Chapter 2287 Easy Way
Thousand Leaf was a tall and lean man with shifty eyes and a narrow nose. Riveroak was a shorter woman with broad shoulders and freckles on her face.
Both of them were well above Alex in cultivation base, but not so much. Thousandleaf cocked his head, looking at Alex. "I have seen you before, haven't I?" he asked. "You were at senior Firestar's place."
"I was," Alex said. "Were you there as well?"
"Ah!" the woman gasped. "You are senior Silvermist's disciple. I recognize you now."
Alex nodded. "We work at senior Firestar's shop," the woman said. "We are disciples of her juniors."
"I see," Alex said. He didn't remember them at all. There were many people at Firestar's place and he didn't look at everyone. But since he had been with Silvermist, it was understandable why they recognized him. "Nice to meet the both of you. I am Dawnblade."
The four chatted for a while, and Alex understood a bit more about them. The three of them had come here together to take part in the tournament. Since they counted for people who didn't belong to the Medicine World, despite having not so different a status thanks to Firestar's influence, they were still allowed to take part.
Thousandleaf and Riveroak, while not very arrogant, still had some pride over who they were and their background. They would've likely talked more about it had they not been in front of the literal disciples of two of the Ten Stars of Alchemy.
Alex was talking about his time in Pillheaven continent and explaining how he had gotten the Angel Rose, whose petal Thousandleaf apparently needed when he heard a loud commotion.
They all turned around in time to see a woman scream at a man who was inside of a barrier.
"In fact," the man followed. "The first rule of the second competition was to keep your disciples safe. I do not doubt that you tried your best, but if anyone here has broken a rule, it is you, people."
The group who had lost their disciples could not believe it. They couldn't fathom the thought that such injustice could happen in such a big tournament.
"He killed my disciple!" the woman said. "The people that helped him do it took us to him. We even saw his face before he escaped. How could that have not broken the rules?" The barrier surrounding the man came down and he looked up finally. "I did not intentionally kill your disciples. I merely paid a few people to get rid of as many disciples of participants as they could. I did not intentionally kill them because I didn't know who was going to die."
The large hall was silent, with people unable to believe what they were hearing.
"Why... why would you do that?" the woman asked.
"Why not?" the man asked. "That's one less competition you have to worry about, isn't it? I read the rules and used them to my advantage. You should do it too."
The woman felt angered. "Bastard!" she shouted at him but the barrier went back up.
The man grinned through the barrier, his voice coming out of it. "I could not intentionally kill your disciples, but there is nothing stopping me from killing you with every intention I can muster."
His eyes stayed on the woman for a moment before scanning the room to look at everyone there. "Every one of you is in danger," he said. "And not just from me. From everyone else." The hall was silent for a while longer as the situation suddenly seemed so very tense.
"You guys understand what can be done now, can't you?" the man asked. "Do you want it? Do you want victory? Do you want to climb to the top? Then you're gonna have to get your hands a little dirty. Find who you can and kill them. The fewer the participants, the higher your chances of victory."
"If you really... really want it, you now know what to do."