Those past dozen days, he’d set his heart on single-minded cultivation, and he was ignorant of other matters. The day the Teaching Pavilion opened once again, he discovered that most of the upper yard disciples talked about the year end’s no restriction contest.
"I came to the upper yard for only a short time and I didn’t realize upper yard disciples paid so much attention to this contest!"
All along the way, Zhong Yue could feel a harsh killing aura from those upper yard disciples, and he couldn’t help but sigh with emotion in his heart: "This is also normal, whether you’re a poverty-stricken disciple or a disciple from a prestigious family, you’ll be expelled from the sect at sixteen years old if you can’t manage to cultivate a spirit. Hence this no restriction contest is probably the hope for all upper yard disciples to become a Qi Refining warrior! Of course, if I met Xin Huo’s requirements, I could actually cultivate a spirit without the help of the Spirit s.p.a.ce Hall. But Xin Huo’s requirements are very high, they could even be said to be perverted, with my current abilities I’m far from meeting his standards."
Outside the Teaching Pavilion, there were even quite a few disciples fighting. Not only there were various kind of visualization battle techniques, there were also treasures like totem poles and soul weapons. The compet.i.tion was very intense.
Several hundred upper yard disciples were standing around as spectators, split into several battle rings, with two disciples dueling in each of them. Hundreds of means were displayed and every type of visualization technique was exhibited out.
Zhong Yue even saw some people with wings, flapping their wings in the air, soul weapons going back and forth like lightning as they fought in the sky. Battle techniques beautiful enough to dazzle the eyes emerged one after another.
"What are they doing? Eh, why are there suddenly so many unfamiliar faces in the upper yard?"
Zhong Yue focused his attention and noticed that one side partic.i.p.ating in the battles was comprised of entirely unfamiliar faces, fighting against upper yard disciples. Suddenly, a disciple fighting in the sky was. .h.i.t and fell, heavily crashing on the ground. He couldn’t get back up, but fortunately there was no threat to his life.
Obviously, this wasn’t as simple as a pure compet.i.tion. Compet.i.tion among disciples of the same sect wouldn’t go overboard, but those people acted too heavy-handed. It didn’t look like an exchange among fellow disciples!
"Puff-"
Zhong Yue suddenly saw a familiar figure soar high within a battle ring, lifted in the air by his opponent’s attack, and weakly falling back down.
With a thought, Zhong Yue’s mind power flew out and transformed into a Jiao. It caught that person, gently lowering him to the ground. Zhong Yue went forward in great strides and said: "Brother He, what happened? Who are they?"
The one sent flying out of the battle ring was precisely He Chengchuan[1]. The latter lifted his hand and wiped off the blood from the corner of his mouth, angrily saying: "Those guys are the outer disciple cultivating in the inner sect, they came to the upper yard to smash the place!"
"Outer disciples who cultivate in the inner sect?"
Zhong Yue was slightly surprised, and immediately came to his senses. To become an inner disciple and follow a hallmaster or an elder of the sect, one needed to cultivate a spirit and become a Qi Refining warrior. But great clans and tribes all had some privileges. The core disciples of the great clans and tribes would be taken in by the clan’s Qi Refining warriors, and could benefit from cultivation teaching and methods inheritance at any time.
For example You Yu clan’s Yu Feiyan, she could go up the mountain and consult the You Yu clan’s Qi Refining warriors about any difficult problem. But Yu Feiyan didn’t like living in the inner sect, while the core disciples often lived in the inner sect and very rarely met with upper yard disciples.
However, although those people practiced in the inner sect, they still were outer disciples, and they still had to come to examination of the year end’s contest. Now that the day of the contest was fast approaching, quite a few of those disciples rushed over from the inner sect.
As to why they were fighting the upper yard disciples, it was because they were also very unfamiliar with the strength of the upper yard disciples, so they wanted to find out who among the upper yard disciples were experts that could be a threat to themselves.
Know the enemy and know yourself, then in a hundred battles you can achieve a hundred victories.[2]
"The people who came this time are the disciples of the River Mud clan and Dark Mountain clan. Not only I was beaten, elder sister Ting was also beaten!"
He Chengchuan spit out the blood foams from his mouth and angrily said: "They’re too unreasonable, we agreed not to be heavy-handed, but the outcome was that elder sister Ting sustained a serious injury at their hand."
"River Mud clan?"
Light flashed through Zhong Yue’s gaze and a blazing anger surged in his heart, but his expression didn’t change as he thought: "River Mud clan! The Qi Refining warriors of the Mud River clan collude with demons, and released the Celestial Elephant Old Mother. The high levels of the Mud River clan summoned junior sister Shui up the mountain, and the result was junior sister Shui being taken over by the Old Mother, her soul scattered to the four winds! Hehe…"
"A Jiao dragon flying out with the lift of a hand, this junior brother’s strength is pretty good. Does junior brother have any interest in exchanging a few moves?"
The vision of the disciple who hurt He Chengchuan fell on Zhong Yue’s body, and he said smilingly: "I see that the Jiao dragon you visualized carries thunderbolt totems with it, almost as if concealing the Surging Thunder Sword. You must also be a disciple of Pu elder right? I’ve experience the abilities of Pu elder’s disciples, it’s really sloppy. However you’re not the same, you can surprisingly combine the Jiao Dragon totem together with the thunderbolt totem, looks like you’re someone who obtained the true legacy. You have some skills."
His vision was extremely shrewd, worthy of a disciple who cultivated while following Qi Refining warriors. Merely his vision and knowledge where much superior to upper yard disciples.
Zhong Yue’s expression was like water, waveless as a dry well as he asked in a light voice: "Are you from the Dark Mountain clan or the River Mud clan?"
That disciple laughed: "River Mud clan’s Shui Lingshan."
Zhong Yue nodded, striding forward. He Chengchuan resisted his pain and hurriedly grabbed his hand, saying quietly: "Junior brother Zhong, don’t be heavy-handed. The River Mud clan is one of the ten great clans, you’ve already offended the Tian Feng clan, just fight to a draw with him and let it be…"
Zhong Yue gently shook his hand away, his face exposing a smile: "Be rea.s.sured brother, I have a sense of proportions."
"Don’t be heavy-handed?"
The River Mud clan’s Shui Lingshan laughed involuntarily as he said: "You should be asking me not to be heavy-handed. To tell the truth, when I fought him just now, I only used seventy percent of my strength. This junior brother, you can fight to your heart’s content, I hope you have some decent ability."
"Ok."
The two of them were a hundred feet away from each other. Zhong Yue gently squinted his eyes, the corner of his mouth shaking: "River Mud clan…"
Boom!
The slab of limestone under his feet exploded with a bang, crumbling in the air in all four directions. At the place where Zhong Yue stood, the ground suddenly sank down, a foot-deep footprint emerging. The footprint was shaped like a dragon claw, and it was a dozen times bigger than the footprint of an ordinary person, as if an extremely sinister Jiao dragon suddenly trampled the ground’s surface!
Zhong Yue’s figure leaped out in a split second. In the moment he rushed out, the shudder of a dragon cry came and an evil Jiao dragon twisted in spirals around his body, as if it were revolving around his body and torso!
Shui Lingshan blinked, and the moment his eyes opened again Zhong Yue was already in front of him, an incomparably thick dragon wrapped around his arm. It looked sinister as it hammered a violent fist on his chest.
Boom!
A sound came like the shock of a bra.s.s drum, followed by the crisp crackling sounds of broken bones. Shui Lingshan’s body bent and violently knocked backward, and with a crack he hit and broke a pillar thick as a water bucket in front of the Teaching Pavilion. He continuously rolled and tumbled, falling head-first several hundred feet away!
In front of the Teaching Pavilion, the fighting taking place elsewhere was still continuing, but this blow of Zhong Yue’s created a series of explosive sounds, thunderclaps rolling from one side to the other. It was really stunning, incomparably stunning.
Zhong Yue’s terrifying explosiveness raised quite a few eyebrows!
At this moment, the battles ceased one after another. The disciples all looked his way, whether the ones fighting or the ones watching on the side.
"Brother Shui Ling!"
Two River Mud clan disciples shouted in alarm, and hurriedly rushed to him, supporting him up. Shui Lingshan was sagging, while the ribs on his chest were crushed and broken in seven or eight pieces.
"Such a heavy injury?"
The expression of the River Mud clan’s disciples changed greatly. They turned their head back and fiercely glared, shouting: "It’s a duel between disciples of the same sect, aren’t you being too cruel?"
"I already restrained myself, I didn’t go all out."
Zhong Yue’s face was calm: "I only used seventy to eighty percent of my strength. He can’t receive my fist if I gave it my all."
In his sea of consciousness, little kid Xin Huo was lecturing him: "Your strength still isn’t crisp enough, if your strength were crisp enough then when you hit the enemy the enemy would also become very crispy, they’ll break to pieces as soon as you touch them! Say nothing of seventy percent, even with half the strength you can kill and explode them in a punch! You still have to keep cultivating, you still haven’t reached the genuine crisp!"
"Seventy percent strength?"
The two River Mud clan disciples snorted. One supported Shui Lingshan away and the other went forward, smiling coldly: "You’re a disciple of Pu elder? You train a body cultivation method? No wonder your speed is so fast, pure body cultivators will train a body that’s much more powerful than others in hand and hand combat. Brother Shui Ling was caught unaware and gave you an opportunity, that’s why he ate this loss! How could you have succeeded so easily if he’d been on his guard all along?"
He raised his hand and flicked it. A divine totem pole flew out, and from the totem pole ripples diffused in every direction like waves of water, expanding over an area a hundred feet wide shrouded within the ripples. The disciples all felt like they were standing inside water, and found it difficult to move.
Ordinary totem poles only had a range of twenty to thirty feet, while this totem pole surprisingly could reach over a hundred feet. It obviously wasn’t a totem pole that ordinary disciples could possess!
"Body cultivators walk the road of the evil demons, they’re the most useless. One totem pole can nail a body cultivator tightly in place!"
The River Mud clan disciple looked at the Jiao dragon coiling around Zhong Yue’s body and smiled coldly: "Moreover, your Jiao dragon totem has skin but no flesh, no blood and no bones. You absolutely didn’t obtain the true legacy! Now fight me, let me try your seventy percent strength!"
Zhong Yue lifted his foot and heavily stomped it down. Suddenly the water ripple totem patterns radiating from the totem pole seemed to be pushed away by a tsunami. The water ripples soared to the sky, and the pressure the totem pole brought with it also disappeared!
The River Mud disciple was shocked in his heart, but Zhong Yue’s fist had already appeared in front of his eyes. He hurried to visualize, but how could he still have time left to do that?
"Seventy percent strength."
Zhong Yue lightly said, and his fist broke with a bang the image just shaped by his opponents mind power. This River Mud disciple flew out as if a rhinoceros had charged into him, and fell several hundred feet away after repeated rolls and tumbles!
"I didn’t have time to visualize, unexpectedly I didn’t even have time to visualize! How could he be possibly so fast?"
The River Mud disciple’s brain crashed, and he spurted fresh blood from his mouth. He struggled to stand up but fell down again, angry and shocked at the same time: "How could his explosiveness be so terrifying?"
"Any more River Mud disciples?"
Zhong Yue looked around. In front of the Teaching Pavilion, the several hundred upper yards were without a sound, and only his own voice could be heard: "I have to beat up ten of them."
Translator notes:
[1] He Chengchuan is one of the disciples who went with Zhong Yue inside the demon ruins, in case you forgot about him. See chapters 10+
[2] Quote from the Art of War, by Sun Tzu