44: The conference begins!

The first thing he did was hand over these Spirit Stones to the Sect Head, though of course, he kept a portion for his master, Ling Tian.

When the Sect Head saw the Spirit Stones Lu Hao had brought back, his legs went weak, and he nearly lost his footing!

He counted them again and again; there were over fifty billion Low-Grade Spirit Stones and 1.55 million Mid-Grade Spirit Stones!

This was enough to buy dozens of Qingxuan Sects! If these resources were used on the Qingxuan Sect, then surpassing the Heaven Sword Sect would be just around the corner!

Lu Hao also gave Ling Tian billions of Spirit Stones, enough for him to Cultivate to the Soul Transformation stage.

Furthermore, he gave him the Storage Pouches of the three Soul Transformation Experts he had killed.

Under the System's acceleration, in just a few short days, Ling Tian had already nearly reached the Peak of the Nascent Soul Middle Stage; a Breakthrough was just around the corner!

Consequently, Lu Hao left some Nascent Breaking Pills for his master, for him and the rest of the Qingxuan Sect to take when they encountered a Bottleneck.

The second thing was to refine a massive amount of Qi Breaking Pills, Foundation Breaking Pills, and Golden Core Breaking Pills.

Moreover, the daily limit for Medicinal Pill exchanges was increased to one thousand!

Once this news broke, countless Qingxuan Sect Disciples were ecstatic! The entire Qingxuan Sect fell into a state of extreme frenzy!

It was easy to imagine that, with Lu Hao's help, the Qingxuan Sect would make tremendous progress every single day!

The third thing was to set up the Dragon Patrol Heaven Escape Formation within the Sect. While setting up the Formation, Lu Hao restricted the movement of people within the Sect; entering or leaving the Sect would now require the Sect Head's token.

Lu Hao did this to ensure that news about the Qingxuan Sect would not leak out.

After all, the Qingxuan Sect was still very weak right now, and he could not return instantly from Zhongyi City.

He worried that someone might act against the Qingxuan Sect during this period; after all, the temptation of one thousand Medicinal Pills per day was not small!

Besides, he had already marked out an area of one million li within the Qingxuan Mountain Range, which was completely sufficient for the activities of the Disciples within the Sect.

After finishing all of this, Lu Hao set off for Zhongyi City again.

As for the other Cultivators participating in the Five Cities Tournament, they would all travel to Zhongyi City together via the teleportation array on the final day.

The Sect Head stood at the entrance of the hall, watching the direction in which Lu Hao had departed, and could not help but exclaim:

"The ancestral graves of the Qingxuan Sect must be smoking with good fortune for our Sect to possess a Disciple like Lu Hao. With such a Disciple, why worry about the Sect not flourishing!"

...

A few more days passed, and the day the Five Cities Tournament began finally arrived.

On this day, thousands upon thousands of Cultivators arrived from the teleportation array, ranging from Qi Refining to Soul Transformation, all continuously streaming in.

They had come to participate in this grand event, held once every ten years.

On the final day, Lu Hao did not let Dugu Litian continue to Cultivate; he forcibly dragged him out for a walk.

The master and Disciple looked here and there, then found a restaurant to eat something, which was quite comfortable.

After Lu Hao finished eating, the Sect Head, the various Hall Masters, and a massive crowd of Qingxuan Sect Disciples arrived.

After everyone gathered, they did not delay and went directly to the tournament grounds.

The tournament grounds were a vast, circular open space, surrounded by numerous spectator seats, divided into separate areas for each city.

At the very top of the open space were the three people presiding over the tournament.

They were from the Heaven Sword Sect, and the lowest cultivation among them was at the Soul Transformation stage.

Lu Hao found a seat early on to sit and chat with his master, but Dugu Litian was unwilling to sit and stood silently to the side.

The entire venue quickly became increasingly lively, with more and more Cultivators arriving, making it very noisy.

Two and a half hours after Lu Hao arrived, the tournament began!

Three people wearing white robes with Spirit Swords hanging at their waists appeared in the air; they were precisely the hosts of this tournament.

"Look, is that person in the middle the one who legend says obtained a Heaven Rank Magic Treasure in the Tian Yuan Secret Realm and was then taken in as a Disciple by the Heaven Sword Sect Sect Master?"

"It is indeed him. I have seen his portrait. I truly envy him; from now on, his path of cultivation will be smooth sailing."

"No need to envy him. We Cultivators must rely on ourselves to advance step by step. This time, I will give it my all to obtain a spot in the Tian Yuan Secret Realm and enter to seek my fortune!"

"You? Beat me first before you talk. Confidence is a good thing, but arrogance is not."

"What did you say?!"

...

"Silence!"

A booming voice rang out, accompanied by waves of oppressive pressure.

This pressure caused even the Soul Transformation Experts on the field to feel their hearts sink.

A Void Refining Expert!

A Void Refining Expert had actually come to preside over the meeting this time!

This was a rare occurrence; usually, a Soul Transformation cultivation level was sufficient.

After all, no one dared to provoke the Heaven Sword Sect; wouldn't that just be pure suicide?

Among the three, the person in the middle shouted, and the entire venue instantly fell silent.

Afterwards, that person sat down in the middle of the three seats at the very top, looked down, and slowly said:

"I am Rong Yuanliang, and I will be presiding over this Five Cities Tournament. Next, I will announce the rules for the competition."

Lu Hao listened silently from below as the middle-aged Void Refining Cultivator described the rules, and he soon understood.

Since this Five Cities Tournament was a selection for the Tian Yuan Secret Realm, the competition was capped at the Jie Dan Stage.

However, there was no restriction on the level of Magic Treasures one could carry, so you could bring more Advanced Magic Treasures to increase your combat power.

Whichever city had the stronger overall strength should receive more spots.

The competition was divided into four stages in total.

The first stage was testing, which involved testing bone age, Spiritual Root, and cultivation level, then combining them to give an evaluation; the higher the evaluation, the higher the score.

The second stage was the Willpower Test, which mainly tested the strength of each Cultivator's willpower.

On the path of cultivation, those with weak willpower could never achieve Major Achievement.

The third stage was the Combat Power Test. This stage mainly tested raw strength; each Cultivator only needed to use their full strength to attack the puppet on the platform.

The puppet would automatically generate your combat power coefficient.

The final stage was the Battlefield!

This was a stage different from the past. In the past, the fourth stage had been presented in the form of a tournament.

This time, it appeared in the form of a battlefield.

All Cultivators participating in the competition would take a token and enter a virtual battlefield world, where they could fight to their heart's content or hide.

Once they encountered life-threatening danger, they could crush the token in their hand to escape the battlefield, but this also meant being eliminated.

The longer one could survive inside, the higher their ranking!

After all stages were concluded, the scores of the participating Cultivators from each city would be added up to determine the final score for that city, and the rankings would be based on this standard!

After understanding the details of this Five Cities Tournament, Lu Hao turned his head to look at Dugu Litian.

At this moment, his cultivation had already reached the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage!

In just over ten days, going from having no cultivation to the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage—if this were to get out, it would likely trigger a massive earthquake!

"Litian, do your best in this tournament, but you must not use the Magic Treasure I bestowed upon you until the moment of life or death!"

"Yes, Master!"

Dugu Litian said firmly.

Dugu Litian's eyes were still filled with dead silence. As he continued to Cultivate the Underworld Evil Divine Art, the Underworld Evil Qi on his body grew stronger and stronger, unconsciously bringing a sense of oppression and suffocation to others.

Only when facing Lu Hao would that pair of eyes show a glimmer of liveliness, and that icy aura would dissolve a little.