Tang Ze had already made a name for himself - and while it was true that there was still one more event left, he was not just confident about winning it, he knew he had already distinguished himself enough even on the off chance that he failed.
The next two events after the two sword-based events were the debate event, and the pottery event.
Tang Ze kind of found those two to be odd, but there had been stranger contests in the past.
Apparently twenty years back there was even a Feng Shui contest where contestants were charged with arranging the furniture in a room in the most ideal way - he would've liked to have seen how that went.
Some of the topics during the debate event were also kind of... well, not topics you would see in any debate competition back on Earth. The topics such as: 'Do wizards actually count as people?' and 'Should we make hunting mortals legal?' really made Tang Ze wonder about the morality of this world.
The reason why such events existed was because throughout history there had been certain outliers when it came to cultivation who had cultivated in unique ways. Ling Shui had been one such example - a person who excelled at the arts and then soared to the Nascent Soul realm from her understanding of paintings. She had even developed her own path - the Painting path and had a major hand in the Raswatian Empire's victories during the Empire's second war with the Theocracy of Serragnia.
After her rise to fame, the Novice and the Advanced Tournaments began to incorporate these other events not strictly related to fighting or cultivation, partly to acknowledge her contributions, and partly to encourage any potential people like her to rise up one day.
At last though, the time came around for the final event Tang Ze was going to be participating in - the Boulder Rolling event.
It was actually quite straightforward - the organizers had created an incline, and the contestants had to push a boulder up it. The first person who got to the top won.
It was here that they actually did somewhat adjust for weight and gender - Tang Ze found out, and gave some people lighter or heavier boulders based on the same.
Why did they do that here but not for things like the Iron Fist contest or the foot race? When Tang Ze asked, all that he was told was that the third prince had made a change to the rules a few days back and that they had no choice but to follow them.
But that didn't bother Tang Ze in the slightest. While this was somewhat different than rolling the sect's Komainu up the hill, it did not pose him much problem at all.
He was making good progress, far outpacing the other candidates.
Though there was one who was still determined to catch up to him.
That person was Yin Zhu.
He was a member of the Golden Sun sect - a sect that had not won first place in any competition yet.
They also did not have any hopefuls who might be able to distinguish themselves in the coming days.
And so, Yin Zhu had to win!
For the sect's honor!
He had trained day in and day out for this event. He had trained his body until his bones had shattered, until he coughed up blood from the effort.
He had always possessed peerless strength since childhood, and in addition to this innate talent of his, he had honed it with years of effort.
How could he stand down and accept defeat now?
Most of those who had great physical strength did not participate in multiple events since most did not have enough raw strength to be able to compete in all of them. Technique was also important, and that took time to hone. For example, the techniques involved in pushing a boulder up a hill and punching hard were different, even though both did rely on strength. It was just that Tang Ze's strength was so overwhelmingly superior that this difference was practically meaningless to him - not that he hadn't been trained for each event, just that his training paled in comparison to some of the other contestants.
Yin Zhu had trained specifically for this boulder competition for the past month, and put all of his energy into this single task during that time.
And yet, from what he had seen, he knew that he could not beat Tang Ze in his current state.
That was just how big the gap in their strength was.
That was why his sect's elder had slipped him something earlier that morning - an alchemical concoction said to bring out the innate potential within the bodies of cultivators. Illegal? Yes. But what other choice was there?
Even if he got caught cheating, Yin Zhu would have no regrets.
The elixir had side effects of course - but even knowing that, he had had no qualms about chugging it down in a single gulp.
Because that was how badly he desired victory!
If there was no path forward to success, he would make his own path forward!
'If you were not willing to cheat - did you really even want to win?'- that was his philosophy.
Unbeknownst to him, his sect elders had managed to bribe some people and gave Tang Ze a boulder that was significantly heavier than the others by filling its core with a dense metal.
And yet... despite these advantages, he was just barely keeping up!
Finally, one fourth of the way, Yin Zhu felt his arms give way as his body could not handle the strain anymore. The strain on his muscles was a side effect of the elixir that he had taken.
Yin Zhu's survival instincts allowed him to get out of the way in time, but the boulder ended up colliding into someone else, and then this had a domino effect. Before you knew it, several contestants had been injured and the event had gone into a state of chaos in what felt like an instant!
Tang Ze was so preoccupied with what he was doing that he hadn't even noticed this commotion behind him. He just kept pushing that boulder, focused entirely on the task at hand. It felt unnaturally heavy to him, but that was likely just in his head, he thought, as he took each step forward carefully just like the martial arts instructor had taught him.
He was the first to crest the top of the incline, and the officials there congratulated him.
It was only then that Tang Ze turned around to see the wreckage that had occurred below him.
At the end of the event, the other sects complained that because of the accident, it was unfair to their candidates that had been injured, and demanded a do-over of the entire event, without the Golden Sun sect participating given how one of their members had caused the accident in the first place.
The person who had caused the accident, Yin Zhu, was stripped of his membership of the Golden Sun sect and cast out of their ranks. It also turned out that he had been taking some illegal performance enhancers as well - his sect 'discovered' this when they searched his belongings. "The Golden Sun sect is appalled that one of our members was doping, and we are casting him out of our ranks as punishment."
And in that way, Yin Zhu was discarded by his sect like a pawn. The sect elder who had given him the doping substance in the first place would vehemently deny he ever did such a thing were he to ever be pressed on that matter.
This matter of repeating the event went to the third prince, who after careful consideration, said that even if the others hadn't been knocked aside, Tang Ze would've still been the clear winner. "As such, I see no real reason to redo the event."
Although second and third place winners did get prizes, these were more in the line of 'consolation' prizes as it was coming first that would really elevate a sect in the eyes of the Imperial Family. Why would the third prince care about people fighting for the bronze and silver medals?
Not to mention, the tournament had to be wrapped up, and it would take some time for some of the injured to recover. And the tournament would have to be delayed for that if they decided to do the event over, which the Imperial Family absolutely did not wish to do.
Tang Ze honestly had no problem with doing it again, and could even see why the other sects were upset because of what had happened. However, the Rising Phoenix sect's representatives had already argued on the contrary and won as they had nothing to gain by repeating the event, and so Tang Ze chose to toe the official sect line. Not that anyone ever asked for his opinion.
Why cause trouble for himself when there was an alternative?
As it was, the third prince was right in one aspect - he would just win again.
He did feel guilty about not turning around and possibly helping when the accident had happened though. He was so focused on what he was doing he was completely unaware of the event occurring behind him - he had heard some noises, but thought they were coming from the spectators at the time.
With that, the Rising Phoenix Sect was now in the lead for the sects who had won first place in the tournament - having won in three events.
Tang Ze was still the only one up till now who had won in more than one event.
The Rising Phoenix sect's camp was very active as celebrations were ongoing.
"Brother Tang Ze's performance till now is amazing!"
"Too bad no one else won anything from our side yet."
"Ah, he'll probably win the battle tournament as well."
"Can you imagine? We'll have placed first in four events then!"
"Nah, didn't you hear? He's disqualified from entering that event."
"Disqualified?"
"Yeah - didn't you hear- the Astral Winds sect's Senior Elder got knocked out cold by Tang Ze and they went crying to the Emperor that it was unfair for Tang Ze to participate."
"And they dare call us the chickens! Crying to the Imperial Family after being defeated like a whipped dog!"
"Hmph! The weak should fear the strong, big fish eat small fish, why are they complaining now?"
"And didn't you hear? It was even worse - they walked into our territory, courting death, and dared to play the victim afterwards!"
Such talk kept going on around him, but by now, Tang Ze had nothing to do but sit back and relax. There wasn't that much interesting going on. He could try to go to the markets again to see if there was anything else that would catch his eye, but there had been little whenever he had gone before, and it wasn't like his pockets were weighed down by coins.
Not to mention, he ran the risk of running into another situation like with that Li Zhi girl - reflecting on what had happened, he was now certain that something had been off about it, though he couldn't put his finger on what that was.
He could work on his costumes, but he didn't have much of his tools needed for such as he left them back at the sect since they were too cumbersome to carry. He didn't have his wizard costume either as he didn't want to be accidentally caught with it, so he couldn't go visit Xian Yue or work on finishing her dress either.