Which let Shi Jin arrive at the Martial Arts Tournament venue within the Martial Emperor Ruins the next day in fairly good spirits.

Over the decades, the Martial Emperor Ruins had long since been developed by Wuling City into a large architectural park integrating tourism and sightseeing with training and competition. The venue for this Martial Arts Tournament was one of the halls within the Martial Emperor Ruins.

"Ah, finally get to stretch my legs a bit."

"Just hope I don't draw Lu Yan. Anyone but him."

The scene of the main bracket draw.

Among the Shi family party, Bai Xi was a bundle of nerves.

If he had the bad luck to draw Lu Heng in the first match instead of some high-level beast tamers, his luck would truly be rotten.

At the draw stage, sixty-four contestants in all—those who had passed the strength assessment and those who had come through the preliminaries—were now waiting to draw.

Seeing the trio of Bai Xi, Lu Heng, and Shi Ying, the other contestants, masters and high-level beast tamers alike, all cast them looks of various kinds.

But most eyes landed on Shi Jin, making him thoroughly uncomfortable.

"So that's Shi Jin, the one who wrecked the stone pillar in the strength assessment."

"Good grief, I've got to say, good grief."

Shi Ying's arrival drew no small amount of attention from the spectator stands.

Several days had passed now, and the stone pillar was still sealed off and unrepaired. The news that the pillar had broken while Shi Jin was up there taking his assessment had spread everywhere.

At the same time, Shi Jin's performance that day had spread everywhere too.

Thirty-three seconds—not even a master-level beast tamer could hold out that easily.

Even a master-level beast tamer with fusion talent who had contracted a king-species pet beast of the king race might not necessarily last thirty-three seconds.

But Shi Jin had done it.

Though no one yet knew what had caused the pillar to break, it was hard not to pay attention to him.

"People of the eleventh bureau really are a headache."

Meanwhile, on the rostrum, Elder Bai Ming, serving as a special guest for the main bracket this time, was still gazing at Shi Jin with a headache.

Beside him, two middle-aged men, also members of the Bai family, wore bitter smiles.

One of them was the president of the Wuling City Beast Tamers Association; the other was the commander of the Wuling City Beast Tamer Corps, Bai Xi's uncle. Both were special guests of this Martial Arts Tournament, both had once taken first place in past tournaments, and both were now top-tier masters. Yet no matter how lofty their station, could it bring them happiness?

If anyone was most pained by the stone pillar breaking, it was certainly them.

With this pillar broken, the subsequent training problems would be severe. And if they wanted to match the corps' previous training efficiency, they would have to pour in other resources—which in turn would turn into an economic problem for Wuling City…

"Honestly, organizing tournaments and training sessions is far less trouble. Developing ruins, though—that's all the work and none of the credit."

"At least there haven't been any fresh anomalies these past few days..."

President Bai was still smiling bitterly.

Soon the time came for the draw. The sixty-four contestants present stepped forward one after another to draw their lots, while the tens of thousands of spectators packed into the venue watched without blinking.

This time alone, Wuling City had sold hundreds of millions in tickets, which was precisely why the Martial Arts Tournament absolutely had to go on as scheduled. So it was a blessing that only the stone pillar had broken and nothing had gone wrong with the Martial Emperor Ruins; otherwise they would have been out no small sum in ticket refunds alone.

"I'm number 1???"

Down below, Shi Jin was staring at his number with some surprise.

What luck...

"Wow, number one."

Seeing Shi Jin's number, Bai Xi was thoroughly envious.

Finishing your match first was the most relaxing—after that, you could sit back and enjoy everyone else's battles.

"I'm number 29, way at the back," Lu Heng said.

Swish.

As the three of them talked, Shi Jin suddenly sensed a hostile gaze coming from somewhere in the distance.

Clutching his lot number, he looked over and saw a burly middle-aged man nearly two meters tall glaring at him in displeasure.

Shi Jin: "..."

Once everyone had finished drawing, Master Bai Feng, the Bai family member in charge of hosting the tournament, stepped onto the platform and announced: "The draw is complete. According to the tally, the first match will be contestant Shi Jin versus contestant Chen Yu."

"All other contestants, please proceed to the contestant seating area to watch and wait."

Compared with the combat arena at the Imperial Capital University, the facilities here were rather crude—even the match schedule had been written on a huge blackboard by the beasts for people to read.

The first match was none other than Shi Jin versus Chen Yu.

At the sight of those two names, quite a few people were taken aback.

The name Chen Yu was hardly unfamiliar to most; he had competed in the Martial Arts Tournament last year and even achieved a commendable top-thirty-two finish, and he was a master-level beast tamer.

Shi Jin... had run into a master-level opponent.

Although Shi Jin had displayed king-level power during the assessment, from what everyone understood, it would be very difficult to reproduce those conditions here.

In the breakneck official rounds of the Martial Arts Tournament, no opponent would simply stand by and let Shi Jin's Iron-eating Beast grow big enough to charge him up.

Back then, to withstand the pressure, Eleven had used a double burst of max-level Gigantification and Veiled Edge to grant Shi Jin such enormous power.

But in this environment, for the Iron-eating Beast to grow to fifty or sixty meters was practically impossible—the arena simply wasn't that big.

On the main platform, Legend Bai stroked his goatee and said, "That fellow—who was he again?"

"Chen Yu, thirty-seven, from the outskirts of Wuling City, a master-level beast tamer with a fusion talent. He has a king-level beast, the Dragon-Blooded Turtle; once fused, his defensive power is staggering. He specializes in defensive techniques and was hailed in the preliminaries as the pinnacle of pure defense—no one has yet managed to break through it."

"That said, rumor has it his beast has affected his temperament, and his personality isn't the best. His family runs a bar, and back in his student days he was a troublemaker and street thug with a rotten temper who loved getting into brawls. If not for his family's connections, he might never have become a beast tamer at all."

"Last year he went straight into the main bracket... but this year, because he didn't register in time, he got stuck on the final day, and since the stone pillar broke, the remaining entrants—him included—had no choice but to start from the preliminaries," President Bai explained from beside him.

"Oh-ho." The old man Bai was instantly amused. In other words, this fellow had been screwed over by Shi Jin?

He could have ridden his certification straight into the main bracket, but thanks to the broken stone pillar, he'd had to compete in extra preliminary rounds and waste several days of time??

Well, well.

Soon only Shi Jin and Chen Yu remained on the arena floor. Shi Jin realized this was the very same burly man who had just fixed him with that hostile glare, and he couldn't help but wonder—didn't they say friendship first and competition second? What was with all this deep-seated hatred?

"The atmosphere seems pretty tense."

"Say, why is Master Chen Yu starting from the preliminaries this year? Didn't he get a direct bye into the main bracket last year?"