"How much energy do I have?" Ning wondered and checked the system. After the battle, using the Supreme Dominance, and making a third beast space that was large enough for the Flood Dragon to fit, he now had about 3 billion energy.
"That's still a lot," he thought.
"Argh, it seems my spear really isn't here. I spent so many coins on it too. Sigh, whatever, I will just make a much better one."
"System, help me make a spear," Ning said.
<Please explain the design of the spear>
"Hmm, might as well use my last one as a design," Ning thought and told the system about the design of the blue spear.
<How much energy do you wish to spend?>
"Hmm, how much energy do I need for it to become a Mid-tier Spirit artifact?" Ning asked.
<The lowest energy required is 1 billion 800 million energy>
"Sh*t, I will have less than a billion energy left after that. Ahhh, use 2 billion. Whatever, I will go collect some more after this," Ning thought.
<Confirmed>
Light shined in front of him as energy escaped from his body to create a silhouette of a spear. Soon, the spear gained mass and after that, it gained color.
Finally, it fell onto the ground as a physical spear. Ning picked it up and moved it around a little. "Not bad. Although, for some reason, I feel like I can't use it properly right now. Probably because it's way too high of a spirit artifact for me," Ning thought.
He then slumped back on the ground, with his back to the tree, and waited.
There was still around 10 minutes before he would have to leave the realm. So he just stayed there and waited.
"System, what is this realm? Is it a different space or dimension or what?" Ning asked.
<Would you like to learn about this space for 40 million Energy?>
"40 million huh? And you could've just answered too. Well, I guess I need to go back to being used to you not answering questions. Yes, give it to me,"
<Confirmed>
A flood of information entered his brain. The things he was curious about, the thing everyone wanted to know, he knew it now.
"Haha, I didn't expect the answer to be so simple," Ning said.
The secret realm was actually land inside the hub island. However, due to some natural phenomenon, the space around a certain part of the land was folded in on itself.
The outer walls of that space were stable and closed off from the rest of the island, giving it an appearance that the island was all it was.
From time to time, the walls would get unstable and show up as the portal on the outside.
What others thought was making the opening stable, was simply just them making the stable walls unstable.
The unstable walls would lead to anyone who entered being thrown into different parts of the secret realm.
The tournament holders knew about all of this. From the information they had gathered, they saw that forest life flourished in this land and they wanted it.
However, there was one problem for them. First, the secret realm was too big for them to clear it all on their own. That would take days and that just wasn't worth it to them.
Secondly and most importantly, there was a natural restriction on this place. Anyone who wasn't in the 5th foundation Establishment ream or lower would automatically be rejected. If they forced entry, the laws of this place would crush them to death.
As such, these people needed workers that were high in number and strong enough to fight the beats in this land, were talented enough to recognize the different ingredients, and finally didn't get rejected by the realm.
They came up with the brilliant idea of making exactly that a competition. They would force the disciples of another sect to farm for them and make this the hub of the entire Scattered Isles.
"So that's the reason huh? Bastards. Forcing us to work for them for free. Well, I guess I can get 50% of what I earned so that is nice. But aside from the top 128 disciples, nobody else gets to choose their own items to keep," Ning said.
"Sigh, you really never know when someone is making you work for them. Poor guys," Ning said.
Suddenly, Ning felt something. He looked down and saw that his talisman was starting to glow a little.
"Oh, it's time."
******
"Sect leader, look." Somebody pointed at the screen.
"Huh? They're glowing? Ah, they're coming out," Dion said and started looking towards the door.
Soon, one after another, the remaining participants started pouring out of the portal and landed outside on the stage.
There were about 60 people remaining inside the secret real when the time was up.
Ning stood straight and watched in front of him to see the plethora of people in the audience.
"I will kill you soon, you bastard," a voice came from Ning's left.
He looked to the left to see that the orange-robed disciple of the Dazzling sect called Gai was looking at him with eyes that would kill if they could.
Ning did nothing but smirk at him and looked forward to seeing 5 men appearing on the stage. These were the people who opened the portal 4 days ago.
The people came and took away the formation flag. Then the host came up and started speaking to them.
"Congratulations on lasting till the final days of the competition. Everyone else who has come before you has put in their points into the ranking board. It's your turn now," The host said to the rest of them.
"Please gather in a line and hand your talisman to the staff. If you land below 128, you have a choice in giving away only that which you don't need."
Ning looked up at the ranking board and saw a lot of names there. And at the top of the list was a person called Faran.