The final four zones, though their members made the Genius Rankings, operated under a harsh reality: the seven great Emperors' direct heirs had to occupy thirty-six slots. That meant the last thirty-six geniuses—the bottom-ranked members in the final four zones—would be eliminated.
As a result, the competition in those later rounds was ferocious.
By the time it all ended, eight challengers had succeeded.
After the successful challenges came the final stage: a comeback opportunity for the geniuses who had been eliminated earlier.
The comeback chance was limited to a single attempt as well.
Moreover, only those who had been knocked out by a genius ranked in the top thirty were eligible to participate in the comeback challenge.
The comeback challengers also had to target someone ranked in the top one hundred and sixty-four of the Genius Rankings.
Naturally, among the martial artists eliminated in the earlier rounds, setting aside a handful who were simply unlucky, there weren't many who genuinely had the qualifications to launch a comeback challenge.
Wei Jie could be considered one of them.
There was someone even more unfortunate than Wei Jie—a scion of a top-tier noble house who had narrowly lost in a clash between elites.
Over a dozen chose to attempt the comeback challenge, but in the end only two succeeded: the noble house scion and Wei Jie.
Wei Jie had picked his target with exquisite precision. After a grueling battle, he managed to defeat his opponent, taking over their rank and placing one hundred and fifty-sixth on the Genius Rankings.
With that, the Genius Rankings were officially finalized.
The top one hundred and sixty-four from the Genius Rankings, together with the thirty-six geniuses under the seven great Emperors, would now compete for the Young Lord Rankings.
Of course, the Young Lord Rankings would ultimately only accommodate thirty-six people.
The majority of those from the Genius Rankings were just there to keep the Crown Prince company, so to speak. The geniuses who truly had a shot at the Young Lord Rankings would not exceed ten.
And those who could actually succeed in entering the Young Lord Rankings? Probably no more than three.
The rules for the Young Lord Rankings were completely different from the previous two rounds.
The thirty-six direct heirs of the seven great Emperors occupied the Young Lord Rankings. The remaining one hundred and sixty-four geniuses from the Genius Rankings only had the right to challenge them.
Each person had one challenge opportunity.
Furthermore, the choice of opponent was highly structured.
Only a genius from the first zone of the Genius Rankings was eligible to challenge the genius currently ranked twenty-first on the Young Lord Rankings.
A genius from the second zone could only challenge the genius ranked twenty-second.
And so it continued—the sixteenth zone could only challenge the genius ranked thirty-sixth.
Each zone contained ten geniuses, and each had only one challenge opportunity, with all of them facing the same opponent.
Jiang Chen was in the first zone for the Young Lord Rankings, which meant in the first stage he could only challenge the genius ranked twenty-first.
The top twenty on the Young Lord Rankings didn't even have to come out and accept challenges at this stage.
Only the sixteen Young Lord-level geniuses ranked twenty-first through thirty-sixth would represent the Young Lord Rankings and defend their positions.
As defenders, they would face challengers from each zone of the Genius Rankings.
In many past tournaments, this type of challenge frequently ended with zero successes. Zero successes meant that not a single genius from the Genius Rankings managed to pull off an upset.
The final thirty-six of the Young Lord Rankings would remain entirely unchanged, still belonging to the Emperors' geniuses.
This scenario was hardly uncommon in previous years.
However, this time around, several people were seen as having a real chance of succeeding—and they were all concentrated in the first zone.
The challenge rules were merciless.
If someone from the first zone defeated the twenty-first defender, then the remaining geniuses in the first zone would move up to challenge the twentieth-ranked genius.
If two geniuses succeeded, the rest would have to challenge the nineteenth.
The same logic applied to the other zones as well.
Of course, the chances of success for the other zones were practically zero. Historically, successful challenges against Young Lord Rankings defenders had almost exclusively come from the first zone—the top ten of the Genius Rankings.
If you couldn't even crack the top ten of the Genius Rankings, your odds of succeeding in the subsequent battles against the Young Lords were essentially nonexistent.
So the so-called contest for the Young Lord Rankings was really only a sliver of hope for the first zone.
The ten geniuses in the first zone had already fought each other. Now they shared a common opponent: the genius ranked twenty-first on the Young Lord Rankings.
A direct disciple under Emperor Zhenyue—Gu Zhenshan.
Gu Zhenshan ranked within the top three under Emperor Zhenyue and possessed formidable cultivation. It was just that the information Jiang Chen had gathered so far remained quite fragmentary.