Chương 64: Competition Against The Second Grade

The first and second grades of the Outer Court had assembled early in the morning at the Outer Court's arena. While this place was usually off-limits for training, it was still used as the competition grounds today. Tang Wulin and Yuanen Yehui stood at the front of their respectives classes, standing on opposite sides of the arena.

The first grade was bustling with excitement and fighting spirit, while the second grade's students were comparatively more calm. This clearly showed the difference in their experience, though; While the second grade's students were at most three years older than the first grade's, they had been tempered by Shrek Academy for those three years, after all!

A few minutes after everyone had assembled, the teachers walked into the arena. At the very front stood the Holy Spirit Douluo. She would watch over the competition as the students would fight for real and not in a virtual arena, after all. What surprised everyone, though, was that just half a step behind the Holy Spirit Douluo, there was another big shot of Shrek Academy; The headmaster of the Outer Court, the Silver Moon Douluo, Elder Cai!

Even more surprising was the fact that at the side of the Silver Moon Douluo, there was a third person walking along the two Titled Douluo's! Sheng Feilong's eyes widened when he recognized the person; It was Elder Li, who he had met during the Entrance Exam. It was to be expected that he would be an Elder of the Sea God's pavilion, but to walk alongside the Silver Moon Douluo and Holy Spirit Douluo; Just what was the his status?

Behind the three of them were Shen Yi, Wu Zhangkong and the teacher of the second grade. They made their ways down to the arena instead of sitting in the viewers stands like the three respected Elders did. They took their seats near the students of their classes, but refrained from talking to them as the Douluo's hadn't spoken yet. The Holy Spirit Douluo seemed to want to begin to talk, when the door of the arena opened once again and two men walked in, arguing with each other for the whole time.

This time, most of the students went tense and even the second grade's students had a hard time keeping their composure. The two men who had apepared this time were Tiled Douluo's as well! And not ordinary ones at that; They were Shrek Academy's Twin Dragons, Scarlet Dragon Douluo Zhou Shi and Blazing Dragon Douluo Feng Wuyu!

The two bickered more and more, loudly and clearly audible to the whole audience, but were quickly shut up by the Holy Spirit Douluo. Both of them hurried to the viewers stand and took their seats a row behind the first three Elders. Sheng Feilong dryly swallowed. To have the two old men, those two Douluo's, take their seats behind her without batting an eye, just what sort of status did the Holy Spirit Douluo have?

After everyone had calmed down again, the Holy Spirit Douluo took a step forward and declared the beginning of the competition. As everyone had expected, the first four duels would be held by the representatives for the four major Second Professions; Blacksmithing, Mecha Designing, Mecha Making and Mecha Mechanics.

For the first round, the competition would be held between the representative Blacksmiths of the classes, so Tang Wulin made his way to the arena. There were already state of the art forging tables prepared for them, so they could start immediately. Tang Wulin courteously greeted the student from the second grade, who introduced himself as He Xiaopeng.

Shen Yi stepped forward and explained the precise content of the first match.

"For the first match, the subject is metal purification. Both of you will be granted a piece of Titanium Crystal and you will have 30 minutes to purify it. The one who is able to purify it the most will be declared the winner and obtain 1.000 contribution points as well as both purified metals. If the first grade wins, they'll be rewarded 30 percent more contribution points."

After that, Shen Yi handed both of them a piece of Titanium Crystal and both began heating the metal. Every Blacksmith in the audience was looking at them in anticipation, waiting for them to start their forging process. Waiting for some time, Tang Wulin was the first to finish the heating of the Titanium Crystal and started forging it. Surprisingly, he didn't use much force but instead only hit the metal really lightly.

He Xiaopeng also finished the heating process and began forging, though, much more violent that Tang Wulin's light hits. After another while, the piece of metal Tang Wulin was working on started to emit a bright light and Feng Wuyu instantly flashed onto the stage, telling Tang Wulin to focus and continue.

After another long round of hammering, Tang Wulin finally finished, and Feng Wuyu announced that the first grade won the blacksmithing contest. Apparently, He Xiaopeng refined his metal very well, but Tang Wulin had succeeded in an even higher form of forging, changing the Titanium Crystal into a metal known as Titanium Gold, even spirit refining and 'bestowing life' to it. Sheng Feilong didn't know enough about blacksmithing to understand everything, but Spirit Refinement is the work of top rank 5 and rank 6 Blacksmiths; clearly better than what He Xiaopeng did.

After that, the second round of the competition began and the representative Mecha Designers of the classes were asked to come on the stage. Grade one's representative was Gu Yue, while the second grade sent out a girl named Bai Hanying. Both of them were fourth rank Mecha Designers.

Shen Yi once again stepped forward, giving them the conditions for their contest.

"This designing match will test your reasoning and the quality of your design. You have 30 minutes to design a right gauntlet for a set of Battle Armour. You may use your old designs. Elder Li will personally select the winner."

Sheng Feilong and the rest of their group silently smiled when they heard the conditions. Gu Yue was the one who designed the gauntlet for Tang Wulin's Battle Armour, so she already had experience in that regard. Taking this into account, they had pretty much won the second match already!

Paper and writing instruments were delivered to the arena and placed on the forging tables. Designer's didn't need specialized drawing ground; any flat surface would do just fine, so they used the forging tables from the first match for convenience's sake. Both of them instantly went to it, using the full 30 minutes to the best of their abilities.

Gu Yue seemed to design purely from memory and her pencil never stopped drawing on the paper, her pace neither fast nor slow. On the other side, Bai Hanying was working really fast, but also erasing her drawings repeatedly. Still, she made progress just as fast as Gu Yue. After the 30 minutes were up, both of them were asked to stop and Elder Li looked at their designs thoroughly before declaring their match a draw, much to the surprise of everyone, be it from the first or second grade.

Seeing their confusion, Elder Li smiled gently and explained his decision.

"Gu Yue, your design for a one-word gauntlet incorporates spirit alloys and is very comprehensive. It's a practical and effective design. Bai Hangying's design is much more complicated, and it implemented many advanced theories. However, the overall design is flawed. If you manage to complete it, you'll have become a fifth-rank designer. Your design seems to be made for someone with twin Spirit Essences?"

Bai Hanying nodded in approval and elder Li continued his explanation.

"You should consider working together with Gu Yue to perfect your design. You two would complement each other pretty well and both of your progress would be much faster than when working independently."

Both of them bowed lightly and thanked Elder Li for his appraisel and pointers before returning to their teams. Currently, the first grade had 1 win and one draw; they were clearly in the lead! The next match could already decide the outcome of the Second Profession competition, but the first grade wasn't all that confident.

The third test was Mecha Making and the contestants had to assemble machinery. As expected, the first grade lost this round miserably. While both Sheng Feilong and Ye Xinglan were fifth rank Mecha Makers, they only joined the class when the representatives were already selected and neither of them had any interest in taking on the responsibility anyways, so their current representative was Luo Guixing. Although he was pretty talented, he still fell short of geniuses like the other two and was only a rank three Mecha Maker.

After his loss, the fourth round began and Wu Sidou and Yuanen Yehui walked onto the arena. Both of them were Mecha Mechanics and their match was actually closely tied; Yuanen Yehui only won by a minimal margin! Although this match was the win for the second grade, having their class president nearly draw with a junior from the first grade struck the second grade's confidence pretty hard, not to mention Yuanen Yehui's.

Now, the moment all of the audience had been waiting for would begin. Shen Yi once again stepped onto the arena and beckoned the representatives for the group battle onto the stage. Unlike what was known before, the second grade would fight with the same amount of contestants as the first grade at Elder Cai's command, so now, this would be a full blown 7 versus 7 match!

On the side of the second grade, there were a total of five faces that Sheng Feilong and the others recognized; The class president Yuanen Yehui at the front, Yue Zhengyu to her left and, surprisingly, Wong Wushuang to her right! Just behind the three stood He Xiaopeng and at the end of their formation stood Bai Hanying! All of them had solemn expressions as radiated a thick oppressive feeling due to their strength.

Still, no one from Sheng Feilong's team backed down as the ascended the arena nearly at the same time. This was the first time they would fight with all 7 of their members. Xu Xiayan and Xu Lizhi stood at the back with Gu Yue just in front of them to protect them. A few steps off to the side stood Xie Xie, while in front of Gue Yue stood Ye Xinglan and Tang Wulin. Surprisingly, at the front of their formation stood Sheng Feilong!

The first grade couldn't make heads or tails of Sheng Feilong standing at the front, while the second grade was just surprised that the first grade's class president, who was said to have incredible physical strength didn't stood at the front, but a slim young boy, who didn't resemble a warrior in the slightest, instead.

Shen Yi and Wu Zhangkong were naturally surprised as well, but Shen Yi still held her question back and raised her hand to give the contestants a signal. While many people were confused, Shen Yi started the count down for the match and Sheng Feilong unhurriedly took out two white shortsword's from his Spacial Ring. The moment Shen Yi's countdown ended with 0, Sheng Feilong's aura changed drastically!

(A/N: Did someone say 'cliffhanger'..? No? I'll give you one none the less!)