Chapter 220: Thirty-Six Heavenly Sword Formation and the Start of the Top 16 to Top 8 Matches! (1/3)

The qualifiers had concluded, leaving a week's respite before the next tournament.

This period served as preparation time for all the top sixteen players, and likewise, Fang Qi was making his own preparations.

Given the three days of cultivation time in the Game Cultivation Room that the system had specially granted for his venture to open a branch, it was conceivable that the outside world might not be as peaceful everywhere as Jiuhua.

During this interval, Fang Qi seized every moment to commence a new round of training within the cultivation room.

Although cultivating one's cultivation base in the Game Cultivation Room was not as rapid as honing martial techniques, the progress was highly substantial due to the time dilation effect, allowing Fang Qi to attain the Martial Grandmaster realm a few days prior!

At this moment, Fang Qi's status was:

Cultivation Realm: Second Tier of Martial Grandmaster

Martial Arts: Sword Controlling Technique (Grandmaster 36.5%), Thousand Sword Technique (Mastery 88.3%), Sword Flight (Mastery 36.56%), Holy Shock (Proficiency 78.6%, approx. Level 7), Resist Lightning (Mastery 80%, approx. Level 14), Combat Skills (Great Grandmaster)

Enhancements: T-Virus (Significantly enhances constitution, speed, neural reflexes, and spirit, etc.)

Coupled with the lower-level skills he had previously trained on his own, such as Blessed Hammer and various prerequisite skills, these formed the entirety of Fang Qi's current cultivation system.

Though the Game Cultivation Room yielded exceptional results, it was by no means a pleasant place for Fang Qi, where a single lapse in concentration meant being slaughtered by his own game character; perhaps due to living two lifetimes combined with the T-Virus enhancement, his mental fortitude far exceeded others, yet the one year of training during his first time in the cultivation room had still left him with a considerable psychological shadow.

One could only imagine being killed an untold number of times every single day—it was truly a matter of succeed or perish!

Had it not been for the release of Silent Hill, a game that strengthened one's state of mind and eradicated inner demons, Fang Qi's current psyche, even if it didn't collapse, would likely have become severely warped.

Fortunately, things were vastly different now compared to the past, as he was currently spending his second year within the Game Cultivation Room.

In other words, he had expended nearly half of the three-day cultivation time rewarded by the system just to reach his current level of cultivation.

He had deliberately trained Li Xiaoyao's Thousand Sword Technique to the Great Grandmaster stage, and right now, it was time for his Thousand Sword Technique to break through to the Grandmaster stage!

Before his eyes, Li Xiaoyao hovered in the void as countless shimmering flying swords soared into the sky, shifting ceaselessly under his manipulation with exquisite and unpredictable grace!

Gradually, the entire swarm of flying swords coalesced into a circle, unexpectedly forming a massive Taiji diagram in the sky!

Witnessing the formation of the gathered flying swords, Fang Qi's heart suddenly sank as he silently cried out in alarm!

He suddenly recalled that after beating the game as Li Xiaoyao, he had learned quite a lot of things at the Shushan Sect.

Unlike the original game, the system's version allowed players to remain in the game even after completion to continue a small portion of the epilogue, such as Li Xiaoyao's Sect Master quests—the seven great hardships and forty-nine trials assigned by the Sword Saint Dugu Yuyun.

Or even staying behind on Mount Shushan to contemplate and study the Shushan Sect's sword arts.

"The Thirty-Six Heavenly Tiangang Sword Formation?!" Fang Qi's face darkened, for this was another technique he had acquired while doing quests after beating the game; the moment he saw the sword array, he understood, "Forming an array with flying swords?! Could this be an advanced application of the Thousand Sword Technique?!"

The sword formation descended slowly, rotating rapidly with the momentum of a profound array; every single trajectory was unfathomably profound, and every arc traced by the torrent of swords carried boundless mystery!

Fang Qi's expression grew grim, for an array of this magnitude was simply beyond his ability to resist!

Once trapped within the formation, death would be absolute!

Fang Qi hurriedly took flight upon his sword, while countless streams of light erupted from around his body, hurtling recklessly toward the oncoming sword formation behind him!

It was worth noting that within the Game Cultivation Room, although the limit and intensity of the Qi inside Fang Qi's body only equaled that of a Martial Grandmaster, its volume was inexhaustible!

This was precisely why one could cultivate so quickly in the Game Cultivation Room; Fang Qi could unleash his full strength at any given moment, and even if he depleted his internal Qi in an instant, it mattered not, for it would be fully replenished in the very next heartbeat!

Unlike practicing in the outside world, where exhausting one's cultivation meant spending vast amounts of time recovering before one could proceed.

Far from just using his full power, Fang Qi unleashed nearly one hundred and twenty percent of his strength at this moment, the instantaneously cast Thousand Sword Technique transforming into a colossal cloud of swords across the sky!

Lightning crackled atop the cloud of swords, and the momentum of the blades crashed into the trailing sword formation like a torrential tempest!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

At the periphery of the sword array, bursts of dazzling electrical glow erupted one after another as countless spiritual swords conjured by the Thousand Sword Technique slammed into the formation, only to be pulverized into dust by the array in the next instant!

Even though Fang Qi flew on his sword and continuously resisted with the Thousand Sword Technique, the sword formation kept closing in slowly!

Half an hour later...

Blood splattered everywhere!

At the respawn point, Fang Qi's face appeared somewhat pale as he witnessed a spiritual sword formation shaped like a Taiji diagram hurtling swiftly toward him from the distant sky!

"Holy sh*t!" Fang Qi instantly wiped away a handful of cold sweat, simultaneously feeling secret relief that Li Xiaoyao's Thirty-Six Heavenly Tiangang Sword Formation was merely at the beginner level and not yet high in rank; otherwise, he would have been instantly killed the entire time, leaving no room for a fight at all.

...

"Whew..." Emerging from the cultivation room, Fang Qi felt as though he was on the verge of developing another psychological shadow.

Fortunately, he could rest a little over the next two days while serving as the tournament referee.

The crowd gathering inside the shop was growing larger by the day.

Commoners and nobles sharing the stage, competitions playing out between major sects! Not to mention the customers who played the games, even some ordinary commoners who couldn't afford to play were more than happy to gather around the shop to catch a glimpse at this time!

After all, Owner Fang's shop had no rule forbidding entry to those without money; in fact, whenever Jade Dynasty or Wind and Cloud was broadcasted weekly, neighboring commoners had already taken to sitting down and watching.

Of course, as mentioned previously, the commoners in Jiuhua City were not synonymous with the destitute.

Fatty Wang was a commoner, a relatively well-off one, and Guo Xiong was the same; naturally, having reached the Martial Grandmaster realm in cultivation, they were already considered highly successful among commoners, and entering the ranks of the nobility was merely a matter of time and personal desire.

Today's first round of matches was the Diablo tournament's round of sixteen.

The tournament structure was no longer the previous random pairing, but rather: matching the top against the bottom.

First versus sixteenth, second versus fifteenth, and so forth.

At this moment, Xiao Yulv sat on the sofa, speaking with great eloquence, "According to this seeding arrangement, surprises are highly unlikely. The previous twenty matches have fully demonstrated each contestant's strength, and those who were unaccustomed to the arena have by now found their footing. Look, in the first match, City Master An won without suspense, Master Nalan did the same in the second, and the third match as well..."

Nalan Mingxue quietly fixed her gaze on Lan Yan on the screen.

On the battlefield, Lan Yan's opponent was An Cheng, a mage ranked exceptionally high, making her chances of victory incredibly slim.

"Listen closely, this is likely your only method to deal with a mage of An Cheng's caliber." In her mind, she recalled the tactics Nalan Mingxue had laid out for her before the match, remaining entirely unperturbed.

Across the entire screen, the already dim lighting suddenly plunged into an even deeper dark.

The surrounding light went completely black!

"What's happening?" Xiao Yulv stood up from his seat.

"What's wrong?" Mu Donglai, who sat nearby and possessed little knowledge of Diablo skills, asked in confusion.

"This seems to be an Assassin skill!"

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