46: Chapter 46 Provincial Capital

The Nanjiang City athlete village was a multi-story stone building in a rectangular shape, with a small cafeteria on the ground floor and four-person dormitories upstairs, featuring a compact and practical layout.

The provincial capital was an entirely different concept—the camp spanned a vast area, with dozens of independent small buildings scattered between low hills and an artificial lake, each equipped with its own training room, meditation room, and resource allocation terminal.

Shen Ye collected his key and walked along the stone path toward his building, seeing contestants along the way unfolding their Kingdom Projections on the open ground by the lake for tactical simulations; on the light screens, arrays of kin were lined up uniformly, practicing some kind of coordinated attack formation he had never seen before.

Another contestant sat cross-legged in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of a meditation room, surrounded by swirling water mist, with spiritual sense fluctuations so strong that Shen Ye could perceive them from dozens of meters away.

Yet another was fighting a Simulated Rift in a training room, the rumbling sounds transmitting through the walls and making the ground tremble slightly.

These people were not here to make up the numbers; they were the top three finishers who had fought their way out of the province's thirty-two cities.

Shen Ye found his building and pushed open the door.

Qin Shu was already there, sitting on the sofa in the first-floor living room, holding a data pad.

He had arrived in the provincial capital a day earlier than Shen Ye to scout ahead, and was currently projecting the dense information about their opponents from his data pad onto the light screen in the center of the living room.

The light screen displayed the complete list of 128 contestants, organized by the top three from each city and those with retained qualifications from previous years.

Shen Ye noticed that a few names had been marked in red by Qin Shu—Provincial Capital No. 1 High School, Gu Changfeng, SS-rank talent Wind-Thunder Twin, Kingdom attribute Thunder Pool, the top seed for this Provincial Tournament.

Provincial Capital No. 2 High School, Luo Xinghe, S-rank Starlight talent, Kingdom attribute Star Dome.

Cang City No. 1 High School, Cang, SS-rank talent, Kingdom attribute Initial Divine Realm.

Yunlu City, Yun Qianqian, SSS-rank Law Affinity talent, Kingdom attribute Sea of Laws.

"You're not at the top of this list."

Qin Shu's voice was as calm as ever, "The seeding for the Provincial Tournament is determined by a weighted calculation of three dimensions: awakening level, Kingdom attribute, and past performance. Your awakening level is S, which was in a league of its own in the City-level Competition, but placed here—among one hundred and twenty-eight people, there are several SS-ranks, and even SSS-ranks."

He flipped the page on the data pad, "But seed rankings are just data on paper. Data on paper doesn't kill people."

Shen Ye nodded.

On the light screen, there was also a tactical assessment compiled by Qin Shu, where the Kingdom attribute, kin type, and public combat records of every key opponent had been deeply analyzed using a military-grade tactical analysis system.

Qin Shu had spent an entire day going through all the public combat recordings of all one hundred and twenty-eight people.

Gu Changfeng's Thunder Pool had Thunder Spirits as kin; they were extremely fast, and his combat style was fast-attack suppression, with Wind-Thunder Twin allowing him to switch seamlessly between Wind-element acceleration and Thunder-element burst.

Cang's Initial Divine Realm was currently the only known inheritance of an ancient God King ruin in the province; his kin were not raised by him, but were ancient warriors sleeping in the ruins, each possessing semi-god level combat power.

Yun Qianqian's Sea of Laws was one of the top-tier Kingdom attributes, and any divine art in her hands would undergo a qualitative change—the same Fireball spell, when used by her, was a sun.

"There is one more person, Bai Ye, participating in this year's Provincial Tournament, SSS-rank talent Time Stop, Kingdom attribute Eternal Hall."

Qin Shu's voice was uncharacteristically low, "On the day of his awakening, the detection stele shattered in front of him; it wasn't a quality issue with the stele, but that his talent level exceeded the detection limit. This is the first time such a situation has occurred in the Eastern Divine Realm in so many years. He comes from the Bai family, one of the founding families of Shenyu University. I placed his information at the end because you don't need to consider him for now—unless you make it into the National Competition."

Shen Ye looked at Bai Ye's name.

Time Stop.

He silently repeated these two words in his heart several times.

It wasn't speed, it wasn't burst, it wasn't law affinity.

It was stop.

In the domain of Time Stop, speed had no meaning, defense had no meaning, and all tactics had no meaning.

"What is his weakness?"

Shen Ye asked.

Qin Shu was silent for a moment.

"He has never been forced to use his full strength in public combat recordings. But I received an unverified piece of information through internal channels at Shenyu University—some speculate that the cost of Time Stop is the consumption of his own time. Every time he uses it, he is overdrawing his own lifespan."

He put down the data pad, "This is just speculation, there is no evidence. And even if there is a cost, in those few seconds when Time Stop is in effect, you can do nothing."

Shen Ye did not continue to ask.

He kept Bai Ye's name in his heart and continued to look down the list.

One hundred and twenty-eight people, each one of whom had fought their way out of their respective city's City-level Competition.

There were no weaklings, only the difference between strong and stronger.

After finishing with the opponents from other cities, Shen Ye turned his attention back to his own city.

The Nanjiang City trio was arranged in adjacent dormitories, with Fang Yan living in the building on the left and Lu Chuan living in the building on the right.

Shen Ye happened to run into Fang Yan on the way to the reporting office; he was wearing the dark red school uniform of City No. 3 High School, standing on a low hill by the lake with his Kingdom Projection unfolded in front of him—the number of Rock Giants had increased from the three hundred at the City-level Competition to nearly five hundred, and the triangular circulation inside their chests had become more complex, no longer the simple three-node equilateral triangle from the City-level Competition, but a complex circulation of four-node and five-node polygons interwoven.

The core could jump between multiple nodes, with an unpredictable trajectory.

Fang Yan saw Shen Ye, gave a slight nod, and did not speak.

Shen Ye also did not speak.

The two stood there, watching the sunset on the lake.

At mealtime, the three of them went to the cafeteria together.

The cafeteria was built on the shore of the artificial lake, a single-story building with a full glass curtain wall; after sunset, the lights shone through the glass walls, reflecting on the lake surface and merging with the twilight sky in the distance.

Lu Chuan carried his tray and sat down opposite Shen Ye, with Fang Yan sitting on the side.

Three qualifying contestants from Nanjiang City, with three completely different Kingdom attributes, were now sitting at the same dining table.

Lu Chuan ate two bites of spirit beast steak, then suddenly put down his chopsticks.

"Do you know that this place is very close to the Grey Zone? The secret realm for the Provincial Tournament is an independent space cut directly from the edge of the Grey Zone, and inside there are Void Race, real Void Race, not the kind of projections in a Simulated Rift."

Fang Yan was silent for a moment.

"I heard that in the last Provincial Tournament, an A-rank champion had their Kingdom shattered by a Void Race lord in the secret realm. They came out alive, but could never go to the battlefield again."

Lu Chuan said, "Someone has to be the pioneer."

Fang Yan said, "I know."

Outside the glass wall of the restaurant, the lake reflected the lights of the laws.

The three of them ate their meal quietly, and no one brought up the topic again.

But Shen Ye knew that the three of them were all the same—Fang Yan's father was also a frontier soldier, transferred to the front line of the Grey Zone last year and had not been rotated back yet; Lu Chuan's childhood was spent scrambling and growing up in his father's Iron-Blooded Battlefield projection.

They were born to go to the battlefield; the only difference was when and how far they would go.

Formal preparation began the day after the assembly.

The opening and closing ceremonies and the individual combat rounds of the Provincial Tournament were all held in the main venue, and Qin Shu took Shen Ye to scout the venue early in the morning.

The scale of the main venue reminded Shen Ye of the old City Gymnasium in Nanjiang City before its expansion—but that was for the City-level Competition, and this was for the Provincial Tournament.

The venue was a huge domed building, with the dome hanging high, and grey-white stone slabs reinforced with laws covered the entire combat arena.

The stands could accommodate tens of thousands of people, but they were empty at the moment, with only a few staff members performing equipment debugging.

Qin Shu stood at the edge of the combat arena and stomped on the law-reinforced stone slabs beneath his feet.

"The combat arena for the Provincial Tournament has a higher level of law reinforcement than the City-level Competition. The buffer patterns are deeper, and the automatic repair mechanism is faster. This means your burst-type tactics—Jin Lin's Ring Sword Intent, Elder Quan's Water Flow Guidance, Mu Sheng's Vine Gathering—can be executed at full power without worrying about breaking the floor."

Shen Ye squatted down, placed his palm on the law-reinforced stone slab, and perceived the flow of spiritual power within it.

The spiritual power patterns on the stone slab were at least twice as thick as those in the City-level Competition, the nodes between the patterns were denser, and each node was an independent spiritual power transfer station.

Fighting on such slabs, the power of burst-type tactics would not be attenuated, but the same applied to the opponent's.

Qin Shu handed over the data pad.

On the screen was the schedule for the one hundred and twenty-eight people, and the first-round matchups were already out.

Shen Ye's name was in the seventh group, and his opponent was the City-level runner-up from Yunlu City, S-rank talent, Kingdom attribute Mystic Ice Domain—belonging to the Ice element like Han Xu's Frost Tundra, but a grade higher, not ordinary ice and frost, but the ultimate cold at the level of laws.

Shen Ye flipped to the first few pages of information and found the entry for Mystic Ice Domain—kin Frost Giants, both in quantity and combat power exceeding Han Xu's; everything within the coverage of the Ice-Sealing Aura was continuously slowed; under extreme low temperatures, even spiritual power would be frozen.

Weakness: Insufficient resistance to extreme high-temperature Fire elements; high-intensity heat sources could cause partial melting of its domain.

Shen Ye read this weakness repeatedly several times.

Fire element.

He remembered the Fire Spirit Root Artificer hundred-man team; they had always been forging flying swords, quenching ores, and refining elixirs in front of the Earth Fire Furnace, and had never been sent onto the combat arena as main combat kin.

He sent a message to Su Wanqing: "How is the resistance of the ultimate cold of the Mystic Ice Domain to fire marrow?"

Su Wanqing replied quickly: "Fire marrow is the essence refined from earth fire, and the temperature is much higher than ordinary flames. The Ice-Sealing Aura of the Mystic Ice Domain is a cooling at the level of laws, but laws also need a medium—moisture in the air, frost on the ground, heat on the kin. The high temperature of fire marrow can destroy the medium. However, the flames of ordinary fire-element kin are useless against the Mystic Ice Domain; the flames will extinguish themselves before they touch the cold air. It must be high-purity fire marrow."

Shen Ye replied with one word: "Good."

Returning to the training room, Qin Shu had already called up the simulated projection of the Mystic Ice Domain.

It was not the military-grade projection like that of a Void Tribe Scout, but a simulated environment of the Mystic Ice Domain restored based on public combat recordings.

The Ice-Sealing Aura covered the entire combat arena, frost condensed on the surface of the law-reinforced stone slabs, and the moisture in the air turned into tiny ice crystals suspended in mid-air.

Shen Ye summoned the Fire Spirit Root Artificer hundred-man team.

One hundred Foundation Establishment Stage Artificers stood before him, each holding a ball of Earth Fire fire marrow in their palms.

Shen Ye had them walk into the simulated projection of the Mystic Ice Domain one by one.

The first Artificer walked in, and the light of the fire marrow only held for a very short time before it began to dim—but the Artificer did not retreat.

He withdrew the fire marrow from his palm back into his body, circulated his Foundation Establishment Stage spiritual power through his meridians several times, and the fire marrow reignited, with a temperature higher than before.

The second Artificer walked in; he did not try to endure it hard like the first one, but divided the fire marrow into countless tiny sparks, scattering them around his body to form a spark shield.

When the cold air touched the spark shield, it would make a very faint sizzling sound—that was the sound of ice crystals being evaporated by the sparks.

The cold air did not disappear, but the temperature inside the spark shield was maintained.

Qin Shu stood behind the observation deck, watching this group of Artificers show their unique skills in the simulated Mystic Ice Domain.

Some were testing the limit of the fire marrow's cold resistance, some were testing the optimal distribution density of the spark shield, and some were trying to condense the fire marrow into a very thin, high-temperature ray—not for attack, but for cutting a path through the Ice-Sealing Aura.

One after another, the Artificers walked into the Mystic Ice Domain, the light of the fire marrow flickering, but not a single one retreated.

"They are not combat-type kin."

Qin Shu said.

"They are not."

Shen Ye said, "But they have forged countless furnaces, mined countless ores, and quenched countless swords themselves. Temperature control is their instinct."

Qin Shu did not speak, but just made a note on the data pad.

Training continued until late at night.

When Shen Ye walked out, he was soaked in sweat.

He sat down on a stone bench by the lake, and the night wind blew over from the lake, carrying away the heat from his body.

Tonight's moon was very round, and the moonlight spilled onto the lake surface, shattering into countless silver-white spots of light.

He suddenly remembered Liu Yang's amulet, took it out from his close-fitting pocket, and looked at the crooked stitches by the moonlight.

There were still two days until the first round of the Provincial Tournament.

He put away the amulet, stood up, and walked back to the training room.