A mage's journey begins with a battle mage.

Chapter 73 Valley of the Gods

The next morning arrived.

Jiang Shuzhou, still wearing his judge's robe, swaggered into the players' lounge.

Clearly, the imperial court's plan had failed. They couldn't find any way to contact Jiang Shuzhou; private messages were blocked, and they didn't care about anyone.

"The competition rules have been updated. Please check them."

The moment Jiang Shuzhou stepped into the lounge, everyone received a notification from the system.

Upon receiving the notification, everyone disregarded everything else and immediately buried their faces in their eyes to check.

Jiang Shuzhou was no exception. A moment later, when the contestants learned about the changed rules, they all gasped in shock.

The blessing system has been abolished, and the points system has also been changed accordingly.

Each team that eliminates all other teams earns one point, and the team that delivers the final blow to an eliminated team earns an extra point, meaning the team that eliminates other teams earns two points.

And most importantly, with the map shrunk, encounters between teams will become much more frequent.

The revised rules are more favorable to the strong, since the blessing that allowed the weak to turn the tide has been removed, and the new rules clearly encourage participating teams to fight each other to determine the winner.

Some teams had originally planned to make an agreement with each other, such as not fighting for the first hour and focusing on developing their characters to receive blessings. However, the change in the rules completely blocked their escape route.

There was no retreat for either side; only fighting was possible.

Soon, the time came, the familiar white light shone again, and everyone arrived at a new location.

Map: Valley of Gods

Number of participants: 58

"Number of participating teams: 20"

Status: Match started.

As usual, Jiang Shuzhou looked around but found nothing different this time.

Of course, if you had to put it into words, it would be that there was a smell of gunpowder in the air.

"At least it's much better than the stench of decay and blood," Jiang Shuzhou thought.

At this moment, the outside world was in an uproar.

There are 20 teams and 58 live streaming rooms. Each person has their own live streaming room. This is a mandatory decision made by the competition organizers. Otherwise, Jiang Shuzhou would never have started a live stream. He wants to maintain his mystery.

"Alright, everyone, we can now see that all the teams have entered the arena."

A female commentator said that this was an official Chinese-supported live broadcast room for the event. Although there were no special privileges, China still started the live broadcast directly using the live feed from the forum.

It wasn't said that broadcasting was prohibited. After all, it's better to guide than to block. Instead of banning people from watching the games on the forum, it's better to create your own commentary livestream room, commentate on the games directly, and keep the initiative in your own hands.

"Yes, Lihua."

"By the way, while everyone's still in the research phase, why don't we introduce each team to the viewers who aren't familiar with them?"

The male host said to the female host.

"Okay, Professor Xie Jun, we will introduce them from top to bottom according to the ranking."

"First up is the top-ranked team, Shadow Chaser, which is also the most mysterious team in this competition. It consists entirely of one person whose appearance and gender are unclear. Some netizens speculate that he is male based on his voice. His profession is mage, and he plays spell combos with great skill. He is a very strong player."

"Secondly, there's the Azure Sky Team from China, which consists of..."

After a period of introductions, all the teams were introduced by the host.

"Okay, Lihua, we've introduced all the teams. Now, which team do you think is more likely to win the match?"

"As far as I'm concerned, I think many teams are very likely to be chosen, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be Shadow of the Law."

"May I ask why?"

"Mainly because he is very mysterious, appears very powerful in the promotional video, and was first in the previous competition, so I think he might be able to win the championship."

At that moment, an image immediately appeared on the large screen.

That was Jiang Shuzhou's live stream footage.

At this moment, Jiang Shuzhou was crouching in the grass, watching the two teams not far away, poised to clash. He was calculating in his mind when to strike to gain the greatest advantage.

Seeing the player she had just praised now sneakily ambushing someone in the bushes, female commentator Lihua couldn't hold back anymore.

"After all, when the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits. It seems that this contestant must be a very knowledgeable person."

"Extremely powerful"

"Being able to ambush someone in the grass is indeed impressive."

"A shameless person is invincible!"

"A resurrected attitude!"

A barrage of comments scrolled by, and the director had already cut the scene away from Jiang Shuzhou. Now the scene showed two teams on the verge of a fight.

Without exchanging many words, the two sides began to fight.

They were completely unaware that a pistol was protruding from the bushes in the distance, its muzzle aimed at them.

Jiang Shuzhou was waiting for the right moment, waiting for both teams to suffer losses.

And so, the two teams began to fight each other right under his nose.

Warriors charged into battle, musketeers provided suppressive fire, they exchanged fire, and priests hid to heal the warriors' wounds.

The battle lasted for a full seven or eight minutes, during which the commentators switched to other live streams more than once, as the back-and-forth fighting inevitably made viewers feel tired.

However, when we switched back to the present ten minutes later, the situation had completely changed.

Jiang Shuzhou stood in the middle of the battlefield, holding a Miao knife in his left hand and a pistol in his right. The two teams that were originally there were nowhere to be seen. Upon closer inspection, there were six corpses lying on the ground, which were clearly the two teams.

Just when everyone was puzzled and confused.

The director provided a playback, and luckily he had recorded all the live stream content from all the rooms, so he could just find any missed ones on the spot.

In the video, Jiang Shuzhou crouches down in the grass, his legs getting numb, and his gun is pointing back and forth. He doesn't know which team has the advantage and doesn't dare to fire rashly.

At that moment, the nature of the battle suddenly changed.

One of the priests was shot and killed. He lost his footing and was caught off guard by the enemy musketeers, who shot him multiple times.

This was a serious problem. Without the priest's support, the warriors' survivability dropped drastically. Seeing that defeat was inevitable, they immediately decided to retreat.

However, neither the other team nor Jiang Shuzhou could allow them to retreat safely.

Jiang Shuzhou charged straight out of the bushes, firing as he ran, the bullets from his pistol striking the soldier directly in the leg.

They can't escape now.

The soldiers were quickly wiped out by the enemy, and before they could finish off the musketeers, Jiang Shuzhou rushed over and killed them all with a few slashes.

Bullets intended for suppressive fire had no effect on him; they only caused a ripple on his robes, a shield provided by his mage armor.

This battle shocked all the spectators. They had seen people wearing heavy armor who were not afraid of bullets, but they had never seen someone wearing light armor, or even a robe that could not be considered light armor, who was not afraid of bullets.

"This...this player is indeed extremely strong."

Teacher Xie Jun sighed, seemingly never expecting Jiang Shuzhou's strength to be so terrifying.

"No, I thought everyone knew he was immune to bullets? Didn't you all see in the promotional video that bullets were hitting him all over the place and he was completely unharmed?"

"Was that a bullet? I was thinking it was fireworks!"

"I've made up my mind, I'm going to become a sorcerer! If all else fails, I'll just have to go back to my senior year of high school! I refuse to believe that a sorcerer's knowledge could be harder than the college entrance exam!"

A barrage of comments flooded the screen, leaving the two commentators speechless. After all, they had been badmouthing each other, only to have the other side turn around and instantly defeat everyone.

Actually, Jiang Shuzhou was hiding in the bushes mainly to reduce the probability of the opposing team escaping. After all, points are only awarded when the entire team is wiped out, and if even one person in the team escapes, then it's like working for someone else.

That's why Jiang Shuzhou squatted in the grass for so long.