As the man who was behind this great tournament, Sun Tzu was at the party well before anyone else so that he could greet the first few guests, which he had made sure was the most important figure of each of the respective communities. Since this part of the festivities was kept quite short, he could not do more than issue thanks to the community leaders for their attendance and willingness to cooperate with him in the upcoming Sun Tournament.

Afterward was when all the rest slowly filed into the room. Once most of those in attendance had made it, Sun Tzu gave a speech to address the room full of multi-talented people from all over the world.

“Ladies and Gentlemen from all over the planet, I humbly welcome you to the Chinese community. Apologies this couldn’t have been done earlier, but we certainly would not have been able to start this party without the representative from Jordsand, Xerxes the Great.”

The moment those words slipped out of Sun Tzu’s mouth, the air in the room changed radically. What had been a generally festive and delightful mood turned into one of intrigue and curiosity about the presence of one of the most influential people on the planet.

“Thank you, Sun Tzu, but you are too kind. The only thing that I am here for is to be a witness to the beginning of perhaps the second most important tournament on this planet, The Sun Tournament. As well as to inform all of you on one important part of the upcoming tournament. Which is how the group matches will be officially determined.” Xerxes spoke to the room of hundreds, loud enough for all of them to hear.

A bunch of hushed voices broke out, but Xerxes continued after letting the discussions go on for a few seconds.

“The 33 groups from each of the 12 communities will all be put into a simulation of which the setting will be the Emu war in Australia. Those who do extremely well in this simulation will, for the most part, be those who are master strategists and have many blueprints up their sleeves. Therefore, these winners will have an easier time as their opponents will be those who have not done as well.”

As courteous as many of these people attending this party was, quite a few conversations stirred up in the wake of this news. Mainly since no one knew of the Emu war of which Xerxes was speaking of. Part of the reason for this was the fact that many of these people had died before the Emu war being fought, and the fact that it wasn’t a war, more of a group of 3 miserably failing to kill thousands of flightless birds. Nonetheless, the decision was final.

“Thank you, Xerxes. Now I will give a brief explanation as to the rest of how this tournament will work. This should serve as a reminder for most of you. After this simulation with the Emu, those with a kill count in the top 50 percentile will be randomly chosen to fight someone in the bottom 50 percentile. So it is possible for the group with the best score to go up against the group with the lowest score.”

Sun Tzu stopped speaking for a few seconds to take a small break. In the meantime, many of the important figureheads were nodding as they had already been briefed about such details years ago. After a short while, Sun Tzu continued.

“Moving on, those who win their first simulation against another group will have effectively won one point for their community. While those who lost will not receive any points. Winners will only go against winners, and losers will only go against losers for the upcoming rounds. Those who win the second round, as well as the first round, will gain an additional two points for a total of 3. Those who lose the first round and win the second round will only receive one point.”

Sun Tzu went on to explain how winning multiple times in a row would dramatically increase their scores. Winning 3 rounds in a row would result in a total of 6 points. 4 wins would net in 10 points, and 5 wins in a row would lead to 15 points. If at any time one were to lose, they would have to restart the multiple wins point advantage. The most one group can earn for their community was 15 points while the lowest would be 0. Of course, groups from the same community could go up against another of the same community, so theoretically no community should end with anything too embarrassing.

Naturally, the more that a group won, the tougher their opponents would become. These group matches were only limited to a total of 5 for any one group. After all, most people should have a grasp of who would be on top since only a dozen or so groups would remain undefeated after that point. The maximum number of points that a community could achieve from this portion of the tournament was in the ballpark of about 350.

Then, the solo match of the tournament would consist of the 12 individuals of the 12 communities battling it out altogether in the setting of the first world war. That is to say, the twelve would be randomly selected from one of the countries involved in the war. One big advantage would be for one of the contestants to be chosen to lead one of the more powerful nations, but that also went the other way if one was assigned to lead the less developed nations. Needless to say, there would be a bit of luck needed to win.

Such a grand spectacle came with high risk, high reward as the winner of this single simulation would be granted 150 points. Nearly one-third of the total number of points achievable for a community. Every other community would not get anything for their efforts. A winner would be someone who has effectively taken over the world.

As with any tournament, the strategists would not be given any buffs to their character. Essentially meaning that they could be shot and die from a single bullet wound. Just like in real life. Very high risk, very high reward. Blueprints would be usable in this simulation, it would just mean that they would have to build all of the necessary factories and whatnot to make them suitable for manufacturing. Adding an extra sense of realism. In normal simulations, one would just have to keep shoveling resources into building weapons and they would just magically appear.

Due to the massive workaround needed to gear up and make sure that there were enough weapons and relevant matters to start a world war, enough time was given to satisfy the time constraint. To the tune of 10 years. With this, another reason for the arrival of Xerxes from Jordsand was revealed. With strategists this brilliant going onto the same stage, the simulation could effectively last decades. Therefore, Xerxes was brought in so that he could unlock a feature of the simulations; to change them so that 1 year in the simulation would equate to just one day passing on Planet 4.

All in all, the expected duration of this event would be anywhere from a few weeks to potentially months, depending on how fast the matches went. One final addition to the tournament was the inclusion of real-life factors. What this meant was the need for the strategists to not only conquer the entire planet but also to make sure that they are not themselves overthrown.

The entire solo match of the Sun Tournament could be effectively summed up in one sentence. 12 dictators attempt to conquer each other with the power of some of the most powerful nations in modern times. Such a setting was only ever allowed in the Death Match Tournament. And now, it was available for the Sun Tournament, under the supervision of Xerxes.

“That is all for now, please socialize amongst your peers and there will be more announcements to come.” Sun Tzu said after giving out the explanation of how the tournament would commence. Just as he was about to head off to make some small talk with others, a figure approached him that he had met only a handful of times before, Queen Gwendolen.

“Ah, your majesty, Queen Gwendolen. It has been a while since we have gotten a chance to talk.” Sun Tzu said with a half-smile.

“Oh, stop it. You know I prefer you to call me Gwendolen.”

“Nonsense. A proper queen deserves a proper title. And a queen that has as magnificent a mind upon her shoulders should be honored.”

“You’re sweet. Say, it has been way too long, where is Zhu Ge Liang? I met him once over a thousand years ago, but I haven’t seen him with you since?” Queen Gwendolen asked curiously.

“Zhu Ge Liang is…a bit preoccupied with other matters at the moment. I don’t think he’ll be back for at least another while.”

“Oh that’s too bad, aside from you, he’s the only one who can war at such a high level. You two should come over to my community when you two reunite. I miss him and all his philosophies.”

“I miss him too…” Sun Tzu mentioned with a bit of longing before suddenly springing out of his daydream. “Umm, is there anything else you wanted to chat about?”

“Yes. Might I ask why Xerxes and some of his lackeys are here? Did you invite them or did they just kind of show up?”

“I had to invite them out of courtesy, even if they did refuse to join in on the tournament.”

“I see, you don’t think they will cause any trouble? From what I gather, they already messed up one of your previous tournaments. They have also messed up a good number of our events as well.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. After all, some of the most important communities are in attendance, what exactly could they do to mess up something they do not wish to participate in?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

The pair conversed for a little while longer before breaking up to speak with others. Sun Tzu went around for a while before running into Sun Wu. After a little conversation, he decided to make the next announcements to the room. He began after getting back up on the stage that he was on before.

“Everyone, allow me your attention for a little while longer. This next announcement will be something that all of you should be made aware of. And that is the introduction of a certain new technology developed by the Jordsand community to be distributed to every strategist on Planet 4.” Sun Tzu said before giving Xerxes the stage.

“Thank you, Sun Tzu. This technology is fairly new, so many of us in the Jordsand community has not even gotten a chance to try it. It is a little device that everyone attaches to a piece of clothing that will store individuals’ information, money, contacts, and more.” Xerxes said while holding up a small disc-like silver object no thicker than a coin and easily fits onto a palm. “The big reason that we have decided to give all of you this is to gather data as well as improve the lives of everyone on the planet.”

Quite a few murmurs began spreading about in the room, as many of these people had not expected such a development. Of course, this only went on for a moment as Xerxes had more to say.

“This will be completely free, and those who do not wish to use it will not be forced to. However, I would encourage those of you present, as well as the others who will be participating in the Sun Tournament to use this as a trial run. I can guarantee you that there will be many benefits to having this piece of technology with you at all times. You can come to grab one from one of Sun Tzu’s assistants beside him. Thank you.”

At first, there was a bit of hesitation. Then, someone’s curiosity got the better of them and he went up to grab a little disc. He looked to Xerxes who was observing him, and Xerxes nodded reassuringly and proceeded to point to his clothes. The young man slowly placed it on the collar of his shirt, and in an instant, the little disc disappeared.

“Woah, I’ve never seen anything like this.” The young man exclaimed. As he felt around the area that he placed the disc, he felt that it was still there, it was just camouflaged so well that he could barely see it.

“Just let it sync with yourself for a little while. You do not need to do anything.” Xerxes guided the young man.

The crowd that was watching this was silent as can be. No one knew what to say. No one wanted to do anything but watch what would happen next.

“Oh! I think it synced. This almost feels like the statistics that we get in the simulations.”

“Yes, it is based on the same principles. After it syncs, you should be able to see everything about yourself, and a ranking of all the people who are also using this device.”

“I see that it has my name already. There are also quite a few features to this.”

After another few moments of Xerxes showing the ropes to the young man, the rest of the crowd slowly trickled in to get a piece of the silver disc. Of course, not everyone was so keen on accepting anything from the Jordsand community, but nearly everyone ended up trying it out. Including Baron, Roxi, and Jaxon. One thing that surprised everyone was that Sun Tzu mandated that all participants in the Sun Tournament wear one to tabulate scores faster instead of relying on strategists to sort everything out. After that, everyone was free to discard it if they so wished.