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Fang Hong actually could understand these people's complaints—though dual control wasn't difficult for him, among the combat artisans below Level 15 who could dual control a Clockwork Fairy, he was definitely among the best in his profession.

In fact, most combat artisans wouldn't truly master multi-control ability and begin to form combat effectiveness until they reached Level 17 or 18.

However, complaints clearly weren't enough to make the tournament organizers change the rules, and after their protests went nowhere, those without the ability to dual control could only withdraw from the competition willingly. The number of people who dropped out was slightly more than what Fang Hong had anticipated: a total of seven.

After subtracting the previous number of participants, there were only thirteen lonely competitors left on the field.

What surprised Fang Hong even more was that among these people was Hudi, who had previously boasted to him about his solid basic skills. It now seemed this might not have been baseless bragging; the ability for dual, or even multi-control, was indeed a real test of basic skills.

After confirming the number of participants, the tournament organizers quickly cleared the field—due to the greatly increased difficulty of operation, the venue for the second round of the competition was correspondingly simplified.

Unlike the first round with its three stages, the second round had only one winding, transparent tube; the competitors simply needed to control their Clockwork Fairies to pass through the entire course within a set time limit.

Lastly, they used the time taken to finish as a measure of their score.

But in order to speed up the pace of the competition, two such fields were set up, allowing two people to compete at the same time. Among the first two to compete, one was a slightly emaciated man with a black mole on his cheek, which made him look somewhat unsavory.

Fang Hong remembered this man; he was one of the three qualifiers from Group A, with quite average skills. Honestly, his appearance here was a bit of a surprise to Fang Hong; the man's control skills were even worse than Hudi's.

The other was the woman known as Blood Night Demon Moon, whose entrance even sparked a whistle from the crowd. The former, unconcerned, flipped her hair and walked forward with a swagger and grace.

This woman did indeed have some skills. When the referee blew the whistle, she quickly got her Clockwork Fairy to take off one after the other and smoothly entered the tube.

This brilliant operation naturally elicited a cheer from the audience.

But only Fang Hong, when he witnessed this scene, had a gleam flash across his dark eyes, as he realized this woman had taken a bit of a shortcut. She wasn't actually capable of dual control; instead, she used the system's auto-pilot feature to control the two Clockwork Fairies one after the other, thus barely achieving the effect of dual control.

Such dual control was meaningless in actual combat, but it was enough for this scenario.

And her control transitions were very tight, obviously the result of a lot of practice. It wasn't easy for ordinary people to notice. If Fang Hong hadn't been extremely familiar with the movement patterns of the Clockwork Fairies, he might not have noticed this detail either.

However, the other man's performance was quite ordinary—after getting the first Clockwork Fairy airborne, he struggled so much to lift the second one that he ultimately had to give up in frustration.

Thus, in the first group of the competition, Blood Night Demon Moon became the first person to finish the entire course with a time of one minute and seventeen seconds.

This result brought another round of whistles.

Hudi quietly told Fang Hong that such a score was not only good for tonight, but was also a noteworthy achievement over the past month. Fang Hong saw that there were probably a few of the woman's companions outside, frantically waving and cheering loudly.

Blood Night Demon Moon nodded to those people and then returned to her seat with a confident look, while also throwing a glance in Fang Hong's direction.

But Fang Hong acted as if he hadn't seen.

Now, he dared not show any sign of prominence.

The one who failed returned his Clockwork Fairy to the tournament organizers with a depressed look and then left the field without looking back. This somewhat desolate scene undeniably added a somber air to the competition atmosphere, even the whispered conversations among the contestants seemed to grow quieter.

It was Hudi's turn in the second group of the competition. Fang Hong was originally worried for him, but unexpectedly, Hudi did quite well and completed the race smoothly, scoring one minute and forty-seven seconds.

But such a score seemed unlikely to make it into the top two of this group. Hudi knew that he was followed by a very chubby competitor and shook his head after seeing that.

He returned somewhat dejectedly and said to Fang Hong, "It's all on you now."

Fang Hong looked at him, not knowing quite what to say to comfort him, and only nodded.

Hudi couldn't help laughing out loud, "Dude, you really aren't modest at all—I know your single control ability is strong, but haven't you heard that saying? 'The skill of controlling a single Flexible Construct doesn't indicate your multi-control ability', and that's a pretty famous saying in the Second World among combat artisans."

Of course, Fang Hong had heard this saying.

But he didn't know how to explain his situation to Hudi, so he could only nod helplessly again.

"You've got a good temper," Hudi said, shaking his head and sitting down beside him.

Then came the third group of the competition. As expected, both Hudi and Blood Night Demon Moon's records were broken. The one who broke Blood Night Demon Moon's time record was none other than the immortal worm who, although Fang Hong thought had an abnormal brain, did indeed possess unrivaled strength among both Group A and Group B.

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