White River City fell silent as the sound of the starting bell echoed throughout its streets. Almost everyone's breathing quickened in antic.i.p.ation as they stared intently at the Magic Mirrors lining the business district, afraid to miss a single moment of the upcoming struggle.
Many players outside of White River City had pulled up Star-Moon Kingdom's official forums to watch the livestreams.
For a moment, this compet.i.tion had rendered the entire kingdom silent.
The spectators in the Auction Arena itself tensed as they quietly watched the ma.s.sive globe of water that had appeared above the arena.
The gigantic globe displayed the qualifying round's rules, which were unlike those of any compet.i.tion previously held in the Auction Arena.
The previous compet.i.tions had been fighting tournaments or betting matches between players. The rewards had been subpar, and very few players had been interested in taking part, although any player could join these compet.i.tions. However, since this compet.i.tion involved the management rights to White River City's Auction House, the system had set up a qualifying round before the official matches.
Only those who pa.s.sed the qualifiers could join the official struggle. If one failed to meet the requirements, all of the resources in the world couldn't help them.
"It's just a qualifying round, yet the partic.i.p.ation fee is so high?"
The spectating players gasped when they saw the partic.i.p.ation cost of one Epic material.
Epic materials were still incredibly rare among the various large Guilds. An ordinary large Guild would be fortunate to acc.u.mulate around 30 Epic materials. Such items even had an extremely low drop-rate in 100-man, Hard Mode Team Dungeons.
Moreover, the Main G.o.d System had reduced the drop-rate to zero for players that exceeded the Dungeon's level limit to prevent players from abusing low-level Team Dungeons.
Sending low-level members to grind these Team Dungeons was also useless for a Guild. These players wouldn't be able to raid the Dungeons even if their Guilds gave them top-tier equipment. Team Dungeons tested players' combat standards as well as their equipment standards, and it would be extremely foolish for a Guild to have its members with high combat standards maintain low levels. As players reached higher levels in G.o.d's Domain, they'd encounter more fortuitous opportunities. Instructing experts to remain at a lower level would ruin the Guild and the players' development.
Because of this, the various major powers had stockpiled very few Epic materials.
Yet, the Auction Arena charged one Epic material per partic.i.p.ant, and every partic.i.p.ating power had brought at least several dozen members...
However, despite the crowd's sentiments, more than a hundred powers paid the partic.i.p.ation fee.
Starlink, in particular, paid for more than 400 partic.i.p.ants. When they saw this, the spectators couldn't help but shudder.
Even the independent players watching from outside of the Auction House couldn't help but gape in shock.
Everyone had known before this that the various superpowers shouldn't be provoked and possessed wealth that far surpa.s.sed first-rate Guilds, but they were still blown away when they saw how many members the various superpowers had dispatched for this compet.i.tion.
Moreover, this was only for one city. Many of these superpowers were contesting for multiple cities.
Superpowers could truly kill people with wealth alone!
So, this is a superpower? Melody was even more distraught when she saw how many Starlink members would take part in this struggle.
Setting aside its members' combat standards, the fact that Starlink had the financial strength to dispatch more than 400 players was enough to devastate second-rate Guilds like Ninth Heaven.
The compet.i.tion for the Auction House didn't operate like a fighting tournament. In the official compet.i.tion, players would be evenly distributed onto five separate, s.p.a.cious battlefields. Players would then have to slaughter each other and claim the energy crystals that would randomly fall from above. Whichever power had the most energy crystals at the end of the compet.i.tion would secure the Auction House's management rights.
However, not only were players prohibited from using tools on the battlefield, but they were also banned from using large- scale Spells. The Main G.o.d System truly was intent on testing the partic.i.p.ating powers' comprehensive strength. It didn't allow any trickery whatsoever.
Although Zero Wing had dispatched 112 players to this compet.i.tion, even more than top-ranked first-rate Guilds like the Bloodbath Family and Holy Reincarnation, it paled in comparison to Starlink's 400-plus members.
Moreover, King's Return had sent 300-plus members, Blackwater had dispatched 200-plus, and Pantheon had arrived with 200-plus members. None of these superpowers should be underestimated. The other superpowers were mostly here to watch, not planning to compete for White River City. So, they had only paid for a few members to partic.i.p.ate for the experience.
Although the various superpowers' foundations had shocked the crowd, what happened next utterly stupefied everyone watching.
Each of the qualifying round's partic.i.p.ating players was teleported to an independent room, all of which had over a dozen Trolls. The weakest of these Trolls was a Lord, while the strongest was a Great Lord, and each room had a total of three Great Lords. All of the Trolls were Level 65, slightly higher than the partic.i.p.ating players' average level.
Players had to defeat three Level 65 Great Lords and more than ten Level 65 Lords in the qualifying round. Even ordinary experts would flee from such a monster group, yet the system wanted them to survive against these monsters for one minute. To make matters worse, players couldn't use tools. Many of the expert players in the arena despaired when they saw how difficult this qualifying round would be.
"Is the system joking?"
"The system must be crazy! I can't even last 30 seconds against one Level 65 Great Lord, much less against three of them!"
At first, many of the watching experts had hated themselves for not having any Epic materials and losing out on the perfect opportunity to make a name for themselves, but after seeing the qualifying round's challenge, they were relieved. If they had paid to partic.i.p.ate, they would've wasted an Epic material for nothing.
"As expected of the Auction House's struggle! This is amazing! The qualifying round already has such high standards! This trip here was definitely worth it!"
"The standards are indeed quite high. I'm afraid that most of the partic.i.p.ants will be disqualified during this round. Only those superpowers will have a significant number of experts make it to the true compet.i.tion."
"The small Guilds that are trying to make a name for themselves will likely be disappointed. Although, aside from those superpowers, I'm fairly certain that the Dark Night Empire's Bloodbath Family, the Glory Empire's Holy Reincarnation, and the Purple Thorns Kingdom's Sin Realm will have quite a few members pa.s.s the qualifying round."
"That's probably true. Not only are those Guilds supported by powerful corporations, but they also have plenty of expert members."
"Zero Wing really is unlucky. It should've had a fighting chance since it dispatched 40 or so more players than the partic.i.p.ating first-rate Guilds, but after this round, Zero Wing will likely have far fewer members in the official compet.i.tion than the first-rate Guilds."
"That's right. Although Zero Wing has been developing wonderfully recently, it hasn't had enough time to develop to a sufficient level. Its foundations simply cannot compare to veteran first-rate Guilds'. If Zero Wing had accepted some major company or corporation's investments, it would've likely been a match for Guilds like the Bloodbath Family and Sin Realm."
Everyone talked about the compet.i.tion's qualifying round. They all had guesses about how many players from the partic.i.p.ating Guilds would make it to the compet.i.tion after this round. However, n.o.body questioned the various superpowers' performances, comparing the first-rate Guilds' abilities instead.
One minute pa.s.sed quickly, and excited, everyone s.h.i.+fted their attention to the ma.s.sive water globe hovering over the Auction Arena. They couldn't wait to see how the partic.i.p.ating powers would perform.
Thousand Light Family, 9 people pa.s.sed.
Blast adventurer team, 5 people pa.s.sed.
Bloodbath Family, 32 people pa.s.sed.
Star Alliance, 17 people pa.s.sed.
Sin Realm, 26 people pa.s.sed.
Holy Reincarnation, 35 people pa.s.sed.
King's Return, 237 people pa.s.sed.
Pantheon, 175 people pa.s.sed.
Black Water, 204 people pa.s.sed.
Starlink, 339 people pa.s.sed.
Zero Wing, 107 people pa.s.sed.
