The Spider Queen

There was a heavy sense of tension in the air.

Today was the last day before the tournament would begin and all the members of the Imperial Family were currently in their assigned rooms.

There was a large holographic projection in the centre of the space where thousands of numbers flashed in a seemingly random order.

This projection displayed the draft that would determine their opponents for the first round.

The succession ceremony was extremely dangerous for those with low cultivation levels because their opponents were chosen completely at random.

A qi body cultivator might find themselves facing of against someone in the void stage. This process would repeat over and over again until only two competitors remained.

Now some might say that this process was unfair and theoretically someone with a high cultivation level could get easy opponents until the finals and that was indeed a valid point.

But somehow… high level opponents would always have at least one round that was guaranteed to have an enemy around their cultivation level.

It was for that reason why some speculated that the draft was not really random but of course no one would dare to speak those thoughts out loud.

To be the crowned as the next leader of the Imperial Family meant that one needed to survive this brutal tournament.

The fights did not necessarily have to end in death but from the perspective of the members of the royal family, they would always prefer to have one less rival.

Brother killed brother, sister killed sister, cousins killed cousins in a terrible display of culling one\'s own family.

By the end of each tournament typically the number of princes and princesses in the Imperial Family would be reduced by at least sixty percent.

In fact, that the last tournament was so vicious that the percentage was eighty seven percent. 

The late Emperor Sisrelis had been the favourite to win the tournament, so his opponents tried their best to take his life.

He responded in kind…

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(Planet Cthelen- Hive City)

(Sector Omega- Private Room #451)

A lesser-known prince impatiently walked up and down his room while glancing at the projection right in front of him.

Prince Devon was not a particularly special person. 

Sure, he was a prince but when his siblings numbered in the tens of thousands… that was not really a position of note.

He had lived a life that he would consider fairly normal.

He was reasonably talented and went to Atlas University where he studied for four years and regularly made the top one hundred list of students.

Not at a particularly high rank but at a decent place, nonetheless. He usually landed somewhere within the range of thirtieth to fiftieth.

His mother\'s family were lesser nobles, so he did not have strong political backing to allow him to gain an important position in the army.

So, he spent his mandatory years on some backwater planet in the Hydra Star System assigned to a watchtower station.

It was incredibly boring.

He saw no action or alien invasions. 

Hell, even the space pirates in the star system knew better than to mess with the Imperial Army so there were no criminals to fight.

After his years at the military, Prince Devon\'s mother arranged for him to marry some daughter of a viscount which he did without complaint.

She was an okay looking woman and Prince Devon thought that her personality was good enough for them to form a union.

Now he had two sons and one daughter.

A good life but not one that was particularly remarkable or stood out.

Still even though he seemed content, there was a fire burning inside his heart that he had buried for many years.

He had to read from the virtual net the news of his siblings becoming governors of planets, important ministers, or members of large mercenary organizations.

While he was nothing.

Prince Devon\'s fingers curled up into a tight fist as he glanced at the screen with knuckles so tense that the flesh on his hands had turned white.

He was not strong.

He knew that.

Someone in the qi tide stage had an almost zero chance of being crowned as the successor but he did not care.

No matter how small the chance… this was the opportunity of a lifetime. No one knew when the next tournament would happen.

It could be decades or even centuries before the future ruler of the Federation died of either natural or not-so natural causes.

Prince Devon continued to watch the screen and ignored the subtle vibration coming from the wrist communicator wrapped around his right hand.

He knew who was messaging him. His wife had been furious that he signed up for the ceremony and begged him not to attend.

Their last encounter involved her screaming at him that he would get himself killed and leave his children without a father.

Prince Devon let out a heavy sigh and pressed the power off button on the side of his communicator.

She didn\'t understand.

Growing up in the Royal Family meant that your entire life was controlled or influenced by the one who sat on the throne.

After being a puppet for so long, many were eager to finally become the one\'s pulling the strings. 

To be the one with all the power, authority, and influence to affect billions of lives across the Earth Federation.

Ding!

A loud noise echoed through the room and Devon\'s eyes narrowed as he looked at the holographic projection.

The numbers had stopped moving and the screen faded to black for a brief moment before two lines of text appeared on the screen.

[First Round]

[Your Assigned Opponent Is Number 254- Princess Alyssa Sisrelis]

Prince Devon walked up to the screen and tapped the number using the tip of his index finger. 

The contents on the screen shifted and the profile of a gorgeous woman in her early twenties with a mole under her right eye appeared.

There was only a picture with no other information but that was enough for Prince Devon to look up details of her identity on the Virtual Net.

He had not heard of this princess before which meant that she was not one of the well-known contenders for the throne.

Hopefully that meant that either her cultivation level was low or there was some flaw in her personality that made her unlikely to reach the later stages of the tournament.

Prince Devon reached inside his storage ring and pulled out a metalloid tablet which he then powered on.

He searched the virtual net for information on the princess and soon arrived at a reliable site used for betting on the succession ceremony.

Prince Devon\'s heart flooded with a sense of relief as he discovered more about his first-round opponent.

Apparently, Princess Alyssa was a fourth-year student at some lesser-known university. She was in the qi tide stage like himself but immediately Prince Devon dismissed her as a threat.

Although they may be the same cultivation level, he had attended an elite university and had many more years of experience.

This was going to be an easy fight.