Then he said to Fang Hong, "Put your hand on it."

Fang Hong, somewhat puzzled and instinctively hesitant, knew he had no choice but to place his hand on it. In a flash, he thought he saw a pale blue streak of light in his vision.

It somewhat resembled the glow from his Dragon Knight System.

The whole process lasted only a couple of seconds.

After observing for a moment, the assistant immediately nodded to Zhang Tianmiu and whispered, "There's a system, level three."

"Just reached level three?"

The assistant shook his head, "It's well beyond that, but I can't see the specifics."

Zhang Tianmiu then nodded and no longer glanced at them, merely waving his hand and saying, "Move along, someone over there will explain the tournament rules to you."

Only then did the two manage to pass through the military blockade line, faintly overhearing the assistant discussing with his superior behind them, "Captain Zhang, that person is wearing a Mithril mask..."

"I saw it."

"Are all the newcomers this wealthy nowadays?"

"Who knows, probably just foolish? Besides, why bother with all these trivial matters? Focus."

"Sorry, sorry, sir."

Fang Hong, though utterly baffled, finally heaved a sigh of relief, couldn't help but tug at his collar, his entire body soaked in sweat as if he had been pulled out of water.

He was still somewhat puzzled about what exactly those military folks were up to there.

Could it be they weren't there for him?

Or had the special operations team of the Stargate now taken up some other task as well?

It was then that Fang Hong couldn't help but ask, "Miss Atira, has there been such an inspection before?"

Atira shook her head, "This is the first time, probably because it's related to the finals."

The finals?

Fang Hong was not convinced, since when did the military start caring about these local minor competitions? And even if they cared, there was no need to deploy the special operations team of the Stargate.

While thinking so, they had reached the venue for the preliminary competition—this venue was actually not large, merely a cleared area on the east side of the hall. Even the tables and chairs hadn't been moved, left as they were.

A Dwarf was standing on a table, shrilly explaining the rules of the competition to everyone else.

The rules for the preliminary competition were actually very simple—the previous round was a qualification test, and passing the Tournament Organizers' assessment was considered up to standard. The questions in the test weren't difficult either, simply requiring the participants to maneuver a Clockwork Fairy through a sufficient number of obstacles within a set time.

Fang Hong roughly guessed the purpose of this assessment, it was merely to weed out the incompetent from the real contenders.

He looked around and noticed that there were indeed quite a few participants in the first round, around thirty or forty people, and wondered how many would remain after this round of assessment.

Even the simplest first round of assessment had a reward of a thousand Lycel for the passers, roughly equivalent to a participation prize, but it was enough to reflect the wealth of the hosts.

By that time, the Dwarf had finished explaining the rules, and just then called for all participants to get ready and put on their Control Gauntlets.

Fang Hong did as instructed, with Atira pushing him from behind, urging him to step forward. It was only then that Fang Hong realized how shabby his Control Gauntlets were, and even the control panel had only two Silver Rails.

To avoid drawing attention, he thought of wrapping the control panel with a cloth, but still underestimated the degree to which his Control Gauntlets would attract attention.

He had just finished preparing when he heard a 'pfft' of laughter from beside him. Fang Hong instinctively turned his head and saw a tall, skinny Alchemist wearing glasses, looking at him and trying not to laugh, "Sorry, mate, I didn't mean to. But your gloves are just a bit too quirky."

Fang Hong saw that this person was also a contestant, with five Silver Stars at his collar, a Level 5 Alchemist.

Then he looked again at his own gloves, torn and tattered, even cut by a Dagger to expose the fingers, and felt somewhat embarrassed, scratching his face as he awkwardly explained, "Can't help it, got used to them and it's hard to switch."

The man chuckled, "I understand, everyone has their down times."

He extended his hand to Fang Hong, "I'm called the Wandering Hudi, my real name is Hudi, just call me Hudi. My goal is the same as yours, just to get through the first round and grab the prize money."

Fang Hong was taken aback for a moment, but then shook his hand.

He raised his head, showed a half-smile under his silver mask, and thought up a pseudonym on the fly.

"Me?," he said, "I'm called Xiaya, Xiaya Aznable."

"As for my goal, it's only victory."

...

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