Paradise of Demonic Gods

Other than the arena battle in the final round and the Pantheon Monument Observation in the second to last round, the first two stages in every Regional Selection were planned out by the Governor. It could be said that each region’s Regional Selection was different from the others.

This was also to ensure that Knights would not specially train themselves in order to meet the examination requirements, meanwhile ending up losing sight of what that was important.

Hathaway spoke gently, “The first stage in this Regional Selection is ‘Slashing the Heavenly Pillar’.”

Slashing the Heavenly Pillar, true to its name, was to attack a gigantic pillar made of metal alloy.

This metal alloy was a newly developed forging material. Not only was it extremely sturdy, with resistance against both fire and acid, but it even had self-recovery ability. No matter what kind of attack it received, as long as it was put under sunlight, it would recover in but a few seconds. It was a material at the Divine Equipment level.

This was actually made from a piece of Divine level bone remains that Governor Devitt had obtained when he was young. He initially wanted to use this piece of bone remains to forge an invincible item of Divine Remains Equipment, an armor with self-recovery abilities.

Governor Devitt lived up to his name as a master blacksmith. Even Huang Lin had come to ask for his help to forge a Divine Weapon.

The armor with self-recovery abilities was successfully forged, but at the same time it had ended up in a failure.

He had succeeded in developing such a material. However, its self-recovery ability was too powerful, and it was permanently fixed in the shape of a metal pillar. No matter how much he had tried to reform it, attempting to turn it into an armor, trying to make it into a sword... it always reverted to its original state within a few seconds. It was impossible for him to forge any kind of equipment with it.

And he did not have a second bit of bone remains from that Divine level expert which he could use to forge into the equipment he was aiming for.

This time around, Governor Devitt simply decided to use it for the first stage in the Regional Selection.

This stage, Slashing the Heavenly Pillar, would be supervised by Governor Devitt himself. With his cultivation level of second transition level 29, and an ether synchronization rate of 100%, he clearly had a complete understanding of the degree of damage dealt to the alloy pillar. Thus, he would be able to give an accurate score to each of the students.

Those in the top one hundred would move on to the next stage.

The second stage was named ‘Contention for the Top Tier’. All one hundred examinees would be put into a maze, and each of them could only stay on guard in the spot they were allocated, unallowed to move more than ten meters away from the respective spot. As for the specific location, based on the results of the previous stage, the examinees would be able to take turns in choosing their preferred spot.

The whole maze was filled with ferocious beasts of various levels. They would continuously attack the examinees, so the goal was to survive the attacks. Of course, examinees were forbidden from attacking each other. However, using tricks and schemes to indirectly force the other participants to be eliminated was acceptable. Only direct attacks were forbidden.

Examinees who voluntarily gave up, lost the ability to fight, or were unable to kill any ferocious beasts after five minutes had passed, would all be eliminated and then brought out by the invigilating Conferred Knights.

The last thirty examinees who managed to stay on would be able to enter the third stage and have the right to participate in the Pantheon Monument Observation.

In the third stage, Pantheon Monument Observation, examinees’ results would depend on how much of the amount of Killing techniques in the Pantheon Monument could the individual comprehend within twelve hours.

They would demonstrate their comprehensions before the examiners, including the Governor, who would each give a score. Those in the top sixteen would enter the last round, the arena battle.

The arena battle was split into four elimination rounds, where the top ten to pass the Regional Selection would be chosen.

This was the whole process of the Regional Selection. Hearing everything through, many peoples’ eyes were filled with fighting spirit, each of them carefully thinking about the content of the first two rounds.

At the same time, Hathaway smiled and said, “The reason why the Hundred Blossom Banquet takes place is because we hope to see an endless flow of geniuses in the Empire, like how endless flowers blossom every year. This year, due to his Majesty’s brilliance, we have many talents far surpassing those of previous years.”

“Shadow Death God Anderson.

“Astral Ancestor’s descendent, Hoult.

“The late bloomer with extraordinary resolution, Wei Leng.

“And of course, there’s also the Windstorm Sword Hero, Fang Xingjian, whom I’ve just met today.

“All of you have ended up participating in the Regional Selection in the same year. If any of you were to appear in the Regional Selections of previous years, you would probably have gained powerful leadership abilities by now.

“I am looking forward to your performances.”

With each line Hathaway spoke, everyone turned to look at the four whose names had been mentioned. The four of them instantly had instantly attracted countless gazes.

Hathaway continued, “Then, now we’ll proceed to the final component of our Hundred Blossom Banquet. We would like to invite all four of the abovementioned examinees to come on stage to give a speech.”

Steward Setque walked up behind Fang Xingjian and said in a soft voice, “Young Master Xingjian, later on, please go up to say a few words. It can be a casual talk about things like your goals, dreams and aspirations.” He smiled and said, “This is also to boost the examinees’ morales.”

Shadow Death God Anderson was the first to dash on stage. The young man in his teens put on an expression as if he had experienced a lot in life as he looked at the crowd. He calmly said, “Since I must share, I’ll go straight in.

“My dream is to be able to kill a Divine level expert. Therefore, I’m bent on taking the title of Regional Champion this time around.

“Remember this day. In the future, you’ll feel proud for the rest of your life to have heard my speech today.”

With that, he left the crowd in shock. Anderson’s face suddenly blushed before he turned into a lump of black shadows and completely disappeared.

Lilia shrugged and said, “Why do I feel awkward after hearing his speech?”

‘This is what they call chuunibyou,’ Fang Xingjian thought to himself.

Hathaway spoke rigidly, “Hoult, you go next.”

With a tap of his foot, the graceful Hoult leapt up to the stage. His actions were light as a fairy, as if he was a god from the heavens. His actions caused a series of screams to rise from the crowd of young aristocrat ladies.

Hearing the screams, Hoult put up his hand and said, “Thank you, everyone, for your warm welcome. I love you too.”

With his words, the screams grew louder. Hathaway had no choice but to cough softly to allow silence to fall over the hall.

Hoult continued, “This time around, the reason I’ve come to Great Western City is primarily because I’ve been instructed by my master to come with a keen mind to learn. My hope is to have exchanges in teachings, as well as to spar...”

Hoult was clearly very experienced in such situations, and the rest of the things he shared were mostly by the book. Hathaway nodded with satisfaction.

After Hoult came down, it was the gloomy-looking Wei Leng’s turn. However, it was only after Hathaway had called out to him for three times that he went up with great reluctance.

On stage, he said with a cold expression, “I don’t have anything to say.” With that, he left.

Hathaway’s countenance turned grim as she shook her head, ‘The few seeds this year are really problems after problems.’

It was finally Fang Xingjian’s turn. As Fang Xingjian headed up to the stage, Lilia cheered loudly. Rota, Hamil and the others were also staring at the stage, feeling a sense of pride.

Looking down at the crowd below the stage, Fang Xingjian gave it some thought before saying, “Never surrender, never yield, never compromise, never fall back. This is what makes a true Knight.

“I hope that we can give mutual encouragement based on these terms.”

Hathaway smiled. Although it was too short, at least it was normal. She took the lead to applaud and finally said, “Everyone, there’s fifteen days until the start of the Regional Selection. Please be prepared and don’t be late.” With the last part, she threw Fang Xingjian a teasing glance.