"How did you make the fire float?" Wang Wei asked.

Xiuying who was just returning to her seat, about to console Liu Qiang, turned around.

"Ah, that..." she said. "Well..."

She began to fidget and looked away.

The floating flames? Mei didn't think about it previously, but it was indeed a bit unusual now that she thought of it.

During the battle, Xiuying had summoned balls of flames that floated in the air, blocking off the movement of her opponent. But other than her, none of the flames the disciples summoned lasted long after leaving their hands. Even Wang Wei, who was the most talented of the bunch was unable to, judging by how he was now asking.

"I guess you can see for yourself," Xiuying said, finally, with some hesitation.

She tossed a small ball of flame into the air.

Mei was confused by what she meant for a moment, until she looked closer. From Xiuying's fingertips, thin wisps of wood qi were being fed to the ball of flame. Ah, so that was how she did it. It was too far to see clearly back in the arena earlier.

Wait, but if she was a fire user, how was it possible for her to-

"What?! You are cultivating both fire and wood?" Wang Wei shouted. "Are you crazy?"

Xiuying laughed nervously, trying to avoid the looks his shouting attracted.

"I guess I just wanted to pursue both horticulture and cooking?" she said. "I don't cultivate a lot of fire qi though, so it's easy to control..."

"If your cultivation goes awry, the fire qi in your body could ignite your cultivation base!" Wang Wei continued. "In the best-case scenario, your cultivation would be heavily damaged, and in the worst-case scenario, you could end up crippled or even killed!"

Wait, what? Mei turned towards Xiuying incredulously. She was cultivating with such a dangerous technique? Mei thought only fictional protagonists or crazy people would cultivate suicidal techniques! Well, granted, it probably wasn't at that level of danger, but she still didn't get why Xiuying was doing it. If it really was for cooking, couldn't she just use a stove?

"You should extinguish the fire qi in your body immediately and stop this madness!" Wang Wei said. "What were you thin-"

"Guys!" Liu Qiang interrupted. "Not to interrupt your discussion, but just watch the match, okay? This one seems very interesting!"

He gave a meaningful look to Wang Wei, who stopped his nagging reluctantly. Xiuying heaved a sigh of relief before giving him a grateful look.

Mei gave her one last confused look before turning back to face the arena. Part of her wondered what led Xiuying to cultivate in such a way, but she decided not to worry about it for now.

Meanwhile, looking to the arena, she immediately understood what Liu Qiang meant.

One of the disciples was actually a beast tamer, the first one she had seen in the tournament!

A massive dog the size of two people stood in the arena, its luscious black fur glistening under the sunlight. A ferocious expression came over its face as it bared its sharp teeth and growled.

Seeing that, the beast tamer, a short and chubby girl reached up and patted its head gently, making it look much calmer.

Wow... she felt bad for the disciple who was unlucky enough to face the beast tamer. The disciple in question, a young boy, looked terrified.

"Start!"

"Go, Blackie!" the girl said.

After a quick bark, the dog charged towards the opponent at a speed no lesser than a horse's.

Scrambling around for a bit and realising he couldn't outrun the dog, the boy desperately shot an icicle at the dog. But unfortunately, the dog simply batted the ice away with its paw, with an almost mocking look in its eyes,

Right after that, it pounced on the disciple, picking him up with its mouth and starting to chew!

"AAHHHHHHH!" he screeched.

"Guang Ai has won."

But even after the announcement, the dog continued to chew on the screaming disciple, a content look on its face. With the invulnerability the virtual world provided... he had become the perfect chew toy.

"Blackie, no! Bad dog!" the chubby girl shouted.

The dog whimpered.

"Let him go, or no treats for a week!"

Finally, Blackie let the disciple go, turning its head away from Guang Ai with an angry look.

The disciple ran up the stairs and back to his seat as fast as he could.

"Ahem! Sorry about that, dear disciple." the sect master said, trying his best not to laugh. "I will compensate you with a Foundational pill later."

That seemed like somewhat low compensation for potential trauma...

"Disciples! The first round is now over!"

Finally, after "only" 146 matches. Mei sighed.

"If you have lost earlier, not to worry!" the sect master said. "All of you will get a chance to participate in the next round!"

Eh?

"For our next round, we will send all of you into a special arena. You will be in teams of 3 to 6, and your objective is to defeat as many opponents as possible!" he continued. "You have the next 10 minutes to make or join a team! If you can't get into a team in time, you will be assigned to a team at random! Good luck!"

What? That was so brief and uninformative! He didn't even explain how to make or join a team! Mei was a bit relieved though. She wasn't too thrilled by the prospect of watching a billion boring matches.

As she complained to herself inwardly, a strange vibration came from her hands. Huh? She turned down and saw that it came from the slip of paper detailing the prizes. Instantly, words began to flow into her mind from the paper.

"Making a team is very simple. All you need to do is to tap your slip of paper on someone's head and they'll join your team! Unless they decline or are already in a team, naturally."

"If the person you want to recruit is already in a team, no worries. They can leave their team simply by tapping their head with their paper slip. You can also see who your teammates are and the points you have on the back of your prize slip."

"Oh, and lastly, thanks for holding onto the slip! Those who have thrown their slips away won't be able to make or join teams, haha!"

"Don't worry about those without their slips through, they will join a random team once the timer is up."

Mei: ...

Well, good thing she didn't throw the prize slip away. What was wrong with the sect master?

Luckily, none of her friends had thrown their slips away, so they were able to form their team of 5.