“The Astral Combat Tournament is divided into four rounds. First, every academy will designate one of their students as a seed individual, who will directly enter the fourth round. This is also when the lots are drawn.

“The first round is called Three Academies Guarding the Gate. Three academies are chosen at random and each one will send one participant to guard a region. Competitors from the other academies will then go on the offensive and try to break into the guarded region, though they are barred from using any battle techniques or innate gifts. As long as the attacking students can break into the guarded area, they move to the next round. If more than half of the participating competitors break through, the three guarding academies will be judged as to have failed and will drop out of the tournament.”

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed.

Old Cai paused before continuing, saying, “The second round is called Knocking on the Dragon’s Door—it is also known as Sounding the Battle Drums. The battle drums represent the origins of the Astral Combat Tournament, and every academy will station someone at the drums. After all of an academy’s participants arrive from the first round, the stationed student must successfully beat their drum. Those who cannot make any sounds will be judged to have failed, and their academy will be kicked out.

“The third round...