When the light pillar enveloped him, Guan Tong's vision was filled with countless twisting rays of light.
This scene suddenly reminded him of the two spatial folding gates he had built in Manchidon and Xisiya.
During testing that day, when the teleportation gate opened, the light within twisted and interwove like a kaleidoscope, similar to what he was seeing now.
Was this teleportation light pillar also using spatial folding technology?
Guan Tong's thought had barely risen when the next moment he found the scene had changed, and he was now standing atop a gray "desert."
Not just him. The top nine on the Tianshui Star Overall Representative Vote Rankings had all been teleported here, each separated by roughly a few meters. None of them could move, nor could they use their Mind Blades.
"This is the Arena? Doesn't look like much!"
The speaker was a burly man nearly two meters tall. His thick beard and completely bald head made him look rather bizarre.
Guan Tong knew that this burly man, who resembled "Lu Zhishen" in appearance, was the Xisiya contestant, "Pulverizing Hand" Lovska.
"Where are the organizers and audience? And why the hell can't I move!"
Lovska had a violent temper and started cursing the moment the teleportation finished.
"What's the rush?" A voice carrying a faint smile sounded. "This gives us all time to chat."
The speaker was Han Qiu. Guan Tong looked over coldly and found that the latter was also looking at him, even smiling and nodding in greeting.
"Shadow, we meet again."
"....."
Guan Tong had nothing to say to Han Qiu. If he could move right now, he would directly ignore the competition and kill the latter.
"Did you all notice? What's under our feet doesn't seem to be sand." Among the nine, a short young man wearing round-framed glasses spoke up. He was Manchidon's "Mechanical Pioneer" Tasitado, and he appeared very young, no more than seventeen or eighteen.
"Not sand? Then what is it?" Lovska asked.
Tasitado shook his head. "Hard to say, but it's definitely not sand."
Shi Jingyi seemed to have realized this even earlier, but she didn't speak.
Sandro, Gilal, Dragon Soul, and the others all remained silent, simply waiting quietly.
Before long, a strange voice sounded from within the space.
"Contestants of Civilization, welcome to the Furnace Arena!"
This voice was full of vigor, completely different from the Fire Thief's monotonous mechanical voice. It sounded exactly like the host of some sporting event.
"I am the commentator for this round of the Meltstar Arena Competition. The place you are all currently standing is the Arena's stage! It is constructed from three thousand trillion units of chaotic matter, a tiny miracle of the universe!"
Guan Tong and the others all showed expressions of shock upon hearing this.
Chaotic matter? Three thousand trillion units?
They all still remembered that Mr. Ga of the Star Scar Merchant Group had exchanged merely 1 unit of chaotic matter for one million Ascension Coins of Tianshui Star Civilization...
Guan Tong looked down at this "gray desert" beneath his feet, then looked at Shi Jingyi, who gave an imperceptible nod.
Yes.
Through the power of her Authority, Shi Jingyi had discovered the moment she teleported over that what was beneath their feet was not sand, but specially materialized chaotic matter.
According to human analysis, just a fraction of a gram of chaotic matter could satisfy all of humanity's electricity consumption for many years. These three thousand trillion units were enough to power humanity until extinction.
"And this is merely the stage ring!"
As the commentator's words fell, the bodies of all nine people began to float upward under the empowerment of a special force, flying to a higher position.
From a bird's-eye view, they discovered that the voice had spoken correctly. That "stage" made of chaotic matter was only the innermost ring of a large triple ring.
This "large triple ring" was a giant spiral structure composed of three concentric rings. Aside from the innermost ring's stage, the second and third rings were entirely filled with bubble-like things.
"Our audience ring is composed of Myriad Sense Net Bubbles. Here, whether you are carbon-based or silicon-based, gaseous or psionic, the Myriad Sense Net Bubbles can transform the battlefield's live situation into a perceptual form you instinctively understand!"
So impressive...
Guan Tong and the others were astonished by the advanced technology contained within those "Myriad Sense Net Bubbles."
To transform battle conditions into a form that different civilizations across the universe could all understand, just what kind of existence could develop such a thing?
The Fire Thief had mentioned in the Hidden Rules that the winner's additional rewards in the Furnace Arena would be provided by the organizers.
Guan Tong thought to himself, to be able to turn millions of trillions of chaotic matter into an arena stage, and also possess various civilization perception transformation technologies... perhaps only the highest-level level 10 civilizations, namely the arbitration civilizations, could accomplish this.
"Now then, this round of the Meltstar Arena Competition is about to begin. First, we shall randomly generate the arena sandbox."
Arena sandbox?
Everyone looked down toward the innermost ring of the triple-ring structure at the sound. The area they had once stood upon was now rapidly changing.
Forest, ice field, snowfield, ocean, metal sphere... various different scenes continuously switched.
"So that's how it is." Han Qiu's face showed excitement, his eyes fixed on the transforming inner ring. "Those three thousand trillion units of chaotic matter are the source code that composes the sandbox, and the sandbox can simulate any scene, generating all kinds of arena environments!"
The others were silent. Even Lovska, who had been spouting arrogant words at the start, now wore a grave expression, clearly awed by the power the Furnace Arena displayed.
Guan Tong, meanwhile, was thinking: was the chaotic matter simulating scenes, or was it actually generating them?
These were two different concepts.
The former was merely virtual, essentially no different from a computer graphics card simulating various images, with contestants fighting like game characters in randomly generated battlefields.
Han Qiu, who enjoyed treating everything as a game, surely thought so.
But the latter would hint at an astonishing fact: the ecological niche of chaotic matter might be similar to what humans understood as atoms, the fundamental particles composing all matter.
Guan Tong looked at Shi Jingyi. He remembered Shi Jingyi saying that after obtaining her Authority, she began to perceive that chaotic matter was everywhere, filling heaven and earth.
If that were the case...
"It's stopped," Lury's Sandro suddenly spoke.
The inner ring that had been continuously changing scenes had fixed in place.
It looked like a boxing ring, four-sided and square, but instead of ropes around its edges, there were thin threads flickering with red arcs of light.
"Oh!"
The commentator's loud voice sounded again.
"This round's arena scene is 'Electric Cage Beast Fight'!"
Electric Cage Beast Fight?
Everyone looked at the thin threads enclosing the stage upon hearing this. The flickering red arcs on them were electric currents?
"Electric Cage Beast Fight is a classic arena! Two contestants must engage in a life-and-death struggle surrounded by 360,000-volt high-voltage electricity! The high voltage will not stop supplying until one contestant is completely dead!"
Guan Tong's heart tensed. He thought to himself that if he were to fight this round, he didn't know whether his Shadow Battle Suit could completely insulate him from the high voltage.
"Now we begin randomly selecting contestants..."
The light pillar appeared again, but this time it no longer enveloped everyone's entire body. Instead, it continuously jumped between the nine people.
When it finally came to a complete stop, everyone looked toward where it landed.
Ranked fifth on the overall rankings, the Xisiya native "Pulverizing Hand" Lovska was the first!