Descendants of the False Gods

Chapter 037: Life in the Imperial Capital (15)

Another day begins. Today is the first day of the “Two Houses Martial Arts Exchange Friendship Tournament” preliminaries.

The campus venues are packed with participants and students watching the competition.

On the sports field, twenty-one teams for the group competition line up neatly in twenty-one columns, waiting for the draw. Lan and Luo, along with their team members, stand among them.

The bells of the Imperial Capital’s Saint Hall ring at 9 AM, signaling the official start of the draw ceremony.

When it’s Lan’s team’s turn, “Informer” Li Xin steps onto the stage as their representative for the draw. Their opponent is the eleventh team, the “Tiger Claws” team.

This team is the only one made up of students from the academy’s junior class and is also the only team that was overlooked in the “Little Tots” investigation.

Li Xin has learned that all the members of this team are descendants of decorated battlefield veterans.

The team leader, Lu Yu, originally came from a side branch of the Lu family.

His father, while leading a squad to eliminate border wolves, managed to corner the invaders in a dead-end, eventually wiping them out, though it came at a heavy cost. For his bravery, the emperor personally awarded him titles and land. However, Lu Yu’s father died from injuries sustained in battle, leaving only two surviving soldiers who brought a group of war orphans to the Imperial Capital to claim the reward.

As a result, the land granted to his deceased father became a part of the Imperial Capital, shared by the soldiers who had fought alongside him and the orphans.

At a young age, Lu Yu became a baron, living in a former imperial mansion in the northern part of the Imperial Capital with the orphans and widows, receiving government pensions each month.

Since these war orphans enrolled in the academy, they have become the highest-status students there. They study diligently, aspiring to emulate their fathers, and they entered the competition believing they were not inferior to others, though they were somewhat too hot-blooded and impulsive.

The preliminaries officially begin. On the first day of team competitions, there are only ten matches, and the field is split into two sides to hold two matches at once.

Lan’s team is scheduled for the seventh match in the afternoon. Lan and Luo go to observe the individual fist fighting and weapon matches, leaving Xiao Xiong, Lu Bing, and a few others to watch the team competition and gather information on the matches.

There are a staggering 356 participants in the individual fist fighting match, with 178 matches scheduled for the first day.

The academy has only twenty training venues, half of which are allocated to the fist fighting and weapon matches.

Each fist fighting venue is scheduled to host nearly 18 matches on the first day.

The rules for the fist fighting competition are that a match ends if a party concedes or is technically knocked down three times. A technical knockdown does not include when a participant voluntarily falls to dodge or attack.

A technical knockdown refers to a fall that doesn’t affect the continuation of the match. If the attacker continues to strike after knocking down the opponent, and the opponent is unable to fight back, the opponent is considered defeated.

Fortunately, most individual matches don’t take too long.

Of course, some matches involve competitors of similar skill who are extremely determined, but such matches often result in one side being eliminated, while the other side is injured, affecting their performance in subsequent rounds.

After Lan finishes watching the ten matches in the morning, the events for the day are almost concluded.

While fewer people participate in the weapon competition compared to the fist fighting, the duration of each weapon match is much longer.

There are only 98 participants in the weapon competition, and each venue is scheduled for no more than five matches on the first day.

However, since wooden weapons still possess certain weapon properties, competitors are especially cautious during the matches.

Moreover, after each technical knockdown, the school doctor examines the injured to determine whether they can continue. This is crucial because a momentary lapse in focus can lead to injuries that might disable the competitor or even result in death.

For example, a blow to the leg or foot can cause fractures, and even if the competitor manages to stand and continue the match, the injury might worsen. Some injuries are not immediately apparent but could have serious consequences if the match continues.

Despite this, in the morning’s weapon competition, Luo saw two participants carried off on stretchers—one had fractured his shoulder from a wooden sword strike, and the other had broken two ribs from a wooden war hammer.

Word has it that in other venues, there were injuries like a wooden spear piercing an ankle and a wooden sword slashing the neck. These injuries occurred despite the participants wearing thick protective armor.

So, weapon competitions are indeed dangerous, though this is mitigated by the protective gear.

In the morning, only three matches were held in each weapon venue, and Luo was not able to watch most of them before lunchtime.

At noon, Lan and Luo met up with their team in the cafeteria, where they gathered information from the team members about the morning’s group matches.

From the matches they observed in the morning, three teams performed particularly well. Two of these teams were the ones Li Xin had highlighted—teams composed of last year’s graduating students. The third team was led by Tong Meng and made up of this year’s graduating class.

The team of aristocratic students was strong in individual ability. In the morning, Tong Meng’s team used a divide-and-conquer strategy to win their match.

They started by spreading out, drawing the enemy’s defenses wide, and then attacked from different directions, using their individual abilities to defeat the weaker opponents.

After one member defeated an opponent, they immediately helped others take down remaining opponents. Although one member was knocked down, the team eventually won by forming a four-on-one situation.

Another team of guards’ children used a defensive approach, with five members advancing in a line. Once the opposing team split, the two members at the rear moved to cover the sides, similar to the three-two formation Luo had proposed. The three in front focused on attacking.

In the following battle, they used swift coordination to defeat opponents one by one, winning quickly.

However, the fastest team to win was the one led by Tong Meng. They broke the enemy’s formation early, and the other team, unsteady after the attack, was quickly overwhelmed.

The match was over in less than two minutes, the fastest in the morning’s group matches.

Lan and Luo were somewhat helpless. If it were them competing, even if they were up against five “chickens” or “rabbits,” it would take more than two minutes. It seems that the hope for a bye in the second round is slim.

As they ate, they could hear cheers and clinking glasses from the second floor of the cafeteria. It must be the victorious teams celebrating.

After lunch, the team left the noisy cafeteria and went for a walk to digest.

During their walk, Lan and Luo shared what they had seen in the morning’s individual matches, which left some of their team members sighing in disbelief. Now, everyone was most concerned about Luo’s upcoming weapon individual final.

After the walk, the team went directly to the competition field to begin afternoon meditation, preparing for their upcoming match.

Footnotes:

1. 1. 1. 1. “Little Tots”: A term referring to a group or team of younger or less experienced students who were overlooked during a prior investigation.

1. 1. 1. 1. “Baron”: A noble title in the imperial system, often granted as a reward for service or bravery.

1. 1. 1. 1. “Divide-and-conquer” strategy: A tactical approach where a team splits into smaller units to weaken and overwhelm the opponent.

1. 1. 1. 1. “Three-two formation”: A defensive formation with three individuals in the front attacking, and two at the rear covering the sides.