Kill The Old Ones!

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Even though a week has passed since Ren’s name shook the whole city once more, people were still talking about it.

At this point, nobody could deny that Ren has become Central City’s strongest genius, the one who stood above all prodigies, and they wouldn’t even come close.

Even Adrian Arclight couldn’t.

The only thing that irked the people was the fact that Ren was too elusive. They just don’t see him walking around in public. Nobody could get an interview out of him, they can’t even ambush him because they just don’t see him around.

It’s like he could turn invisible.

The ones that are most annoyed by this were the reporteds and local news outlet. They’ve been wanting to get a statement from Ren because he was the hottest topic in this city. But no matter how much they planned or predicted his movement, they could never catch him.

All they could do was to write blogs and articles about him that are slightly exagerrated to gain views. But the netizens weren’t stupid. Unless Ren himself appears on the camera, they wouldn’t easily believe what they posted.

Ren had no idea about this. But even if he does, he wouldn’t have cared. He had other matters to attend to rather than getting bogged down by the media.

The one that caught his attention right now was the City vs. City Tournament Preliminaries, which was scheduled tomorrow.

Ren and the rest of the top 15 of the previous tournament had been summoned to the City Lord’s office today to dicuss the matters upcoming tournament,

The City Lord, Gabriel Pierce, himself was the one who addressed them.

”The City vs. City Tournament begins tomorrow.” He started, ”I can see that all of you had done your best to gain as much improvement as you can during these past six months.”

He wasn’t wrong. There had been some clear improvements amongst the representatives of the city compared to what they were six months ago.

”You did well.” He said, ”But whether that’s sufficient or not, we’d only know once the tournament begins.”

”I summoned you here not just because I wanted to talk to you in person, or to give you additional encouragement. I’m following the pre-set rules as well.”

”Not just you, but also all other city representatives are summoned to their respective City Lord Mansions to get this kind of briefing, and also because this is where you’ll have to be before the tournament begins.”

Gabriel stood up with the help of his cane.

”The preliminary round of the tournament will happen in the virtual world. Not the ones you all know and used to. Something more advanced and, more importantly, private.”

”You’d all he in a private server that is in full control of the GMU, the Imperial Court, and the World System to ensure that there will be no foul play involved.”

”I am not in liberty to reveal the contents of the preliminary round. But this isn’t the first time a tournament of this scale happened. It’s a regular event, you see. So I, and a whole lot of people, have seen this before. And there is a trend, which...”

Gabriel looked at them deeply before revealing: ”...that the preliminary round is, in fact, a screening. It’s an elimination round where your numbers will be gutted severely. Only those who are skilled, tough, and slightly fortunate will be able to move on to the next round.”

A chill swept through the participants. It wasn’t that surprising to be honest, but when the City Lord himself says it, it suddenly felt a lot more serious.

”You already know this. Only the top 10 from each city will participant in this tournament. The extra five are just there in case of emergency.”

There was a brief pause from him, short but long enough to remind everybody of their position.

”There are 26 cities in the Letter Kingdom. That means that total amount of participants are 260. That is a lot of people. We can’t use 1v1 matches to determine who moves on, that’ll take too long.”

”So, the goal of the preliminary round was to thoroughly screen the participants to discover who actually were strong enough to qualify for the next round.”

”From three digits, your numbers will be reduced to two digits by the next rounds. The ones that moves on are the real skilled ones. The competition is that tight and strict.”

The representatives, save Ren, wore grim expressions. Although they had imagined something like this, to learn that it actually was the case made them feel pressured, very much so.

”This competition isn’t just an opportunity for us City Lords to boast the prosperity of our respective cities.” Gabriel stated, gaining their attention again.

”This isn’t some pissing contest. There are actual stakes involved in here. Stakes that will decide what the next decade of our respective cities will look like.”

With a tap of his cane, a hologram appeared behind Gabriel. It’s a wide screen displaying the list of cities under the Letter Kingdom. It didn’t show all, it just highlighted the name of Central City and it’s position.

**

[Letter Kingdom - Central City (C-City): Rank 11]

Boons: Talent, Birth, Harvest +10%

**

”Let me explain.” Gabriel cleared his throat.

”What you see here is the placement ranking of our city in the previous tournament. We are at Rank 11, meaning that in the last City vs. City Tournament, our representatives managed to get us this far.”

”They were alright, decent, and hardworking people. Alas, their efforts only amounted to this.”

”This isn’t me invalidating their results, but their gains speak for themselves.”

”The ’boons’ are the rewards that the whole city gets once the tournament is concluded. Their intensity is based on the city’s placement.”

”At Rank 11, we got a 10% boost on birth rate, talent increase, and resource harvest. That’s it.”

”Sure, with how large this city is, this 10% boost should be noticeable. And it is, but in the grand scheme of things? It isn’t much, really. Especially if you compare this to what the Rank 1 City had.”

The list behind him moved and revealed the previous tournament’s Rank 1 city.

**

[Letter Kingdom - Royal City (R-City): Rank 1]

Boons: Talent, Birth, Harvest, City Size, Energy Concentration, and Luck +50%

**

”The birth rate, talent acquisition, resource harvest, the city’s overall size, the energy concentration, and luck of Royal City were raised by 50% for the next decade.”

”The comparison is awful, isn’t it?”

Nobody replied, but judging from their looks, they all agreed.

Truth to be told, comparing the two wasn’t even fair at all.

”Oh, but this is not all.” Gabriel’s eyes sharpened all of a sudden. ”Take a look at what happens to a city that ranked last.”

The list behind him moved again, this time revealing the city ranked at the bottom.

**

[Letter Kingdom - Popular City (P-City): Rank 26]

Punishment: Annual Tax +10%, Ominous Weather, Energy Drain.

**

”To be fair, the previous representatives of P-City fought hard. Alas, they were unlucky and have been eliminated pretty quickly. None of their representatives could even make it past the first round.”

”As a result, the annual tax of every household in that city was raised by 10%. Once or twice a year, their city will have to endure ominous weather changes. Most of the time, it’s a typhoon or a ferocious storm; sometimes it’s a sandstorm or a blizzard. There were times where acid rain happened, a magnetic storm too—which turned off the whole city’s power for an entire month.”

”And finally, the energy drain. People who lived in there would feel their chakras sluggish even though they were doing everything correctly.”

”Every martial art they use drains their chakra faster, and it’s slower to regenerate them.”

”This isn’t limited to chakra either. Their motivation, daily energy levels, and even power, too. All of that are affected.”

”These three punishments last for a whole decade.”

”Within that time, everybody who had been identified to be citizens of that city cannot leave or move to another city. They are trapped in there and must endure the punishment along others.”

”You can easily imagine the kind of condemnation the previous participants experienced once their city was punished.”

A cold chill once again swept through the participants. Cold sweat poured down their foreheads as they briefly imagined what it was like being cursed and hated wherever they went.

Gabriel saw their grim expression and knew that the message had been sent.

”This is what it’s like to truly represent a city. This isn’t some competition that we, City Lords, just started many years ago. It has been this way since our martial arts civilization was built.”

”Glory and condemnation will be decided by your performance.”

”The better you perform, the more you do for this city. Of course, your personal efforts will be rewarded too.”

”But if your performance was bad, well...judging by your appearance, I’m guessing you can already tell what’s going to happen next. I won’t need to make you suffer; the people of this city will do that on my behalf.”

”If you don’t want that to happen, your next course of action is clear.”

Gabriel looked at them one by one and said:

”Win.”