Thirty-six contestants from the last four groups were going to be disqualified because their places would eventually be taken by the thirty-six geniuses of the seven great emperors instead. Compet.i.tion was very intense at the bottom of the rankings because of that, with eight geniuses launching successful challenges at the end of the battles.

　　The final segment came right after that. Some disqualified geniuses were now given their second chance. They had to have been beaten by a contender in the top thirty to qualify for a second chance, with this chance being their final attempt. They would have to challenge the 164 finalists for the Genius Rankings. There weren’t that many unlucky cultivators worthy of a second chance amongst the disqualified, but Wei Jie was one of them. However, there was one more genius disciple from a great clan that had been even more unlucky than him. He was defeated when he was still talking.

　　Roughly a dozen contenders claimed their second chance, but only Wei Jie and the great clan disciple succeeded. Wei Jie had chosen his opponent very carefully. After a hard battle, he finally won and took over his opponent’s place. He was now ranked 156th. With that, the Genius Rankings finally came to a close.

　　164 contestants from the Genius Rankings and thirty-six geniuses under the seven great emperors were now going to fight for a spot in the Ranking of Young Lords. Only thirty-six of them would qualify for the Ranking of Young Lords. Many contestants among the Genius Rankings were only lesser characters when compared to the true geniuses. Probably less than ten of them were actually qualified to challenge the Ranking of Young Lords. However, there probably wouldn’t be more than three that would successfully enter the Ranking of Young Lords.

　　The Ranking of Young Lords battles had an entirely different set of rules than the previous two ranking battles. Thirty-six successors of the seven great emperors were already listed in the Ranking of Young Lords. The other 164 geniuses were merely given the opportunity to challenge them. Each contestant only had one chance and one specific target to challenge.

　　Those in the first group of the Genius Rankings were only qualified to challenge the twenty-first ranked genius of the Ranking of Young Lords, while those in the second group were only qualified to challenge the twenty-second ranked genius. This pattern continued all the way down to the sixteenth group that could challenge the thirty-sixth ranked genius. The ten geniuses in each group were only given one chance, and they all had to face the same opponent.

　　Jiang Chen’s first challenge was naturally the twenty-first ranked genius since he was in the first group. The top twenty geniuses in the Ranking of Young Lords were not required to accept any challengers at this stage. Only those ranked twenty-first to thirty-sixth were required to defend their places in the Ranking of Young Lords as an arena lord. This stage of the tournament often ended with the total defeat of all challengers in past tournaments. In fact, it was commonplace for the geniuses affiliated with the great emperors to occupy all the places in the Ranking of Young Lords. This time, however, many were optimistic that a few could possibly overcome this challenge. Everyone had placed their hopes on the first group. 

　　The rules of the challenge were quite brutal. If a genius within the first group was able to successfully defeat the twenty-first ranked candidate, the other geniuses in the first group would have to move up the list and challenge the twentieth ranked genius in the rankings. If two were somehow able to succeed, then the rest would have to challenge the nineteenth ranked genius. The same rules applied for the other groups as well. However, the possibility that the other groups could succeed was close to zero. Geniuses who managed to win the challenge had historically come from the first group. Those who couldn’t even manage to enter the top ten were unlikely to defeat their opponent in the Ranking of Young Lords.

　　The geniuses in the first group had already battled amongst themselves. Now, their common enemy was the twenty-first ranked genius. His name was Gu Zhenshan, a true disciple of Emperor Mountaincrush. [1] Gu Zhenshan possessed a very impressive cultivation level, and was ranked third amongst the geniuses under Emperor Mountaincrush. However, Jiang Chen didn’t seem to know much about him.

　　Geniuses under the great emperors didn’t often engage with the commoners. A great number of citizens in Veluriyam Capital weren’t even familiar with these young lords. These young lords pursued their own dao and had their own plans. Those who kept a high profile were more well-known, but those who kept a low profile were so secretive that even their peers weren’t sure of their cultivation levels.

　　The geniuses in the Ranking of Young Lords were actually ranked by the seven great emperors after an internal discussion amongst themselves. However, this also meant that the rankings sometimes didn’t precisely reflect their true capabilities. 

　　The first genius to challenge Gu Zhenshan was Alchemist Xi from the Rising Tide Clan. Jiang Chen had a few impressions of Alchemist Xi. Alchemist Xi was actually quite talented in martial dao. However, the alchemist seemed to enjoy pill dao more, and was actually one of the weakest amongst the top ten in the Genius Rankings. This of course meant that he wasn’t even capable of giving Gu Zhenshan a warmup. He was promptly kicked out of the arena in just three strikes.