of all. In front of her seductive and dominant presence, no one dared to be rude. Only sounds of breathing could be heard after she started speaking.

Many similar thoughts resonated around Ryu and that thought was… How many Sovereign Domain experts does the Thousand Swords Graveyard have?

It turns out that just before each qualification rounds started, a new announcer would take the lead in broadcasting the leaderboard and introducing the next challenge. The Miyamoto Clan had an infamous founder but there were no written records of any of his descendants achieving high cultivation. This just added another shroud of mystery to the Sovereign Domain experts leading the competition.

These Sovereign Domain experts were from Sector Zero. Even within the Miyamoto Clan, only a high-ranking member would know who they are. As for their exact purpose, no body besides their own members knew. Any promising individuals from the seven original sectors would be taken at a young age to join Sector Zero. Sector Zero’s duties were secretive and above the petty conflicts between the original seven sectors. They did not show any favoritisms nor did they interfere with the seven sectors.

“In the first place with five hundred and fifty tokens… we have The Commonwealth! A coalition between three of the biggest powerhouses on the Heaven Continent! The Montgomery Bank, Maxwell Flight Services and the Xin’s Auction House all have deep roots in the great nation of Britannica and rest of the world. It doesn’t come as a shock that the largest and richest faction also has the most tokens!” The alluring woman said with a charming smile that could melt anyone’s heart.

The crowd laughed as the announcer continued to praise The Commonwealth faction. The Montgomery Bank alone is one of the wealthiest entities if not the wealthiest entity in the world. They operate in every single continent except the Dark Continent and are headquartered in Britannica, one of the greatest continents. Likewise, the Maxwell Flight Services and the Xin’s Auction house both operate in multiple continents and are headquartered in Britannica as well. Although all three are just puny branches compared to their parent company, they are still three of the top ten strongest powers in the Heaven Continent.

Ryu noticed for the first time that at least one in five contestants he sees were already wearing an insignia showing their allegiance to The Commonwealth. All factions have the opportunity to employ individuals to their faction. All the top factions are willing to offer great rewards for those who have the ability to gain qualification tokens. After all, only the top sixteen factions will be able to participate in the real tournament where priceless rewards will be given out. As for rewarding employees, who can compete with their nearly unlimited funds?

“In the second place we have the self-proclaimed Chu Empire. No one took them seriously before but with five hundred and six tokens they have earned the rights to be the runner up of this competition. Their infamous Purple Dragons warriors have proven to be near invincible!”

The Chu Empire? Ryu was shocked. He recalled the story told to him by Exoe that the Chu Empire met their demise when they marched into the Forbidden Forest looking for some sort of priceless treasure. The entire empire literally disappeared overnight when they incurred the wrath of the magical forest. Literally everyone else had the same shocked reaction upon hearing about the Chu Empire during the first qualification round. The announcer was dead on, no one took them seriously. At least not until they showed off their superior might in battle and slaughtered everyone in their path.

“Those purple warriors… they slaughtered almost everyone at entrance nine that didn’t concede to them. I heard there’s less than a hundred of them but all of them are in the Supreme Domain! They caused such a big ruckus that the Miyamoto Clan had to send a Sovereign Domain administrator to put them in place.” One of the contestants beside Ryu whispered to his ally.

It could be said that Ryu owes the Chu Empire and these purple warriors a big thank you. The sector zero member in charge of monitoring the Thousand Swords Graveyard had to deal with five big disturbances which distracted him from discovering incidents regarding Ryu before anyone else was allowed to enter. The Chu Empire’s main force along with these mysterious purple troops contributed to two of these five disturbances.

“In the third place we have Xu Empire! As expected, this great empire has the backing of the legendary Spirit Medicine Workshop. They managed to secure three hundred and eighty-six tokens!”

Cro-La, head of the Raging Thunder Sect, once told Ryu that the Xu Province is in reality ruled by the Spirit Medicine Workshop. It wasn’t even a public secret. The mysterious workshop has the most and brightest alchemists in the whole continent. Through unknown means, they provide the largest supply of cultivation materials than the rest of their competition combined. Naturally they are able to provide their own people with the best cultivation resources which allows them to produce the most Emperor Domain cultivators! Even the ruler of the Xu Empire was appointed by this cryptic group.

[Note: Cro-La had this conversation with Ryu in chapter 60]

“The mighty Yasha Empire takes the fourth place with three hundred and sixty tokens! The Nam Corporation has agreed to cooperate with this colossal empire. Their joint effort has produced shocking creations never seen before.”

Ryu nodded along with everyone else. From what he heard in the past; the Nam Corporation is also one of the ten strongest powers in the Heaven Continent. They manufacture most of the weapons on the continent. Combined with Yasha Empire which is known for their war constructs, they make a powerful combination.

“At the fifth place we have the Varex Clan from our very own Sector One! We thank our humble guests for going easy on one of our Miyamoto Clans.”

There is seven sectors in the Thousand Swords Graveyard, number seven is the weakest while one is the strongest. It was outside of everyone’s expectation that the first sector would be so much superior than the rest and could even place as high as the fifth place at the moment.

“In the sixth place we have a faction consisting of two unexpected groups of warriors from the Frozen Continent and Warring Continent! Their reputation precedes them and they have proven to be formidable warriors that are indomitable in individual combats. Although they are like oil and water right now, imagine what they could accomplish if they actually worked together!”

Warriors from other continents? Ryu had never seen a full-fledged warrior in the flesh from another continent in action. Prince Na’vi and his group were only projections of their consciousness so it didn’t really count. However, since the Heaven Continent is the weakest, how much stronger are the warriors from foreign lands?

“In the seventh place we have the Feng Empire with three hundred tokens … eighth place with two hundred and ninety tokens is the Toko Empire… ninth place is Lin Empire at two hundred and thirty tokens…”

The rest were powerful individual factions that have yet to concede their pride to join with another faction. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The Feng Empire is a military focused empire that requires all its citizens to join the army. The emperor of the empire is actually its strongest citizen. If it had the backing of the Nam Corporation or the Spirit Medicine Workshop than its ranking would be much higher. The fact that the Toko Empire and the Lin Empire stood at the bottom out of the ten great powers on Heaven Continent was not all that surprising. These two empires are only around because of the mystical treasures left by their founders.

“Now a quick reminder regarding the next qualification round. The setting is in a world half covered in flames and half in ice! Your cultivations will be capped at the King Domain, please adjust accordingly. The round will end in seven days or when a thousand tokens have been found. The area is larger than the previous by tenfold. Individual qualification tokens can be found deep within the molten or frozen earth. There will also be bosses in the Emperor Domain that’ll drop significantly more tokens. As usual, if any of you can defeat the overlord of the world, a bonus five hundred tokens will be awarded! Good luck to you all.”

The instant the stunning announcer stopped speaking, the world around the contestants at the center of the impossibly huge coliseum warped and transported them over to another location. The last thing Ryu heard was a boundless wave of cheering that could topple a mountain.

A burning sensation instantly clashed against Ryu’s cheeks. If he wasn’t wearing his armor just now then he would have been slightly tanned right away. He found himself on top of a charred rock no bigger than a small boat. A murky red sea of lava covered the ground as far as his eyes could see. The lava flowed slowly but its ruby red glow prevented Ryu from gauging how deep the lava is. A Grandmaster Domain cultivator would die within three seconds in this sizzling heat.

Ryu carefully levitated off the rock and started flying around. The announcer mentioned that tokens can be found on land and the little charred rock he started off from obviously had none. His Qi sense also tells him that the burning lava is at least fifteen kilometers deep, it wasn’t worth diving down for tokens yet. He just needed enough to join Sector Seven and follow up on the people with the moonlight badge.

“This place was created by an accomplished Immortal. The world you see now is just a virtual reality meant to train people. The foolish brains behind all this must be trying to pick a few capable people that might succeed in beating the ten tombs within this place.” Eni’s said with amusement.

Ryu was just about to question her more when suddenly a long blurry figure splashed out of the lava. It was a large serpent with a scaly black body. Its yellowish green eyes stared at Ryu hungrily and its thin pink tongue darted forward at a lightning speed.

With a thought the diamond sword materialized in his hands and Ryu slashed downwards. This mysterious sword that seemed to share a similar origin with the Infinity Tomes was without a doubt superior to any weapons Ryu had seen so far. The swing of the sword looked ordinary but an invisible aura encased the sword and elongated the range of the strike by many folds.

The vicious serpent whose whole body didn’t even fully emerge from the lava got beheaded easily by Ryu. Like Eni said, everything around Ryu seemed to be fake in the sense that these creatures did not contain real Qi. If one wanted to sit down and cultivate or even recuperate it would be extremely difficult. One can only use the Qi within themselves to perform any tasks.

With each swing, Ryu got more and more proficient with the Transcendent Knight Spirit skills. The set of skill was ranked between eight and nine meaning it was suitable for even Sovereign Domain experts. Its specialty was transcending the normal limit of the user temporary. All its skills were Qi based which made it even easier for Ryu who can control Qi without effort.

A few more creatures tried obstructing Ryu without success before Ryu saw another piece of land. Whether its fire golems or fire spirits, they all fell to Ryu within a single strike. However, after flying around for two hours, Ryu had only found a single token on a lone rock. Collecting tokens was much harder than he thought it would be.

After another hour Ryu finally came across a change in the hazy steaming scenery. Something impossible was happening right in front of his eyes. The scorching heat that had been building up at this particular region was clashing against what looked like a wasteland filled with ice. It looked like a wintry storm that could destroy towns and city easily was battling against the melting lava. The result was that a clear border was drawn between the two polar opposite environments.

The moment Ryu entered the other side, he felt like a completely different person. He even had to adjust his internal Qi to the new frozen environment. On this new terrain there were no lava on the ground. There was only pure ice with azure gases seeping out of it. If Ryu had to guess, the dangerous gas could probably turn rocks into ice cubes. In some ways it was even more dangerous to touch than the melting lava previously.

It took Ryu a little bit more time before he came upon another piece of land. A frozen mountain that was much exponentially larger than any piece of viable land that Ryu had arrived at before came into view. It even had small hills on it, making it into a small frozen mountain range. However just at the edge of it a handful of corpses covered in frost from what Ryu could see. A smell of death was in the air.