Di Tian quickly clicked on the hashtag.
The most trending post under it was a video clip of Elder Yi making another general appearance. There were several other people with her this time, four of them in total. They all had the same wizened appearance as their colleague. Di Tian assumed they were also from the mysterious Universal Council like her.
In the video, Elder Yi announced the format of the competition as well as the significance.
Apparently, it would be a platform for the talents of the planet to display themselves and potentially catch the fancy of representatives from outside cultivation organizations who would be present to scout and recruit on their behalf.
As Earth was presently in a liaison agreement as a vassal under the Universal Council's jurisdiction, the Council would oversee the event to ensure fairness and protect the interest of the planet. At the same time, the Council also retained the right to recruit potential reserve members for themselves during this tournament too.
Elder Yi also announced a few extra conditions. For example, the competition wasn't actually going to take place on the planet itself but in a makeshift battle realm. Di Tian didn't understand what this was supposed to be, but he guessed more explanations about it would be passed across in due time.
Another condition was the age restriction. Unfortunately, despite special abilities manifesting in both young and old, the Council was only interested in recruiting those between the ages of sixteen and thirty five.
"Well well," Di Tian tsked aloud, imagining how disappointed those above and below the age limit would feel about this piece of information. The good news was, there was a tiny exception to this rule. Particularly talented people that fell outside this age category could still be privately scouted after the tournament.
Di Tian read a few more posts before he finally clicked on the tournament's registration link.
The power of a united world was extremely effective. The joint governments really put in effort to create a general global database and registration interface in such a short while. Di Tian even half expected the webpage to lag due to too many people trying to access the same webpage at once, but it worked perfectly fine.
"Name, Age, Province, Country, National Identity Number, special ability manifested....." Di Tian read the options and filled in his details one by one.
When he was done, a message was promptly sent to his inbox. It was a link that redirected him to a special forum only accessible to those that had completed their registration.
Earth Cultivators Discord.
"The name is rather lacklustre," Di Tian habitually commented, glancing at the dashboard. The number of subscribers was growing rapidly; apparently, people were registering crazily by the second.
"I wonder how people in secluded areas that don't have digital access will register," Di Tian thought as he explored the forum. As a computer scientist himself, he had to admit that the interface was very well done.
The forum classified the registrants based on their respective regions. There were seven main servers, one for each continent, and one could only access the one they were from. Di Tian chuckled at this as it was a telltale sign of the governments secretly being in competition despite their seemingly harmoniously cooperation.
The Asia Server was nicknamed "True Dao Forum." Di Tian curiosity skimmed through a panel that displayed a demographic of the common abilities and some bio-data.
At this moment, general messages popped in.
"ATTENTION! ATTENTION!! ATTENTION!!! True Dao Forum(Batch A) has officially reached its membership capacity and the function will thus be halted. True Dao Forum (Batch B) has already been created to welcome the influx of new members."
"True Dao Forum only supports brodacast messages from the Admin."
"More information about verifying your status as Gifted will be passed across through this channel."
"All information about the tournament holding six days from now will also be passed across this channel."
Di Tian felt the term 'Gifted' was a bit distasteful and wondered why the government did not settle for something more exotic-sounding, like Supes or Mutants
He continued reading.
****
Over the next couple of days, more bits of information were passed across, clearing the confusion of many on the planet.
An official document from the Universal Council was even released with an assortment of basic cultivation knowledge. Now, people on the planet knew about the first cultivation stage, Body Tempering, including the various levels and significance.
A point to note was that the planet also welcomed more outside cultivators, mostly representatives of the organizations interested in participating in the mass recruitment. The Universal Council's crew kept them in check and even engaged their help in planning and organizing the tournament.
One more thing was that several low-key martial organizations on the planet publicly came out to reveal their affiliation with outside forces. Examples included the Shaolin Temple in China and the Umbigiti Monastery in Ethiopia. Apparently, they even took the opportunity to promote a local recruitment offer with the catch that members who joined their ranks would gain access to Body Tempering techniques and resources in advance. With everyone on the edge about outshining everybody else, this strategy worked particularly well and many talents joined them.
As for Di Tian, he made a decision to explore certain places near Beijing where he could find resources to temper his body. Among the cultivation information provided by the Universal Council, there was a 'Life Encyclopaedia' that recorded a few techniques mortals could use to identify consumable energy-rich herbs.
He settled for Mount Wuling. It was only a few hours drive from Beijing and was well known for its diverse plant life, including various herbs and wild grasses that grew in its forests and slopes. Di Tian was betting that some of them were hopefully suitable as cultivation resources, having been affected by the global mutation too.
Because the area was also home to wildlife such as wild boars, deer and occasionally wolves, Di Tian decided to play it safe and purchased a tranquilizer rifle from a local trader online. From another source, he bought multiple doses of concentrated serum tranquilizers.
"As of now, the tournament is set to hold in four days," Di Tian calculated. "If everything goes well, I'll spend two days there, find the resources I need and quickly return to the capital to absorb the herbs and prepare for the tournament."
Di Tian finally left for Mount Wuling after purchasing a few more essentials.