60: Chapter 60 State Tournament

Snap—!!

A harsh cracking sound suddenly rang out. Lin Ye's Divine Kingdom firmament directly split open a massive fissure spanning a hundred miles. Within the gloomy rift, malevolent qi was in disarray and divine light scattered, causing the entire Divine Kingdom to vibrate violently and teeter on the verge of collapse!

The fierce backlash swept through his entire body. Lin Ye's body trembled slightly, his blood surged, and his glabella throbbed with swelling pain.

He clenched his teeth, gathered his focus and steadied his breath, exhausting all his divine sense to stabilize the origin of the Divine Kingdom, forcefully withstanding this wave of destructive load impact.

After a long and agonizing torment, the fissures in the Divine Kingdom slowly healed, the tremors gradually subsided, and the chaotic malevolent spiritual qi returned to order.

A narrow escape from danger!

After all, his Divine Kingdom had withstood the simultaneous advancement baptism of the double S-rank thralls.

At this point, under Lin Ye's command, he officially possessed two major S-rank primary combat thralls—the Shahun Hound and the Soul-Devouring Owl. Their combat power system had completely finished an all-around upgrade, making it sufficient to gain a foothold in Quanzhou's top-tier battle situation.

When Lin Ye completely stabilized the Divine Kingdom and finished all advancement matters, the sky was already faintly bright. The morning light of dawn penetrated the window lattice and spilled into the room.

The departure time for the State Competition had already arrived.

Downstairs, the municipal government's exclusive shuttle bus had already been waiting quietly, its engine humming low, standing by downstairs for more than half an hour.

The driver had urged them many times, but Wang Hu had blocked them all back.

Inside the room, Lin Ye slowly opened his eyes. The cold light in the depths of his eyes was restrained, and his aura was as calm as water.

The double S-rank thralls had formed, and all his trump cards had been reinforced.

The curtain falling on Cangnan City was merely the prologue; the true peak showdown was about to grandly kick off in Nanling Prefecture.

Lin Ye simply tidied up his luggage, properly stored the three rare reward cards into the Divine Kingdom's storage space, and pushed open the door to go downstairs.

Beside the exclusive business shuttle, Xiao Qingwu, Wan Tianlu, Jiang Mingliang, and Ye Feng had already all arrived. The accompanying leading teacher and driver stood quietly to the side, and the people in the car had indeed waited a full dozen minutes because of Lin Ye.

The expressions of the rest were calm and not impatient, except for Ye Feng, who crossed his arms with a hint of a sarcastic smile in his eyes, locking his gaze dead onto Lin Ye who was walking over slowly with a condescending demeanor.

In his view, Lin Ye's state of mind must have been panicked last night, suffering from insomnia all night. Either he was anxious to polish his combat power but achieved little, or he was afraid of the strong enemies in the State Competition and felt uneasy, which was why he was so dilatory and late.

When Lin Ye walked closer, Ye Feng deliberately raised his voice, his tone carrying undisguised sarcasm and banter, intentionally letting everyone present hear clearly: "Lin Ye, everyone has been waiting for you alone, delaying for more than half an hour. What? Did your mindset panic right before going to the State Competition, tossing and turning blindly all night, only to end up tossing yourself into being late?"

He was certain that Lin Ye's foundation was limited and he knew it would be difficult to gain a foothold in the State Competition. These past few days, he must have been blindly seeking medical treatment in a panic, vainly attempting to hold Buddha's feet temporarily. Unfortunately, Lin Ye's thrall rating was limited; no matter how much he tossed and turned, it would all be in vain.

Hearing this, Wan Tianlu and Jiang Mingliang beside him turned their heads to look, their expressions indifferent without interrupting, quietly watching this familiar tit-for-tat.

Facing Ye Feng's deliberate provocation and public mockery, Lin Ye's footsteps did not stop, his expression calm and without ripples. From beginning to end, he didn't even spare half a glance of his peripheral vision to the other party.

He turned sideways to pull open the car door, his movements composed and indifferent. As he took his seat, he calmly spat out a minimalist response, his voice cold and clear without mixing a shred of ripples: "Improving my strength."

In a mere five words, without defense or contention, it carried extreme detachment and confidence.

As his voice fell, Lin Ye directly sat down firmly, closing his eyes to rest his mind, completely isolating the surrounding discussions and Ye Feng's mockery outside. He couldn't even be bothered to waste another word.

The sarcasm on Ye Feng's face instantly froze, his heart suddenly blocked, inexplicably giving birth to a frustrated feeling of having nowhere to exert his strength.

Improving his strength?

In Ye Feng's view, it was purely empty boasting!

After a mere two or three days of rest and adjustment, the combat power that could be improved was negligible, let alone that Lin Ye only had an F-minus-rank waste god foundation, and his upper limit had long been locked. Even with day and night bitter cultivation, how much strength could he improve? It was nothing more than putting up a stubborn front!

Moreover, the carrying capacity of the Divine Kingdom was right there. His thralls had already evolved; how could they evolve again so quickly?!

He snorted coldly, full of disdain, but didn't continue to entangle publicly, only laughing inwardly, waiting for the State Competition to tear off Lin Ye's pretense of profoundness.

Seeing this, the leading teacher timely spoke to ease the atmosphere, raising a hand to signal the driver to start the car: "Since everyone has arrived, let's set off for Nanling City immediately!"

Hum—

A deep engine roar sounded, and the black exclusive shuttle slowly drove away from downstairs, steadily merging into the traffic of the main road, speeding all the way towards Nantan Prefecture's capital—Nanling City.

The shuttle sped all the way, driving out of the boundaries of Cangnan City, and advancing towards the hinterland of the prefecture capital, Nanling City.

Along the way, the scenery alternated from the bustling streets of the municipal district to the magnificent buildings in the hinterland of the prefecture capital. High-rise buildings stood in forests, spiritual qi was abundant, and the roaming divine spiritual qi between heaven and earth was several times denser than in Cangnan City. It truly lived up to its name as the prefecture-level core area ruling over ten cities.

About two hours later, the shuttle stopped steadily outside the center of Nanling City—Quanzhou's largest top-tier divine battle stadium.

Looking up, this stadium was magnificent and vast, built entirely of specially made divine-patterned stone. The dome soared into the clouds, and its entire body was engraved with high-level runes for stabilizing barriers, gathering spiritual energy, and controlling the field, enough to withstand the ultimate destructive power of SS-rank and even ultra-tier thralls without being damaged by high-intensity combat.

The entire venue could accommodate 100,000 spectators to be seated simultaneously, making it the highest-specification and largest divine-status competition venue in all of Nantan Prefecture.

At this moment, the competition had not officially started yet. Outside the stadium, crowds were already surging like a tide, and carriages and horses were like clouds. Streams of people from all directions gathered here, and the bustling spectacle far exceeded municipal-level competitions by a hundredfold.

This Nantan Prefecture-level divine-status league covered a full ten prefectural-level cities across the state. Each city screened five top geniuses to advance to the State Competition. Gathering the ten cities, there were exactly fifty contestants, assembling the youngest and top-tier new-generation combat power of the entire Nantan Prefecture.

A contestant roster of merely fifty people nevertheless stirred the gazes of all factions in the entire Nantan Prefecture, making its weight extremely heavy.

On the VIP seats of the stadium, the lineup was even more luxurious to the extreme, fully demonstrating the transcendent specification of prefecture-level competitions. Admission mentors from multiple top five federal universities sat upright here, their gazes sharp, scanning the fifty geniuses in the arena one by one, solely to discover quality prospects in advance and recruit them into their schools.

High-ranking officials of the prefecture-level military and core government officials all arrived to watch the competition, presiding over the entire venue and witnessing the peak contest of Quanzhou's new generation.

Whether it was official forces, military combat power, or top academies, they all attached extreme importance to this State Competition.

The powerhouses walking out from here would all be the backbone of the Federation's new generation in the future, with boundless prospects.

As the geniuses of the ten cities all arrived and the fifty contestants finished assembling, everyone's basic ratings were simultaneously published on the stadium's big screen. Looking at a glance, the entire audience was in an uproar once again.

Among a full fifty State Competition contestants, not a single person had a Divine Kingdom rating lower than S-rank!

The lowest ones were also standard S-rank Divine Kingdoms, and more than half were S-plus-rank. There were even several top geniuses of semi-SS-rank and orthodox SS-rank, and there was even one person who was a genius among top geniuses of SSS-rank, with deep foundations and heaven-defying talents. Each and every one of them was an ultimate proud talent screened layer by layer from the municipal level of each state.