Ye Xiao looked at Xu Qing who was standing alone.

Suddenly, there was a huge clamour between peoples present here. Ye Xiao looked there and his gaze fell upon a familiar figure. It was the guy with a sword on his back whom he encountered with in the Riverside City.

"Lin Hao!"

"Yeah! look at him, he is Lin Hao. The genius of our Azure Dragon Country."

"Yes, he is so powerful at such a young age. His future will definitely be outstanding."

....

....

When Ye Xiao heard the voices of his bystanders, he was stunned for a moment.

"He is Lin Hao!"

"Lin Hao, That Lin Hao whom even the emperor himself praised. I....." Ye Xiao felt speechless.

"Silence. What on earth is happening here." Suddenly a loud roar sounded out with many powerful auras as many experts descended from the sky to a large platform.

The surroundings which was in huge clamour, immediately turned dead silence. Powerful auras was like vast ocean suppressing the uprising violence, pressing down on all the young experts present here.

All the noises died down completely. Everyone present was as quite as cicadas were in winter, not even daring to breathe too loud.

Could these are the experts from the five great sects?

Ye Xiao looked at those experts. There were six of them in total.

"Phew!"

All of the martial artist present there let out a strong breath of relief as the pressure that was descending down on them like a mountain suddenly vanished.

"Clap clap!"

A middle aged man clapped two times and said, "As you can see, there are six of us present here representing the five great sects and the Imperial Family. Now, let me tell you about the competition. There will be two rounds of this competition. The first round of the competition will commence now. As long as guys pass this round, you will obtain the qualification to take part in the next round of the competition which is also the final round and this final round of the competition is going to decide your fate with us, the five great sects and the Imperial Family."

After saying till here, that middle aged man stopped for a moment, looked at the serious faces of every young talent present who were listening to him very intently and nodded his head secretly in satisfaction then continued, "Next, the first round of the competition will take place in the Cloudsmoke Forest. There are no rules nor limitations in this round of the competition. There are six hundred of you present here. After this round of the competition, there will only be three hundred disciples that can successfully advance to the next round of the competition."

Hearing what the middle aged man said, the faces of all the geniuses flushed red with excitement as their eyes flashed with the light of anticipation.

Which of them here were not geniuses with good talents. As long as they could pass this round they would be able to take part in the next round of the competition and get the chance to become a disciple of the five great sects and they can even enter the Imperial Family as disciple.

Who wouldn't want this?

These young geniuses present here were people who possess very good talent and strong cultivation base among the same generation. They naturally had arrogance in their hearts and would give it their all, wanting to succeed.

Even Ye Xiao felt a fire burning in his heart.

There was not a single trace of fear on their face when they heard that the first round of the competition is going to commence in the Cloudsmoke Forest. Even though they still don't know the content of the first round of competition that what it was about, they knew that this is the only chance for them to prove themselves. If they missed this opportunity, who would know when they will get another opportunity like this.

Only those with the courage to continue advancing would be able to sweep aside all the obstacles, facing all types of dangers.

Seeing the fire in the eyes of all the geniuses present, that middle aged man nodded and continued, "In the Cloudsmoke Forest, there are countless magical beasts. These magical beast can even be of the rank two magical beast and rank three magical beast. If go deeper in the Cloudsmoke Forest, you can even encounter a magical beast of rank four and rank five."

"Your task is to kill rank two magical beast as much as you can. After killing every magical beast, you have to keep its core so that you can get the points. Three Hundred geniuses with maximum points will get the qualification to take part in the second round of the competition. You will be given spatial bags for storing beast cores. After the end of the first round of the competition, you have to return it back."

"Time limit of the first round of this competition is one week. After the time period is over, you all have to return and gather here. If you come here late, you will be automatically disqualified. Now, let me remind you of one last thing. If you think that you can't do it, you can quit now as it is very dangerous in the Cloudsmoke forest. You can hunt for those rank two magical beast alone or even form a team to hunt them down, there is no rule here. But remember to not go deeper if you come in contact with the foggy areas."

"If you see places filled with fog then immediately pull yourself back and return to the areas without any fog. Rest is all up to you what you want to do. You just have to return here in one week time with the rank two magical beast core as much as you can."

"Now, let the competition begin." The middle aged man announced the start of the competition.

The first round of the competition officially started.