Chapter 16 The Second Stage

The time for the preliminary round quickly passed. In those sixteen days, the Sky Arena recorded many classic matches, providing plenty of talking points.

Since ancient times, the masses have had a mysterious love for comparing combat power. Simply asking on social media platforms about "Rankings of Three Kingdoms Generals," "Rankings of Strategists," "Who would win between a lion and a tiger," "Who would win between Tyson and a tiger," "Who would win between LeBron James and a chimpanzee," or "Who would win between Bruce Lee and LeBron James" would attract a large number of replies.

And based on these pointless questions, even more pointless questions were extended.

[Could an ordinary strong man with a spear beat a tiger?]

[Could Zhang Sanfeng beat Tyson with a heavy machine gun?]

[Could Ultraman beat a Dynamax Tyson?]

[Which side would win, a hundred popular YouTubers in armor or ten Tysons?]

These pointless questions could never be realized in the real world.

But in the Killing Game, the masses could see medieval knights fighting mechanical police officers, Eastern sword immortals fighting American mutants.

The richness of the elements and the excitement of the content completely blew away any competitive match in the real world.

In addition to the arena, third-party organizations offered extremely detailed odds, from specific qualification spots to the specific scores at the end of a ring match, all of which could be bet on.

This spawned many stories like "Bet against the ring, get a villa by the sea" and "Before betting, I was from Yin City; after betting, Yin City is mine,"

Further hyping up the atmosphere of the preliminary round.

Of course, this atmosphere only suited the masses who had no chance to participate in the competition or no chance of qualifying.

Players who hoped to advance to the next round were all racing against time to participate in the tower climbing, especially in the 24 hours before the preliminary round deadline, which was almost frantic.

Some players even disregarded the cost, using a large number of magic potions and products with side effects to suppress their injuries and continue to participate in the ring matches, climbing as many floors as possible to increase their chances of qualifying.

Finally, as the preliminary round countdown above the game square reached zero, all players received a system prompt indicating that the first stage had officially ended.

Five hundred qualifiers were selected and announced above the square in the same format as the individual combat power rankings (qualifiers could choose to anonymize their personal information).

Ranked first was naturally [Saint Hong Michael]. His final score was 67 floors, with a total of 67 matches, 67 wins, and 0 losses.

Ranked second was [Out of Control] from the Syndicate, 63 floors, 63 matches, 63 wins, and 0 losses—he deliberately maintained a four-floor gap with Michael to avoid a direct encounter.

The lower the ranking, the smaller the difference in battle records. The last one of the 500 players fought more than a hundred ring matches, eventually staying on the 40th floor—there were many players on the 40th floor, but his overall record was the best.

As for Li Ang... his score was 50 floors, 50 matches, 50 wins, and 0 losses.

He officially started to score points in the seventh and eighth days of the preliminary round, climbing to the 50th floor to ensure his statistical success in qualifying, and did not continue to challenge.

During this process, he did not encounter any of the top ten players. Since he only used the [Abyssal Demon Mirror]'s flash, as well as alchemy and the Tyrant's Rampart Spear, and never used other skills,

The other players he met along the way felt that Li Risheng was unfathomable. Even if they had the strength to fight him, they would choose to surrender for the sake of conserving their combat power, allowing him to climb smoothly to the fiftieth floor.

Previously, the system mentioned that there was a certain probability of obtaining system experience points, game coins, and other rewards during the tower climbing process. After climbing to the fiftieth floor, Li Ang obtained 1551 experience points, raising him to Lv21, filling his experience bar.

During this period, the swarm in the pet box was also producing magic potions at full speed, earning Li Ang a lot of game coins, giving him funds to buy equipment and props—with the end of the preliminary round, the originally hyped equipment market cooled down a lot, and the prices of auction items in the auction house returned to normal levels.

What replaced it was that major forces were more enthusiastic about talent investment—they were willing to provide low-interest or even interest-free loans to the five hundred qualifiers.

They could even rent or even gift perfect-grade props—as long as they signed a contract and agreed to transfer or sell the door after achieving a top twenty result to major forces.

As a lone wolf player who ensured qualification and had unknown strength, Li Ang naturally received even more enthusiastic invitations than before.

Xing Hechou personally came to the door to ask if Li Ang was willing to accept the Special Affairs Bureau's recruitment, but Li Ang refused.

There is no free lunch in the world. At his level, the corresponding value of chips that major forces could offer was not much, and even if there were, Li Ang would have to pay a certain price.

He was very curious about the door and would not transfer it.

And among the list of five hundred people, there were some names that Li Ang was familiar with.

Hagoromo Kokoro, Ω, Stonemason, Witch...

At the end of the list, you could also see the names of the Jin Ge Tie Ma four-person team—they were estimated to have received strong support from the Whale Song organization.

Liu Wumao also advanced to the next round—her own equipment was very luxurious, and she seemed to have secretly reached some agreement with Mule, who supported her with some props.

An hour after the list was freshly released, a system prompt also rang out, announcing the schedule for the next stage of the competition, which would be held in 24 hours.

Five hundred players would be randomly matched with opponents in ten days, each playing ten matches. Finally, based on the number of wins, individual performance, and head-to-head records, three hundred players would be selected to advance to the next round.

The competition venue would be a newly developed area of the Sky Arena called the [Mirror Realm Corridor].

The [Mirror Realm Corridor] would automatically produce semi-enclosed venues of different sizes and elements, which could be modern urban office buildings or ancient tombs filled with机关 jiguans (traps and mechanisms).

Participating players needed to inflict as much damage as possible on their opponents within a limited time. The specific rules were the same as in the previous round.

"..."

On the sofa in the living room, Li Ang looked at the second stage rules floating in his vision, frowning and looking solemn.

Just like the last time he accidentally discovered Chai Chai's web browsing history.

"What's wrong?"

Miss Chai floated down from mid-air and asked carefully, "What do the rules say?"

Li Ang took a deep breath, briefly introduced the rules, and said with a serious expression, "The second stage's [Mirror Realm Corridor] is not essentially different from the first stage's ordinary ring matches.

With five hundred advancing to three hundred, I am confident that I can qualify."

Miss Chai blinked, puzzled. "Then what are you worried about?"

Li Ang scratched his head helplessly and spread his hands. "The competition time.

According to the rules, players will receive a notification of the start of their individual match every 24 hours. The match time is random, and the time flow during the match is the same as in the real world.

I can't go to class as usual, and I can't ask for ten days of leave at once—that would definitely be discovered by the Special Affairs Bureau."

Chai Chai was stunned and asked, "What should we do then?"

"Hmm..."

Li Ang narrowed his eyes, pondered for a moment, slowly moved his gaze, and looked at the ignorant and innocent Chai Chai. "Ah Chai... are you interested in being a high school student for once?"