279: Chapter 279 The Elegant Bargain Hunter

This rocky battlefield, which was once filled with crisscrossing sword qi and filled with yellow sand, finally returned to a dead silence amidst the mess in an extremely eerie manner.

In the air, only the rustling sound of the breeze blowing across the sand-covered ground remained, along with that solitary peak fourth-grade spiritual herb rooted on the broken stone tablet, emitting an extremely alluring and lustrous glow.

It swayed extremely innocently in the wind, as if expressing its deep grievance of being a fourth-order natural treasure yet being treated like trash and miserably abandoned by a group of top geniuses.

This was a priceless treasure that would cause countless martial artists in the outside world to fight to the death for it!

Yet it was thrown here so utterly devoid of dignity!

However, this lonely silence did not last long.

"Tick."

"Tick."

"Tick."

An extremely crisp and rhythmic ticking of a pocket watch, which seemed to strike directly at the depths of one's soul, suddenly echoed abruptly from the horizon buried in the yellow sand.

At the end of the wind and sand, a tall and slender figure was walking with extremely slow and leisurely steps, as if strolling in his own backyard, unhurriedly approaching the battlefield.

It was a young man with a head of silver-gray hair, an extremely handsome face, and an aura of absolute rationality.

He wore the meticulously tailored deep purple uniform of Southern Yaodu University, and his right hand was extremely elegantly playing with an old silver pocket watch engraved with intricate gear patterns.

The leader of Southern Yaodu University's Team One, an SSS-rank Supernatural Ability Awakener, Ji Daixu!

It was said that his eye-catching silver-gray hair was precisely the price he paid for excessively peering into and even manipulating the laws of time.

However, what made people's scalps tingle and even feel a bit creeped out was his current walking posture.

Ji Daixu's steps clearly looked unhurried, each step extremely elegant and calm, and even the arc of his fluttering clothes seemed to have been meticulously calculated.

But!

He had only taken an extremely casual step forward, yet his slender body actually pulled out an extremely eerie silver afterimage in the air.

Shrinking the Earth into Inches!

No, this was not a spatial leap at all; this was the ultimate compression of the timeline!

From an outsider's perspective, he was still on a sand dune hundreds of meters away in one second, and in the next second, his polished black leather shoe was already stepping extremely lightly onto the edge of this battlefield.

This eerie sense of contrast, which seemed extremely slow but was actually several times faster than anyone running wildly, was enough to throw any opponent who fought him into extreme visual and sensory confusion in the very first second!

Ji Daixu played with his pocket watch, walking extremely calmly into this complex battlefield ravaged by the battle of the geniuses.

His silver eyes, as cold as precise instruments, extremely quickly swept across every trace on the ground.

"Extreme high temperatures, altered terrain, heavy water pressure, and the sandstorm cutting of the great desert..."

Ji Daixu's Brain was like a supercomputer, extremely accurately reconstructing the chaotic encounter that had just occurred here within a fraction of a second.

"Four top combatants at or above Peak Fourth-Order actually abandoned the core resource they were fighting for at the same time, heading in the same direction to launch a full-speed pursuit of the highest intensity."

Ji Daixu walked extremely elegantly to the broken stone tablet and bent down slightly.

He stretched out his left hand, which wore a pure white silk glove, and extremely casually uprooted that peak fourth-grade [jade marrow bone-cleansing flower] which emitted a rich spiritual aura but had been extremely ruthlessly abandoned by Chu Tiankuo and Helan Que.

"Buzz!"

A faint trace of time power flashed, and the spiritual herb's medicinal properties were instantly sealed, slipping extremely smoothly into his storage ring.

"Interesting."

Ji Daixu looked at the rapidly ticking second hand on the pocket watch in his hand, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"According to common sense, there are only two possibilities that could make these four proud leaders simultaneously abandon the temptation of a fourth-order spiritual herb."

"The first is that the two fleeing individuals are carrying an earth-shattering treasure capable of overturning the rules of the entire Forbidden Zone No. 009."

"The second..."

Ji Daixu paused, an extremely absurd gleam flashing in his silver eyes.

"These four people, due to some extremely absurd and highly coincidental chain of misjudgments under extreme information asymmetry, have collectively fallen into an unprecedented, intelligence-lowering pursuit."

"If it's the first, then our Yaodu University naturally cannot be absent from the battle for this earth-shattering treasure."

"If it's the second... then how can I, as an observer of time, miss out on this ultimate ensemble farce that is worthy of being recorded in the annals of Great Xia's martial arts history?"

"Click."

Ji Daixu closed the old silver pocket watch extremely elegantly and placed it into the pocket of his deep purple uniform.

He raised his head, looking far into the depths of the dense forest where the "six-person pursuit army" had disappeared.

"Time will give the best answer."

Accompanied by an extremely pretentious and grand whisper.

Ji Daixu placed one hand in his pocket with extreme composure, once again taking that step that seemed extremely slow but actually spanned across the scale of time.

"Swish!!"

His silver-gray hair drew an elegant arc in the wind.

This "Scavenger King," who seemed extremely out of place in this brutal free-for-all, followed the direction the main group had left, unhurriedly catching up as if taking a stroll after the rain.

...

Meanwhile.

Outside, in the stands of the National Martial Arts Competition Center with its hundred thousand spectators, as well as the two famous commentators at the commentary booth, everyone was completely bewildered!

Because the broadcast on the big screen was undergoing a "viral spread" that went completely beyond human comprehension!

The director had originally been extremely dutiful, splitting the main screen into several sections to track each of the top championship favorites.

But!

Now, the images on four of the screens had actually, and extremely eerily... overlapped!

On the big screen, four perspectives were perfectly synchronized, focusing on those two extremely wretched figures in the black-and-gold uniforms of Magic City Martial Arts University running like Wind Fire Wheels ahead!

"This... what on earth is going on?!"

The commentator wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his voice cracking:

"Dear audience! We are witnessing an extremely unbelievable scene! The four top leaders of this year's Hundred Schools League have actually abandoned their respective resource battles to form an unprecedented dream pursuit alliance!"

"And their target of pursuit is actually... Class F's Gou Fugui and Xiang Batian from Magic City Martial Arts University?!"

"According to the information we have, these two competitors are not top championship favorites, let alone the core support of their team, and there doesn't seem to be any grudge between them!"

The commentator swallowed hard, trying to use his years of professional experience to force an explanation for this extremely absurd scene:

"Could it be... that these two students from Magic City Martial Arts University accidentally triggered some earth-shattering hidden reward in some hidden corner of the secret realm, thereby attracting the frantic scramble of these four geniuses?!"

"But whatever the reason, this is absolutely an epic battle royale that is enough to change the course of the first round!!!"

The audience of one hundred thousand was also boiling with excitement, wildly guessing what peerless treasure Gou Fugui and Xiang Batian were hiding that could make even the four great leaders green with envy.

Only Principal Pang Ban of Magic City Martial Arts University, who was sitting in the VIP seats.

He looked at Gou Fugui on the big screen, whose glasses were about to fly off from running, and Xiang Batian, whose muscles were twitching crazily.

Principal Pang Ban's eyelids twitched violently. He covered his face in extreme pain, letting out an extremely desperate wail in his heart:

"That bastard Jiang You is sleeping soundly in a cave! While Gou Fugui and Xiang Batian are being chased all over the map like bosses by the four great leaders!"

"This batch of students is simply the greatest tribulation of my teaching career!!!"