His face remained uncertain for a while, before Ling Xiao took a deep breath, forcibly calmed his mind, dismissed distracting thoughts, and returned his attention to his eyes.
He sat down cross-legged and ran through both the Bamboo Rhythm Heart Sutra and the Great Wilderness Stone Man Sutra, trying his best to adapt to this new level.
An hour passed quickly.
"The assessment begins."
The scenery in front of Ling Xiao collapsed like a phantom of bubbles. He heard the sound of running water and felt three rays of consciousness sweeping through his body.
He calmly opened his eyes and looked around, only to see that he was on the shore of a mountain stream. Among the rubble, the same three people stood up and looked at each other.
"There are five teams in the mountain, with four people in each team. There are 5 'melting flowers' growing in random places in the mountain, and each team competes for them. One round takes ten minutes, a total of five rounds. After each round, a judgment will be made and the melting flowers will be picked. The team with the most numbers wins.”
"The picked Melting Flowers have a three-minute survival period. They must be returned to each team's camp and placed in a special box to extend their life. Withered Melting Flowers are not included in the final statistics and will regenerate randomly in the mountains."
"Each member of the participating teams in each round must hand in one star as a pledge. The winning team in the current round can equally share the stars pledged in this round."
"It is forbidden to damage the box; it is forbidden for team members to kill each other!"
"The first round will start in ten minutes, and there will be a ten-minute break in each round thereafter."
After introducing the rules, the voice disappeared again.
After listening to the rules, Ling Xiao also looked at the other three teammates.
One is a bald man with 13 stars on his head, his expression is inexplicably confident; the other is a tall and thin man with 9 stars on his head, his complexion is unusually pale, as if he has not been exposed to the sun for hundreds of years, and his whole person looks gloomy; The other was a fair-skinned woman with three stars. After hearing the rules, she looked obviously unnatural.
The eyes of Ling Xiao and others finally fell on this woman.
Being stared at by three teammates, the woman forced a smile and said: "Little girl Rosa, I wonder what you call me?"
The bald man laughed and said, "There's no need to tell me my real name. You can just call me Bald."
The pale man nodded slightly: "Call me Lao Bai."
Ling Xiao smiled slightly and said, "Then let me call you Fox."
This way of communicating using online names is also quite interesting.
The bald head said: "Since we are all destined to be on the same team, I hope you can work together in the future. From what I see, we might as well elect a captain. You can make suggestions as much as you like, but in the end, the captain will make the final decision to compete for the Melting Flower." What do you think of the strategy?"
When Lao Bai and Rosa heard this, they both nodded and expressed no objection.
The three of them immediately looked at Ling Xiao.
Ling Xiao shrugged and said, "I don't have any objection either."
The bald man smiled and said, "Then in my opinion, Brother Fox should be the captain, right?"
Now in the field, Ling Xiao dominated the audience with 19 stars. Everyone only thought that these stars came from the initial judgment of strength. They were secretly shocked, but also couldn't help but admire.
19 stars, just 1 star short of a perfect score. Besides Ling Xiao, who else can be the captain?
Ling Xiao thought for a moment and stopped refusing, saying: "Since the three fellow Taoists show their love, Mr. Hu is disrespectful. I hope we can cooperate happily!"
He stretched out his hand and shook it with everyone.
Rosa's palm was obviously very cold.
Ling Xiao looked at the stars above her head and fell into deep thought.
The bald man said: "Miss Rosa's stars are a little short, so we have to win at least two rounds!"
Rosa only has three stars. If she loses three rounds at the beginning, she will lose all her stars!
Although the voice didn't say what would happen after all the deductions were made, it was expected that the ending would not be good.
This means that the team cannot lose all the first three rounds, and must win at least two of the five rounds to ensure that Rosa's stars will not be deducted.
As soon as it started, the difficulty was obvious, and the pressure from everyone was definitely not small.
Rosa blushed and murmured: "I originally had four stars, but when I shared my experience before, I inexplicably deducted one..."
Ling Xiao almost didn't laugh out loud.
This woman must have written nonsense when sharing her experience!
Deserve it!
He couldn't feel any sympathy for this, and even wanted to laugh.
But now is not the time to gloat, it’s time to think about how to make decisions in the next first round.
He pondered for a moment and said: "I guess that other teams should also have players with insufficient stars, otherwise it would not be in line with the organizer's principle of fairness."
He called the voice behind the scenes the organizer, which made it easier to pronounce.
When the other three heard this, they all became energetic.
Ling Xiao's words were not unreasonable. The organizers wanted to average everyone's cultivation level, so there was no reason not to average the number of stars in each team.
According to this, the pressure on other teams will not be less, and everyone is still on a similar starting line.
Lao Bai thought about it: "Then what should we do in the first round? After collecting the burning flowers, someone should guard the camp. After all, the rules do not prohibit robbing each other's burning flowers in each other's camps..."
The bald man said: "Yes, that's the truth! How about we just go to each camp and rob them directly?"
Rosa followed this idea and said: "Since the Melting Flower only has a three-minute survival period after being picked, it means that the camps of each team are not far apart."
Ling Xiao said: "This method is too uncertain. We can't guarantee that there will be melting flowers in the camp we rob, nor can we guarantee that the number of melting flowers will definitely win. There is no guarantee that we will definitely win... "
Everyone frowned, feeling in a dilemma.
Ling Xiao thought for a long time, not knowing how to make a decision, and immediately couldn't help but miss Liang Zhi.
If Liang Zhi, a master tactician, was here, he would definitely be able to come up with a good idea.
Ling Xiao just thought about this unrealistic idea, and soon began to think hard again.
Seeing that the ten-minute countdown was about to end, Ling Xiao still had no good idea. He could only suggest: "In the first round, we go out to pick the melting flowers as normal, and we can adapt accordingly."
The bald man smiled and said, "You are the captain, I listen to you!"
The other two people had no objection either.
Ten minutes over.
The organizer's voice came again: "Please reach out to the participating teams and touch the box to submit the pledged stars."
Among the rocks, a transparent box suddenly appeared, emitting a slight spiritual light.
Ling Xiao was about to step forward when suddenly an idea flashed in his mind and said: "Wait a minute!"
The other three people's extended hands suddenly froze, and they looked over in surprise.
Ling Xiao's thoughts were like lightning, and he immediately caught the moment of inspiration and said: "The participating teams need to mortgage the stars. If we don't mortgage, does it mean giving up this round of competition?"
As soon as these words came out, Baldhead and others were stunned.
