The feeling of dread that lurked in Tang Ze's heart was still there after all this time, and made all the worse since he didn't have his friends to give him company. When he spoke to them, he could feel as if this feeling had dulled somewhat.
Heck, even training was better than just sitting around, precisely because that would mean his mind was too preoccupied to dwell on thoughts like this.
However, now that he had gotten an opportunity to 'rest' so to speak, he wanted nothing more than to have something to occupy his mind with. It seemed to be the only thing that might take some of the burden off of his mind.
Finally though, the day of the opening ceremony finally came.
As was tradition, someone from the Imperial Family (as in someone who was actually in a significant position of power, not someone like Chen Yu) was there to oversee the tournament and each event. It was the third prince who was chosen for this occasion.
The ceremony took up the entire day, with several parades, speeches, and songs being played before the main event - once again, kind of just like the Olympics back on Earth, Tang Ze mused.
Then, a huge flame was lit, and the games would begin.
Each event would take place on an alternate day, so that theoretically if someone wanted to take part in all twelve of them, they would have a day of rest in-between each event. Practically though, no one was capable of doing something like that and seriously expecting to compete, let alone win every single event. There were also a limited number of participants allowed for each event per sect, so that the sects would not send in someone who they felt did not have a reasonable chance of winning.
Each sect had brought along about the same number of participants, but not everyone was going to participate - some of them were only brought along as 'reservists' in case something happened to the sects' first choices for an event, or for potentially some kind of niche event which, sadly, there might not be a niche for.
The sects were required to submit the names of the people who were attending before the events were finalized, after all.
This meant that they might choose some people who might be talented in say, calligraphy, but if there wasn't a calligraphy event later on, there would be nothing for such people to do. They based their decisions on who to send based off of prior events and what they thought the odds of each candidate winning were, alongside the odds of an event that involved their talent popping up.
Deciding who they were going to nominate was an art in and of itself that the sects had mastered over time.
The first event was the Iron Fist event, and Tang Ze wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about that. Because, while on one hand, he was feeling very anxious and would've liked to have an event over with, on the other hand, it was the very next day, and his heart was beginning to flutter despite his attempts to keep calm.
The event took place near the lake itself.
There were several hundred blocks of what looked like giant pieces of white jelly to Tang Ze, but what he was told were actually slimes, a creature that existed in this world which usually fed on dead and decaying matter like saprophytes, though they were also usually capable of locomotion to some extent.
These slimes however, were as sedentary as sea sponges as they had been bred strictly for the purposes of this event.
The official in charge of the event began explaining how it would go.
"The slimes have been specially bred to be able to withstand a great amount of physical force," the official said. "The way they do this is by dispersing the force throughout their bodies and releasing it. They release it in various forms, though a part of this energy is released in the form of light. For example...." He walked over to one of them and gently tapped it. The slime wiggled slightly before turning a light shade of red. "The more energy they have to absorb, the higher the frequency of light that they emit. As such, a very weak blow will be red, while an extremely strong one-" he then struck at the slime with far greater power, and it turned a dark shade of blue. "Based on the color it changes to, we can gauge the strength of a punch. Sounds simple, no? We go for an average of three format just to minimize any small errors in measurement there might be. Who wants to go first?"
Without thinking, Tang Ze immediately stepped forward, volunteering for the role.
"That's the fastest anyone has ever come forward for this," the official mused. "Half the time I have to call on someone as no one steps forward. It seems we have a true lion in our midst!"
The official may have thought that Tang Ze was being brave by stepping forward so quickly - but it was quite the opposite.
Internally, Tang Ze was a nervous wreck!
So much so that he had had great trouble sleeping the night before.
He just wanted this whole thing to be over as quickly as possible!
That was why he stepped forward so soon. He felt like if he had to wait for other people to get their turns first, he might just end up collapsing out of anxiety!
His heart was beating so fast it felt like it might leap right out of his chest.
He didn't let any of this show on his face though.
Naturally, there were whispers from the other contestants.
"Who is that?"
"He stepped up first - is he, like really strong?"
"No way - look at his muscles. He's so scrawny. Probably stepped forward out of fright!"
"Yeah, you know what they say about phoenixes, they're just giant chickens!"
The last comment was a jab at the Rising Phoenix Sect itself, and the person who said that got glares from the other members of the sect who were participating.
Tang Ze however, was not even paying attention to what they were saying.
All he could see was the slime in front of him, and all he could hear was his heart thumping loudly in his chest.
"Alright, go ahead," the official said.
Taking a deep breath, just like the martial arts instructor had taught him many times, he took up a stance that would guarantee the most efficient delivery of force through his fists.
He was wearing the official sect uniform - not a costume. But his base strength was not to be underestimated.
He punched the slime with all of his might.
It began shaking violently, and immediately turned to a dark shade of violet - the color on the electromagnetic spectrum with the highest frequency that humans could see.
From lowest to highest frequency the colors went: red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, blue, and violet. The higher the frequency, the stronger the blow had been.
"I've never seen anything like this-" the official said, before it turned out that the slime could not handle the massive amount kinetic energy it had been given and burst into pieces a moment later. The official could only look on with a gaping mouth as he turned to Tang Ze. "What did your mother feed you when you were younger?"
"Ah, the usual, I just remembered to always eat all of my vegetables, you know," Tang Ze replied. [This is a lie by the way, more often than not he'd throw them in the trash when his parents weren't looking.]
The official wasn't sure what to do now. Was this kid really just at Qi Condensation?! That's what his Qi was telling him, but even Nascent Soul cultivators would struggle to do something like this.
"Ah, I didn't catch your name, junior."
"Tang Ze of the Rising Phoenix Sect."
"Right, we take the average of three, so here are two more..." the official said. He had been planning on letting Tang Ze's first strike be a 'test blow' so to speak as he was going first and was willing to disregard it if his performance wasn't that good by giving him three chances after that, but there was no need as he couldn't think of a way to score higher than this.
If it had been a fluke the first time, or the slime had just been weak (unlikely as they were all very carefully bred for this sort of event), it would become apparent as his other performances would be less impressive.
Now, no one in the crowd was saying anything - they were all watching with their eyes wide open at Tang Ze's performance.
He caused the next slime to burst into pieces after turning the darkest shade of violet as well. And the one after that - there was the same result.
"We... may as well declare a winner now I guess..." the official said to himself, having never seen anything like this before. "But uh, no, we have to proceed to let everyone else get a turn. Who wants to go next?"
Tang Ze wasn't even listening at this point as he found himself a spot under a tree, then sat down and let out a breath he felt he had been holding since forever.
Finally!
It felt like a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
He no longer felt so anxious that he thought he might explode.
He had felt the pressure of trying to perform well intensely, and now a good portion of it had been released.
After some of the others were done, they came to try to talk to him. Tang Ze really didn't say much to them - because his stomach still felt queasy, though after a while he felt well enough to glance at how the others were performing.
Most of them could only get the slime to turn orange at most, and a few managed to bring out the color yellow, meaning that he was still the clear victor up till now.
Twelve candidates from every sect were allowed to participate, and once all ninety-six were done, the official said they had to tally the points to see who won, though like that official had said at the beginning, it was rather obvious who won.
Tang Ze!
He was asked to stand on stage in front of everyone, and by now had calmed down quite a bit as they handed him his trophy.
The second place went to a burly person from the Emerald Floral sect who had managed to turn his slime green, and third place went to a girl who was built like a truck from the Jasmine Dragon sect.
Although it seemed very odd to Tang Ze, events here were not separated by things like gender or weight class like they would be on Earth. He guessed it wouldn't matter for some of the events, though he thought that something like the Iron First event might be one which should've been. It wasn't (none of the events were) - all of them had competed on the same platform.
While it was true that cultivation could technically bridge the gaps in strength between such barriers, that still put people at a disadvantage. Someone who was stronger at their base level would also be stronger at the same realm of cultivation normally speaking, so on average, this kind of contest did favor men. The strength of a female Golden Core cultivator would absolutely exceed that of a male cultivator at Qi Refinement, but there was a hard 'level cap' with this tournament at Qi Refinement so such a thing did not factor in at all.
Tang Ze guessed that things like the Five Attributes might also be able to break such barriers; as it was, it did not really matter to him who he was up against.