The Era of Gods

Step by step on the staircase, each of their gazes opened up, allowing the students below to disperse.

After the six youths and girls, who were the hosts, completed their speech, they smiled slightly and strode toward the fifth level platform.

But from his facial expressions, it didn’t seem like there was anything extraordinary, but he was extremely attentive and recognized the true strength. At last, he finally saw Wu Zhonglin, a name that had thundered in his ears since long ago.

It was him, it was definitely him, but even though his heart felt an intense surge of direct revelation, the two youths didn’t see him standing behind them.

The moment Xiao Lin returned to Ning Tang City Yuanwu from the Inner Divine Realm, just as he heard this name, his gaze, at the very first instance, swept toward the main seats upon the platform, and his eyes settled on the middle-standing black-haired youth among the five young figures.

Pretty much everyone was in shock discussing this name that was like thunder blasting in their ears just as he finished speaking, causing an uproar in the group.

In the Cloud Dream Team province group, he only knew Shen Mingxin and Xu Lin. Although in reality, he was talking to Shen Mingxin and Xu Lin, he was just stating this in the group.

“Wu Zhonglin!”

Amidst the deep breaths of astonishment in the group, the middle-standing boy with five names, the one with a secret divine glyph on his forehead, stared intensely with eyes that were firmly resting on his ancient white silver treasure seat, holding it tightly in his hands.

But the ordinary students sitting below couldn’t clearly make out the identity of these six; they could only guess that, as expected, these six were the best picks for this season’s Merfolk challenge, posing great threats to them. Yet, everyone in the group was stunned and the atmosphere changed drastically, when a voice fell from the very highest white silver and gold seats.

“They are to participate in the competition, having already been reported early on, and not only have they been invited for this event, but they’ve come just recently.”

An official introduced the five men and one woman standing behind him.

“Besides, there’s a tight schedule for the major challenges; we still have a half hour before the first stage ends,” he said as he coughed lightly.

An air of a certain magnetic attraction drew the eyes of the elites toward their figures—it was almost as if there was some enchanting entity within them, compelling people to look. Although they were simply standing there, nothing particularly strange was revealed, except that the five noble young men were impressively arrayed behind him, barring the mysterious lady whose face was covered by a layer of misty and translucent gauze.

But Mo Guanjiao, the host of this season’s Merfolk challenge, wasn’t on the main seats, though it was uncertain where he appeared from. And the attention of the elites was not gathered at him, but rather at the one standing behind him, the noble youths arrayed in a row of five. Every student seated on the treasure seats at the same moment turned their gaze toward the fifth level of the treasure seats opposite them, where even those not seated above still felt a surge of intense sensation that attracted the eyes of everyone to them. The whole great hall was incredibly quiet without any sound, as if every voice had abruptly stopped.

…and the silence was suddenly punctuated with a sound.

“…I have succeeded, I have indeed succeeded.”

With this success in the challenge clearly evident, the two places exchanged positions. The one who had been standing in the challenger’s original spot now had a face of utter loss, and the one with a face of joy, holding the treasure seat tightly, was now standing on the treasure seat that appeared out of nowhere after a flash of light from the fourth challenger’s seat at twenty-eight minutes exactly.

With a face unwilling to accept defeat after two hours and twelve minutes, the third one lost, probably having underestimated his opponent, who wasn’t significantly worse.

Similarly returning to his original place, crouching seated on the ground, holding his head, was the second challenger who lost after two minutes.

The first challenger, who didn’t even make it to fifty minutes, lost disheartenedly and had to return to his original place, suddenly crouching on the ground with his head covered.

Since they didn’t really need to continue watching a challenge of the same level the other day, and there were hardly any interested spectators as they all had no merfolks for the challenge, the buddies indeed didn’t need to purchase a five-star admission ticket after all.

Not daring to go for an even higher level, since they didn’t have anything significant either, Tang Leng and his real strength companions were only up to this stone head treasure seat of the first level with their group of four.

Naturally relaxed, as he had no pressure and his mission was completed, Qiu Kaoyuan just shrugged.

“That’s also true.”

“I have no chance now anyway; I don’t have a single challenge opportunity left,” he said, shaking his head.

“Why not? Don’t I remember you still having one challenge opportunity?” Tang Leng asked quietly, poking Qiu Kaoyuan with his finger at this moment.

Only after the four figures walked out did a moment of silence fall over the Cloud Dream Team province group; they were all, after all, part of the team’s backbone.

“There is not much time left, just about two minutes short of an hour. According to the rules, the first stage will end today at noon,” Gucheng suddenly said, taking a relaxing breath within the group.

As the selection battles went on, there were fewer and fewer challengers left. The distinction was clearest at the top where the golden and silver seats were located, which had already become fairly stable.

But there was one who was challenged just yesterday and couldn’t continue, although he finally completed his task. Before that, there were five, and now only four can sit steadily on the surface, and most of them don’t have a seat anymore, barely being able to stay on.

Or rather, they’re only temporarily avoiding immediate elimination since they no longer have the opportunity to challenge others.

In the end, more than half of the seventy-six students who had made the journey from Cloud Dream Province had been unable to meet the requirements and faced the prospect of being eliminated after just seven days of effort.

What awaited them at the end of the summer camp’s first phase was, naturally, a dark retirement, having exhausted all their opportunities for challenge and hence the chance to select a new banner carrier.

Those who failed naturally had to give up their treasure seats, but there were always challengers successfully occupying higher tiers throughout the seven days of duels.

But there were even more losers, and a larger number of students rushed in each day, with today being the last of the seven-day first phase of summer camp.

Xu Lin mumbled a curse under his breath as he checked his communicator, only to find that there was still no reply. But he made accurate acknowledgment of the new challengers, as a merfolk—one of a kind of exotic species rarely seen— appeared before him. In reality, Wu Zhonglin’s family was actually one of the higher-ranking species, or perhaps directly of the Inner Divine Realm, which were all considerably different from the mid-level species Xu Lin had previously guessed they might be.

Xu Lin felt like he might still have a chance to turn on his cheat ability, although he hadn’t even thought that his own performance was indeed a breakthrough.

“Why are you so outstanding? Are you all mothered by the same person?”

Xu Lin fell deeply into doubt and scrutiny, along with the others watching the battles, already meticulously observing Wu Zhonglin’ s merfolk family.

A delay of just one or two minutes would likely lead to a direct crushing defeat, as seen when one of the top gold treasure seat hopefuls was easily defeated. However, if this was just a single successful defense, then that might mean Xu Lin would easily get bogged down in this immediately.

The challenger had already collapsed, enabling a view straight to the front row of the Inner Divine Realm seats as the ongoing battle drew to an end.

But Xu Lin only glanced quickly and withdrew his gaze — these were scenes he couldn’t possibly afford to peer into any longer.

He suspected that the imposing figures watching the combat were either summer camp committee members from prestigious Ning Tang City academies or the bigwigs themselves. A faint clear light shone from the pupils that seemed to cover almost everything before them, even beyond the vast virtual space — the first thing Xu Lin saw when he turned his gaze toward the illusory battle seat was a dense crowd of figures, and his heart palpitated slightly at the insight he perceived from those faintly twinkling eyes.

He wasn’t the only one applying for observer status among these six challengers, and so he quickly put his worries aside.

Xcing his brows for a second, he looked over the three remaining top gold treasure seat occupants, releasing a sigh as if clearing himself of weight. At the same time, four other males and one female were also challenging him.

The battles had already begun, and brilliant divine light flared, momentarily obscuring two figures.

“Please, from Ning Tang City Yuanwu, representing Huang He Province!”

He quickly adjusted his mental state. Although he should be looking down at others from such a high and mighty treasure seat, at this moment, all the students sitting on the gold treasure seats felt like they were being belittled, despite clearly being high above.

” Wu Zhonglin, from the Eastern City District of Ning Tang, representing Cloud Dream Province!” one of the central figures standing on the golden treasure seat said with a faint smile, just as Xu Lin had thought at that moment.

But Xu Lin was looking forward to observing Wu Zhonglin’s first battle, although he didn’t expect that even a high-ranking deputy of the heavenly list like him would undergo a tremendous change simply because he occupied this seat.

Oddly enough, the task was already completed, and Xu Lin was sure he could stay on.

He still had one last challenger to face, and he couldn’t afford to waste energy.

Nevertheless, he was confident enough to occupy a treasure seat, as he had already managed to break through steel armor with his weaponry, which turned out to be either steel or iron quality overall — despite the mixed quality of the items he had used in previous attempts. Furthermore, he owned weapons that were sufficient, and he had improved overall as a grey mist Merfolk after being strengthened.

He must continue to challenge for a treasure seat.

In the end, it turned out that his goal was only the sacred stone seat, and none of this chaos would affect him anymore, irrelevant to Xu Lin.

This would certainly result in a chaotic battle once the time comes, with a chain reaction that would trigger a scramble for the aquamarine treasure seat just below. If one were to challenge and lose to the silver treasure seat, they would certainly continue to challenge the remaining three gold treasure seats, and those six students who were being challenged below would represent the six golden high-tier challengers.

But Xu Lin thought there might be even more of a show to watch after the battles concluded.

In fact, everyone was more interested in observing such high-level battles, creating a light-hearted atmosphere among some people, while others were filled with excitement, prompting laughs in the group as Xu Lin commented, “This is too torturous to bear!”

They all secretly prayed in their hearts not to be chosen.

Ninety-nine percent would need to kneel if they were selected for a challenge.

These six candidates were clearly much stronger, which the summer camp committee members could see, potentially becoming a prime candidate for the summer camp and making a name for themselves, standing out in a group of nine on edge.

Three sixty-top students from the silver treasure seats were looking up at them with completely normal expressions, having just surpassed the white silver tier to reach the very top gold tier. A very relieved student from the aquamarine treasure seat sighed, then easily passed the iron treasure seat and the sacred stone seat.