--
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the City vs. City Tournament!"
"I am your host, Terry Castor, very honored to be here and very excited to see this entire event unfold."
The start of the event was lively and filled with excitement and anticipation.
Whether it was within the Letter Kingdom or the others, everybody was watching the live broadcast of one of the most important events in their livelihood. Some were even tense because they knew what’s at stake here.
Nevertheless, pretty much 99% of the human population was tuned in, praying and hoping that their representatives wouldn’t fail them.
"This event happens once every decade. Its importance couldn’t be stressed enough, as its results will affect the livelihood of each city for the next decade."
"The ones on top will be happy; the ones at the bottom will be punished. The way of martial arts is also the way of competition. Risks and rewards go hand in hand."
"This broadcast is for the Letter Kingdom’s territory. If you, my lovely viewers, found yourself listening to me but you live in another city under another kingdom, you might want to switch channels right about now."
"Of course, I’m not forcing you to leave. I’m not a hypocrite; the more people watching my channel, the higher my bonus is! So if you want to stay despite being in the wrong channel, you’re more than welcome! I appreciate you being here," Terry laughed as he said this.
"Anyway, I’m sure that you all have been waiting long enough. I won’t leave you hanging and bore you with my words any longer, so please, sit back, relax, and I will be introducing the participants of each city...in alphabetical order."
"Starting from Ace City (A-City), we have..."
The camera shifted from Terry and onto the participants of A-City.
He allowed each team a moment under the spotlight before moving on to the next team.
When it got to Central City’s team, people discovered that they only sent nine people instead of 10.
This confused people a bit, but they didn’t have the opportunity to ask their questions because Terry moved on to the next team.
When it got to the Lost City (P-City) team, most of the audience were speechless. The team looked like they were going to start biting people if they looked at them the wrong way.
To say that they almost looked feral would be an understatement.
Those who lived in P-City knew who these people were, and if anybody from neighboring cities asked them, they too would agree that their representatives looked mad and insane.
But their life during the past decade had been miserable. The punishment of being at the bottom rank really pushed them to the brink of desperation. So much so that even if they witnessed their representatives cheating on a live broadcast, they would still try to support them in hopes of improving their rank.
In contrast, the way the representatives of Royal City (R-City) came out looked like they were attending a meet and greet with their fans.
Each one of them looked good, strong, and elegant under the spotlight; some of them were even glowing. Even though there is no audience around, some of them still waved around like they’re seeing people clapping and cheering them on.
The difference was just that staggering. After all, they’re the reigning champions.
Because of the sheer difference, some people had already forgotten that out of 26 teams, four teams only had 9 representatives instead of 10.
Once the introduction to each team was done, the camera returned to Terry.
"Please, give a round of applause for Letter Kingdom’s youthful geniuses!" He gestured below the stage where all the participating teams were gathered.
The applause of the audience couldn’t be heard by the representatives, but that’s fine; their focus should be somewhere else anyway.
"Alright. Please, settle down."
"Now, I’m everyone is curious as to how the first round will go."
"We have a total of 256 participants right here, participating in the preliminary rounds. Say what you will, but that is a lot of people."
"And as much as I am happy to see that our civilization gave birth to these many formidable geniuses, I am also heartbroken because there are just too many of them."
"If we use 1v1s as a method to filter their numbers, this tournament will go on forever, and I’m afraid we just don’t have that much time in our hands."
"Fear not, for our organizers came up with an idea to not only determine who deserves to move on to the next round but also to filter the ones that are truly skilled and deserving!"
Behind Terry, the screen blinked into activity and flashed the words:
[Battle Royale! ]
"That’s right, my dear audience; we are using the Battle Royale format as a way to determine who amongst these participants deserves to move on to the next round."
The screen behind Terry changed its display into a panoramic view of certain biomes, ending up with the top view of an entire land.
"This is the Verdant Expanse; it will serve as the arena for the presenters."
"It’s an independent realm filled with several biomes and different types of monsters. It’s a 250 km × 250 km land, huge enough for teams to, theoretically, spend days without meeting other teams."
"Once the preliminary round starts, teams will be transported to this realm at random. Of course, to ensure fairness, their initial spawn won’t be in the immediate vicinity of danger."
"They won’t be spawning in the mouth of a volcano, underwater, above the sky, or in the middle of a monster lair. They won’t be anywhere that will result in their immediate loss of disqualification."
"Additionally, the spawns are designed to be spaced out. Teams won’t spawn right next to each other, resulting in an immediate conflict."
"Upon spawning, each team will be in an invincible state for 15 minutes. Enough time for them to get their bearings and plan their next move. Once the fifteen minutes are up, the invincible state is gone and they can be hurt by the local environment, monsters, and other teams."
Everybody, the teams and the audience, now listens with rapt attention to Terry, afraid of missing key details.
"Now, how will our participants be ranked?"
The screen behind Terry flashed again and displayed the words [Merit Badge System].
"Every single person on each team will have this, a merit badge." Terry showed his hand to the camera; there’s a small badge on his hand that looks fairly unique and noticeable.
"This badge must be worn by each participant. They are indestructable and cannot be hidden."
"Each badge has a recording function. It not only determines and calculates how many merit points every participant has, but it also records events through their user’s point of view."
"Now, how do our participants earn merit points?"
"Easy! Kill the monsters they encounter, or kill other participants." Terry showed a toothy grin as he said this, sending chills to some participants and the audience.
"Merit point rewards for killing monsters depend on how strong the monster is and the level of participation one contributed to killing it. Each badge is calibrated to make immediate judgments and calculations of granting merit points."
"As for merit points gained by eliminating other participants, the badge will take 30% of the enemy’s total amount of merit points upon successful elimination."
"A participant is eliminated when they are rendered in an unconscious state that will last for days, lose their ability to fight, surrender, require the referees to interfere, intentionally violate the core rules of this tournament, or are killed. Since this round happens in VR, they won’t actually die, so don’t fret."
"Aside from killing monsters and other participants, there are also other ways to earn merit points. As for what they are, well, I’ll leave that for our dear participants to discover on their own. They are, after all, called hidden objectives. If I told them, they wouldn’t be ’hidden’ anymore, would they?"
"Moving on..."
"Three hours after the preliminary round starts, 10 safe zones will appear across the whole map."
"The zones will be lit up by beacons, and within 50 meters of these beacons, combat is prohibited, healing is permitted, supplies may be bought using merit points, and information boards will be available for our participants to know their current rank on the board."
"If, for whatever reason, a participant decides to exit the tournament on their own volition, being in the safe zone also grants safe and immediate extraction."
"The preliminary round will last for five days."
"Each day, the arena will shrink, forcing the teams to get closer to each other. Also, a random event will be announced each day. Events may last for an hour or more, depending on what it was, and participating in the events will grant merit points as well."
"After the 5th day, the rankings will be tallied, and out of 256, only 60 people will move on to the next round regardless of which city or team they came from."
Terry was delighted at the way the participants sharply gasped when they heard this.
He grinned sharply at them and said, "We are giving you fifteen minutes to prepare your hearts and minds before we begin the first round. Please, use this time wisely."