49th of Season of Air, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt had taken Dandelion’s advice for what it was - a roundabout confession that he would throw future matches against Fiery Glory, and that he should not bet on him. That and the odds of Dandelion winning the next event had gone down from one to ten to one to five, so Newt bet a third of his winnings on his own sect, a third on Tidebreaker Abyss, and stashed the rest.

  He wondered what the shameless grand sect’s representative told Dandelion. They probably did not threaten him outright, since they had invited him to join, which means they bribed him with enough spirit gems to make it worth his effort.

  Newt dispelled those thoughts. What a grand sect used to bribe Dandelion was irrelevant, given his current circumstances. He trekked through the jungle, alone, with a six-foot-long pole in his hand. At the end of the pole, stood a small flag in his sect’s colors.

  The rules of the event were convoluted. Other than disciples, live dinosaurs roamed the realm which poorly emulated the Savage Wood. The goal was to collect as many of the four thousand flags carried by cultivators and dinosaurs alike, with a hard deadline of twelve hours, after which the event would end.

  The dinosaurs roaming the artificial wilderness were at the third and fourth realm, and when they eliminated a disciple, the fallen contestant’s flags would be added to the dinosaur’s existing flags.

  What made the trial strange was the fact that the realm rooted the disciples’ flags to the ground, seemingly at random for thirty minutes of every hour. Newt did not understand what the venerable who created the trial was trying to emulate with that quirk. And just as he considered the question, his flag suddenly turned immobile and yanked him down towards the ground.

  Newt tried to pull it up, but the flag merely stood on the soft forest floor. Oddly enough, it sat just above the earth without touching it. Next, Newt tried to bend or twist the thing, but nothing happened. The flag seemed indestructible and impossible to interact with.

  At least nobody can steal it. Newt did not know whether his luck was good or bad. The trial had started not five minutes ago, and he was already rooted in place. He wanted to go off exploring, but the venerable who created the trial did not mention whether his flag would be rooted for thirty continuous minutes, or the realm would split the time into smaller blocks, for a total of thirty minutes.

  So, Newt sat, his back leaned against the immovable flag as minutes trickled by. Twenty minutes in, the ground trembled, shaking his butt. While Newt did not mean to hide, sitting next to a bush, leaning against a stick sporting a bit of green and yellow cloth in a forest made him fairly difficult to see.

  He, on the other hand, had little difficulty spotting the therizinosaurus. The giant, long-necked predator stood over fifteen feet tall, its massive hind legs shaking the ground with each stomp it made. Surprisingly, the dinosaur was earth aligned, and its saber-like claws glinted with a metallic sheen.

  The beast sported a still-bleeding cut on its flank, and two flags hovered right behind it, staying outside its field of vision. Newt clenched his glaive harder when the therizinosaurus snapped its head to Newt’s left.

  It raised its long arms, its unnervingly long claws clicking against each other as the peak third realm beast worked its fingers and focused on whatever disturbance caught its attention.

  Newt took the chance and sprang at the spirit beast, catching it by surprise. A layer of rock surrounded its body, but Newt’s glaive slashed through it as if the defenses never existed, severing the monster’s head.

  Blood gushed out of the wound, spraying Newt, before the corpse disappeared along with the gore, and its two flags clattered to the ground. A phantom jolt to the side made Newt roll ahead, a sword piercing the air where his kidney stood a moment ago.

  Newt did not even see the attacker as his glaive flashed, and the person disappeared, another flag clattering to the ground.

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  Four, Newt thought. After gathering three or more flags, a challenger could surrender at any moment and leave the realm ahead of time. He hoped his teammates would do exactly that the moment they met the criteria. The final placement was calculated by the number of flags a team brought out divided by the number of participating members.

  He had little faith Redleaf and Slickhorn would manage to bring his team any points, they were of middling strength, and the odds of encountering weaker opponents twice in a row were slim. Twochains and Flare stood a much better chance, and should bring six points to their team.

  Dandelion is just going to keep fighting until he’s exhausted. I wonder who is going to get his flags? He would have won this, if not for the bribe. Can anyone else claim mine?

  Newt wondered and wondered who could defeat him and how. Nobody could retreat as long as they had an enemy within a hundred yards of them, so he would either have to fight all the way, or choose a number at which he would pull out.

  Fifty? Ten per member, assuming everyone got eliminated, should still score them in the top twenty, possibly top ten.

  Sixty, Newt decided. Twelve per member should almost certainly net them one of the top positions. But if my spiritual energy runs low, I’ll cut my losses regardless of how many flags I have collected.

  Newt gathered his winnings from the ground. Four was a decent start, hopefully the rest of his hunt would prove just as fruitful.

  ***

  “It’s very rare for the Sage’s Realm to use real spirit beasts,” Northstar’s pleasant voice echoed in the tavern as Woodhopper focused on her sect’s members’ fifteen screens, and the one showing the giant map of the realm.

  Small bits of it disappeared as both dinosaurs and humans moved away from the realm’s edges. A clever technique to ensure the density of participants remained more or less the same even with the drop in their numbers.

  Nearly half the participants got eliminated in the first fifteen minutes, many independent cultivators and small sects sharing the last place with zero captured flags. Redleaf was the only one who got eliminated so far, even the second realm juniors held their own admirably.

  She had expected Newstar would take the lead in flag count, but Emeraldstreak and Rexheart had already gathered five each. Unlike Newstar, the two fourth-realm disciples remained mobile, making use of their advantage as much as possible. Alabaster could not help but smirk at how much of an advantage their camouflage uniforms gave them in the woodlands.

  Slickhorn had encountered his second opponent, an anonymous independent cultivator. Slickhorn won and quit the trial without hesitation. Two victories were enough for him, and Woodhopper approved of the young man’s rational decision.

  The second-realmers were nowhere close to being as rational. The sect’s high placement filled them with unfounded confidence, and as such they were destined to suffer. Eighth place after two events was a great result all things considered, but Dandelion’s was even more absurd. He squeezed into the top ten, taking the tenth spot, despite being an independent cultivator and having zero points in second and fourth realm categories.

  Mildflow, their second realm disciple, died to a wandering deinonychus without even injuring the beast, and the monster strolled around decorated with three flags.

  Using real dinosaurs in a challenge was rare, but added an element of randomness to the event, and monsters were unpredictable, acting in different ways and rarely having the same reaction, unlike the automated clones in the previous challenge.

  Explorer’s Gate lost two disciples in the first half an hour, and seven surrendered, bringing their flags out. Some brought three, some four, all in all, a decent haul. If everyone performed like that, it would net them a top one hundred placement in all three categories, but the best of each realm remained in play.

  Flare held four flags and stopped, her own flag rooted to the ground. The third-realmers had six banked so far, the fourth-realmers eleven, the second-realmers seven.

  Flare hesitated, and Woodhopper could see her face twitching with conflict. The young woman wanted to keep going, but knew four was a good number, much better than zero, which grew likelier by the minute as the weak lost and everyone moderately sensible left the challenge with their flags.

  “Come on, do it,” Woodhopped whispered, her fists clenched, and the sect master chuckled.

  “She should surrender soon,” the man said. “Being immobilized is in part there to break the lesser spirits, to make them feel vulnerable and alone, as if tending to a wounded sect member in a danger zone, but it also serves to stop teams from forming and increases the challenge’s fairness.”

  Flare raised her hands in surrender, but she did not disappear. Instead, she spun around, and saw a young man diving forth to spear her back with his sword. Flare parried, her riposte slashing his throat.

  The young woman raised her hands again, this time disappearing from the realm with a smile on her face and two extra flags to her name. The third-realmers had gathered twelve.