"Look, it’s the vice president of the NGU, Mara Harven."

"It looks like she’s the facilitator for the intercontinental competition."

Several whispers spread across the stadium as Mara appeared at the center of the ginormous stadium. Holographic screens displayed her on them. Streaming sites across the empire were streaming everything live. Quadrillions of transcendents across the empire were watching this competition. All of them were anticipating what kind of shape the competition would take this time. Since they were in a stadium, would it be combat duels?

Mara opened her mouth. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Intercontinental competitions of the NGU. I’m Mara, and I will be the facilitator for this competition. I’m sure you all know the distinguished guests present, so let’s not waste time introducing them."

Bouts of chuckle spread through the stadium at her words.

She continued, "Many of you were expecting combat duels. But the competition will take a different form this time."

Several in the stadium and across the empire had looks of curiosity at her words. She didn’t keep them in the dark for long.

Suddenly, an extremely long staircase appeared on the stadium grounds. The staircase stretched infinitely into the skies. Its width was also extremely astronomical.

"The rules are simple. Participants are to climb this staircase in one week. At the end of the week, the first fifteen participants on the highest fifteen floors will proceed to the national level of the competition. Oh, and participants are free to use any means necessary to climb the stairs."

After her words, the whole stadium sunk into silence. Everyone here, including the participants, were transcendents. No one was stupid.

The rules seemed simple on the surface. But that was not the case. Use any means necessary to climb the stairs. This meant the participants were allowed to kill one another if it would even make climbing easier for them.

The participants were calm. They were already prepared for a ruthless competition, regardless of what form the competition would take.

"Let the competition begin."

At their words, the whole stadium emerged into an uproar as cheers shook the place. The participants floated to the front of the large staircase in the stadium, which rose and peered through the clouds.

Kailen and Julian stood before the staircase like any other participant. The staircase was golden in color and shimmered with a strange ethereal light. Kailen felt something was off. He was not the only one. Julian felt the same way too. Ezerisia and every other participant felt the same way too.

But someone had to take the first step. The audience watched. The VIPs watched with intrigue.

Ezerisia took the first step. The moment her feet landed on the first step, she felt a heavy weight crush on her. Gravity. Principle of gravity. Her body felt extremely heavy.

Quickly, she activated her darkness principle. A cloak of tenebrous mass appeared around her figure. She felt the gravity crushing into her grow less. She moved to the next step.

Everyone instantly understood what was happening. A Rank 3 novice-stage gravity principle law attack was mysteriously bearing down on each step. And the more they climbed, the more the weight of gravity would increase.

The participants knew in order to deal with this weight of gravity, they had to activate their principle attacks to nullify or lessen the gravity principle attack. Several took steps forward on the first step and felt the weight of gravity bearing down on them. They activated their principle attacks to lessen the gravitational weight and moved towards the next step.

At this moment, Julian had already taken a step forward. A hammer formed from darkness banged through the space across the first step. The gravity bearing on him lessened and he moved to the next step.

There was also someone from the 10th Continent who was just a step away from Ezerisia, who was currently on the 5th step. This person has black scaled skin. Several poisonous lances spun around him, cleaving across the space, lessening the gravitational weight as he shot forward.

Several sighed. A dark horse had appeared.

Another person rolled forward in a whirlwind of wind, cleaving through the gravitational weight, lessening its impact. He followed behind the scales figure behind Ezeresia.

However, no one was in the mood to attack anyone now. Perhaps everyone wanted to focus on climbing to higher levels first before they started eliminating those in their way. Several geniuses started displaying their prowess.

However, several eyes were on a figure standing at the bottom of the stairs. Everyone was currently advancing on the steps, but he had not yet made a move.

It was as if he was in thought. What was he doing? Was this not the person who had a scuffle with Ezerisia? Had he given up?

Kailen however didn’t care about what others thought of him. He wanted to see if there were other methods he could use to get to the top quickly. However, he came to a final conclusion that he had no other choice but to do what others were doing.

So, he took the first step.

The audience noticed an ethereal hue around his figure. The ethereal hue caused the surrounding space around him to ripple and twist slightly. So he was a space principle transcendent, many deducted.

When Kailen landed on the first step, he felt the weight of gravity bear down on him slightly. However, the ethereal hue around him seemed to rise like leaflets, causing the surrounding void to meld and twist. Kailen did not just feel the gravitational principle weight lessen. He felt it disappear.

With calm eyes that revealed this happening was within his expectation, he didn’t even spend a few seconds there before he proceeded to the next step.

"He’s using the principle of space to control the gravitational field created with the principle of gravity. He redirected the gravitational field away from his body. What an unconventional use of the principle of space," one of the higher-ups of the NGU general HQ commented. She caught on easily because she was a space principle transcendent herself.

At her words, the VIPs realized what had happened. They nodded. As expected... this person was very powerful. It seems things between him and Ezerisia would not conclude as the general populace were expecting.

When Kailen arrived on the next step, a stronger weight of gravity bore down on him. The ethereal hue surrounding his figure spiralled out like leaflets again. The void bended and twisted. The weight disappeared completely. He arrived at the next step.

Kailen kept breezing through the steps using this method. Eventually, the distance between him and the other participants was lessening. What shocked the audience was how effortless his climb was. No fancy manifestations of techniques to climb. Yet... his simple use of the principle of space was making him breeze through the steps.

Who the hell was this guy?

At this point, Dawnseer, her guild higher-ups, and some members, alongside Lotus, were smiling from the bleachers. This fellow had finally decided to bare his fangs. The NGU higher-ups from the Southern Continent were also expectant. Everyone watching from the Southern Continent was also expectant. One of their representatives, Julian, was somewhere ahead. But they could not help but also root for Kailen. Not that Kailen cared.

Eventually, he caught up with the last but one participant on the 20th step. The fellow revealed a cold glint as he stared at Kailen.