Ma Hongjun, in the twentieth ranked range was very successful and won twenty three battles of the twenty seven. Zhu Zhuqing’s individual competition record wasn’t inferior, winning only one less battle than Ma Hongjun.
Counting it like this, Tang San won the most out of everyone. Although the points scored in the three types of Great Spirit Arena battles were counted separately, relying on the many consecutive victories[ Recall that in the arena, the number of points earned with each match multiplied every five wins for individual matches.], his points increased very quickly.
If it wasn’t for the rules at the Great Spirit Arena, that the extra points earned from consecutive matches would only be added at the end of each month, right now they wouldn’t just be in iron rank spirit fights.
Still, Shrek Seven Devils’ stunning performance already garnered the Great Spirit Arena’s attention, if not for their fighting spirit badge rank being too low, and thus not meeting the minimum requirements of the Central Spirit Battle Arena of at least a silver rank, perhaps they would already have been invited to participate in the Central Great Spirit Battle arena.
When the Shrek Seven Devils arrived at the Arena this time was just the second day of the month, this month’s altogether thirty days, with the exception a rest day, after today’s spirit battles, the one month period would be over. Then, they would get their points calculated. at that time, they would definitely not be in the current iron rank.
Even more praiseworthy, in the Shrek Seven Devils, their captain, Evil Eye White Tiger, Dai Mubai’s spirit power had broken through the 38th rank. This is not just because of his hard work in cultivation, but also because of these four months of body strengthening training and actual battles.
At the same time increasing spirit power were Zhu Zhuqing and Ning Rongrong, reaching the twenty eighth rank and twenty seventh rank respectively, rushing towards the thirtieth rank.
As night fell, in the heart of Suotuo City’s downtown area, Suotuo Great Spirit Battle arena was brightly lit.
The spectators came streaming in from all four corners of the city, from time to time one could even see luxurious carriages under the protection of retinues enter the Great Spirit Arena via VIP passages.
These were either from great clans or aristocrats. Naturally, the battles in the heart of Suotuo Great Spirit Battle Arena, caught their eyes.
Today was the last day of the month and also a weekend, Suotuo Great Spirit Arena would obviously become one of the greatest source of Suotuo city people’s entertainment. Here, not only would one be able to see spectacular spirit battles, one could also try their luck and place small bets, supporting their spirit master fighter.
Including grandmaster, Flender and Zhao Wuji, Shrek Academy’s party all dispersed into the Suotuo Great Spirit Battle Arena.
This is not because they had to be careful to hide their identity but because it was necessary.
After this month of battling, the Shrek Seven Devils had made remarkable achievements, thus naturally becoming the focus of attention of the audience. Although they have not yet been to the center of the main Spirit Fighting Arena, but the audience in their surroundings were already very familiar to them. Shrek Seven Devils’ title has already become familiar with crowds, making them excited.
In order to avoid unnecessary trouble and struggle. From ten days ago, the people of Shrek Academy started walking in as they were normally and completely change clothes once inside, then move to the designated place to sign up for a battle.
Thus trying to guess where the Shrek Seven Devils were going to compete had also become one of the crowds in the surrounding sections’ enjoyable customs.
Today, like the last few times, they specially wore a plain outfit into the Great Spirit Battle Arena, no one would notice a few teenage children. After these few months, Tang San and Ma Hongjun were already thirteen years old, in another few months, Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing would also all be thirteen years old.
With age being their best disguise. the foresight of Grandmaster’s decision to let them wear masks was really praiseworthy.
Even though Group battles were the last to start, it would be the first to be registered, this was to ensure that it didn’t coincide with the individual and pair battles. Grandmaster instructed and dispersed all of them to fight in different districts, so as not to meet each other and avoid affecting their winning streak. Following which, Grandmaster handled the group battle registration as their broker.
Today, Grandmaster chose the eighth district and helped his disciples register. After a month of battles, the originally incredibly hard to attain silver rank, in everyone’s effort of consecutive victories have just about been confirmed. Now, they only need to wait for today’s spirit battle to be over and collate the extra points was all.
Grandmaster didn’t want to bring his disciples too much attention, once someone dug out the information about their age, then the attention from around the world would bring them a lot of trouble.
Thus he decided, after today, he would bring Shrek 7 monsters into his specially prepared 3rd stage of training.
Chapter 048: Emperor Team
Part 1 (TL by Jax)
Coming to the registration point as usual, Grandmaster took out the Shrek Seven Devils’ battle badge and presented it battle group staff,
"Excuse me, I’m signing up for team battles.”
The staff took the badge like always, but when he saw the words engraved on the badge, his face paled and he gasped softly,
"Shrek Seven Devils?"
Grandmaster wrinkled his brow. The quality of staff of the Great spirit Battle arena was good, where their expression would not change much even if they met a high ranked Spirit Master. However, at this moment, the performance of the staff was clearly not satisfactory .
“I’m sorry, Sir. If I may ask, are you the Shrek Seven Devils’ team leader?”
Grandmaster slowly nodded his head. “ I can be counted as one. Would you please hurry it up a bit.”
“Sir, please wait a moment.” The Staff, under Grandmaster’s surprised gaze, quickly left his post and ran toward the back, hands tightly clasping Shrek Seven Devils’ team battle badge.
Although Grandmaster was extremely dissatisfied. The staff had already taken the group’s battle badge used to register, and without it, he could not do anything even if he wanted to change districts and could only patiently wait there.
But what Grandmaster did not know was that as long as he appeared showing this badge in Suotuo Great Spirit Arena, in no matter what district, he would have experience the exact same thing.
Without having to wait too long, the staff member brought back another person to the registration point.
“Sorry for having you wait so long.”
The staff member politely commented and presented the badge back to Grandmaster.
Grandmaster had an impression of the man that the staff brought along. At that point in time when Shrek’s Seven Devils participated in their first group battle in the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena, he was their host and announcer. Tang San said before the fight, that he had, out of kindness, tipped Tang San off about the Mad team’s impressiveness, thus giving Grandmaster a relatively deeper impression.
Manager Ao smiled,
“ Hello respected team leader sir, may I have a conversation with you. It will not take up too much of your time.”
Grandmaster cooly replied,
“Are you representing yourself or representing the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena?”
Manager Ao quickly replied,
“Of course, I’m representing the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena.”
Grandmaster nodded his head. He had already expected this to happen, after all, Shrek Seven Devils had obtained outstanding results within this past month. Not being noticed was an impossibility. Especially the one who was the most outstanding this entire month, winning all his battles, Tang San was sure to have been at the centre of their attention.
Even though Grandmaster was very unwilling to deal with the Great Spirit Arena, their sphere of influence was simply too great, even countries would be afraid to offend them. He too, naturally wouldn’t voluntarily offend them, thus nodding his head. Following Manager Ao, Grandmaster was brought into a quiet back room behind the registration point.
“Mr leader, I’ll get straight to the point.”
Manager Ao managed with some dignity:
“I’m representing the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena, in hopes that today, Shrek Seven Devils will participate in the Central Spirit Arena on the main stage.”
“Oh?”
Grandmaster was not surprised but instead maintained a plain voice,
“This doesn’t seem to follow the rules. According to the Arena’s rules, only Spirit Master of Silver rank or above can appear in the main stage, but the Shrek Seven Devils are only of Iron rank.”
“Manager Ao laughed bitterly,
”You don’t have to be modest, with the battle history of Shrek Seven Devils within just this past month, after today’s battle, they will all receive Silver battle badges. There is nothing wrong even if they are promoted to silver rank one day early.”
Grandmaster’s expression still had not changed.
“If that is so, then you wouldn’t mind one day later either would you.”
Manager Ao sighed.
“ I’ll just speak frankly then. Three days ago, a team of Spirit Masters came. They were an all Silver ranked Spirit Masters team, probably brought to this city by a few aristocrats. Because for two straight days, those more prestigious families have heavily betted on them, and they had won overwhelmingly, bringing a large loss to the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena. Since you are familiar to the Arena, you should know that normally, to reach the Silver Rank would take at least fortieth rank Spirit Ancestor and above. But this team is one made up of entirely Spirit Elders. We can’t break our own rules and invite a level forty Spirit Ancestor team to fight against them, but if this situation persists, the Great Spirit Arena will not be able to continue handling these losses. Maybe because they tasted sweet success, today many aristocrats again increased their bets, if we continue to lose like this, I’m afraid… …”
Grandmaster’s doubts in his heart cleared like a clear mirror, he immediately understood Manager Ao’s words. His resolve shook, saying
“To have already reached Silver rank at only Spirit Elders, they must be quite strong. Then, for the past few days, what teams have the Spirit Arena matched them against?”
Manager Ao replied,
“Because the Spirit Arena has no Spirit Elder teams that are in the Silver rank, with no choice, we could only send out Spirit Elder teams of copper rank to fight against them. One of which was the recently promoted to copper ranked Spirit Master team, the Mad team, who had once fought against Shrek Seven Devils. But they completely lost.”
Grandmaster raised his eyebrow,
“Among the Spirit Elder ranked teams, Mad Team’s ranks were already considerable. Can it be, that the Silver ranked team members are of a higher rank than them?”
Ao director shook his head and said,
"No, its not a problem of the spirit rank. Mainly, it’s the gap the soul rings bring. This only silver ranked team like the Shrek Seven Devil, have the best soul rings. Spirit ability wise, giving them a great advantage over the Mad Team, giving them not even the ghost of a chance. "
After listening to these words, Grandmaster’s face finally showed some changes. As the Spirit Master world’s most famous theoretical Master, he certainly knew what the so-called best rings refers to. Meaning that the first ring has the soul of a hundred years old, the second ring being older than five hundred years, and the third soul ring should straight away be a thousand year one. Appearing around a Spirit Master should be two yellow and one purple rings, like Dai Mubai, Tang San, Oscar and Xiao Wu.
“Even so, why does the Great Spirit Arena think our Shrek Seven Devils will be able to win? After all, we only have more than four, over thirty ranked spirit power, while none of the remaining three have even reached the thirtieth rank. "
Director Ao smiled and said:
"Now you’re being modest again. Who doesn’t know that the Shrek Seven Devils can be counted as one of the best out of the all Spirit Elder teams. But even still, in the previous twenty seven groups Spirit battles they fought in, they achieved complete victory. This record can be said to be unprecedented in the history of our Suotuo Great Spirit Arena. As the saying goes, if it exist means it must be reasonable. I believe that the Shrek Seven Devils will have the ability to compete evenly with that Silver Spirit fighting team."
The light in Grandmasters eyes flashed, after thinking for a moment, he said:
"If I remember correctly, when participating in the center of the main Spirit Fighting Arena, there should be an added bonus."
When Manager Ao saw that Grandmaster seemed to have a change of heart, he was secretly pleased, quickly adding,
"Of course, when participating in competitions of the main Spirit Arena, every Spirit Master will receive a direct reward of five hundred gold coins and if your party accepts our invitation and win this Spirit battle, the Spirit Arena would also like to pay an extra ten thousand gold coins as a reward. However, because Shrek Seven Devils, after all, hasn't gotten a Silver spirit fighting badge, the accumulation will be unaffected. Fortunately they have been always been winning consecutive battles, thus the accumulation is not little. "
Not giving Grandmaster a chance to open his mouth, Ao director continued.
"For this spirit battle, please allow the Shrek Seven Devil’s members to not participate in their individual and dual spirit battles today. Although we can not break the rules and give them extra points, within the limits of our influence, the Spirit Arena can count their individual and dual spirit battles today's as victories, by showing that their registered opponents surrendered on their own. Thus, Shrek Seven Devils would be able to go all out when facing the opponent. "
Grandmasters had never been a calculating person, not to mention the other side was already being very generous. Most importantly, he agreed to this fight, not for the accumulating points or money, but the experience for his disciples. For Suotuo Great Spirit Arena to treat this silver ranked team so seriously, in addition to the entire team having the best soul ring arrangement, this kind of honing could only bring the Shrek Seven Devils benefits.
Master nodded slowly,
"Well, I’ll accept your conditions. Please ready the opponent's information, I’ll first recall my disciples."
"No need to trouble yourself. Let our staff recall the Shrek Seven Devils. I have the opponents’ information already. You can discuss with them first. Later I'll take you into the main stage of the Spirit Arena to prepare. "
Manager Ao quickly turned away, obviously to report the matter of Shrek Seven Devils having agreed to participate in the spirit battle to his higher-ups and at the same time, to make the appropriate arrangements. There was an hour from now to the beginning of the group spirit battle, long enough for Suotuo Spirit Arena to make a lot of arrangements.
After a short while, not only did the staff bring all Shrek Seven Devils to the room, even Flender and Zhao Wuji were also invited over, clearly showing that Suotuo Great Spirit Arena had been observing their entire group for more than just one or two days.
Grandmaster calmly repeated what Manager Ao previously mentioned, at the same time, putting the recently received information flat on a table in the room.
While standing at the side Tang San suddenly understood something when he saw the eyes of Grandmaster. His gaze which seems to be burning with brilliance, but also the flames of war. Even for him, this is the first time he saw such strong fighting intent in the eyes of the Grandmaster.
Part 2 (TL by Bagelson)
Flender said a little helplessly:
“I say Xiao Gang, you shouldn’t have promised them so quickly, and at least waited for us
to rush over. They say there are great nobles repeatedly betting, the stakes clearly are enormous, if discussing it properly, they should pay even more.”
Grandmaster unhappily said:
“When did you become such a profiteer?”
Flender smiled wryly:
“One cent confounds the hero, you believe I think about it.”
Grandmaster said:
“If this time is a victory, our earnings will already not be inconsiderable. Ten thousand gold coins is a very large sum, I’ve already thought it through, one thousand for each of the children, the remaining three thousand set aside for the Academy. A good match with my third stage training for them. Do you have any objections?”
The last line wasn’t for Flender and Zhao Wuji, but directed at the Shrek Seven Devils members.
The seven practically simultaneously shook their heads, they all knew about the Academy’s financial situation, furthermore none of them still lacked money. After this month of spirit fights, not only did their points go up, they still obtained the corresponding rewards. After more than five successive victories, each successive victory was one hundred gold spirit coins, surpassing ten successive victories it was two hundred gold spirit coins.[ So even assuming that the rewards don’t increase further after the tenth successive victory, Tang San has earned almost 4000G in his singles fights alone. ] Flender the day before yesterday even mentioned that right now these children were all wealthier than the Academy.
Grandmaster raised his hand to tap the cloth and silk materials spread out on the table, saying with a serious expression:
“Good, these matters can wait for later. First we’ll research your enemy. For you, this will be an exceedingly challenging spirit fight.”
The white cloth and silk was lined with gold lace, both sides embroidered with Suotuo Great Spirit Arena’s emblem, on it was recorded a team’s information. Everyone bowed their heads to read, even if it was the unyielding Dai Mubai, he still couldn’t help but draw in a cold breath. Each person’s heart had a kind of spasming feeling.
Douluo Dalu - Volume 01-48 Page 87