The first round ended with Arkhen and the other forty-nine participants reaching the mountain peak.
It was not that easy to reach the top of that giant mountain which was seven thousand meters tall!
The whole mountain was filled with 2nd and even early-stage 3rd-grade dire beasts! Some fights were unavoidable, and the climate of the mountain also strangely became harsh as they went up.
All in all, it took Arkhen three hours to reach the peak of the mountain since the 1st round started.
In the end, the first round ended after a total of four hours.
The fifty winner participants were taken to the other side of that big mountain after the 1st round ended.
The other side of that big mountain was actually a resort with a waterfall and great facilities! Everyone got to live in a comfortable small house and have food to eat.
However, this made Arkhen feel a bit weird. Why were participants getting such treatment? Was it normal here? After all, none of the participants paid any fees to enter this tournament. They entered for free!
After everyone rested for several hours, they were called to the base of the resort, in an open hall.
The hall had fifty chairs with rankings from 1st to 50th. Prablade was already there and told everyone to sit on the chairs according to their rankings.
Arkhen sat on the 1st rank chair, while a man looking in his early twenties with a gentle expression and flame orange hair sat on the 2nd rank chair.
On the 3rd rank chair sat a girl with long straight silky hair of turquoise color and wore a white tunic dress with blue embroidery patterns. She looked very beautiful with her calm and collected face and dark blue eyes. She had 10/10 in charm.
"The 2nd round is a bit different. It's not about you all fighting against each other but fighting something else," Prablade said with a grin. "But before that, let me finally announce the rewards you will be getting."
Hearing that, everyone showed a hint of excitement in their eyes and body language. The rewards were precisely the reason why everyone was here!
"First of all, let me declare that all fifty of you will be getting some sort of reward. Even the 50th rank one," Prablade said with a smile, but then his tone turned a bit ominous as he continued, "That is... If you live until the end."
"What do you mean?"
Someone questioned.
"Naturally, there's a chance of death in the upcoming round of this tournament, which will actually be the final round."
Many gulped in nervousness after hearing that.
"If you want to call it quits now, then you can go. But you will not get any sort of reward if you quit without participating in the 2nd round," Prablade said with a smile and saw the expressions of many participants changing, causing him to laugh.
"Hahaha, don't worry. Although there's a chance of death, it's not that high. Unless you are stupid, you will survive because you all still have your Escape Rune."
"Oh? So you mean that participants still have a chance to die despite having the Escape Rune?" the 2nd rank man questioned.
"What's your name?" Prablade asked as he looked at the 2nd rank winner.
"I am called Hinok."
"Alright, Hinok. The answer to your question is positive. You might still die even if you have Escape Rune. As such, you should know when to use your Escape Rune. Make correct judgment to save your life."
Everyone nodded. However, the next thing Prablade said caused everyone to cough blood.
"Now about the rewards. Rank 30th to 50th will get one high-grade essence stone of your choice as a reward," Prablade said with a grin.
"One or one hundred?"
"Senior, did you misspeak or something?"
Many people started questioning.
"It's one high-grade essence stone for everyone who comes in between rank 30th to rank 50th," Prablade said with a laugh. "But if you are rank 29th, then you will get 500 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
"What the…!"
"Why such a large gap?"
Arkhen smirked. He guessed that the rewards were set up to increase competition and prevent participants from giving up early. Anyway, he was not going to take anything but 1st rank.
'Hurry up and tell us about the final round already,' Arkhen thought. He wanted to know exactly what they were going to do in the final round.
"I don't need to tell you why there's such a gap in rewards, humph. Get a better rank when the final round ends for better rewards," Prablade snorted before he continued, "Rank 21st to 29th will get 500 high-grade rainbow essence stones and other rewards, which will depend on another factor. You will know about it when I tell you about the 2nd round."
"Rank 11th to 19th will get 1000 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
"Rank 4th to 10th will get 2000 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
"Rank 3rd will get 3000 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
"Rank 2nd will get 4000 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
"Rank 1st will get 5000 high-grade rainbow essence stones."
Everyone became super high-spirited! Especially after hearing about the top 3 rewards!
"Now for your information. The other factor rewards that I mentioned are more valuable than the general rewards that I just listed," Prablade said with a grin.
"What?!"
Everyone was shocked.
"You must be curious about what exactly is this 2nd round, right?"
Everyone nodded.
"It's is a…corrupted portal dungeon!"
Hearing about that, many people were startled, but many also showed confusion since they didn't know about that so-called corrupted portal dungeon.
'What's that? Do you know, Velshi?' Arkhen asked. However, Prablade already started explaining.
"Many of you might not know about that, so let me tell you. Ahem, A corrupted portal dungeon is a dungeon formed from core energy of a complete dimension attached to a realm, in our case, the 1st realm," Prablade said and took a short breath before continuing.
"Due to some coincidences on the micro-atomic level of the realm, such dungeons are formed. We call them corrupted because the monsters produced in those dungeons are truly insane. They are corrupted by mixed energies of that dimension's core energy and other general energies.
"The benefit is that we can get corrupted cores after killing those monsters. These corrupted cores are useless to you, but they are useful for people at the peak of this realm."
Everyone understood the general gist. They had to kill these monsters after entering the dungeon, and the rankings would be likely based on the number of corrupted cores they acquire in the dungeon.
"The corrupted portal dungeon that formed near this location was low-level. Only 2nd class kids like you could enter inside. So, only you have a different type of tournament. The rest have the regular tournament," Prablade said with a grin.
'So, that's the case. But I want to know the use of those corrupted cores,' Arkhen thought with curiosity.
[Basically, since those corrupted cores have core energy of a dimension mixed with other energies, the powerhouses at the peak of this realm can refine the corrupted cores to get the core energy of the respective dimension to acquire some useful knowledge of that dimension, which could give the idea of creating a skill, or create a new potion, create a new type of item, and other various supernature things].
[But it requires a large amount of core energy to acquire decent knowledge. I guess the ones who are behind this will later work together to acquire that knowledge].
'Maybe that City Lord and others, but not Lady Rong. She is from the 4th realm, so the knowledge of the dimensions attached to the 1st realm should be useless to her.'
[Indeed].
"Now remember three things: First, you can not attack a fellow participant. If you attack, that Escape Rune will automatically activate and send you back to the town. This function was not presented in the rune before, but I will add it now."
Many sighed a relief after hearing the 1st rule.
"Second, you can even work together to kill the monsters inside the dungeon. However, it's up to you all on how to distribute the corrupted cores if you do decide to work together. But you should have guessed by now that the rankings will be based on the number of corrupted cores in your possession."
Everyone nodded.
"Third and last, about the other factor reward that I mentioned. After the final round ends, there will be a special shop for you all. You can purchase things from that shop using the corrupted crystal," Prablade said with a smile. "This way, you can get additional rewards."
"Alright, the second round will start after ten minutes. You will go into the portal one by one with a one-minute gap. The first to go will be the 1st rank," Prablade said as he took out a talisman and used it to create a portal.
"This portal will lead you in front of the corrupted dungeon portal, which is guarded by City Lord Yanshi and others. So, you all have ten minutes. If you want to take a dump or eat more, do it in ten minutes."
"..."
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