Chapter 672: Drawing the Promotion Ticket Again

Liu Yuan’s match ended in a strange way. Throughout the entire match, he wasn’t attacked once, nor did he attack anyone, as it seemed he had no time to do so from an outsider’s perspective. However, Ye Feng noticed that he touched his opponent’s body once while dodging. It seemed unintentional, but what happened afterward made Ye Feng frown.

The match lasted about an hour, and eventually, Liu Yuan’s opponent encountered an accident—he suddenly covered his stomach and, with a strange expression, voluntarily surrendered to the referee. Soon, everyone understood why he surrendered: the guy couldn’t hold back his diarrhea on the ring, causing a foul smell. To others, this dramatic scene seemed like good luck for Liu Yuan, but some didn’t think so. At least Ye Feng believed that seemingly unintentional touch must have been suspicious. He couldn’t help but recall whether he had touched Liu Yuan as well. After thinking carefully, he realized that although Liu Yuan hadn’t touched him, he had patted his shoulder. He immediately started checking himself for any abnormalities. After checking, he found nothing wrong, which finally put him at ease.

As soon as he stepped off the ring, Liu Yuan saw Ye Feng watching from below and walked over to him. Ye Feng looked at him warily.

“Had good luck today~” Liu Yuan scratched the back of his head, still appearing honest.

“Is that so?” Ye Feng narrowed his eyes slightly, his tone clearly questioning.

“I just don’t know if I’ll have the same luck next time.” Liu Yuan pretended not to hear Ye Feng’s question and continued laughing on his own.

The second match also ended quickly. A total of fifty-five people advanced this time, meaning another person would be exempt from the next round and go straight to the round after that.

As expected, the chief referee soon gave a similar announcement, “A total of fifty-five people have advanced this time, which means another lucky contestant will go straight to the next round. Thus, the person who draws number fifty-five will receive this direct advancement privilege.”

While saying this, the chief referee glanced at Liu Yuan specifically. Since this guy had drawn number one twice, to avoid unnecessary trouble, they changed the special number to the last one.

Liu Yuan could only shake his head with a wry smile after hearing this.

Ye Feng wasn’t concerned about this ranking order; he increasingly found the guy named Liu Yuan strange. He even secretly discussed the matter with Long Tian, who also couldn’t see anything suspicious, but agreed that the guy was odd.
The results of the third round’s draw came out quickly. Ye Feng drew number one. He was stunned upon seeing it and then shook his head. If the organizers didn’t use special numbers for direct advancement, he wouldn’t have to compete in this round. But for him, competing or not didn’t matter, as he would win either way.
However, the other contestants quickly surrounded Liu Yuan, as he had drawn the special number 55 and thus advanced directly without competing. Someone who happened to see his number immediately accused him of cheating.
The others also found it suspicious. Drawing a number for direct advancement once could be considered luck, drawing number one twice could be a coincidence, but drawing the special number for direct advancement a third time suggested cheating.
“You brat! How dare you say you’re not cheating? I’ll ruin you today—no need for you to compete anymore!” a burly man shouted at him angrily.
“It’s really just luck…” Liu Yuan looked aggrieved.
“Enough. This drawing box has been encrypted by the elders of the Virtual Realm. With their cultivation level, it’s impossible for them to cheat,” the chief referee said, though his expression wasn’t pleasant, as he stepped in to defuse the situation.
At that moment, the middle-aged man sent by the organizers spoke from the guest seats, “Indeed, I encrypted this box. It contains countless shielding arrays and restrictions. Although my cultivation is at the peak of the Half-True Realm, even those in the True Realm would never be able to bypass my arrays and restrictions to see what’s inside. Even someone with the same array cultivation level as me would need days or nights to crack these arrays and restrictions.”
These words silenced those who had doubts. Though they suspected Liu Yuan of cheating, they had no evidence, and an authoritative figure there had proven just how difficult it was to cheat. Even Ye Feng frowned. With his mastery of secret patterns, although he hadn’t seen many of the arrays and restrictions, he could still reconstruct them into secret patterns. To crack them would likely take several hours. Thus, he was even more puzzled about how Liu Yuan managed to do it—he didn’t think it was just luck.

“One more thing—inside this box, I’ve also set up detection-based restrictions. If anyone really tries to cheat inside, they won’t be able to escape my detection.” The middle-aged man looked serious, clearly utterly confident in his own abilities and the setups he had created, and unwilling to allow others to question them.

Long Tian in the audience stared intently at Liu Yuan, seemingly trying to see through him, yet a strange thought arose in his mind, “This familiar feeling… I must have known him in my past life, but this memory still belongs to that unexplained part. Who exactly is he?”

The turmoil over the drawing of lots was finally settled, and everyone went to their respective fighting arenas as arranged by the organizers.

Ye Feng’s opponent this time was even weaker than the beast from last time—just an alien with strength comparable to the early stage of the Pseudo-Void level. Ye Feng had no goodwill toward aliens and killed him with a single move, becoming the first to finish the match.

By the time all the others’ matches were over, a whole day had passed.

After this round of battles, the number of remaining fighters, including Liu Yuan, was only twenty-eight.

The remaining matches were scheduled for the next day by the organizers.

Ye Feng also observed that, aside from Liu Yuan, all the qualifiers now had the strength to defeat Pseudo-Void-level strongmen. He wondered whether Liu Yuan would lose in the next match or continue to advance. In his eyes, this guy who suddenly appeared and was brought into the competition might actually become the biggest obstacle to his victory. At the thought of this, Ye Feng felt as if he were swallowing bitter medicine with no way to express his frustration. Facing such uncertainty, no one could feel comfortable.