Child of Destiny

……

When Shin returned to the mansion, he was pretty much beaten up from head to toe. He had bruises all over his body, which indicated how much he had suffered from his ‘sparring match’ with David.

Fortunately, David knew how to hold back as well and only hit Shin where it hurt the most, but would not deal that much damage.

Shin had just broken through and was still stabilizing his realm, so there were a lot of risks if he overworked himself a little too much.

David had skillfully controlled that battle, limiting Shin’s abilities and beating him just ‘right.’

Ironically, Shin felt a little relieved with his body despite how much of a beating he had suffered. With this, he could tell that David had used some special methods to fix a few things that Shin could not see or sense from his body.

From what Shin could remember, it must be a special method that the Solomon Kingdom usually used whenever unclogging some blocked meridians or in such cases to their younger generations whenever they achieved a certain threshold in their Mentalism Realms.

Sometimes, it was also used to further enhance the later solid foundation of the younger generation.

David might not be very proficient with it, but he was still good enough to further enhance Shin’s current foundation.

He was just a little rough at doing it, resulting in the current appearance that Shin currently has.

Feeling the aches in different parts of his body, Shin could not help but curse his Senior Brother a little more as he entered the mansion.

It was also at that time that Leonard returned from his training and bumped into him.

“Yoh, Shin Bro! What’s with that appearance? Did you just get beaten up?” chuckled Leonard as he walked over.

Shin rolled his eyes as he answered. “Nah. I just fell from a tree earlier while I was practicing my climbing skills.”

After that, he flicked his wrists, summoning a gorgeous flame to cover his entire body and ‘burning’ all the bruises that he had.

Seeing that, Leonard could not help but click his tongue and say in amazement. “Tsk! Tsk! That ability sure is useful.”

“As if your self-healing abilities are not that strong,” refuted Shin as he knew that Leonard’s current abilities far surpassed ordinary people, particularly the strength of his current physique.

Using his True Sight Technique, he could see that the current Leonard possessed an overwhelming physique that rivaled true warriors that he saw in the game.

“It seems like your training under that Senior is paying off,” he commented.

Under his gaze, he could see that Leonard’s current physique far surpassed even his own or Arthur’s to a certain degree.

From what he could see, Leonard seemed to be fully walking into the path of Body Refinement. Moreover, it was not an ordinary body refining method given the savage and destructive aura that the latter currently possessed.

Body Refining, the path of true warriors of ancient times.

With Leonard’s current physique, Shin was not even confident that he would be able to defeat the other party in terms of strength alone.

Leonard scratched the back of his head someone embarrassed, as he replied. “Uncle Scar emphasizes our physique training, so it is not that strange for my body to reach this current level.”

“The training is quite harsh, but it is still worth it given the rate of growth that my body is undergoing,” he added after a brief pause.

Shin then focused his gaze on the momentum and aura that Leonard currently had and figured out something. “It seems like you are also undergoing the breakthrough process. At least under a week or two, you will most likely complete the process as well.”

Nodding his head, Shin gestured with his head to enter. He was quite hungry after getting beaten up by David, so he wanted to have a feast first before returning to his room.

…

The next day, Shin and the others went to do their usual training routines, not caring about anything else.

The next matchups on the other side of the bracket were quite intense, but they did not care too much about them since the Dragon Pavilion and Hydra Guild had also pulled out their main roster just like the others.

Even the Hand of Midas had also pulled out their chiefs from the tournament, seemingly also preparing for the upcoming patch.

Naturally, the ordinary players were not aware of this news, which made them quite confused about the current situation.

This even affected the ticket sales and such of the match, which was quite a huge loss for the company. But they could not do anything about it since they also understood what was happening.

Fortunately, their biggest ‘marketing models’ did not withdraw from the tournament. The Empyrean Talons and God’s Paradise remained their money-making machines.

These two Adventurer Teams were filled with superstars and the favorites for winning the United Cup. One was the defending champion, while the other was the ‘dark horse’ that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

The clash between these two was meant to be the strongest and most entertaining matchup in the history of the United Cup.

This was going to be a huge battle.

The event organizers had even spent quite a lot of funds just to hype this matchup, making the people quite crazy about it as well.

However, this also affects the entirety of the tournament.

Due to the sudden move that the other teams had made, the other matchups became unimportant in the eyes of people, especially when the Earners Mercenary Group had also pulled out of the tournament altogether.

This put the event organizers in an awkward position. The bracket had become a mess, and they were not sure how to proceed.

That was when the representatives of the remaining team had been summoned into a special virtual space that the gaming company had created just for the meeting.

The Slayers Adventurer Team and Earners Mercenary Group had already pulled out of the tournament completely, creating a gap in the bracket.

This was supposed to be a small matter since it would not affect the entirety of the tournament.

However, the main forces of the other four teams had also pulled out of the United Cup, leaving only two teams in a competitive state.

What the other teams had done was not against the rules. After all, this United Cup was supposed to be a team-based game, which was why they could freely swap their members whenever they wanted, so long as they had done it before each match.

The only ones that could be said to be in a quite fickle situation were the teams under the Slayers and Earners, since they had pulled out of the tournament altogether.

But given the issue with the upcoming patch, the higher-ups could not say anything against them as well.

The Slayers Adventurer Team had a legitimate reason for not having enough manpower, while the Earners Mercenary Group had been fined for failing to provide a valid reason for pulling out of the tournament.

The format of the playoff rounds of the current United Cup was a double-elimination format, which put the Empyrean Talons and God’s Paradise in an awkward position.

Given the current absence of competitive spirit within the brackets, these two teams would most likely be facing each other twice in the entire tournament. One was at the Upper Bracket Finals, while the other was at the Grand Finals of the tournament, which would be two-round matches just like the previous ones.

This would make their matches a best-of-four format, which was such an awkward even number.

The event organizers could not change the format of the playoff rounds midway either, resulting in negative feedback from the audience.

This had become a headache for them, unable to find any solutions.

The organizations involved were not that easy to persuade, either, given their respective backgrounds, putting a lot of pressure on them.

It wasn’t until both Shin and Ashura had proposed an ideal solution.

If the Empyrean Talons and God’s Paradise did meet at the upper-bracket finals, then both teams would propose a Champion’s Matchup in both rounds (Home-Away).

Champion’s Matchup was a special format in the previous tournaments. It was when the two sides would be sending a single combatant on the field, who would be representing them in the said round and determining the result of the match altogether.

It was just not commonly used these days since it would make the theme of the United Cup disappear altogether.

That was also why the Hegemon Cup was created instead.

With this format, the one-on-one battle of their strongest member would determine who would be facing the ‘lucky’ team at the lower-bracket finals.

This way, it would not affect the flow of the bracket matchups.

All sides seemed to agree with this solution as well, swiftly drafting a contract and distributing it to everyone. The other teams were also protected by an NDA, preventing them from leaking any information about this ‘under-the-table’ deal.

The Pandemonium Descendants, Dragon Pavilion, Hydra Guild, and Hand of Midas did not care about this either since they had already planned to drop the entire tournament to focus on the upcoming update.

After all, they were very aware of their chances in this tournament after their main forces had pulled out of it, so they did not put that much attention into it.

If not for the serious penalties that they had to face, particularly the fines, once they had pulled out altogether, then they would have most likely followed the footsteps of the Slayers Adventurer Team and Earners Mercenary Group.

Those two had truly foreseen this event quite far, making them the lucky ones to pull out first and only face some simple punishments.

After that secret meeting, the tournament continued as per schedule.

……

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