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“What?” He asked quickly “You’d toldout the theory, and it ended up being true But in order to get there I needed to be pushed I was hoping to get soirl to helpat me?”

She just shook her head “You fail to understand the she was, or what kind of pressure you were under All they saas your deter she had and beat her without a single punch Can you think of any better way to sha down on her – not even worth really fighting The audience sees it as cruel teasing”

Lan Jue stared at her, entirely dumbfounded “This is a travesty!”

Worse, his assertions could only be told to the Pharmacist because no one else would believe hilares of the crowd He could still hear the curses as he left to change, persisting until he came back some minutes later without theoff everyone he came across? He felt coainst hiinally wanted to stay and watch the fights, but after the sha he just experienced the best course of action was to flee

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The fourth round concluded without any notable upsets The highlights idely available on the television The on-de the charts Reports flooded the screen with iirl’s teary eyes What folloas a tirade against the ‘monstrous’ actions of Zeus

Perhaps unexpectedly the resurrection vote for this round didn’t go to 122 Instead Chu Cheng’s opponent, the stunningly beautiful Sariel, was called back to compete Meanwhile the– the Dark Gentleman Of course where there was a hero a villain was needed, so Lan Jue filled that vacuu that was near i was the mask that concealed his identity He praised his wise decision to wear, because otherwise the lynch– perhaps wisely – wasn’t answering his calls He was like a horseone without a trace when trouble cah, none of this bothered Lan Jue too much If he concerned himself with the opinions of others than he’d have lost his o

The next few days saw his fortunes experience an upward swing Though not of his opponents eak, they also weren’t outside of his capabilities Meanwhile the contender pool kept shrinking Round five had ht down to one hundred and eighty, round six dropped that to ninety five Round seven finished with forty-eight Adepts and going forward froer would be less than ninth level

The Avenue had a strong showing Aside from the Pharmacist, the Driver, Bartender, Barber and Beautician had all advanced to the eighth round Lan Jue and Chu Cheng were also still in the running Sariel – thanks to the resurrection vote – was there too, with her compatriot Constantine The necromancer who had defeated the Coffee Master was also still in contention, and several other notable young Adepts A few surprising exceptions did exist – unknowns from the West and North – but they were few

Now they all waited for the eighth round of fights to begin This would be the final elian

The twenty four Adepts in that round had two chances to get in the top sixteen First they’ll fight, then the winning twelve will advance as the losing twelve fight for a second chance The losing six are gone fro six are voted down to four Those final winning four then join the original winning twelve coroup battles If the losing two are not voted out by a er than ten percent then they are also perroups of five against two groups of four

All of this ht was very important The winners here had a real shot The prize for reaching the group battle stage was an A-ranked power gem, and not a common one either

Lan Jue had tried very hard to reh rounds five six and seven The curses had largely vanished by the eighth round since his last few opponents had all been , a representative of the North as both gentleman and warrior He was as powerful as he was noble, and suddenly the drea ladies

Woe be unto any of thehtlife!