Sovereign of the Three Realms

"Listen carefully, all communication items and their usage are prohibited during the competition. Any violations will be considered cheating! Also, you're required to stay where you land for half an hour. Only after that are you allowed to move. Understand?"

The representatives from the sacred lands responsible for mediating the match emphasized this particular rule more heavily than the others.

This was to prevent participants from running into each other during the deployment process. They had to wait until everyone was in position before moving.

Every participant took the words to heart. They had to abide by the rules. Those who had wished to get lucky left their communication tools behind.

With messaging glyphs, it'd be easy to communicate on the island. If tools weren't forbidden, the match wouldn't be able to test teamwork at all.

The organizer banned the use of any tools so that every participant had to rely on their intelligence.

The deployment process thus began. Sixty geniuses entered one after another.

Jiang Chen knew that this kind of deployment must've been carefully calculated.

He stood under an ancient tree tall enough to reach the sky, surveying the dense forest. All around him were trees, tall grass, messy vines, and thorny bushes. There was almost no place for him to stand.

The environment greatly obstructed Jiang Chen's God's Eye. He focused his mind and couldn't detect anyone within a few miles' radius.

Given that he had to wait for half an hour, he wasn't in a rush to move. Instead, he carefully considered his surroundings.

"The ancient tree is several arm's lengths in circumference. I wonder how old it is. Perhaps the island has been here since the ancient times."

Jiang Chen could tell the island was on the primitive side, undisturbed by human activities.

He climbed onto a lofty tree and perched on a branch with his back to the tree trunk, closing his eyes to rest. He also summoned the Goldbiter rat king and had it command the other rats to stand on guard, on the look-out for any unknown beings.

There wasn't any rule against employing the Goldbiter Rats.

Jiang Chen would do anything within the rules to win. The rats were undoubtedly his best helpers on such an island.

As soon as half an hour passed, he started moving.

"Wu You's mastery is in speed. He can protect himself better. Gan Ning doesn't have any particular strengths compared to the other participants. Thus, he's in the most danger. I have to find him first. Of course, I'll take whatever trial orbs I run into as well."

There were six hundred orbs in total, which weren't that many. The island was more than big enough to hide the orbs.

It might not be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack, but one wouldn't be able to just stumble upon the orbs. Some careful consideration was required.

Fortune favored hard workers. After half an hour, Jiang Chen found an orb hidden under a leaf.

That was well-hidden. If I hadn't utilized my consciousness to the fullest, I wouldn't have found it.

The orbs were hidden better than Jiang Chen had expected. He suspected that some of the six hundred orbs would be left undiscovered in the end.

"Old Gold, do you know what the dominant vegetation on the island is?" Jiang Chen asked apropos of nothing.

The Goldbiter rat king chuckled. "There's a great variety of plants on the island, but the one that's particularly abundant is the wallowing tree. It's everywhere."

wallowing trees could be identified by their unique leaves. They were thin and dense like droplets of tears, which gave the tree its name.

"Right, the wallowing trees." Jiang Chen smiled. "Please tell your descendants to pay attention to any cultivators who smell strongly of the trees. Have them immediately report back when they find anything."

"Why?" The Goldbiter King was puzzled.

"Just do it." Jiang Chen didn't want to waste his time explaining.

"Alright." The rat king was sharp enough to recognize that Jiang Chen didn't have the time to spare.

This was Jiang Chen's first and most prioritized plan. He had told Wu You and Gan Ning to identify the most common vegetation on the island after entering and extract the essence to apply on their bodies. Then, Jiang Chen would be able to locate them quickly.

He had two other contingencies.

Plan B was for them to leave clues as they moved. He would follow the breadcrumbs and figure out their approximate locations.

That wasn't as ideal a plan. A trail was easy to spot and even more easily destroyed.

Plan C was the least practical one. It was merely for backup, and ideally shouldn't be of use.

Jiang Chen wasn't going to waste the rats' mobility on only locating his teammates. He had some of them look for the trial orbs, but not before warning them to exercise the highest of caution.

There were dozens of Myriad Abyss' finest geniuses looking for the orbs. If the rats ran into them by accident, the spirit creatures would meet a terrible fate.

The rats' strengths didn't lie in individual fighting skills. A rat wouldn't be able to survive an encounter with genius cultivator.

Nevertheless, Jiang Chen wasn't too worried. The Goldbiter Rats were naturally cautious. They weren't going to take unnecessary risks.

It was a wise move to mobilize the rats to look for orbs. In half a day, Jiang Chen had collected four orbs, two of which had been his find, the other two the rats'.

However, it worried him that he still hadn't heard anything about Wu You and Gan Ning. He wondered if his two teammates had run into strong opponents already, thanks to bad luck.

A faint sound disrupted his train of thought. He cast his God's Eye to the right and noticed a branch moving slightly behind an ancient tree.

He rushed over and found nothing.

"Oh? Was someone spying me? Or was it merely a beast passing by?" Jiang Chen wasn't sure. He hadn't been entirely focused on his surroundings.