The Top 14
Han Yue Xin’s single battle was like a gorgeous flower in the winter, it made everyone’s eyes light up! It was a stunning, breathtaking and short-lived battle, where even though the partic.i.p.ants after her battle displayed their own strengths in the next few rounds, the spectators already found it more bland and their interests had dropped.
Very quickly, the compet.i.tion reached the top 14.
From Group D, one partic.i.p.ant: Su Yun.
From Group C, no partic.i.p.ants.
From Group B, three partic.i.p.ants: Chen Jia Liu, Zheng Zi Luo, Zhang Jiu.
From Group A, six partic.i.p.ants: Current first, Han Yue Xin. Blade Sword Saint of War, Shen Wu Ya, Quick Sword Li Chang Zai, Mystical Master Jiang Qing Long, Heavy Sword Sect Senior brother Hua Ya Shan, Unique Skills Yuan Chen.
From the Four Official Organisations: Hua Wei Chamber of Commerce Huo Quan Cai, Yu Shuang Auction house Qin Si, New Deer Auction House Li Qin, General Ring Chain Chamber of Commerce Liu Lang.
A Group D partic.i.p.ant was actually able to hold a place in the Top 14!
Many people were surprised. All of the Group C partic.i.p.ants had already been eliminated,
who would have thought that a Group D partic.i.p.ant would actually hold on!
Such a thing had never occurred before!
“Brother Su, even before the compet.i.tion is over, you are already famous in New Deer City, I never thought that with your fighting strength of 3000, you are able to fight all the way up to the top 14, it truly is surprising!”
Lu Zhan Yuan could not resist but compliment him.
“Three thousand fighting strength? If I had some powerful technique, maybe I would be able to obtain this ranking, but without it, it is definitely impossible to be where I am at now, Zhan Yuan, in truth, I am not just with 3000 fighting strength, my fighting strength is almost over 5200 already.” Su Yun replied indifferently.
“What?”
Lu Zhan Yuan was shocked.
“Fighting strength of 5000? Then aren’t you a third stage Spirit Master Cultivator?”
“Third stage? Not yet.”
Su Yun shook his head, he was currently at the first stage of the Spirit Master Realm and although he was about to step into the second stage, he was still far from the third stage. He was able to have such fighting strength because of his treasures, not because of mystical techniques. All of the fights he had encountered, all of the battles he fought, all of the life and death situations, naturally gave rise to a higher fighting strength, thus his proof of qualifications was able to reach such a number, and he was able to fight against third stage Spirit Master Cultivators.
Lu Zhan Yuan still thought that Su Yun was being modest and did not continue asking.
“Top 14! Thousands of geniuses, experts and elites hailing from all the different places, the 14 experts remaining will be the true focus of the compet.i.tion, who will undoubtedly become the peak existences standing at the top of the entire compet.i.tion!”
“But the compet.i.tion is not over yet and the geniuses themselves have yet to fight! We will soon be witnessing who the strongest person is out of the 14, so who will be the one taking the prize home? Everyone, hold back in your seats, as we will find it out soon enough!”
Zhu Wen shouted out loud, harmonizing with the atmosphere of the crowd.
The few later rounds were much more intense, causing the stage to be severely damaged, but the organisers had long prepared for it, they had a restoring array formation created by spending 500 thousand cultivation coins, it mimicked the restoring ability of humans and would restore the damaged area around it, thus the compet.i.tion grounds was recovered rather quickly and the compet.i.tion was able to continue.
Just then, Zhu Wen took out a cylinder strip from the spatial bag from his side, the cylinder strip was covered with engravings. He activated a bit of Profound Spirit Qi, causing the engravings to burn like firewood, releasing a faint light aura which quickly surged to the tip of the cylinder, which then shot up into the sky.
After a few seconds, the light aura in the sky exploded, producing many fireworks to appear. After the fireworks, a gigantic gold light screen appeared, the light screen revealed Su Yun and the other partic.i.p.ants names, which continued to churn about. After five breaths, four names appeared above the light screen.
“We will be conducting the compet.i.tion two rounds at a time from now on, the partic.i.p.ants for the next two rounds have been chosen! In the first match, we will have Mystical Master Jiang Qing Long against Unique Skills Yuan Chen, and in the second match, we will have Group B Partic.i.p.ant Chen Jia Liu up against Yu Shuang Auction house’s representative, Qin Si!”
With that said, the entire spectator stand all screamed with excitement again.
The door of the south pavilion opened up and a man dressed in brown robes with brown hair and eyes walked out. He had a cool expression, his eyes maintaining a ferocious glare and upon leaving the pavilion, he directly landed down on the stage. His bearing was unordinary and overbearing.
When Group B Partic.i.p.ant Chen Jia Liu saw him, his expression became ugly, he hesitated for a moment, then held his blade and rushed up the stage.
By the side of the main stage, another stage appeared, where Mystical Master Jiang Qing Long and Unique Skills Yuan Chen appeared and had their stances ready, prepared to fight at the moment’s notice.
Jiang Qing Long was a famous mystical technique expert from New Deer City. Wielding a powerful cultivation of the fourth stage of the Spirit Master Realm, he was not considered old with an age younger than 230 years old, he was not just an expert in name, as many people in the Ultimate Martial World would only have stepped into the Spirit Master Realm at his age, where many are unable to get to.
It was said that he trained in five different attributes of Profound Spirit Qi simultaneously and bitterly trained in a hundred powerful mystical techniques, a.s.sembling over 300 different fighting styles. He was a true grandmaster and expert that utilised a strange weapon, which was a long rod that was covered with talismans, his robes, hat, shoes and even waist were plastered with talismans, with an inexhaustible mystery to him.
Unique Skills Yuan Chen was no ordinary man either! His cultivation was not high at the second stage of the Spirit Master Realm, he had the lowest cultivation amongst the Group A partic.i.p.ants, but what other people were convinced of, were his killing techniques! He was unlike other Spirit Cultivators that fought mainly with Profound Spirit Qi, he truly relied on his own skills and his own flesh. He wore a set of gloves, which had broken through countless of his opponents weapons along with many bones.
It was the first time for many people to see who Qin Si, the representative of Yu Shuang Auction house was, as only Huo Quan Cai had revealed his face out of the four official representatives.
There was no suspense for the battle between Qin Si and Chen Jia Liu. To be the representative of the officials, how could he be weak? Most likely, even Chen Jia Liu himself had no confidence fighting against Qin Si.
As expected, in less than 10 breaths of time, Chen Jia Liu’s chest and ribs, even his Qi meridians were cut, causing him to fall into a coma directly and lost.
Qin Si won, and without even looking at Chen Jia Liu, he jumped up and headed back to his pavilion. He moved confidently and with ease, his actions extremely decisive! So much so, that the other people who saw him, felt annoyed by him, thinking that Qin Si was deliberately doing such things, while some people were attracted to his seemingly heroic actions. There were all sorts of praises and criticism from the spectators towards Qin Si.
The battle between Jiang Qing Long and Yuan Chen however, was not over.
They were both experts, one an expert through routine, another an expert in a myriad of techniques, neither one of them used much Profound Spirit Qi, instead, they used their own techniques, causing their battle to be extremely spectacular.
Jiang Qing Long danced with his long rod, and with a strike to the ground, ice formed and spread towards Yuan Chen.
Yuan Chen did not panic, he released power from this feet and jumped up into the air, flipping and looking down straight on the ground. He unleashed his fists continuously, releasing Profound Spirit Qi that struck the ice. What surprised everyone was that when he was. .h.i.tting the ground, he was still approaching Jiang Qing Long, he was actually using the Spirit Qi released from his fists to move.
“Annihilation of Heaven and Earth!”
Jiang Qing Long roared, his Profound Spirit Qi transformed into the Scarlet Star attribute, that instantly increased the temperature around him, as flames descended down on the stage like red clouds, which spreaded out.
Yuan Chen’s face changed upon seeing the flames, he bellowed out: “Probing Dragon Hands!”
With that, Yuan Chen’s hands suddenly extended out without limit, like a rubber band, it suddenly appeared in front of Jiang Qing Long, grabbing onto his shoulder, he pulled him down.
Jiang Qing Long was surprised, and immediately transformed his Spirit Qi into Swift Wind Spirit Qi with the intent to break the hand, but unexpectedly, Yuan Chen used his other hand to grab onto Jiang Qing Long’s rod. His hand that was on the rod was cut by Swift Wind Spirit Qi, resulting in him being bloodied, but he ignored it and held onto Jiang Qing Long tightly.
At that moment, Jiang Qing Long was already standing with Yuan Chen, if Jiang Qing Long unleashed his killing technique, the two of them would suffer.
Jiang Qing Long understood what Yuan Chen was trying to do and chided in his mind. But, he did not dare to stop his Annihilation of Heaven and Earth!
If he were to forcibly stop his technique, his spirit qi would become chaotic and surge in his qi channels, and he would only be injured from it, and would temporarily be unable to continue using his techniques. If he were to stop it, Yuan Chen would be able to unleash his attacks, and would ultimately win.
“You’re not stopping your technique?”
Seeing that the fiery clouds were flowing lower, Yuan Chen asked anxiously.
“If I do, I will lose, If I don’t, I have the chance to win!” Jiang Qing Long said coldly.
“But if you don’t, you and I might die!!” Yuan Chen gritted his teeth and said.
“Humph, so what? Isn’t common for partic.i.p.ants to die? Since there are already four people dead, it won’t be much adding two more to the list!”
With that said, Jiang Qing Long closed his eyes and started chanting, he instigated his Spirit Qi, causing the fiery clouds above them to swell up multiple times instantly! The temperature surged and the power of the technique increased!!
“Y-you lunatic!”
Yuan Chen’s eyes revealed fear, he looked at the fiery clouds that was still descending and started trembling.
Although he relied on his mystical techniques to fight on an equal standing with Yuan Chen, there was still a disparity of two stages in cultivation, adding how long they had cultivated or talent, Yuan Chen could not compare to Jiang Qing Long! Jiang Qing Long was a genius through and through, while Yuan Chen was just an ordinary Spirit Cultivator, but in terms of hard work, 10 Jiang Qing Longs were incomparable to Yuan Chen. Yuan Chen knew that his talent could not compare to other spirit cultivators, continuous hard work and training was unable to cover that gap.
~What benefits did cultivation give humans? Wasn’t it power?~
Thus, Yuan Chen started to train himself bitterly, cultivation brought strength, but strength did not bring cultivation, as his own techniques could be considered a different type of strength! Yuan Chen realized that point, and started on his own path of strength. Him to being on equal standings with Jiang Qing Long was not because Jiang Qing Long was too weak, but the rewards of him working hard for so many years.
It was just that in their current situation, there was one point that was unable to cover the disparity between the two.
That was the durability of his body.
How much power would be acc.u.mulated in a fourth stage Spirit Master Cultivator? The body was supported with Profound Spirit Qi, the defense provided by Spirit Qi was extremely strong, it was something that a second stage Spirit Master was unable to compare to.
That also meant that once the fiery clouds smashed down, maybe Jiang Qing Long would not die, but Yuan Chen, who was two cultivation stages lower, would instantly die from it. Even if he did not die, his injuries would be worse compared to Jiang Qing Long.
Just on this attack, Yuan Chen was destined to lose!
He gritted his teeth and finally made a decision, he loosened his hand and turned to run.
But the moment he let go, a hand suddenly held onto him.
Yuan Chen was startled, he turned to look, only to see that it was Jiang Qing Long holding onto him.
What did that mean?! Jiang Qing Long was not planning to let him go!
“….”
Bang!!!
An immense explosion sounded out, and a sea of flames enveloped the entire stage!