Apotheosis

According to the rules that the middle-aged man narrated, the pre-qualifying test consisted of two stages.

At the first stage, the contestants would need to defend their pagodas. Their performances would determine how many points they got. The pre-qualifying test was all about the points. Only the top three contestants, who got the most points of the lot, would qualify to enter the main draw match.

Zen's points were on display on one side of his pagoda. It said zero at the moment. A crystal ball, recording the times the pagoda had been attacked, was set up on top of it.

A resounding toll came from the sky as Zen observed the situation.

As the sound trailed off, a thick line of black dots appeared at the end of the grassland.

"There they come!"

Zen's eyes glittered. His gaze focused on the black dots. Spiders with three eyes on their heads marched at him. Dim light shone from their eyes. Individually, these three-eyed spiders were not dangerous, but when they showed up together in numbers, they could be perilous.

As per the rules, they were to attack Zen and his pagoda. The pagoda would get destroyed if attacked more than twenty times, which in turn would mean that Zen got knocked out of the contest.

Zen had to kill as many spiders as possible and keep them away from the pagoda if he wanted to be in the running at all.

When they closed in on him and came within a certain range, the bowman on his pagoda drew an arrow and launched it.

The shaft went hissing through a three-eyed spider and sent it collapsing on the ground.

The pagoda in itself had counterattacking capacity. Each time a shaft flew from its top, a three-eyed spider was killed. The bowman was as quick as a snake. The arrow seemed to kill its prey wherever he sent it.

However, despite the bowman's accuracy, he could only kill one spider at a time. Too many three-eyed spiders swarmed towards the pagoda. It looked like a sea of spiders was about to flood the arena. The bowman wouldn't be able to defend the pagoda all alone by himself. Zen had to contribute in the fight.

"Kill!"

Zen charged at the spiders at the right time.

The creatures were not tough to deal with, but because there were at least a thousand of them, Zen and the bowman needed to kill them as swiftly as they could. Otherwise, Zen would fail at this stage, even in the case that tens of the three-eyed spiders managed to pass and attack the pagoda.

With a single swing of his sword, more than a dozen spiders were hacked to pieces, turning into spots of light of different hues and colors, then vanishing into nothingness.

Zen swerved his sword and le

pre-qualifying test and enter the main draw match. In addition, runic experts ordinarily don't even know how to fight, so why is he here?' Doubts flew to the middle-aged man's mind one after another.

"I know him. It is him," Michael confirmed. "Alas, I don't know why he took part in the Martial Arts Contest either."

"No wonder he was so slow in the first round. It took him five minutes to exterminate the spiders. I'm afraid he won't make it to the fifth round after all."

"The fifth?" Michael shook his head and smiled. "He is supposed to make it to the tenth round."

Another elder grinned at this. "Elder Mo, I think you think too highly of this young man. The seventh round is the beast attack. I assume the boy will only make it to the sixth or seventh round at most. He's likely to fail in the sixth round."

The elders knew the magic array like the back of their hands. It wasn't easy to defend the pagoda. As the levels progressed, the beasts too successively got stronger. The first rounds were relatively easy, but after the fifth round, every task got at least twice as difficult as the last one.

Although the elders disagreed with each other about which stage Zen was likely to fail at, they all agreed that he wouldn't pass the examination.

After all, it was common knowledge that runic experts weren't strong. And Zen was only at the third grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm.

About a dozen martial arts practitioners, who were at the ultimate level of the Illuminating Soul Realm, had passed the entrance exam already. This time, all the contestants who had passed the pre-qualifying test and who also ranked among the top three were at high grades of the Internal Elixir Realm.

So much weaker than them, how could Zen pass?