In Northsky City, the two guards were talking to a level one Ancestral God.
"You are here to participate?" one of the guards asked.
"Yes, I hope that's okay. If it's not, I can leave. Just don't be angry, okay?" a rainbow-haired girl said nervously.
The guards were surprised by the girl's appearance. Having exotic hair colors was normal for Cultivators since their hair often showed what Element they had a great affinity for.
However, rainbow-colored hair was a new one.
Did that mean that she had a talent for all the Elements?
Was that even possible?
"From which Sect are you?" the guard asked.
"I'm unaffiliated," the girl said nervously.
"Unaffiliated?" the guard asked with surprise.
This was an unaffiliated level one Ancestral God, which was very rare.
On top of that, she felt rather powerful. She felt about as powerful as someone that could jump 1.5 levels.
"Yes, is that a problem?" the girl asked nervously.
"No, I was just surprised," the guard said.
SHING!
An emblem with two swords appeared, and the girl took hold of it.
"Destroy the emblem, and you will be transported to the living quarters of the contestants," the guard explained. Then, he looked behind the girl. "Next!"
The girl quickly thanked the guard with a bow and walked to the side.
Then, she broke the emblem.
In the instant she broke the emblem, she felt a weak feeling of Control take hold of her, and her eyes narrowed.
'Gravis didn't experience this feeling of control. This means that only the contestants get this kind of force placed on them,' Mortis thought.
Yes, this girl was Mortis.
'It's probably only there to check up on our locations and our status, but it will be troublesome if the Lightning Peak Sect finds me,' Mortis thought.
If Mortis hadn't known the True Law of Control, he wouldn't even have felt that slight feeling of control that tried to cling to his being.
Mortis let the feeling of control envelop him, but he kept a tiny part of his right index finger free.
Then, Mortis vanished as the emblem took effect.
Mortis arrived at-
BANG!
Mortis' head suddenly exploded in a shower of blood as soon as he arrived, and his lifeless body slumped to the ground.
SHING!
An Elder arrived at this place in less than a second, and he looked at the girls' body with a frown.
He had just felt how one of their contestants had suddenly died, which wasn't supposed to happen.
The Elder turned back time with the True Law of Time and looked at what happened.
As soon as the girl appeared, her head suddenly exploded without reason.
There had been no external Energy.
It was like the girl had just killed herself.
The Elder looked with a solemn expression at the images, and he quickly recorded them.
This could have several reasons.
For example, another Peak Sect might have poisoned her, and the poison got triggered by being transported here. If this girl had a powerful background, her background could make things difficult for the Lightning Peak Sect and maybe join another Peak Sect. After all, she had died in the Lightning Peak Sect.
The Elder didn't believe that the girl just suddenly decided to kill herself for no reason.
There were probably external factors at play.
'Her corpse is devoid of Energy,' the Elder thought. 'If she killed herself, she wouldn't be able to make all her Energy vanish.'
'I should inform the Vice-Sect Master,' the Elder thought.
SHING!
And then, the Elder teleported away.
He didn't deal with the body since the body would degrade into Energy after some years anyway.
Additionally, they might need the body later on.
The only thing he did was put the body to the side.
…
At the side, the intangible Mortis looked at everything calmly.
"Are you insane, Mortis!?" Gravis' voice transmission suddenly arrived.
"What? It worked, didn't it?" Mortis answered.
"Yes, but so many things could have gone wrong!"
"But they didn't," Mortis answered.
Gravis' hands moved forward in his chair like he wanted to strangle an imaginary person in frustration.
Some Ancestral Gods looked over in confusion.
What was that Ancestral God doing?
Eventually, Gravis relaxed and released a sigh.
"Well, it worked out," Gravis transmitted to Mortis dejectedly.
What had Mortis done?
When Mortis had arrived, he had immediately pulled all his Energy out of his body in a stream of Heavenly Lightning, which was in an intangible state.
In physical reality, one would only see the girl's head explode, but in one of the perceived realities, one could see a stream of Heavenly Lightning leave the girl's right index finger until a man formed.
Then, when nearly everything had left the girl's body, her head exploded.
All of this had happened in less than an instant.
The coating of Control was still over Mortis' old body, leaving his true body without the coating.
Now, Mortis was inside the Lightning Peak Sect, and no one knew he was here.
As far as they were concerned, everyone was accounted for, including the corpse.
"So, how's the contestants' area?" Gravis asked with interest.
Mortis walked through the grand hall and through a hallway until he arrived at another huge room.
There, Mortis saw a sea of people.
There were so many!
Mortis could see over 10,000, and probably even more would arrive in the next years.
"Busy," Mortis answered. "At the moment, everyone is just waiting. Over 90% of them are just sitting down and meditating. They probably want to keep themselves at their peak for the tournament. Some others are talking. The ones talking are either very weak or very powerful. Everyone in between is meditating."
"Can you see Exar and Aris?" Gravis asked.
"Exar is leaning on a wall with closed eyes, while Aris is talking to some other Cultivators in a friendly manner," Mortis said.
"Makes sense," Gravis answered. "They don't belong to the weak or average ones. How are their chances? Is there any competition?"
"Yep," Mortis answered. "There are about seven other Cultivators that can jump two levels."
"That's quite impressive," Gravis answered.
"Wait a sec," Mortis said as he found something of interest.
One of the contestants had just taken out a jade token, which had tiny words written on it.
Mortis immediately read everything in an instant, and he scratched his chin in thought.
"What?" Gravis asked. "You just said wait a sec, and now you're not saying anything. Did something happen?"
"Take a look at this," Mortis transmitted to Gravis as he sent Gravis an image of the jade token.
Gravis looked at the image of the jade token, and he blinked a couple of times in surprise.
"Tournament rules?"
Gravis read through the rules, and after he was done, he scratched his chin in interest.
"The Lightning Peak Sect sure is capable," Gravis answered.
"They are," Mortis said.
From what Gravis had read, the tournament wouldn't exactly be sparring.
In fact, every fight would be a life and death battle, but inside a resurrection Formation Array.
These Formation Arrays were unimaginably expensive, and only the Heaven Company sold them.
As the name suggested, these Formation Arrays would resurrect someone that died inside it.
The Heaven Company sold these resurrection Formation Arrays to help the Divine Gods overcome the last few hurdles before the Heaven's Magnate Realm.
The Lightning Peak Sect owned one of them, and the tournament would be held inside the Formation Array.
The other rules of the tournament were very standard.
The fights would be one-on-one battles, and the winner would be the one that killed their opponent.
However, there were two interesting rules.
First of all, if both candidates died, the fight would result in a draw, and in the case of a draw, none of the combatants would move forward.
The stated reason was that the Lightning Peak Sect was looking for the strongest, and if someone got a draw, it meant they were not the strongest. The only exception would be the final group stage since there could be a rock-paper-scissors scenario.
The other interesting rule was the ability to turn off the Formation Array.
However, the contestant had to manually ask for that ability before the battle, and it would only turn off for them.
The opponent would still be under the effect of the Formation Array unless they also requested an exemption from the Formation Array.
Because of that, three kinds of fights could take place.
First, both contestants would be under the effect of the Formation Array, which would result in a spar.
Second, one contestant would be exempted, which would result in that contestant either dying or getting great tempering. In both cases, the opponent would survive.
Third, both contestants would be exempted, resulting in a genuine life and death battle.
"That's interesting," Gravis said. "This means that the current power of the participants isn't actually the final power level of everyone."
"People can become stronger during the tournament in exchange for risking their lives."
"This might actually be more interesting than I had anticipated."