Under Giovanni's guidance, Stelle and March completed account registration, identity verification, and other procedures on the Aetherium Wars player terminal. After that, they learned about the rules of the Interastral Tournament Festival.
Before officially participating in the tournament, they still had to prove their strength during the festival.
That meant heading to battle parks across the universe to take on challenges, complete trials, and obtain qualification badges.
It was basically similar to gym battles.
After understanding everything, March and Stelle threw themselves completely into this Interastral Tournament Festival.
As for Nero, he did not plan to participate, so he went around Belobog with the others to sightsee and have fun.
During this process, Qingque began promoting Celestial Jade in Belobog. This form of entertainment quickly became popular and spread through the entire city at a shocking speed, especially among Belobog's older residents.
Bailu, meanwhile, went around tasting Belobog's local food. Of course, during the process, she did not deliberately ask about or investigate the cooking methods or the original appearance of the ingredients used in these dishes.
As a foodie, Bailu clearly had plenty of experience in this area. Indeed, once you learn how certain dishes are made or what ingredients are used, you may lose the desire to eat them for various reasons.
Taking Nero as an example, there was one dish he liked very much, but because the ingredient looked too ugly, completely against his personal sense of aesthetics, he would never eat it again. Just seeing it would make him feel sick.
Or for example, some people liked insect feasts, but Nero really could not accept that kind of thing.
Bailu did not make that mistake, so she managed to taste all of Belobog's local specialties quite smoothly.
Lady Bailu's evaluation of the food was that it was very distinctive, and some flavors were indeed good, but some dishes were too ordinary and lacking in highlights. Overall, it could only be considered passable.
But that could not be helped. After all, the Xianzhou's development was far more prosperous than Belobog's.
On top of that, Xianzhou people lived long lives, and when they had free time, they always needed something to entertain themselves.
Under the influence of many factors, the Xianzhou's food culture was extremely rich and had its own unique flavor and foundation, something difficult for other planets and worlds to compare with.
Judging from all this, the fact that Bailu could still call Belobog's food passable already meant its culinary culture was quite good.
Huohuo, meanwhile, still needed to make rounds through the Fragmentum Factory every day. Even though she had gotten extra vacation time, she still needed to, and encouraged herself to, build up her courage.
Nero's Fragmentum Factory was clearly a very suitable place for that. To a certain extent, the things and environment there felt even stranger than the heliobi and the Fyxestroll Garden.
Aside from courage training, Huohuo spent most of her time in the Robot Settlement. Lately, Mr. Tail seemed to be communicating with Svarog extremely frequently.
Maybe the two of them were exchanging parenting experience. (Not really.)
Yanqing, meanwhile, had finally temporarily escaped Nero's terrifying training and began undergoing another kind of physical training under Argenti.
Argenti was without question a good teacher, because he held nothing back in his teaching.
Every method of tempering the body and improving combat skills, every judgment needed in harsh environments, he taught all of it to Yanqing without reservation.
It was just that... when it came to physical training, Yanqing did not feel that Argenti's methods were much different from some of the methods Nero proposed. They were equally exhausting.
It was not that Yanqing lacked perseverance. It was just that Nero and Argenti's methods of physical training always gave him the feeling of, "As long as you don't die from it, train harder."
In other words, not scientific.
Argenti's methods were actually fine. The intensity was just absurdly high. But after all, they were mixed with teaching in other areas as well. Yanqing was not stubborn in his study of swordsmanship.
Whether it was Jing Yuan's glaive techniques, Argenti's spear techniques, or even Nero's greatsword techniques, he would learn from the best parts of all of them and integrate them into his own swordsmanship.
In addition, there were corresponding recovery methods, so Yanqing's acceptance of it was still relatively high.
But Nero's methods truly made Yanqing keep his distance.
When training under Nero, Yanqing only felt that Nero seemed completely unaware of the differences between individuals caused by differences in realms...
And aside from training physically with Argenti, Yanqing naturally also sparred with him. Actual combat was the best way to test improvements in skill.
However, in these matches, Yanqing's results against Argenti were exactly the same as when facing Nero.
This Knight of Beauty was far stronger than imagined. Although at the beginning of every duel, he would deliberately lessen the pressure and let Yanqing experience the improvements and changes he had made recently, afterward he would not intentionally reveal an opening or go easy on him like Jing Yuan occasionally did.
Instead, he faced the duel with complete seriousness and full effort, then swiftly defeated Yanqing in a respectable manner.
And throughout this process, Yanqing often could not even tell how brilliant Argenti's spear skills were.
He used only the simplest techniques, but because of his overwhelmingly powerful physical abilities, his attacks were fast, precise, and ruthless, making them difficult for Yanqing to handle.
Yanqing realized that in this regard, Argenti and Nero were actually highly similar. Just as Nero could swing around a heavy greatsword like Black Cutter with one hand as if it weighed nothing, Argenti could also wildly wield that heavy spear in one hand.
This shared trait gave Yanqing a strange thought during training breaks.
Are all you people connected to Beauty like this? Brute force solves everything?
After all this, the idea of "Stats are the reason for becoming Sword Champion" became increasingly rooted in Yanqing's mind.
Everyone had their own things keeping them busy.
As for Stelle and March, with their already excellent gaming talent and Nero's Falkor Aether Spirit supporting them, they smoothly collected all the badges and obtained qualification for the tournament.
And during this process, they also heard some information from Giovanni that made people unable to stop thinking about it, yet left them with no clues after careful consideration.
When challenging Giovanni, this masked weirdo had once said this, "Let me see... whether you're really as strong as that lady!"
And at other times, they would also catch bits of similar information.
These clues made Stelle and March notice a subtle sense of something being off. This Interastral Tournament Festival seemed to be more than just a celebration for Aetherium Wars players.
Behind this grand carnival, behind the colorful curtain, beneath the undercurrents, it felt as though another performance was hidden there as well.
Of course, saying it like that sounded somewhat alarmist. But Stelle and March genuinely had this feeling.
They could vaguely understand where it came from, yet had absolutely no clue what target that feeling was pointing toward.