329. Tournament

A question Chen Ren had thought about once was simple. How could a sect get disciples?

If it was a Guardian sect, then all it needed to do was hold entrance exams in different cities and towns. Just by doing that, it could gather enough geniuses to fill its future roster. Young cultivators would travel from everywhere for the chance to enter such a sect, and even those who failed would still treat the attempt as an honour.

It was quite an easy method for them.

But Chen Ren couldn’t do that for one simple reason.

He didn’t have that kind of vast network or reputation right now. Even if he held an entrance test, only a few cultivators might try their luck. There was almost no chance anyone truly exceptional would appear, and most major cities wouldn’t let him do something like that openly anyway.

Guardian sects had the connections for it. He didn’t.

Another way was to do what some Established sects did and build connections with small and medium clans and villages. They would offer direct entry to certain people from those places, raising their numbers through long-term agreements and favours. That was effective too, of course. A sect could steadily grow its disciples without needing to search too hard.

But that method had its own problems.

Chen Ren might end up getting more cultivators with connections than actual talent. Small villages and clans could have far more politics than even the larger sects, especially when the promise of joining a sect was involved. Every family would push its own children forward, and those with better backing would likely stand in front of those who were actually more capable.

So that was not the right way either.

He had also already gathered most of the cultivators still available around Meadow Village and the nearby villages. Anyone else with more ability or ambition had already left for larger places, trying to join a better sect.

Because of that, after thinking through many options, Chen Ren decided the best way to gather capable rogue cultivators with good potential was something very different, and very simple.

But when Chen Ren approached Shrey and told him about his plan, the man was more than a little surprised.

“You want to create a tournament here?” Shrey asked. “In… in this place?”

Chen Ren nodded.

Shrey looked outside the window as if he was trying to imagine Meadow Village filled with spectators, cultivators, and betting crowds. Then, he shook his head slightly. “You should know that handling an arena ground is not easy. There were so many people running things back on the second floor just to keep it working properly.”

“I know that well,” Chen Ren replied. “But I think this is the best way to bring more cultivators into my sect.”

Shrey, who had somehow become addicted to the noodles in just a single day, was still slurping from a bowl. He swallowed another mouthful before saying, “If you want cultivators to protect this village, why do you not just call upon more people from the pagoda? A lot of lords have many subordinates.”

“That won’t work,” Chen Ren said.

“Huh?”

“In the end, they will not be actual people of this world. At least not in the way I need them to be. I would rather have members who are real residents of the empire. People who have their own lives here, their own ambitions and their own reasons to grow with the sect… that’s why I think a tournament is better.”

Chen Ren did not really have to explain why a tournament would work.

He had already participated in one before, and he had seen another not too long ago. Tournaments always attracted rogue cultivators. Some came for fame, some came for prizes, and some came because they wanted to test themselves against others. Whatever their reason was, they still came.

And he finally had the resources to make his tournament worth joining.

Not just for weak cultivators hoping to try their luck, but even for stronger rogue cultivators who might normally ignore an Emerging sect tournament. If the rewards were good enough, they would at least come to take a look. Once they were here, Chen Ren would be able to observe them properly.

More than that, he had already been thinking about entering the tournament business eventually. It would take investment, of course. Rewards needed to be prepared. The grounds had to be maintained. Rules had to be set. People had to manage the fights, the crowds, the betting, the healers, and the aftermath.

There were many moving parts. But that was exactly why he had come to Shrey. If anyone could help him turn a tournament into something profitable and useful for the sect at the same time, it was the merchant sitting in front of him with a bowl of noodles in his hands.

At the same time, a tournament would also earn a lot of money.

There would be bets, eventual entry fees, food, drinks, and all the other small things spectators liked to spend on while watching cultivators fight. If handled properly, it would work both as recruitment and as another business for Chen Ren.

Shrey seemed to have caught his line of thinking too.

“I will tell you straight away,” the merchant said. “Running an arena is expensive.”

Chen Ren listened without interrupting.

“You need constant tournaments if you want money to keep coming in. Otherwise, how are you going to pay the staff? How are you going to maintain the grounds? How are you going to make sure spectators always have something to look forward to?”

He placed his bowl down, though his eyes still drifted toward the noodles for a second.

“Unlike the pagoda, from what I have seen of the empire, there is also the matter of actually getting rich spectators into the arena,” Shrey said. “A tournament without people willing to spend money is just a group of cultivators beating each other up for your resources.”

Chen Ren could not really deny that.

Shrey paused for a few seconds, seeming to think through the idea more seriously now. “But the main problem will always be how to distinguish your tournament from the others. You are not going to tell me there are no other tournaments in the empire, right?”

“No. There are a lot of them. Big ones, small ones, medium ones. It is a major form of entertainment for everyone.”

“Then how are you going to make yours stand out?” Shrey asked, looking at him carefully. “Are you going to splurge with the rewards you gained from the pagoda? That might work once or twice, but if you want this to become a long-term business, you should think of a better way.”

Chen Ren raised his hand, stopping Shrey before he could continue.

“Do not worry,” he said. “I have already thought about all of that.”

In the first place, those were basic things anyone had to consider if they did not want to create a failed tournament. Rewards, spectators, staff, location, and safety were all important, but none of them were enough on their own.

The way to succeed, a lot of the time, was to create something different—something that would stand out in the pool of competition.

Though, realistically, it wasn’t about creating something completely different.

It only needed to be familiar enough that people understood it, but different enough that it stood out from the rest of the tournaments in the empire.

“Why do you think people pay to watch fights in the arena?” Chen Ren asked.

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Just answer it.”

Shrey looked to be lost for words for a second, his eyes drawing a blank. He shrugged after a good minute. “Honestly, probably because the people are bored. Their jobs are boring. Their lives repeat the same things every day. So if you think about it, it is fun to watch two cultivators tear into each other while they sit in a safe place.”

Chen Ren smiled at that. “Yes. That is true. Entertainment. That is what people are paying for. We just have to create a tournament with the most entertainment value in the empire. If we can do that, then people will come one after another.”

A quiet correction: this text came from the author's official page without consent, while the published chapter there supports the writer.

Shrey looked confused. “How do you even define which tournament has better entertainment? It is not like you can have two domain manifestation realm cultivators fight each other. That would destroy whatever arena you built and kill everyone watching.”

Chen Ren imagined it for a second.

A battle between two cultivators of that realm would probably damage Cloud Mist City heavily if it happened nearby. Actually, he had never seen two domain manifestation realm cultivators truly go against each other, but he doubted it would be entertaining for anyone close enough to watch.

It would be terrifying more than anything else. And in the end, that was far from what he had in mind.

“I have something else planned. We don’t need stronger cultivators to fight each other.” Shrey tilted his head slightly. Chen Ren smiled. “We need interesting cultivators to fight each other.”

“Interesting? How?”

Chen Ren began explaining his idea bit by bit.

The basis of it was actually simple. Would a person not care more about a fight if there was history between the two fighters?

For example, in a sect, two rivals fighting each other would naturally become a bigger event than some random cultivator challenging the top-ranked disciple. The latter might sound impressive at first, but most people would already know the result before the fight even began. Unless the random cultivator was hiding something incredible, it would just be a one-sided beating.

That was boring. But two rivals fighting each other was different.

There was history and pride intertwined there.

People would talk about who had improved more, who had the better technique and who had the stronger will. Even if the fight itself wasn’t between the strongest cultivators, the story behind it would make people care.

And when people cared, they would come to watch.

They would argue about it, bet and bring friends to see it. They would fill the seats before even the fight had started.

That right there, was exactly what Chen Ren wanted.

His plan was to make sure something like that happened in every tournament. There always had to be a fight people wanted to see, something they could talk about before and after. If the tournament could keep giving spectators a reason to look forward to the next match, then it would not be just another arena.

It would become an event.

When Chen Ren finished explaining, Shrey’s eyes had widened.

For a moment, the merchant looked like he could not comprehend what he had just heard. No, Chen Ren realised after a few breaths that Shrey understood the idea perfectly well. He was only thinking about how difficult it would be to actually implement.

Finally, after a while, Shrey asked, “Do you really think something like this can work long term?”

“Of course,” Chen Ren said with a nod. “It can easily become a long-term business. And I want you to be the one to handle it for me.”

“When I came out of the pagoda, I did not think I would be handling another tournament.”

“This one will be different.”

“That is why I am even considering it,” Shrey replied. “It sounds very funny to see challengers like that, and it will certainly be unique. But again, you do not understand how much goes into creating a proper tournament.”

After that, Shrey began listing every single thing they would need.

First, they needed a large enough piece of land to create the arena. Then they needed roads leading up to it, because if people could not reach the place easily, they would not bother coming no matter how interesting the fights were. After that came the matter of where the spectators would stay, how many people they could actually accommodate, and how much food and staff would be needed to keep everything running smoothly.

There was also the matter of advertisement.

If wealthy people didn’t come to watch, then they would not earn much from betting. They also could not take a high entry fee for a tournament that was still in its infancy. No one would pay too much for something they did not yet trust.

The population of Meadow Village and the surrounding villages was not even five hundred. Most of the younger people had moved to cities to find work, especially with Cloud Mist City so close by. More than that, it was not as if the villagers were wealthy. Most of their recent wealth had come because of Chen Ren himself.

So if he wanted spectators with money, he had to look elsewhere.

And that meant Cloud Mist City.

Although Cloud Mist City already had its own tournament, it was not as if it happened every single month. There were enough gaps for Chen Ren to squeeze his own event in between. For that, however, they needed a place close enough to the city.

If they did that, they would not have to worry too much about accommodating everyone themselves. The inns in Cloud Mist City could handle most of the visitors. As for travel, Chen Ren could simply have his sect members drive carriages back and forth.

An hour of travel would not bother people much.

In this era, an hour on the road was barely anything.

Getting a suitable piece of land near Cloud Mist City might have been difficult under normal circumstances, but Chen Ren had a good relationship with Li Xuan now. More importantly, Li Xuan’s father was the city lord.

If that did not work, Chen Ren could simply give City Lord Li Baolong some treasure in exchange for leasing a piece of land for a decade or two. As long as it was somewhere between Meadow Village and Cloud Mist City, it would be good enough.

With that, he and Shrey continued discussing the plan for hours.

They went over one thing after another, slowly breaking the idea apart and putting it back together in a more practical form.

The longer they talked, the more he realised he had chosen the right person for this job.

Shrey didn’t just think like a merchant. He thought like someone who had watched people spend money for centuries. He knew what made them gather, what made them stay, and what made them return again. More importantly, he understood that entertainment was not only about the fights themselves.

It was about everything around them. The anticipation before a match, and even the arguments between spectators. The food, the betting, the comfort, the rumours, and the feeling that missing one tournament meant missing something important.

If Shrey handled this properly, the tournament would become a business that paid dividends to Chen Ren for years to come.

At the same time, it would be the perfect way to recruit more cultivators into the Divine Coin Sect. But after a long discussion, Shrey suddenly paused.

He looked straight into Chen Ren’s eyes. “By the way, you do know what the most important thing will be if you want this tournament to keep running, right?”

“What?”

“The fighters. You need good ones. Not just strong ones, but people who can do what you are planning. People with personality, grudges, pride, and stories worth selling.” He leaned back slightly. “And I do not think the people in your sect are any good for that.”

Chen Ren smiled at that. “Ah, don’t worry about it,” he said. “I already have some thoughts on how to attract them.”

Shrey’s eyes sharpened with interest. Chen Ren leaned forward slightly. “Let me tell you.”

***

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