<h4>Chapter 316: A Competition Without Age Restriction</h4>


    100 million, this was a formidable sum. If not for the Star Phoenix Butterfly Tail that he spent forever capturing, garnering him 60 million, how would Chu Mu dare to order a 100 million gold item!


    Even with 60 million, getting 40 million in a week wasn’t easy at all.


    50 million rewards like in Li City weren’t every day matters. Even then, he was facing nearly thousands of Gluttonous Insect Monsters and an expert liek Duan Xinhe. Even if Chu Mu took this bounty now, he probably couldn’tplete it.


    40 million, 40 million in a week, how could he possibly scrape together this money!!


    Chu Mu had just crawled out of the mountains. He had wanted to spend a few daysfortably, yet now he would have to fret over this massive amount of money again.


    An eighth soul crystal was priced between 10 million and 20 million. By this rate, Chu Mu had to kill around a thousand eighth phasemander ranks and above to get an eighth rank soul crystal. Gaining gold through this method wasn’t too reliable. At least, with Chu Mu’s first half year only had two eighth phase soul crystals. Theter half had no soul crystals at all.


    If they were to go for bounties, a usual seventh level bounty would give only about 5 million to 20 million.


    With Chu Mu’s current strength, finishing a seventh level bounty wasn’t an issue. The issue was with these seventh level bounties, he often had to find teams or traverse vast terrain, unable to finish it within a month or two even.


    If the distance were close, Chu Mu had the confidence to finish within half a month. After all, he was an expert that had only monarch rank soul pets. Yet, now he only had a week to get 40 million. Chu Mu felt that he would have to kill night and day for a month for it, which would be quite the damage to his nerves……


    “40 million……40 million……” Walking out of the soul pce, Chu Mu was dazed.


    Indeed, soul pet trainers were simultaneously the richest and the poorest career in the world. This was only the soul item needed for one soul pet. If all his soul pets needed this expense, Chu Mu would have to spend his life poor for these people.


    “Wuwuwuwu~~~~~~”


    Mo Xie sat on Chu Mu’s shoulder, also helpless.


    “Young master, have you forgotten about the Guo City yearlypetition?” Old Li’s voice suddenly floated in.


    “How have I forgotten about that!” Chu Mu smacked his head and said aloud.


    With the 40 million pressuring him, Chu Mu’s brain wasn’t as agile as before.


    Almost every authoritativepetition had very generous rewards. To get his seventh level title, Chu Mu had to gain top ten. It was imaginable that the reward for top ten was still very generous.


    “I had just seen that the top ten gold reward is 50 million, meaning as long as you enter top ten, you will get 50 million as reward.” Old Li said.


    “Top ten has 50 million as prize. How is this reward so high- is it that Guo City is actually a very wealthy city?” Chu Mu said.


    Normally speaking, some greater region cities’ annualpetitions only had 10 million for its top ten. Even Kingdom Capitals only give about 20 million gold.


    “Young master, don’t get too happy soon. Do you still remember what the soul pce staff said? It is Guo City’s annualpetition……” Old Li said.


    “En, many regions and kingdoms’ cities have such annualpetitions right…..” Chu Mu said.


    “Your thinking has been restricted to the younger generation.” Old Li shook a finger and said in a very learned tone. “This annualpetition isn’t purely for young generation, meaning you may face middle aged generation members. Of course, old generation members don’tpete because its an unspoken rule to not participate in suchpetitions.”


    With Old Li’s reminder, Chu Mu finally realized.


    Indeed, the soul pce staff didn’t mention a prefix of “teen generation” before thispetition, meaning all soul pet trainers before fourty can attend!


    All of Chu Mu’s soul pets had reached monarch rank. For a kingdom, to find a young generation member of such caliber was difficult, so to reach top ten in apetition was something Chu Mu had confidence in.


    Yet, if thispetition didn’t have an age restriction, then Chu Mu had to face all of Guo City’s young generation as well as middle aged generation, so how hard would getting top ten be!


    “Young master should be happy this isn’t the most prestigiouspetition. Those with true power shouldn’t easily reveal their strength in thispetition. If it were the most prestigious, young master would find it tough to even enter top 100.”


    “I remember that the most prestigiouspetition is Guo City Kingdom Competition, hosted every four years and gathering experts from all the nearby kingdoms. It’s grander than many kingdompetitions, counting as pretty authoritative. Yet such annualpetition is usually prepared for second rate experts of these factions or other nomadic soul pet trainers. True experts are preparing for the Kingdom Competition……” Old Li said.


    Hearing Old Li say this, Chu Mu was even more at a loss.


    Chu Mu was self aware. Compared to middle aged generation experts, he still had a distance. In prestigiouspetitions like the Kingdom Competition, he may not even get into thepetitions, getting disqualified in the prelims, let alone get top 100.


    “Young master, you should still participate in such agelesspetition. Young master indeed shouldn’t keep his mind on only the young generation. Fighting against those older soul pet trainers should increase your strength even more. As for the standing, that can be thought ofter. The Nine Tail Inferno Fox heart is still very burdensome for young master’s current skill level.” Old Li said.


    Just as Old Li said, though it was almost impossible to earn top ten for him, Chu Mu was still determined to try!


    ……


    Resting for a day, Chu Mu let all his soul pets keep their greatest fighting strength.


    The second morning, Chu Mu took the invitation and headed towards the Guo Citypetition and participated in his first match.


    Gou City annualpetition was split into five matches. Those who could win four in a row were in the top twenty.


    The fifth round was the finals, until tene out on top. Usually, these ten would win a reward equivalent to 50 million.


    Worth mentioning was, in these big citypetitions, the top ten rarely continue fighting to find who is first, second, etc.


    And to see a family’s strength usually depended on how many members entered top ten.


    As for who was stronger in the top ten, these experts could find time themselves to fight and find their rtive ranking. Of course, many professional analysts rank them based off their soul pets and strengths.


    In reality, there were too many variables in the fight between soul pet trainer and soul pet trainer, so rtive strength was hard to determine in just a match or two.


    Once they reached such level, soul pet trainers had many soul pets. Whatposition they fought with, what strategy, what counter, and all the techniques within battles, along with a burst of potential from soul pets, the usual cooperation between soul pets, the soul pet trainer’smand, and his soul techniques are all possible variables……


    With so many variables, a slight difference could cause the fight to shift. Every soul pet trainer’s performance and soul pets’ performance was also changing, so a victory between two soul pet trainers couldn’t truly show who was more powerful.


    Many times, the so-called first ce ofpetitions would lose to the second ce usually……


    In such ever changing fights, the standings be somewhat padded, so most mainstreampetitions were split into multipleyers.


    Competition Strongest pointed towards the top ten experts.


    Competition Second Strongest pointed to the top twenty experts.


    Competition Third Strongest were the top thirty experts.


    By this categorization, the rewards were split this way too.


    Like the annualpetition in Guo City, the Competition Strongest top tenpetitors all gained 50 million gold worth of items or gold.


    Competition Second Strongest gained 30 million, and Competition Third Strongest gained 10 million.


    Old Li’s conservative estimate for Chu Mu was Competition Third Strongest, meaning he would earn 10 million.


    Reaching Competition Second Strongest had quite some difficulty, requiring Chu Mu to outperform himself.


    To get Competition strongest, the chances were almost zero……


    10 million wasn’t enough for him to earn the 100 million deal, so Chu Mu had to enter ?Competition Second Strongest. As for thest 10 million, he’d find some other way to make up for it.


    Getting Competition Second Strongest would only get him a sixth level title. The soul pce title was open to all age soul pet trainers as well, so young generation Chu Mu wouldn’t have an easy time getting the seventh level title.


    Clearly, the soul pce seventh level title was more valuable than a Nightmare Pce seventh level title……


    “Young master, a boss has taken a fancy for your Star Phoenix Butterfly Tail, and also, she seems to want to get to know you. Knowing that you’re entering the annualpetition, she had speciallye to watch. Do you want this little one to introduce you?” The soul pce staff that followed Chu Mu said.


    The preliminary matches were about to start, and Chu Mu didn’t even know who he was up against. What surprised Chu Mu was that his Star Phoenix Butterfly Tail had a buyer in such a short time. This was a good thing.


    “Let’s talk more once I’m done with this match.” Chu Mu didn’t look over to the audience. Hearing the judge announce his name, he strided towards the wide battlefield.


    Because he could be facing middle aged experts, Chu Mu definitely couldn’t let his guard down, even if it were in the preliminaries.