Dominating Sword Immortal (剑道独尊) by JianYou TaiXu (剑游太虚)

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Synopsis by xianxiaworld:
Dominating Sword Immortal is one of the top ten books in China. The main character Ye Chen, was a university student in the 21st century before dying in an explosion of a failed experiment. His soul wandered the universe before entering another world. A world of martial arts. There he fused his soul with another’s soul and body. Using the memories of his past life, he quickly integrated himself in his clan and was integral to its rise in power. Because of the fusion of his soul and the original soul of the vessel, his talent and potential in martial arts evolved into an unimaginable level that allowed him to comprehend martial arts at an inhumanly fast speed. Throughout the rise of Ye Chen, geniuses in the world of sword art revealed themselves one after another, what other kinds of storms and thunders will he bring upon this world?

Official Description:
On this land of real souls, with millions of different martial art institutions, there’re so many strong fighters just like the trees in the forests. Among all, a mediocre apprentice from one of the mediocre institutions suddenly became a martial art genius after a mysterious incident, not only has he got a photographic memory and keen perception but he also came to discover that his ability to comprehend martial arts is astronomically good, which eventually made him an almost godly existence. From the hot-blooded intense battles to the clashes between the top geniuses, Martial art is no longer limited to the mortal world, it reaches to a level that can do everything from controlling the oceans to flying up the sky and diving under the ground.

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Chapter 1 – Ye Chen

In a dim room, a teenage boy lay on a bed softly mumbling, “…so this poor fool is also named Ye Chen, we even look somewhat similar…what a coincidence... is this fate?”

Ye Chen was a graduate student studying physics in the 21st century. He was considered the top student in his class. However, during his attempt to create a particle accelerator for the university, an accident occured and an explosion happened, ripping Ye Chen’s soul from his body and sent it into the vast reaches of the Universe. His soul wandered the empty void until finally reaching this world.

If it was anyone else was facing this kind of sudden change, especially their soul entering into another, entirely different, body, they would most definitely have a rough time[1]. However Ye Chen did not even feel a thing, only surprise.

Ye Chen wondered if he was actually some kind of freak, he felt absolutely nothing after this kind of huge change. What if he could not feel anything?

After half a night, Ye Chen had digested more than a decade of memories. Through those memories, he learnt that he was a member of a famous family and that he had joined the Sky Cloud Martial School [2] at the age of twelve, and officially becoming an outer apprentice when he was fourteen was one of the few happy events in Ye Chen’s bitter life.

The most frustrating part is that, over the years, the previous owner of this body had only trained his Qi[2] to Qi Realm Level 4; other than that, none of his skills seemed to have had any improvement. He was only capable of performing the first three forms of the most basic “Sword Arts of Yun”.

“If I want to survive in this world...I will wash away this title of useless!” Ye Chen hated being considered a loser, even if the title was attached to the former owner of this vessel. Now that this body belonged to him, he was determined to get rid of that humiliating title.

After making up his mind, he can’t help but remembering the things that happened before he turned twelve.

The Sky Cloud Martial School, was located on the north side of the Heavenly Wind Country, is one of the five powerhouses in the country. They are three Martial Schools, one Academy, and one Martial Palace. Other than these five powerhouses, there were also eight families in control of thousands of martial artists in Heavenly Wind Country. Even the royal family fears themand dares not not to offend them.

And the family Ye Chen belongs to is the Ye family, one of the eight famous families.

The Ye family had over two hundred years of history. Originally they were merchants who had accumulated a massive fortune by selling tea leaves and silk. Unfortunately, their wealth eventually brought the worst kinds of people out, all interested in making an easy profit.

After being robbed and blackmailed countless times, the master of the family at that time decided enough was enough, and began to develop their martial art prowess using their immense financial strength. After struggling for hundreds of years, the Ye family finally achieved the position they hold today.

Being a part of the Ye family meant that people would bend over backwards to please you, no matter where you go. However Ye Chen had never experienced this kind of treatment, because of his lack of martial talent and in fact was bullied often.

The only factor that protected him from complete humilitation, was that his father was the current head of the Ye family, and his mother was also an elder of the School of Southern Hills– one of the three Martial School.

His most vivid memories were when his cousins would come over for family meetings. They would take him to a place where nobody would see and humiliate him. Even his maid, Daisy, would be despised by all other maids, and every time it happened she would run to him and start crying on his shoulders, complaining about the unfairness of the treatment they recieved.

“****, I won’t let them get away with this!” His eyes sparked with hatred as he firmly clenched his fists.

Feeling an unquenchable rage, Ye Chen vowed for revenge, especially now that he is the combination of the two Ye Chens. He has the memories and emotions from both of their lives, in other words, he is a combination of both Ye Chens.

And no matter which Ye Chen is humiliated, he shall take offense.

After a deep breath in order to control his emotions, Ye Chen carried on retrieving his memories…

The youths of the Ye family started training their Qi when they were ten. In order to be selected by one of the five Martial Arts Schools in Tian Feng and become an apprentice-in-process, you would have to reach Qi Realm Level 2 by the age of twelve. To become a senior apprentice, they would, at the minimum, have to reach Qi Realm Level 4.

Perhaps he was motivated by the pressure, or maybe he simply didn’t want to disappoint his parents, but Ye Chen somehow managed to reach Qi Realm Level 2 in two years, and Qi Realm Level 4 soon after that. He surprisingly did this before age twelve and became a senior apprentice in the Sky Cloud Martial School.

However his accomplishments were quite lacking compared everyone else from the Ye family: Ye Feng, the eldest cousin of Ye Chen and his third uncle’s son Ye Ming both reached Qi Realm Level 4 when they were twelve but the most impressive ones have to be the second eldest cousin, Ye Tang and fourth uncle’s daughter, Ye Xuan, both of whom reached Level 5 at the same age, they are considered to be rare martial arts geniuses.

Your talent and potential determined what rank of school you were able to join. The lower the rank the better quality of school.

Being the worst of all, Ye Chen joined the rank nine Sky Cloud Martial School. And Ye Feng and Ye Ming joined the rank eight School of Zi Yang; most impressively, Ye Tang joined the rank seven Northern Snow Villa; and Ye Xuan joined Emerald Valley, also rank seven.

“In one year will be the Triennial Family Meeting. I must do well. I can’t bear to bring shame to my mother again.” Ye Chen rolled out of the bed and, after quickly cleaning himself, he walked out to the yard with his sword in hand.

The Cloudfall Sword Art has nine stages, the first six don’t have names, but the last three are named “The Search for Opportunity”, “Walking on a River of Clouds”, “Shine in Darkness”.

Ye Chen shut his eyes, picturing the sword art in his mind, Ye Chen slowly extends his right arm into the air, began to practice Cloud Fall Sword Art from the first stage.

Ye Chen’s eyes glimmered as he recalled his previous body’s pitiful clumsy attempts. It was incomparably different! Compared to before, the sword moved like a fish darting in the water and yet his body was completely relaxed, almost like everything has already fallen into place and there is nothing more to worry about.

Swssh!

A falling leaf was cut in half in mid air, yet Ye Chen didn’t feel a thing, he just carried on waving his sword.

The first stage, the second, the third, … the seventh.

Gradually, Ye Chen’s sword skills pushed past his former limits. Even though he was comprehending new techniques, he fluidly moved at an extremely fast pace, but it also seemed like there was nothing restraining him in any way, the sword in his hand seemed to go wherever he wanted it to. Without stopping for a breath, he finally reached the seventh stage, “The Search for Opportunity”. All of a sudden a light glanced out from his sword, bouncing around erratically, easily cutting through a couple of falling leaves, even though they are spread out from each other.

Ye Chen opened his eyes and ceased moving as he observed the results in surprise. You must know that for a beginner of martial arts, even the most basic moves were very hard to master. It was not just about the extent of your potential but about your ability to adapt to new things. For example, when trying to learn how to swim, it seems to be very hard in the beginning because of the fear of drowning, but as you begin to acclimate yourself, your restrictions are removed and every move suddenly becomes simple.

As you can see, to become better is not hard, but to start from scratch? Incomparibly difficult.

Ye Chen took a deep breath and cleared his mind. Effortlessly, he began the movements of the Cloudfall Sword Arts, over and over again.

The first stage, the second, …, the seventh.

The first stage, the second, …, the seventh.

…

After repeating this ten times, Ye Chen was finally able to comprehend the eighth routine “Walking on a River of Clouds”.

The great steel sword in his hand gave off a blurry white sheen, just like the clouds in the sky suddenly running like water in a river, condensing then splitting, condensing then splitting, condesning then splitting…

As Ye Chen continued, the Qi inside of Ye Chen started to slowly increase its speed, just like the running river, continuously completing one loop after another, flowing up through his meridians before coming back to his lower abdomen then running right back out again.

Hm?

Suddenly, Ye Chen felt something change in his lower abdomen.

“I achieved Mid Level Fourth Qi Realm so easily?” Ye Chen knew that in order to reach Mid Fourth Qi Realm from Early Fourth Qi Realm, it would take at least a week, yet it only took him an hour.

It could never be that simple but there must be something else prompting this kind of growth.



[1] Normally when a soul enters into a completely different vessel, the vessel would have signs of rejection to the newly arrived soul which would make the soul feel tortured.

[2]Qi: is life-force -- that which animates the forms of the world. It is the vibratory nature of phenomena -- the flow and tremoring that is happening continuously at molecular, atomic and sub-atomic levels. In this book, it is mostly referred to the Qi inside of people’ bodies which is largely related to the practise of martial arts.

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Chapter 2 – The Pavilion of Martial Arts

However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not think of any other reason.
The only possible explanation for his unusual comprehension speed, that allowed him to master the eighth form of the Skyfall Sword Art, had to be the fusion of his two souls.

As his breakthrough in the Qi Realm, the reason was quite simple. The heart of martial art laid in the art of calmness, while martial art broken down was simply the art of movement. Although they are two seemingly opposite forms of training, they all have the same effect on strengthening the Qi. However the former was only used for training Qi while the latter was primarily used for attacking the target then subsequently training Qi.

Ye Chen’s heart rate rose noticeably as he was enlightened. There are two important factors of a martial artist’s potential: first, one must be blessed with a resilient body and discipline to hone their body, and second, one must have comprehension to allow one to be grasp the heart of sutras and immerse themselves into the path of the sword.

To be blessed with an resilient body allows one manage to train their Qi much faster than the others such as Ye Chang and Ye Xuan; and to have comprehension is to be able to easily pick up the physical martial arts and defeat those who seemingly stood above you. After all, being weak or strong depends on individual performances.

“What luck! At this rate, reaching the Eighth Level of the Qi Realm within a year is not impossible!” The path of cultivation is extremely difficult, people with great potential and ability may be able to achieve Level 5 in two years, but to reach Level 8 in two years after that is uncertain, and the time needed to reach Level 9 and 10 is at least twice that. To reach the Surreal Realm was even more difficult! In the history of the Ye family, only the third master was able to reach that realm.

Ye Chen smiled as he walked out to search for more profound sword arts in the martial art pavilion.

...

Most manuals in the pavilion were low ranked; the master ranked manuals would never be stored here. Especially with his ranking as an outer disciple, he was only able to borrow Middle-Ranked Mortal and below manuals. Glancing around the room, the hundreds of manuals made him feel a bit dizzy.

“The Flying Sword, The Sword Art of Wind, The Freedom Sword Art, The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords ... Cloud Pushing Palm, Broken Cloud Palm, Infinite Flying palms... Broken Air Fist, King Kong Fist, Seven Stars Mantis Fist...”

For sword arts alone, there were around forty different manuals, and for the palm and fist arts there were more than fifty manuals each, twenty-eight different kinds of different leg arts, and only eight manuals in regards to fingers.
The manual of The Flying Sword had a very high requirement, every stage described in the manual was very agile and complex; The Sword Art of Wind was slightly more in depth and required a certain level of comprehension; The Freedom Sword Art exuded an aura that was almost murderous, each stage was aggressive and bold, very suitable for those with a cold and calm personality. The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was even more outstanding and demanding than the ones before, with each stage, the sword movements grew sharper and indomitable.

“The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords it is.”

It was only after a quiet and long thought that Ye Chen had made up his mind. With his extraordinary comprehension, there was no point in wasting time to learn common sword arts. For Ye Chen to choose, only the best would suffice.

As for the fist palm, and finger arts, Ye Chen had already made up his mind.
Ye Chen chose the King Kong Fist for the time being he could not use a sword. However, finger art were very complicated and difficult to practice, and he was afraid that it would slow his way of the sword so he decided to give it up for now.

Holding the two scripts in his hand, Ye Chen walked up to the old man sitting lazily in a chair by the entrance, the pavilion master, to register the books.
“What? The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords?” The pavilion master started to frown and tried to persuade Ye Chen, “Young one, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Never aim too high or too far. Put your feet on the ground and take it step by step. The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords is a Middle-Ranked Mortal manual but the difficulty of mastering it is almost as hard as elder-ranked manuals. Many junior apprentice chose not to listen to me and ended up with nothing. Listen to this man’s old words and work steadily, one step at a time, in order to make solid progress.”

Ye Chen bowed his head as he listened to the speaker’s heart and said, “Master, my path is a difficult path, yet chosen and blessed by destiny I shall walk forth.” The pavilion master shook his head, thinking of all the disciples from before, also once full of confidence, before returning after months of unfruitful practice and with tearful faces. Such shame that their confidence was the only thing they had.

“Well...hmph...never mind. I do not have the right to stop anyone from choosing what they want. My job is to disperse wisdom in hopes that they would realize their abilities, instead of holding on to a fruitless dream.”
With that thought in mind, the master added, “Remember our Sky Cloud Martial School’s rules. You are not allowed to teach martial arts privately without permission, otherwise you will face expulsion. In more serious circumstance, you will be decapitated. You have three months to return the manuals.”

“Don’t worry elder, I don’t dare to joke about my own life.” Ye Chen took the scripts and walked out of the pavilion. Beside the morning and evening meals, once every three days the outer apprentices of the Sky Cloud School gathered together for a martial art lesson, the rest of the time was free for whatever they chose to pursue.

Ye Chen carried his great steel sword and walked deep into the mountain. The mountain had a height of three thousands eight hundred meters, the top half of the mountain covered in a perpetual mist. Far away from the secular world and civilization, it was quiet, calm and relaxing. Except for the expressed forbidden areas belonging to the masters and some core disciples, most of the space in this forest was open to all for practicing.

Ye Chen spent around an hour in the mountain before choosing a remote cliff. The cliff was around two to three meters high, the three sides filled with white mist whose form was ever changing, sometimes it was thousands of horses, sometimes it became a violent ocean, and sometimes it was just mist, expanding and contracting with no discernable pattern.

“Although the many wondrous views of Earth were quite breathtaking, it somehow just lacks a hint of mysteriousness. Only here will you be able forget everything, find peace, find enlightenment, and advance on the path of the sword,” Ye Chen said. In his opinion, to master overnight was difficult! To do so you would have to endure the loneliness and find peace, and those of who boasted about how they would master any top script, if they could get their hands on it, were just ridiculously ignorant.
Taking a deep breath, Ye Chen started his boring and basic training.

Feel the Qi. Breathe. In. Out. Breath. Breath. Move the Qi. One step after another, continually directing the sword, moving his hands...

After only a day, Ye Chen comprehended the ninth routine “Shining in The Night”. Smoothly moving from stance to stance, the light flashing from the sword was just like the light reflected off a river under the moonlight. As for its combat prowess, it had reached the early stages of Middle-Ranked Mortal arts and was Ye Chen’s strongest move at the moment.

Mornings came, nights left, without noticing, three days had gone.
On that steep cliff, a human figure waved a sword and pointed towards the huge rock on the other side.

A light shone from a sword just like a mirror reflecting sunbeams.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...

The huge rock was pierced like a piece of tofu leaving behind countless marks; each mark had a depth of more than three centimeters.
“Finally.” Out of Qi, Ye Chen’s head was full of sweat, but he did not seem to care at all. The sword marks on the rock caused him great satisfaction. The ninth stage was many times harder than the eight stage before, but its power was also many times stronger. He spent four whole days to master it, also, during the four days of training, the Qi inside his body had become more pure and intense, and moved faster and more easily than before.

Ye Chen let out a deep breath. Today will officially be the day he would start to practice the hardest manual– the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords. It had thirteen stages, each were extremely dangerous, just like a peak standing alone after an apocalypse, seemingly able to see right through people’s soul and mind.

After going through the script, Ye Chen understood the broad idea of the manual, and even sensed an indescribable realm behind it. Once he would be able to almost master it, killing those weaker than him would only take an instant, and when facing those who are stronger than him, they will fall under his sword, unless they were very strong and half a foot into the surreal realm.

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Chapter 3 – The Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords

Three months passed by quickly.

The ocean beyond the cliff roared, the clouds overhead flowed on ever changing. Upon that cliff, a teenage boy was wearing a training robe and holding a great steel sword. He jumped up and down and moved forward and back, making his sword shine with light that danced and weaved.

Perhaps it was just an illusion, perhaps it was the environment, but the scene of the young man waving his sword gave one the sense that he was standing there all by himself like a lone peak, looking down over the mountains of the world, everything miniscule in comparison. Even though he was there right in front of you, but it felt like he was far far away on that lone peak, a kind of unpredictable sense of distance that would make one feel like they were helplessly lost in the world.

One by one, he moved from stance to stance, starting from the first stage and advancing to the twelfth stage. After moving through the twelve stages, the young man’s gaze became sharp, cutting right through the air. He jumped high up into the air and dove down like he was jumping off a peak. Snap! A small spark appeared . The next second, half of the rock was scored with a horrifying three-centimeter-deep sword mark. It was clean and neat, yet aggressive and cold-blooded.

Returning his sword back to its scabbard, the young man mumbled to himself: “No wonder the pavilion master wanted me to choose another sword art, it turns out that this Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was not just some simple Middle-Ranked Mortal manual. It actually contains profound truths, making its actual rank much higher than what the manual had been listed at. Only these truths were not explained in the manual”

This young man was Ye Chen. Over the past three months, he had already finished his training of the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, due to his extremely strong comprehension. However, he recently realized that there was still something missing. Ye Chen concluded that the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was incomplete, and that the complete manual had been lost and had its rank drop to the Middle-Ranked Mortal level.

Fortunately, it was Ye Chen who was training in it. After spending some effort studying it, not only had he managed to reach the Conscious Stage, which was not explained in the manual, but his Qi had also been improved. The Conscious Stage was a stage of realization. Imagine a pianist playing a piece of music that she had played many times before, however, instead of just reading the notes and playing as written, she played the piece in a completely different manner, yet still using the same melody and rhythm! The pianist had comprehended the emotion and feeling that caused the composer to write the song. The heart! This was the Conscious Stage of the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, the true heart and intent. Indomitable and lonely. He believed it would not take long before he would be able to recreate and master his own Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords.

From his training the past three months, the Qi inside of Ye Chen had reached the beginning of Qi Realm Level 6.

“It’s time! I should go and return the script now.” Remembering the rules of the School of Yun, Ye Chen did not want to waste a second, he immediately started to head back.

On the way back, his ears twitched as he heard grunting from a distance. Even though it was at least five hundred meters away, he still could hear it very clearly, as if the sounds had been pressed together and all occurred at the same time.

“What a loud noise! The body to produce this kind of sound must be wondrous indeed! And from what it sounds like, it seems to be a woman...” Unable to quench his curiosity, Ye Chen carefully approached.

After crossing a few thorny bushes, he arrived at the back of a huge rock.

He stuck his head out and he saw a small forest and a wood cabin with a small pond beside it. Four lotus leaves drifted peacefully in the pond causing the whole place to have a poetic feel.

At the edge of the forest, there was a teenage girl who looked to be about sixteen years old. Wearing white training gear, she was practicing a fist arts which caused her to continuously grunt with a loud sound that could frighten one’s soul.

She was a petite skinny girl that looked so weak that she might be blown away by the wind. But each punch and kick of hers gave off such a terrifying aura that one would think it would be able to rip through anything.

“It’s senior sister Xu Jing...so this must be a forbidden area?”

After seeing her, Ye Chen realized something.

The master of the School of Yun, and each of the elders, had their own mountains for practicing, and if the others wanted to train their martial arts, they would have to find a different place. However, although the Mountain of Wind was huge, the best training locations were scarce. So usually, the elders and the core apprentices would get to pick the good places first and mark them as their own territories. If anyone tried to break in, it was viewed as incredible disrespect, and they would be definitely yelled at or even badly punished if it was a serious situation.

This sister Xu he was looking at was one of the core apprentices in the School of Yun, ranked at 23. She had reached Mid-Surreal Realm, and was extremely talented.

Xu Jing continued taking steps. Between the movements of her fists and legs, she pressed her tongue on the back of her teeth, gathered the Qi inside of her body together in her lower abdomen and grunted repeatedly, all of which increased the power of her fist art.

After a few round of punches, her power seemed to have reached its peak. All of the sudden, she jumped up in the air, her fists moved fast like lightning, murderous, like a tiger attacking its prey. The next second, she threw a punch right on a massive branch of a big tree.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Something unexpected happened... Out of nowhere, there was a gold light shooting right out of Xu Jing’s fists that was so bright it could almost blind anyone who looked at it. Soon, the bright gold light turns into something solid and caused the big tree, and the directly adjacent trees, to explode without any visible effort… its powerfulness was frightening.

Ye Chen squeezes his eyes. It must’ve been done by pushing her Qi out!

When a Qi Realm trainer was able to convert the Qi in their body into Real Qi, it meant that he (or she) had officially reached the Surreal Realm. Not only was the power of their attack largely increased, but Qi was actually pushed out of the body and attack people through the air.

“Still not going to come out?” Xu Jing has already noticed Ye Chen’s arrival a while before. And now, she stares sharply in the direction of his location.

Ye Chen swallowed and revealed himself as requested.

“You are a outer apprentice.” Xu Jing says.

“Yes.”

“Why are you spying on me practicing my fist art?”

“I’ve heard your voice from far away, and came to have a look out of curiosity.”

Xu Jing studies Ye Chen carefully, his confident attitude makes her curious, if it was any other apprentice, they would normally already be stuttering speechlessly in front of her, but he spoke with logic, in a calm and confident manner. She couldn’t find any deceit in his bearing, thus she bore him no ill.

Not planning on giving him any trouble, Xu Jing calmly said, “Please leave now, and don’t return unless given I give you permission.”

“Okay.”

Leaving the place, Ye Chen let out a breath.

When facing Xu Jing, he had felt an immense pressure, one that he hadn’t felt from other, higher ranked core apprentices. It seemed that there would be some changes in the ranks of core apprentices soon.

Ye Chen chuckled.

If it was before, I would probably have had a hard time putting a sentence together in front of her. It must be due to my increased soul power that I can stand in front of her so calmly.

But the most memorable part of encountering Xu Jing had to be her personality. She was so cold and unfriendly and yet had such fierce and powerful martial arts, that she was very easy to remember.

Ye Chen arrived at the Pavilion of Martial Arts.

The pavilion master looked up from his desk and recognized Ye Chen instantly, he spoke up, “How was it?... you failed to master that Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, right? It’s not too late for you to choose another sword art.”

Ye Chen smiles, “there’s no need, I came to return the script.”

“Okay, just sign here.”

After signing, Ye Chen turned to leave.

Looking at him, the pavilion master asked curiously: “Only two months to go, then it will be the challenge of Mu Ren Gang, you sure you are not going to trying something else?”

Mu Ren Gang is a traditional challenge held once every six months in the School of Yun, the contestants are mostly outer apprentices. If you do well, it means your combat skill is very high; and if you failed, then you will know your skills are are lacking. In his memories, he saw his previous self taking the challenge almost half a year ago, he had vomited blood after taking a three breath long of beating, which turned him into a huge joke among the entire school.

“I imagine the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords should be of a high enough level for me to pass that.” Ye Chen thinks that if he can train his Qi to the late stage of Qi Realm Level 6 in just two months, even if he doesn’t make it into the top ten, his rank should still be fairly good, but it is a fact that he hasn’t been in an actual combat yet, so he’s still not too sure about his combat skills.

The pavilion master nodded subconsciously, then he looked up with full of surprise, “you mean you’ve mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords? How is that even possible?”

“More or less, I guess.” Ye Chen replies.

I wonder what he would think if he knew that I have not only mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords but also realized its mental realm and achieved a higher level of Qi Realm.

Ye Chen did not want to reveal too much so he walked out of the pavilion.

After he left, the pavilion master couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He knew that the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was not a complete art, it was created by the third master of the School of Yun, its rank was truly at the top of the mortal class. But, because of some unknown reasons, the real script was lost, leaving only this unfinished script.

Despite all this, the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords itself is still very hard to master, since its basics still belong to the top mortal class, which is impossible for a outer apprentice to understand.


“The outer apprentices nowadays are way too full of themselves.” The pavilion master shakes his head. It is obvious that he didn’t believe what Ye Chen said at all.



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Chapter 4 – The First Fight

Back in his courtyard, Ye Chen was sitting silently. Seemingly lost, he pondered on Xu Jing’s fist art as he began to try the King Kong Fist.

He threw punches slowly and quickly, before stopping as he realized something was not quite right.

If I am correct, Xu Jing was training the ‘Monster Executing Fist’, a top mortal class martial art of unlimited power. And although the King Kong Fist is not as good as the Monster Executing Fist, it should be based on the same principle. However Xu Jing’s fist seems so much more powerful and frightening compared to my fist, what did I do wrong?

Standing silently in the middle of the yard, with his eyebrows twisted together, Ye Chen couldn’t stop thinking about Xu Jing practicing her fist skills, again and again.

Right! Xu Jing’s grunting was heard more than five hundred meters away, such a noise must come from her strengthened body. While I have strong comprehension, my physical body still is too weak to master that powerful fist skill.

After realizing the key to the problem, Ye Chen sighed. He was not afraid of not being able to master it, he was afraid of not knowing why he could not master it.

The first thing he needed to do was to practice his horse stance, a strong punch can only be performed when you have a firm base, otherwise you might lose your life when you go head on with the enemy.

The horse stance required that you place your feet a little wider than your shoulder and take a half squat. Because the posture looked like riding a horse and was stable as a stilt in the ground, it was called the horse stance. A strong horse stance could strengthen your kidneys, your back, and your muscles which in turn would improve your Qi. A stable lower body provided an unwavering balance, plus improved reflexes as well. A firm horse stance was one of the basics that everyone must learn before learning martial arts. It was like the saying: “You would never reach your destination without learning how to walk first”. To copy the moves from the manual without actually training your whole body to endure the gravity and pressure would just end up being a bunch of fancy moves with no real power behind it.

With both his legs spread wide and bent at a ninety degree angle, Ye Chen looked straight ahead as he breathed in and breathed out while throwing punches at a controlled rapid pace.

Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! ...

His punches were like bullets, fiercely stirring up the air around them. After about fifteen minutes of punching, he focused on his tensed lower abdomen for another fifteen minutes.

Then, in the evening, he repeated it all over again, but this time his speed was slowly increasing as he tried to have a break his previous pace each time he threw a punch.

After another two weeks had passed, Ye Chen was longer seen practicing throwing punches, instead he started to practice the low horse stance. He would stand there still in his low horse stance position quietly for half an hour at a time.

Soon, he realized it was way too easy, so he tightened his hands into fists facing forward, then with straight elbows and he placed them as parallel as he could to the ground as much as he could while doing the horse stance, with his back relaxed and his chest forward he began to lower his upper body as far as he could without falling over. After every hour, he would tense his lower abdomen and swing his upper body the other direction for another fifteen minutes.

After a whole month of training, Ye Chen’s body had changed noticeably, he could almost lift half a ton and run so fast that it looked like he was flying. Also, his Qi could be seen emanating around the back of his body, full of energy. And the most noticeable change was the increase of his appetite, during each meal he could eat three huge bowls of rice plus a whole barbequed chicken and still he sleep like a baby. By the end of the month, his Qi could even float around his whole body freely without any restrains, it was almost like he had endless energy to spend.

But the most important thing of all was that Ye Chen finally managed to reach the state of heart and palm unity so he could keep himself at his peak the whole time during his fight with others. The heart and palm unity was a state was simply the state where a martial artist was able to accurately move his arms and legs in a fluid manner effortlessly and without much thought.

Today, after practicing his horse stance, Ye Chen frowned and said, “My body strength did improve, but the strength is still not enough, Sister Xu Jing’s power is at least a few times stronger than mine, especially when practicing the Fist of Monster Killer! She’s so powerful, so strong, almost invincible …”

Looking around the yard, his eyes suddenly lit up when he saw the huge hundred-pound rock in the corner.

Without a doubt, lifting could increase one’s upper body strength, but could easily injure one’s muscles and tendons, therefore was not very wise to do so. However, running while carrying such a weight was a completely different case, with the constant changing of the center of gravity and the shifting pressure, one could train every bone and muscle of one’s body and endurance.

Without hesitation, Ye Chen ran to the corner, using both of his arms, he lifted the huge rock then turned around and started running out of the yard.

The windy mountain had ten hills and encompassed an area of ten miles. Besides the tops of the mountains which were covered by different buildings, the rest were rarely visited by anyone. But at the bottom of the mountain, there were many apprentices from the Sky Cloud School guarding the entrance, not allowing anyone from the outside to enter.

On the path of the mountain, there was a human figure lifting a rock above his head and running so fast it looked almost as if he was flying. And if you paid attention, you would notice that there were no Qi fluctuations which signified he did not even use his Qi at all, it was completely due to his true body strength.

“Look, isn’t that Ye Chen?”

“Yah! What’s the heck is he doing instead of practicing?”

The Sky Cloud School had three thousand prospective apprentices, and five hundred outer disciples, most of whom did not like to just stay in their own yard, they liked to come out here in the middle of nowhere and practice their own martial arts just like Ye Chen, and sometimes some of them would come out here with training buddies and maybe have friendly matches with each other.

Ye Chen kept focusing on the road, he didn’t care about their discussions.

But sometimes you couldn’t avoid trouble even if you wanted to.

Out of nowhere, another figure suddenly jumped out and landed in front of Ye Chen, cutting his way. It was a fourteen-year-old bulky-looking teenage boy.

Ye Chen stopped, “Wang Gang, what can I do for you?”

The bulky teenager was called Wang Gang, just like Ye Chen, he was also a outer apprentice. However, his skills were considerably higher than Ye Chen, and had already reached Early Qi Realm Level 7. He was known for his mastery of different martial arts and his extremely strong body strength. The two of them had a conflict before, in which Ye Chen was beaten up by him and had laid in bed for half a month.

Wang Gang laughed at him, “You can’t just practice like a mad person to be gain strength, it will never work. Just like last time, I could beat you into a dead dog using only a third of my strength.”

Ye Chen sneered. I wasn’t planning this, but since he came directly in front of me, obviously I will not just let him go like this. Half a year ago, I said one thing accidentally, and the next second I was being punched, and had ended up with two broken ribs. Luckily my family is rich and had many different medicines for wounds so that I could heal in less than a month.

“Is that right? So how do you think I should practice then?” Ye Chen dropped the huge rock.

“Cut the crap, let me teach you how!” Wang Gang suddenly leaned forward and after few steps, he appeared right in front of Ye Chen. Wang Gang threw out a huge palm, which suddenly swelled two times larger than a normal palm, and chopped down like a iron plate, you could clearly hear the loud sound of it cutting through the air.

Looking at the opponent’s huge palm coming at him, Ye Chen stood still, he lifted his left hand like he was holding a ball and met it head on.

Suddenly, it sounded like a rock had just hit a piece of wood. Ye Chen was still standing there without having moved an inch, while Wang Gang’s lower body began to wobble, full of weaknesses.
“How could this even be possible? His Qi skill was clearly below me, how could he take my Breaking Stone Palm and be completely fine? I’ll be damned…”

Wang Gang immediately realized something was not right and ignoring all the weaknesses in his stance, he turned his right fist into a palm and chopped straight towards Ye Chen.

He didn’t expect that Ye Chen had already saw it coming and retaliated with a awfully strong fist right on the chest before he could even make his second attack.

“King Kong Fist, fifth movement: King Kong Smash!”

Snap! Wang Gang was punched into the air while vomiting blood, his body rolled a couple of times until it finally stopped moving. He looked like he had just lost all his power, he couldn’t even push himself up.

Everyone was shocked. They couldn’t handle the fact that Wang Gang, who had always been famous for his powerful strength had just lost to a head on collision with Ye Chen, and was wounded badly just like a dead dog…

Only Ye Chen knew what had actually happened. While Wang Gang’s strength and Qi skill were both higher than his, but because Wang Gang had never paid attention to his martial arts skills he had many gaping flaws and weakness in his stances. That Breaking Stone Palm was definitely powerful but Ye Chen had chosen not to contest head on with him. Ye Chen had actually used two moves! He began with a slight pushed Wang Gang’s palm first so it lost some power and before he drew his fist back and then using all his strength to push it which made his opponent’s lower body started to wobble. All of this happened so fast that it created this whole “head-on” illusion.


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Chapter 5 – Teenage Sword Artist



“Senior Wang Gang. It seems like your training method is too weak. Please excuse me.” Lifting up his huge rock again, Ye Chen continued running.

After Ye Chen left, the crowd got louder.

“Unbelievable! Ye Chen won against Senior Wang Gang! Was that the King Kong Fist he was using?

“King Kong Fist and Breaking Stone Palm are both Middle Ranked Mortal martial arts, so it should not have had such a disparity. And Wang Gang’s level is definitely higher than Ye Chen! What happened?”

“It’s very simple,” a seemingly-very-calm teenager said, “Ye Chen’s King Kong Fist has already reached the Gentle Stage! His punches was strong and powerful yet still full of gentleness.”

Someone questioned how would he know about that.

The teenager smiled, “Teacher once said, powerful but gentle should be the goal for every power-based martial arts. When Ye Chen held Wang Gang’s punch, it seemed so domineering and easy, but it had actually used the gentle method of receiving the enemy attack and rebounding the power with Ye Chen’s own attack. Of course, I only realized it after a careful observation.”

The path in the mountain was steep and rugged, full of shark rocks and large boulders making the path very hard to transverse.

With a shaking sweaty body, Ye Chen had just ran more than ten miles around the hills before he stopped in front of a wide river.

Boom!

He threw the rock on the ground, then he took off his outer clothes and jumped in the deep, deep river. All of sudden you could see a figure under the water throwing out punches one after another in a quick manner that disturbed the river’s flow.

Practicing under the water was hundred times harder than on the ground, the extreme pressure from the depth and speed of the rushing water would squeeze one’s body from each direction and caused many people to be frightened for their lives.

Pushing his Qi into his dantian, Ye Chen firmly stood at the bottom of the river which was full of little rocks and mud as he casually threw a punch. With all the running water around him, the power of his punch could only reach about thirty percent from usual.

However, this was exactly what Ye Chen wanted, otherwise there’s no point in training under the water anymore.

The river suddenly became cloudy, and the flow of the river began to change and spin like a hurricane. It was almost like as if there was a large monster hiding in the deep, shifting its weight in preparation for the right moment to snake its head out.

In this extreme condition, Ye Chen could feel every bone and every muscles in his body shaking and fighting against the sudden turbulence as he finally managed as he dug his feet into the river bed to find his balance in the high pressure and turbulence.

Losing track of time, Ye Chen ran out of his breath and finally came out of the water.

Gasp! Gasp!

Ye Chen breathed in heavily, he laughed: “Training under the river is so efficient! I wonder how many people know about this method?”

…

The Town of Windy Paths was about ten miles from the Windy Mountain.

On the second floor of the Lucky Coin Restaurant …

A man was seen stuffing his mouth, grabbing meat slabs with one hand and a bowl of water in the other. Ye Chen slobbered as he tried to sate his starving stomach, going crazy on this big table of delicious dishes, leaving nothing behind.

In the previous life, he would come here once every couple of days because as an outer apprentice in the Sky Cloud Martial School, his meal was cooked and served in a huge pot which was like eating gruel, guaranteeing nutrition and nothing more. The good thing was even though the Town of Windy Paths was not large but full of delicious cuisines.

Plus, Ye Chen also enjoyed listening to the gossip outside the mountains which broadened his scope of the world, preparing him for the future when he leaves the Sky Cloud Martial School .

Nearby, there were a couple of martial artists sitting close to Ye Chen, each of them carried a sword or a blade.

“Have you guys heard about it? Wu Wanshan the Swiftblade lost to a teenage blade artist!”

“Yah, I heard about that, I think that teenager was called Lin Qi or something like that, he is one of the three famous disciples from Northern Snow Academy…His blade is extremely fast and sharp and beat Wu Wanshan in ten moves…”

“No way! Are you joking? Swiftblade has reached the Early Clasping Yuan Realm, extremely powerful! How could he lose to that kid?”

“Bro, you are totally out of it, everyone’s talking about that fight, how could it be fake? But, now you mentioned it, it is quite scary that Lin Qi who only has reached the Late Condensing Reality Realm was able to defeat Wu Wanshan… I wonder what would happen if he fought against a core apprentice from the Sky Cloud Martial School?”

Ye Chen’s eyes slightly widened as he tried to recall the memories of Wu Wanshan and Lin Qi…

Wu Wanshan didn’t belong to any of the martial school or academies, around thirty years old, self-invented his extremely swift blade art that could slice a drop of water into five parts in one second, once killed more than forty skilled horse thieves all by himself, could cut a bridge in half at a distance. His reputation of being one of the fastest blade artist!

Lin Qi, one of the three core apprentices in the Northern Snow Academy, started to train his Qi since the age nine and reached the Condensing Reality Realm at thirteen, Mid Condensing Reality Realm at fifteen, and the peak of Late Condensing Reality Realm at seventeen. With his excellent talent in blade art, his fighting skill could was said to almost equal with the top apprentice of Northern Snow Academy – Child North Snow.

Both of them were way too strong for the Ye Chen now, but incomparable to Senior Xu Jing. Once he overheard the teacher said that Xu Jing’s skills had already reached beyond some of the Inner Court Masters, her genius martial in martial arts was unparalleled. She was one of the most rare geniuses in the history of Yun.

How long will it be until I reach this level? Ye Chen didn’t doubt his potential at all because his only disadvantage was that he crossed over so late.

Suddenly, one of the guy said, “Who do you guys think has the most potential among the younger generation of Sky Cloud Martial School, compared to with the other top apprentices from the other four schools?”

“Without a doubt, Fragrant Plum Sword’ – the top apprentice of the School of Yun is definitely on the same level of Childe North Snow…As for the rest, I personally think the rank 4 core apprentice Jing Jue could potentially make it; he’s cold, emotionless, and very experienced.”

“Jing Jue is great, but personally I think the rank 3 core apprentice Yao Xiaofeng is quite impressive as well, he can always defeat people who are way stronger than him, very smart.”

The guy who started this conversation laughed, “All you talked about were the top five core apprentices, if it was before I would probably think the same, but this time I am really excited about core apprentice rank 23 – Xu Jing.”

“How so?” The others wondered, as well as Ye Chen, he didn’t expect them to mention sister Xu Jing.

“Three days ago, I saw her fight against the famous thief ‘Iron Destroyer’…”

He hadn’t even finished, the crowd started yammering, “‘Iron Destroyer’ Li Tong is definitely a character! Fraudulent, crafty, and brutal! He has been wanted for more than half a year now, but is still out there safe and sound. I heard that he learned his special Iron Destroyer art from the Rudra1 Nation and could crumble rocks and break iron, this Xu Jing girl you mentioned shouldn’t be able to compete with this, right?”

“Wrong! Especially in that fight, Xu Jing completely beat Li Tong not leaving him even a chance to fight back. In the end, Li Tong’s arms were broken completely, and he vomited too much blood and died.”
“What? Li Tong has the top skills of Late Condensing Reality Realm and couldn’t even fight back?!”

“It’s not that shocking if you were there to see what happened. You would know how strong and powerful Xu Jing’s punches actually were. Compared to her, Li Tong seemed weak.”

Ye Chen smiled, he was quite familiar with Xu Jing’s power. Normally, in power-type martial arts, there were three stages, the first stage was the Gentle Stage, the stage where each movement began to turn from harsh and forceful into a strong flowing gentle movement. The second stage was the Opposite Stage, this was the stage where each movement embodied both the elements of hard and soft into strong and gentle movements. The highest stage was the Unity Stage, where one can no longer distinguish in a movement hard or soft, strong or gentle from one another. Xu Jing had already trained her Monster Executing Fist to the second stage! Although he had only trained for a short time but he had also managed to reached the Opposite Stage in his King Kong fist which he showcased against Wang Gang.

Obviously, the three stages were not that easy to comprehend. For people who did not have much talent, it could take years even decades and still fail to first stage. For example, that Wang Gang had not even completely understood the movements in Breaking Stone Palm, not to even mention the Gentle Stage…


[1] Rudra: A Rigvedic deity associated with storms and wind. Shares many traits with the Hindu deity Shiva.


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Chapter 6 – Silent Hills


In a blink of an eye, another month or so had passed by and the Mu Ren Gang challenge was less than a week away.

During this period of time, Ye Chen split his time between his horse stance practice every morning and night, building his physical fitness, and martial art training.

At this point of time, Ye Chen could already lift a three-hundred-pound huge rock over his head with only one hand; and with both hands, he could easily hold thousands of pounds over his head.

Besides all the noticeable improvements in his body, Ye Chen was finally powerful enough to use sword arts more freely and easily in regards of his speed and control. His power had reached a new level, he could slice seven falling leaves, cut through a huge thick tree, and leave four inch gashes on a huge rock, all in just one single move.

It’s time to move on to battle skills. Ye Chen realized he already reached his peak, and improvement limited if he kept training. Instead of wasting his time and energy, he might as well try to gain some experience fighting and new techniques so that he could reach his full potential.

However, real battle skills were hard to obtain. Ye Chen was still just a outer disciple who could not go out into the world to risk life and death in battles; even if Ye Chen were on the same realm as an inner disciple, he would still lose after two or three moves. That was the difference between having a life and death experience or not.

Thankfully he did not have to fight with an actual person to experience life and death. There were many demonic beasts in this world for that matter. A demonic beasts could actively or passively train themselves, when the richness of the Demonic Beast Qi inside their body reached a certain level, they would go through a mutation and evolve into the next level.

Since thousands of years ago, the ancient people classified the Demonic Beasts in different ranks. Rank 1 and 2 were comparable to the Mortal Realm; Rank 3 and Rank 4 were comparable to the Condensing Reality Realm; Rank 5 and Rank 6 comparable to Clasping Yuan Realm; the Demonic Beasts of Rank 6 and higher were extremely rare, only would appear in those deep ancient forests up high in the mountains.

Fighting against a Demonic Beast was not as easy as people would expect, in the contrary, Demonic Beasts are more powerful than human beings. A monster that had hunted countless animals and humans suddenly appeared in front of you, with one look, it would scare and affect you so you could reach only five percent of your actual ability.

With that in mind, Ye Chen decided to go train in the Silent Hills area because there were always some low level demonic beasts around.

Putting his great steel sword down, Ye Chen straightened his clothes and walked out of the yard.
Walking down the mountain, he saw a lot of inner and outer apprentices going up and down the path and thought no matter who you are, if you want to live a good life, you would have to have money. The Ye family that he belonged to had a massive fortune, so in theory he was not poor, but sadly that was not the truth. The Ye family had a population of around a thousand people, six or seven hundred of which were businessmen helping the family business, the rest of the four or five hundred people put all their effort into practicing martial arts. However, if you wanted to protect your own property, you would have to hire protection which cost a great amount of money, so even his father, the leader of the Ye family, had only fifty thousand silvers in his personal asset, and as the son of the leader, Ye Chen was given an allowance of one hundred silver per month.

One hundred silvers per month couldn’t do much, only enough to eat well and dress decently. He couldn’t afford to use expensive medical supplements for the training of his body that the core disciples of the family or the school were able to afford.

He climbed down to the bottom of the mountain and after finding the right direction, he sped up.

Around noontime Ye Chen arrived at the entrance of Silent Hills where he started to sight some Rank 1 Demonic Beasts. Normally a Mortal Realm warrior would never dare to come to this kind of dangerous place. Even Ye Chen was quite cautious about his surroundings and kept his hands on his sword at all time, ready to react to any commotion.

Silently stalking forward, the strongest demonic beast Ye Chen had seen was a wounded Rank 2 Scarlet Fire Bird. However, Ye Chen lamented his misfortune that he was unable to hunt flying beasts.

After walking for a while and killed three weak Rank 1 demonic beasts, Ye Chen suddenly stopped and moved all his Qi to his ears to enhance his hearing.

There is a fight over there!

The biggest difference between a normal person and a martial artist was the ability to use Qi. A normal person could have amazing senses but after a point will hit a limit. But a martial artist could manipulate their Qi to enhance their senses. Ye Chen, by using his Qi, could faintly hear clashes of a fight about a mile away and knew exactly which direction the sound was coming from.

Following the sound, Ye Chen rushed there quietly. Pushing back branches, Ye Chen found a forest scene with a human figures and a huge growling demonic beast.

When he was thirty steps away from the battlefield, Ye Chen jumped up onto a big tree to watch the fight from above.

In the woods, there was an emptied grassy field about fifteen meters long. And in that field, there were five teenagers holding weapons in their hands surrounding a huge demonic beast. Its body was about three meters long and looked like a tiger with black shiny hair, panting as its long bloody tongue dripped with purple liquid, its mouth was filled with huge sharp teeth and its claws were sharp and angled, measured about a meter long.

It was a Late Stage Rank 2 Poison Saw-Toothed Tiger, its power was equivalent to a Mortal Realm Rank 10 martial artist. Its teeth carried a deadly poison that, once beaten, would cause your skin would to fester and only cured by the single antidote, otherwise once the poison spread to your heart, even a Condensing Reality Realm martial artist would lose their life.

Ye Chen noticed that the group of teenagers all had a golden loop symbol on their sleeves, identifying them as disciples of a low ranking institution.

The Hall of Golden Light was an institution was also a rank 9 school like the Sky Cloud Martial School. The leader of the hall, Li Yi was a Middle Ranked Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist who specialized in using the Deadly Golden Loop weaponry. According to the rumors, he used to be an outer disciple of the Sky Cloud Martial School, before he leaving to travel to many other countries outside of his native Heavenly Wind Country. Upon returning, he founded the Hall of Golden Light which currently had about five hundred disciples.

The five people attacking the monster were quite lacking, but had great teamwork, a result of spending a lot of time together in many different situations.

A teenaged girl in red, holding a skinny sword of the Mortal Realm Stage Level 5 landed several sword attacks on the beast. By her side, there were twin boys with blades who were very bulky and powerful looking. They continuously shouted and ran around the demonic beast in attempt to focus the attacks on themselves.

Although these three people worked very hard, their attacks were not as effective as the other two in their party.

One of them was an extremely fit young man in black, holding a dangerous looking halberd, the “Verdant Dragon Halberd”. The two-meter-long weapon seemed very heavy. Every time the poisonous saw tooth tiger was attack the others, it would be beaten back by him and left with a bloody wound.

But the one Ye Chen noticed the most was the teenager in blue, he was about eighteen years old, only had a flute around his waist. Weaponless, his attack were actually the most powerful, every causal punch of his would conjure up a sharp black storm which forced the monster to back down.

If Ye Chen was right, the teenager in blue was a Mortal Realm Rank 9 martial artist, and was able to mix his Qi into the air around his palm and forcefully attack people without them noticing. Of course, the power of that attack could not compare to actually pushing Qi outside the body. Otherwise, the demonic beast would be dead already.

The badly wounded monster in front of them was already exhausted, after the poisonous smoke that it futilely blew out was pushed away by black storm from the punch of the teenager in blue, the monster turned around and tried to escape.
“Not a chance!” The teenager in blue moved fast like lightning, without restraint, and hit the side of the monster extremely hard.

Boom!

After one last growl, the monster was thrown like an old cotton bag by that punch. The beast cried pitifully before it died from all of its organs were exploded.

“Very impressive Brother Liu.” the girl in red swiped the sweat off and turned to look at the young man in blue with envy.

The teenager in blue said calmly: “This is not that impressive. In a couple of years you will match this power easily.”

The teenager in black holding the verdant dragon halberd said: “Heh years? I am at the Late Stage Mortal Realm Rank 7, it would only take a couple of months to catch up to you.”

“Mmm.” The man in blue nodded as he didn’t really mind.

The girl in red made a displeased face, as she heard the arrogant statement of the teenager in black.


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Chapter 7 – The Poisonous Saw Tooth Tiger


The twin brothers suddenly laughed brightly as they harvested the demonic beast, “This time we got really lucky! This demonic beast condensed a poisonous pearl core!”

“A poisonous pearl core?” The blue robed young man and black clothed man seemed surprised.

The twin brothers calmly nodded, “Yes, it is. It seems to have been formed only a couple of months ago judging that it is no larger than a walnut.”

A Rank 2 demonic beast could sell for about a thousand silvers. After dividing it five ways, everyone would receive two hundred silvers. However, a pearl core from the demonic beast’s body could sell for one thousand silvers by itself. And even though it was only formed months ago, a pearl the size of a walnut could sell for at least two thousand silvers. This was because the poisonous pearl core came from the Demonic Beast’s dantian which could be used as a medicinal ingredients or used during for training one’s poison arts. What is a pearl core? It was simply the condensation of the demonic beast’s life energy compressing over the ages and richness of Qi in its dantian. The result was a pearl that formed from layer upon layer of energy slowly wrapping the pearl core to become larger and larger.

The red clothed girl stared with big eyes as she reached out to touch that incredible rare black pearl core with her hand before the blue robed young man stopped her immediately, “Little Sister Tao, don’t touch it! Poisonous pearl cores are condensed from the poison from the demonic beasts over many years. It is extremely toxic, it can even melt through iron not to mention what would it do if you touch it!”

“Hmph!” The young girl stuck her tongue out.

The blue robed teenager took out a jade box from his pocket and said: “A wooden box and an iron box would not be able to contain this pearl core, only a jade box could safely seal in the poison.” The boy began to accumulate Qi in his left hand before gently pushing the Qi out to lift the poisonous pearl up in the air without actually touching it, carefully putting it into the jade box.

By the dead beast, the twin brothers had already began to cut away parts of the demonic beast’s body parts before storing it into a golden silky leather bag.

After everything was done, the elder twin brother frowned: “Elder brother Liu, we spent so much effort to kill this one demonic beast. Back in the cave we saw at least three demonic beasts, one of which was extremely massive.”

The red clothed girl suggested: “Perhaps we would go back and ask for help.”

“What if other people get there first?” The elder twin frowned.

The teenager in black rolled his eyes, “How is that even possible? The Silent Hills are at least a thousand miles long, and with its complex lay out, it’s incredibly rare to find another group.”

The blue robed young man shook his head, “Didn’t you guys notice? The Poison Heart Plant is about to ripen.”

“Hmm? What does that mean?” The red clothed girl was not following.

The young man in black looked a little bit distracted and also a little bit embarrassed as he said: “Once the plant is ready, those poisonous demonic beasts would come out to eat it.”

The blue robed young man made up his mind, as he said in a low voice: “We can handle normal Poisonous Sawed-Tooth beasts, but that extremely large one is definitely out of our league so let’s give it up! Otherwise there is a huge chance that we would all die.”

Everyone fell silent reflecting on those words, it was definitely not worth to lose their life over this.

“How about I tag along?”A bright voice rang out in their direction.

“Who are you?!” The teenager in black spun around brandishing his Verdant Green Halberd posed to attack.

Ye Chen walked to them very slowly “Calm down, calm down. I’m not here to steal anything. I was just walking past when I saw you guys.”

The man in black sneered, “Just walking past? Lies! You heard our conversation!”

“Be calm.” The blue robed young man gave him an annoyed look as he took a step forward, blocking the three men behind him. He asked: “Who are you, good sir? It seems like we haven’t met.”

Ye Chen shrugged, “Ye Chen. Outer Disciple of the Sky Cloud Martial School. I was out hunting when I heard your fight so I came to have a look. I mean no harm.”

“I see.” The blue robed young man did not doubt Ye Chen. The demonic beast was quite strong, so it was quite probable for others to hear. Plus, Ye Chen belonged to the Sky Cloud Martial School, a higher ranked school than the Hall of Golden Light and it was not appropriate to offend him needlessly.

The young man in black observed Ye Chen carefully, he sarcastically replied, “Did you say you have only reached Mortal Realm Rank 6? How can a weakling help us with anything?”

Ye Chen glanced at him, then said to the blue robed teenager: “If my guess is right, that large demonic beast should be roughly equivalent to an Early Condensing Reality Realm martial artist which could be very hard to deal with, but I have a plan to seal its movements.”

“Oh? What’s that?” The red clothed girl seemed be interested.

Ye Chen knew that he would not be able convince them if he did not prove at least some of his ability, so he unsheathed his great steel sword. Seeing him reaching for his sword, they all narrowed their eyes as they tightened their grips on their weapons in case he suddenly decided to attack them. Who could tell one’s intention when faced with a poisonous pearl worth at least two thousand silvers.

Ye Chen took a deep breath as he turned around to face a large tree, before suddenly stabbing his sword towards the tree.

Piu!

The tree’s trunk was easily the width of two grown men, but it easily became a piece of soft tofu after being stabbed through without any restraint.

The blue robed young man looked surprised, he said quietly, “Sword Light Coagulation! He can condense the sword light into a single point, what skill!”

A very small percent of Mortal Realm martial artist were able to comprehend the mysteries of the sword and form sword light. To be in the Mortal Realm and comprehend Sword Light Coagulation was unheard of! The blue robed young man shook his head in defeat as he witnessed Ye Chen achieve Coagulation, he couldn’t help but admire him. Definitely a Sky Cloud Disciple, no doubt about it he thought.

Ye Chen turned around and said: “Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tigers are quite dangerous to kill due their extremely swift movements paired with their high defense. But if we could break through their armor and cripple one of its legs, then we can take it down.”

The competitive young man in black sneered: “Hah, words are cheap. You think demonic beasts are trees? They won’t wait for you there to slowly cut off their legs”

Ye Chen grinned, as he once again waved his sword a couple of times.

Shing!

The sword was back in its scabbard.

When the teenager in black was just about to sneer again, a couple of leaves drifting above Ye Chen’s head suddenly split in half, then again into four pieces, each with smooth edges!

Everyone gasped, being able to do this without even looking was extremely high skill, even the masters in the Hall of Golden Light couldn’t do it.

The blue robed young man took a deep breath, he smiled, “I am Liu Tao, an outer disciple in the Hall of Golden Light. This fellow in black here is Wang Haichuan. And these two twins are Yang Wen and Yang Wu. And this is junior sister Tao Qing.” Liu Tao pointed at the four people as he introduced them, finally confident of Ye Chen’s abilities.

Ye Chen replied submissively, “Nice to meet you guys.”

Tao Jing chuckled: “Are all the outer disciples in the Sky Cloud Martial School this strong?”

Wang Haichuan replied quietly, “Preposterous...”

…

In the forest, a slope could be seen by itself, it was about ten meters high and more than a mile in length.

“Brother Ye, about a hundred steps further and you will see the cave. If nothing has changed, there should be two Poisonous Sawed-Tooth Tigers guarding out front and the huge one would be inside.”

Those five people had all trained their movement skills extensively and could walk without any sounds at all, like a group of ghosts.
Ye Chen nodded as he whispered: “Brother Liu, do you have a plan on how to draw one out?”

Liu Tao smiled, “Those Poisonous Sawed-Tooth Tigers love to eat poisonous plants. I have five harvested poisonous scorpion plants, and although they are not as exquisite as the Poison Heart Plant, it should work. In fact that’s how we lured the previous beast out before.”

Shortly after, the group could see the dark cave and the two demonic beasts about ten meters away. They all sucked in their breath and held it for a moment at the sight.

With everyone nervously staring, Liu Tao took out a long jade box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was full of purple plants that had nine leaves each that smelled somewhat fishy. It was the poisonous scorpion plants!

Holding them in his hand, Liu Tao explained: “This poisonous scorpion plant smell spreads very quickly. Once a demonic beast catches a whiff of it, we will have to immediately depart, otherwise we risk being swarmed by other demonic beasts.”

As Liu Tao was talking, the demonic beast near them suddenly raised its head, flaring its nostril.

“Its coming!” Tao Qing eyes gleamed in excitement as his body tensed for action.

It was almost as if they were playing a game, when the demonic beast took ten steps forward, they took thirty steps back; then the demonic beast walked forward thirty steps, they backed out another hundred steps.

…

Hey editor here! Thanks for giving this novel a try. TL and I hope that you will stick with us over the next few months as we begin to get this novel translated. If you have any issues or would like to ask us something, just write us below.


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 8 – The Spider King Plant


Looking at the two Poison Sawed Tooth Tiger’s corpses on the ground, Liu Tao took a deep breath, “One last demonic beast to go, hopefully everything will go well.”

Ye Chen relaxedly replied, “No worries, everything will be alright.”

In the battles before, the red clothed girl Tao Qing did not contribute much because Ye Chen was just way dominating with his sword. With overeager face, she asked, “What kind of sword arts are you training in and how did you train your sword arts? Could you perhaps teach me?”

Liu Tao frowned because of his junior sister Tao’s forthrightness, and said immediately: “Don’t be ridiculous Sister Tao, how could sword arts be taught?” In the various kingdoms, manuals and skills were very strictly regulated, even teachers would not teach everything to the apprentices, not to mention two strangers who just met.

However, they did not expect Ye Chen’s answer. “Actually, there really isn’t much to teach. If you practice the basic sword movements a hundred times a day, you will see the same improvements I had in a month.”

“Really?” Tao Qing didn’t believe him.

Ye Chen gave her a smile, did not explain.

In the cave, that Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tiger was shockingly huge, even the size of its head was as big as a water tank. Its huge bright eyes locked onto the intruders with a bloody murderous intent.

“Begin!” The blue robed Liu Tao ran in, throwing four palm movements towards the monster. Palm lights as bright as the snow quickly followed. These beams of force light convulsed midair as they poured irresistibly out like the ocean water and landed on the beast’s body. The monster grunted with pain from Liu Tao’s attack. The beast snorted in anger at being forced to retreat, as it suddenly belched out of its mouth a large cloud of purple poisonous smoke sparking with flames.

Liu Tao eyes widened as he was caught off guard, he immediately accumulated all the Qi in his body into his hands. Slowly, a black screen of light condensed in front of his hands. The purple poisonous smoke roiled and exploded once it came into contact the black light. Liu Tao grunted as he was pushed back by the concussive force of the explosion, his hands started to numb. Seeing this, the rest of the group stood stock still frightened before turning to run out as quickly as they could.

At that moment, Ye Chen jumped out. His great steel sword already in mid swing towards the monster’s still open mouth. The tip of his sword slowly cutting open the monster’s head as easy as cutting a piece of tofu.

The monster never expected such a sharp sword, as it suddenly realized the danger, it tried to retreat quickly but was too late. Its head tilted, it stopped breathing and died.

“It died?” When Liu Tao saw Ye Chen didn’t follow the plan of stopping its movement by attacking its leg, he thought Ye Chen must have forgotten about it. But he truly did not expect with just one sword movement of Ye Chen would have slain the monster. How ridiculous was Ye Chen!

Shook the liquid off the sword, Ye Chen slowly sheathed his sword and said: “Thank you. When the monster ejected that poisonous cloud, it delayed for a second, and in addition, it had had huge inherent flaw. In its mouth, there is a place the size of a cup lid which connects directly to the brain that is easily pierced.”

The rest of the group had already came back after seeing the death of the giant demonic beast. The twin brother Ye Wu was impressed, “That really is quite amazing that you could find the deadly flaw after killing just two poisonous saw tooth monsters.”

Ye Chen replied, “A swordsman must be able to find the flaw.”

“Haha… well, it doesn’t matter, we have killed all of the poisonous saw tooth tigers now.” Tao Qing chuckled.

After harvesting the demonic beast, they began to explore the cave. The cave itself was not that deep, only measuring about thirty meters. With a torch in his hand, Liu Tao gasped at what he saw, “it is not Poison Heart Plant, it is a Spider King Plant!”

“What? The Spider King plant? Brother Liu, are you sure about this?” Yang Wen turned in surprise.

Liu Tao confirmed: “The Poison Heart plant is supposed to be a deep purple color like an orchid. But the Spider King plant is black, the tip of each leaves like a leg of a poisonous spider. I am sure!”

After hearing Liu Tao, even Ye Chen who was usually quite calm couldn’t help his heartbeat quicken. Although the Poison Heart plant was very valuable and was quite helpful for some poison artists with their trainings as a rare medicinal ingredient, it could only be sold for about two to three thousand silvers. In comparison, the Spider King plant was much more rare, mere Mortal Realm practitioners like them would not usually be able to see such a plant. Not only was it a crucial ingredient to many miracle medicines or extremely beneficial to poison art training. But most importantly, there was a poison art movement called “Thousand Spiders Palm” which required the Spider King plant in order to master it. If any poison artists knew they had it, they wouldn’t hesitate to hand over at least ten thousand silvers, and of course, they were more likely to kill for it.

Tao Qing said: “Brother Liu, here is too dark, I cannot see anything.”

“Right, let’s go outside.”

Liu Tao carefully dug out the Spider King plant and walked out of the cave.

In the brighter environment, the group finally saw the Spider King plant for the first time.

The plant was about seven inches tall, with seven leaves in total, its stalk was ink black and faintly reflected the light. On the tip of the plant, there was something looked like a black spider sitting in wait there. If you just took a glance at it, you would not be able to tell if it was alive or not.
“This is the Spider King? It’s so creepy!” The twin brothers commented.

Liu Tao seemed to remember something, “When I joined the Hall of Golden Light, I was lucky to witness that the eldest master receive a Spider King Plant just like this one, I never expected that I would hold one myself one day.”

Wang Haichuan stared at the plant and licked his lips, said: “One Spider King plant could sell for at least ten thousand silvers, split between the six of us is one thousand six hundred and sixty-six silvers each which is more than half of my yearly income.”

The statement shook Liu Tao out of his reverie as he turned and said to Ye Chen: “Brother Ye, we are in different martial schools and may be quite difficult to contact you not to mention it would take a while to sell the materials from the poisonous saw tooth tiger and the plant, how about I just give you your share of the money now?”

Ye Chen was actually not interested in the Spider King plant and readily agreed with Liu Tao’s idea.

“Great, those two normal poisonous saw tooth tigers are valued about two thousand silvers, that huge one would value one thousand and five hundred silvers, plus another ten thousand silvers for the Spider King plant, equals thirteen thousand five hundred silvers, after splitting between the six of us would be two thousand two hundred and fifty silvers which is two hundred and twenty five gold. Here is an one hundred gold note and a ten gold note for you. Brother Wang, Brother Yang and Sister Yao, you guys get the rest of the money for Brother Ye now.”

The rest of the group spent a lot of effort but they were still short of fifty gold, they had to use some of the body parts from the monsters instead.

Putting away all the money and the materials, Ye Chen suddenly heard something, whispered: “We have companies.”

Liu Tao put away the jade box which contained the Spider King plant, he yelled: “I am Liu Tao, apprentice of the Hall of Golden Light, reveal yourselves please.”

“Haha, the Hall of Golden Light, that the small infamous institution?” There were noises coming from the bushes, a bunch of muscular men came out of the forest, the leader looked very ugly with a small half of his scalp missing, extremely horrifying.

“Bullshit!” Wang Haichuan was mad.

The ugly man suddenly looked even more scary, full of murderous vibe.

Liu Tao knew they didn’t come in peace, they were probably a group of wanted criminals, his face didn’t look so good at this moment, “How could we help you?”

“Haha, we are a bit tight with money lately, it would be nice if you guys would show us some respect, if you know what I mean.”

Liu Tao frowned, “we don’t have much money on us, but we could give you the demonic beast body, which should be worth few thousand silvers!” He couldn’t be sure about their cultivation levels, but if he was right, they would be at least Mortal Realm Rank 10. If they were to fight, besides him, no one will survive, not even Ye Chen.

The ugly man was furious, “Are you deaf or blind? Do we look like beggars? A few thousand silvers!? Leave the Spider King plant and get out of here now before I change my mind! Oh right, and that little girl too, I need something to relieve my anger.”

The men started laugh.

Yao Qing looked pale, her teeth were biting the lower lips.

Liu Tao tried to retrain his anger: “Good sir, you must be joking, right?”

“Good Sir? Do I look like I am joking? I am counting to ten, if you don’t do what I ask, don’t blame me for what happens next.” The ugly man grabbed the sword on his back.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 9 – Fighting Back


Wang Haichuan was furious, his face immediately reddened: “Cut the bullshit out! If you want to fight, then let’s fight!”

The ugly man sneered: “It is not like I hate you guys, but if I decide to fight, none of you will be able leave with your lives. Of course, I will give you time to change your mind…ten, nine…”

Liu Tao stopped smiling, his voice sounded emotionless and cold: “Sir…are you really going to do this?”

“Five, four….” The ugly man didn’t reply, instead he looked at the group as if they were already corpses.

Ye Chen and Liu Tao shared a look, they understood what they had to do.

“Three! **** it, kill them!” He hadn’t even finished his sentence before the ugly scarred man had already took out his huge blade and jumped towards the group.

The group was startled as their expectation was that the enemy would count to one then attack. But that was exactly the bandit’s underhanded trick that worked every time because people were always caught off guard by it. The scarred man, the evil leader of the bandits was called Maq Wu, a wanted criminal from another city. He used to be a guard in a small family and he had fallen for the beauty of his young female master. One night, instead of doing his job and keeping her safe, he raped and killed her.

The group was badly startled from the surprise attack and only Ye Chen was prepared. It was nothing to do with experiences, because he didn’t have any. It was only because he sensed Maq Wu’s intentions through the bandit’s small shift in position in preparation to spring while counting.

Accumulating all his Qi to its maximum, Ye Chen tilted his body, holding his sword in both hands, he began to trace the eighth movement of Sky Fall Sword Art “Walking On A River of Clouds”.

Maq Wu was surprised and a little bit unprepared for any kind of reaction, he definitely did not expect that this group of youngsters would be resist him at all.

Suddenly, sparks lit up as bright as the fire from the collision. Ye Chen’s great steel sword slightly shifted and slid pass Maq Wu’s sword.

Ting! Shiiing!

With a burst of the sparks, Maq Wu’s waist was scratched with a sword cut, a little bit of blood slowly leaked out from the shallow cut.

Everyone who witnessed this just could not believe their own eyes: A Mortal Realm Rank 6 warrior had wounded a Mortal Realm Rank 10 warrior with just one movement. It was just impossible.

No one would know that Ye Chen himself was actually a little bit disappointed.

If Maq Wu didn’t react as fast as he did, my movement would definitely have injured him badly; or, if his cultivation was not as high as it was, his sword would not be resist my attack, and the sword mark would be at least one-inch-deep according to its effect when you had master the movement of Sky Fall. But still, I guess it’s pretty good that you don’t need to have a higher cultivation to be able to defeat your opponent.

“It was right not to underestimate a Mortal Realm Rank 10 martial artist…” Ye Chen whispered to himself. Seeing his first attack failed to create a huge impact, Ye Chen delivered his second attack – the ninth movement of Skyfall “Shining in the Dark”.

All of the sudden, a sword light as dark as a river at night speckled with light like the moon reflecting off the river started to pour out from the sword, it seemed like the surrounding air had turned into a tangible liquid, like a river rushing under a dark sky that was too deep to tell.

“Damn, this brat is actually quite skilled!”

Maq Wu had a horrible look on his face. His sword raised like it was about to slice the sky, the sword flashed as it sliced towards the center of Ye Chen’s sword light like a lighting. Maq Wu wanted to destroy Ye Chen’s sword light momentum, otherwise he knew he would be in trouble.

Swish!

His attack was energetic and powerful but surprisingly failed to hit its target. Maq Wu was shocked, his sword cut through the sword light but was as useless as trying to stop a river’s flow with a sword slash. Maq Wu immediately jumped back, hurriedly retreating from his opponent.

Ye Chen eyes flash as he expected Maq Wu’s retreat and pushed his legs as he ran after Maq Wu. Ye Chen’s sword flashed as he changed his sword movement, it bounced back before his chest before rising up into the air then flowing down from above like an indomitable mountain. It was the powerful Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords!

Maq Wu’s eyes flashed with murderous intent, he brandished his left hand full of Qi in attempts to push back Ye Chen’s fatal attack, he yelled: “Damn brat, go to hell!”

Boom!

A Mortal Realm Rank 10 warrior was not so easy to kill. A strong wind exploded from the bandit’s hand like a hurricane, blowing away Ye Chen’s body.

Ye Chen’s body flew through the air before lightly landed like nothing happened, as if his body was as light as a feather. Ye Chen crinkled his brow as he lifted his sword in movement that released an attack with a horrifying momentum like a huge mountain just broke down.

Chop!

The tip of Ye Chen’s sword went through Maq Wu’s neck and came out from the back of his scalp. It all just happened so quickly and smoothly.

A martial artist who had almost reached the Condensing Reality Realm was killed by one simple sword movement, as easy as having tea and eating lunch. Ye Chen grinned as he finally understood his own power level and fighting skills and best of all, he realized just exactly how powerful the Lone Peak of Thirteen Mountains was.

Pulling the sword out and shaking off the blood on it, Ye Chen tried not to think about the fact that he just killed a person. He looked around and found the two groups were already fighting against each other: Eight burly men were attacking Liu Tao and the group in a circle. The sounds of weapons colliding against each other were continuous and seemingly endless.

“Piss off!”, said Liu Tao who had the highest power level among the group. He threw a couple of punches that rolled in a row and four burly men were blown away.

However, one of them had only been pushed back three steps, and even though the clothing over his chests were all ripped apart, but he wasn’t hurt at all.

Seeing that, Liu Tao’s pupil narrowed, “...Armor Guard Arts!”

The guy had a square face and a huge mouth. Standing at two meters tall, his back was always hunched. His massive chest muscles were like two high mountains raised up from the ground and strong like iron. It also seemed to flash a vague dark navy color, no where close to a normal human body.

“Haha, I specialize in the Iron Shirt martial arts. Years and years of rubbing and soaking in medicinal alcohol everyday caused my skin and bones to be as tough as bronze and iron. As long as I still have my Qi, I am invincible!”

“Die!”

It was from Wang Haichuan. He waved his Verdant Dragon Halberd around in a circle to force back those people who were attacking him. Then, he turned his body the other way and stabbed his sword towards the opponent.

The giant man dared not to risk his life, he knew no matter how well he mastered the Iron Shirt, his body would never become as strong as actual iron. Even if he could protect himself from normal blunt blows, but he would suffer injuries and die from any sharp weaponry. And with Wang Haichuan’s powerful sword movements and his die-hard attitude, his sword could cut through even an iron armor.

With his hands put together, the giant man caught the Verdant Dragon Halberd at once and would not let it move an inch.

Liu Tao saw the open opportunity and jumped behind the giant man, his palm gently pressed against his back.

Thud!

A sound that was like an iron hammer hitting a piece of thin leather rung out and you could see there were drops of blood leaking out the corner of the giant man’s mouth. And if you look closer there was also a slight bloody bruise on his chest.

In that moment, two ferocious men jumped forward and attacked Liu Tao.

Liu Tao saw them coming but he realized that he was stuck in a powerless situation. Although his attack wounded that giant man, he couldn’t move his arms to defend himself because they had gone numb from the rebounding force from his attack.

Seeing his friend in need, Wang Haichuan felt powerless as he was being crazily attacked by the men whom he had wounded before. He was forced to retreat step by step, barely dodging their attack.

Only Yao Qing and the twin brothers seemed to do be fine as they only had one opponent each.

Liu Tao eyes dimmed as he thought his death had arrived when a bright dazzling sword light suddenly appeared. It twisted twice in the air, and suddenly two head fell on the floor as blood started pouring out from their neck. Then, their bodies fell back and hit the ground.

After his successful attack, Ye Chen didn’t stop at all. Using Skyfall movement “The Search for Opportunity”, he stabbed another man in the chest which saved Wang Haichuan from his predicament.

“Thanks!”, gratefully said Liu Tao who felt like he had escaped from hell’s gate. His face still looked a little bit pale from before.

Ye Chen nodded, “It can wait. Let’s kill them all first.”

Actually, after Maq Wu’s death, the men’s fate had already been decided, it was just a matter of time.

Shortly after, other than the man with the Iron Shirt art, the rest were all dead; And on Ye Chen’s side, besides Liu Tao and himself, the rest were all wounded more or less.

“Where do you think you are going?” Wang Haichuan sensed that the giant man planned to escape, with a sharp sound, he threw out his two-meter Verdant Dragon Halberd at him.

Swoosh!

The giant, experienced man tilted his body and avoided the halberd by inches.

However, he couldn’t run away from his fate even if he tried. Ye Chen waved his sword smoothly, and with one sword move, the Iron Shirt defense gave way. The sword slid easily into the chest of the giant man and back out leaving a giant bloody hole.


...

Hi guys! Hopefully you guys liked our tsunami of releases yesterday! Sadly, Sheryl is moving soon and will not be able to sustain that amount of releases and we will be returning to our one chapter/day schedule.


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 10 – Body Refining Ointment


The crisis was finally finished. Liu Tao and the rest of the group let out a large sigh and finally relaxed from all the tension. Slowly they began to pale as they were aghast when they realized Ye Chen just killed a Mortal Realm Rank 10 warrior and an martial artist trained in Iron Shirt Armor Guard all by himself. They finally realized just how strong that man really was, even the No.1 outer disciple in the Hall of Golden Light could replicate such feats; even those who had been just promoted to inner disciples probably could not do it, and even if they managed to do it, it would have been impossible to be uninjured after fighting such opposition. But Ye Chen, an outer disciple, had just done all that.

“Brother Ye, I have never truly admired anyone before, but today, I admire you!” Liu Tao said seriously.

Ye Chen wordlessly smiled.

The random encounter with bandits had brought them an extra income of about three thousand silvers. Divided evenly, everyone received about five hundred silvers which slightly compensated those life-threatening fights.

“Well I guess this is where I part ways.” With more than enough silvers, Ye Chen didn’t want to continue with adventuring with a large group and decided to go to the Silent Hills by himself to practice his battle skills.

Liu Tao said: “Alright, we also plan to head to our hall. Take care of yourself.”

They were all about to leave, Tao Qing just could not help herself anymore and said: “Ye Chen! Remember to visit us!”

Ye Chen nodded, “If I have time, I shall see.”

Soon, the group disappeared in Ye Chen’s sight. Ye Chen thought, I have only been adventuring for so long yet I had already gained two thousand seven hundred silvers. With this amount, I can afford to buy some expensive medicine to condition my body. Sadly I will have to pass on being able to buy those essence stones for training Qi which cost about ten thousand silvers each, I could not even afford half of a stone…

Despite all that, what surprised Ye Chen the most was that it was actually his first time killing someone, but he actually did not feel much reaction to it… Maybe it was something to do with the previous owner or our fused soul power?

Shaking his head, Ye Chen really could not figure it out.

The Silent Hills covered about a thousand miles in which lived countless demonic beasts. As far as Ye Chen knew, in the outer range of about hundred miles, only rank 1 and rank 2 beasts were found, the chance of encountering a rank 3 beast were really low. That relatively bigger poisonous saw tooth tiger was actually not a true rank 3 monster, it could only be counted as a rank 2 demonic beast that was half a step into rank 3. However, past the outer range, was the inner range of about 200 to 500 miles which was labeled as the danger zone, demonic beasts rank 3 to rank 5 could appear any time, and with Ye Chen’s current power level, anyone of those beasts would kill him instantly.

Beyond 500 miles was the forbidden zone. About ten years ago, a large group of masters were sent to retrieve some rare valuable medicines. Unfortunately within the forbidden zone, they had encountered the rank 7 beast – Ghost Faced Bull, and among the hundreds of people had been gathered, only one person had escaped and made it out, but sadly he too died a few days afterwards. His death was because there was too much residue energy from the demonic beast left in his body and caused him to go crazy which killed him eventually. After that incident, no one dared to even step foot in it.

Over next ten miles, Ye Chen killed three beasts, two rank 1 beast and one rank 2 beast. After gathering the valuable parts of the demonic beasts , Ye Chen stopped venturing deeper into the woods and started to walk parallel to the border of the danger zone so that he would not have to face any demonic beast above Rank 2.

…

Time went by quickly. On the third day, carried a huge leather bag, Ye Chen headed back to the Windy Town.

The Panacea Pavilion was the only drug store in Windy Town, it was neither big nor fancy, but wealth wise, they were definitely number one.

Because, in this world, the richest people were warriors who spent most of their money without abandon on medicine or elixirs for training. For them, money meant nothing to them, they could always make more, but the opportunity to improve their cultivation was extremely rare.

Soon after walking into the Panacea Pavilion, Ye Chen began to frown.

The store was crowded with people, most of them were warriors loaded with gear and well dressed young masters from rich families. But there were about one or two people that Ye Chen could not see their cultivation which signified that they should be at least at the Condensing Reality Realm.

He walked up and put a huge bag of beast parts onto the counter.

“Hey, I am selling demonic beast parts.”

The shopkeeper was an elder wearing a black robe trimmed in gold. With a calm and kindly countenance, he walked up to Ye Chen and opened the leather bag. As he was counting the parts, he calculated the prices as well, “Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tiger parts valued five hundred and twenty silvers, Bald Tail Wolf parts valued eighty-five silvers, Mad Bull parts valued three hundred and eighty silvers, … in total it was one thousand six hundred and fifty silvers.”

Ye Chen said, “Please have changed them all into golden notes.” The so-called golden notes were exactly like the silver, it could be taken into bank and changed into gold or it could be used directly as a currency. The lowest note was valued at five silvers, and the highest was ten thousand silvers, the service fee were three percent of the whole amount, which means if you put one hundred silvers into the bank, you could only take out ninety-seven silvers.

The banks that issued the currency also guaranteed to never go bankrupt making their notes worth the amount printed on it. There was a saying saying, ‘Even if the Windy Nation was destroyed one day, the Heaven Bank would still stand there in the ruins’ in response to the reliability of the golden note. Heaven Bank was a super bank that spanned ten nations, it had countless powerful parties secretly protecting it which included the nation itself.

Asking the workers to put away the beast parts, the shopkeeper opened the safe and took out a couple of golden notes, and laid them all out neatly on the counter.

“Here is one hundred and sixty-five gold, please verify the total.”

Ye Chen took a glance and nodded. Then his focus shifted and landed on the product shelf next to him.

Working in the sales industry, required great observation skills of potential buyers, the elder smiled and said: “Young warrior, is there anything else I may assist you in?”

Ye Chen replied: “I need something to boost my body strength, could you please give me some recommendations?”

“No need, let me get you a list of body boosting medicine that summarizes the effect of each medicine and the price each one.”

“Sure.”

The shopkeeper handed over the list then went back to his business, leaving Ye Chen with one very thick piece of paper in his hand.


Bone Boosting Pellet
Blood Patterned Tiger and snake’s pure blood
Five thousand silver per pellet.

Bull Beast Power Boosting Pellet
Mad Bull’s blood and Training Yuan plants
Three thousand and five hundred silver per pellet.

Flying Swallow Pellet
Flying Swallow liver and three different herbs
Two thousand silver per pellet.


…

After reading for a long time, Ye Chen shook his head. These body boosting medicine are way too expensive, they cost least two to three thousand silvers. Counting everything I own, I could only afford one bone boosting pellet, which only lasts three days which is not ideal for use in a long period training.

With all those thoughts in his mind, Ye Chen started to envy those rich young masters from large families. They received the best training from the time they were born and ate expensive cultivation medicine like candy. After few years of this, the money spent on them could probably fill up a house, of course they will have rapid improvements! Of course with all those medicine, you could probably become a normal master at a martial school, but it would be extremely difficult to reach those higher levels.

Ye Chen kept reading, when he almost reached the bottom of the list, suddenly, his eyes were lit up. Yes, there it is!

Body Boosting Ointment
Three Suns plant, cow oil, iron wood juice and six other ingredients
One hundred silver per bottle.

This is it! Let out a breath, Ye Chen lift up his head and called out to the staff member that was walking past, “Could you give me thirty bottles of Body Boosting Ointment?”

“Yes, sir! Coming right up.”

Thirty bottles of the Body Boosting Ointment filled up a wooden box, Ye Chen paid for it and carried it out of the Panacea Pavilion.


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 11 – The Number One Outer Disciple


Whoosh… whoosh…whoosh…

In a little square courtyard, a human figure was seen practicing fist arts on a wooden post while seated in a horse stance. A wind was forcefully brought out by the powerful punches, blowing the dust around like a little tornado.

“Hea!”

After one movement, the punches suddenly got stronger. Two punches in a row had landed on the huge waist-sized post before a sudden sound. Snap! The post could not handle the force of the punches, and snapped in two at the middle, the top part was blown at least seven meters into the air, before breaking apart into shreds.

“Finally! The Unity Stage!”

With one last day before the Mu Ren Gang competition, the idea of slacking off never occurred to Ye Chen, as he focused on training his King Kong Fist with all his heart. He could feel and combine the power coming from every inch of his body which created a higher level of explosive power which was also why he could master the King Kong Fist to its highest stage.

The person who created this King Kong Fist manual probably had not mastered it to the Unity Stage, so I am definitely better in that regards; however, I could never invent my own style of martial art like he did at this moment so I am inferior in that regard.

Ye Chen laughed and shook his head as he walked towards the stone table nearby.

On that round stone table, there was a white china jar with a red wooden plug on top. That was exactly that body boosting ointment he bought before.

Pop!

He unplugged the bottle and turned it upside down, a milky yellow colored liquid slowly dripped onto his palm releasing a strong pleasant medicinal scent.

Taking off his clothes, Ye Chen slowly rubbed the ointment over his whole body.

“Ah…so relaxing…” Shortly after, Ye Chen could feel a burning sensation that slowly soaked into skin then into his muscle, blood and bones. It almost felt like there were ants crawling into his body, itchy, and a bit tingly.

Looking down, he could see that his body was outlined with muscles like a furious cheetah, a streamline body shape that looked extremely powerful that did not resemble a fourteen years old boy in anyway. But compared to Xu Jing’s extremely fit body that was able to explosively burst forth, Ye Chen was still miles away.

After soaking for a bit longer, Ye Chen got up, put on his clothes and picked up his great steel sword. After walking out of the yard, he walked towards the message center on the west side of the Sky Cloud Martial School.

The message center was where the Sky Cloud Martial School announced big news, and the ceremony of Mu Ren Gang contest would be announced here tomorrow as well. It was quite useful, especially for those new disciples who had no idea what was happening yet, like Ye Chen when he first started.

In fact, Ye Chen did not really have to be there, because the customs for the Mu Ren Gang contest had not changed for a long while and Ye Chen knew everything that he needed to know. However, he was not the old Ye Chen anymore and realized that he could not just brainlessly follow instructions anymore, he had to have everything under control and understand all the details before the event because sometimes it was the detail that made all the difference.

Plus with only one day to go, the message center must be full of people, making it a good opportunity to see what would he be up against.

After observing the crowd, Ye Chen realized that he did not have any real friends in the two years he spent in Sky Cloud Martial School.

He forced a smile. Watching people talking and laughing together, Ye Chen couldn’t help but envy those outer disciples.

Finally arrived in the message center, in front of Ye Chen was a three-hundred-meter squared marble plaza. And at the entrance of the plaza, there was a huge wall standing there on which there was a large piece of paper with black ink writings “The Challenge of Mu Ren Gang” written on it.

Following the crowd, Ye Chen entered the plaza, his ears filled with all sorts of sounds. “The champion of the Mu Ren Gang challenge last year was the number one outer disciple Wu Zongming, I wonder who would win this year?”

“I think that it will still be Wu Zongming, no one knows how much had he improved.”

“That makes sense. But I think the genius outer disciple – Zhang Haoran would win!”

“Zhang Haoran! That thirteen-year-old rare genius who had already reached the Mortal Realm Rank 10!”

“That’s the one! I heard that when he joined the Sky Cloud Martial School at the age of twelve, he had already reached the Mortal Realm Stage 7. And within a year, he has already jumped from rank 7 to rank 10, what an incredible speed!”

One man sneered: “No matter how genius is that Zhang Haoran, he had only reached the Mortal Realm Stage 10. Did you guys forget? Wu Zongming had already reached the same level half a year ago, and right now he is probably one step away from the Condensing Reality Realm.”

“Haha, ‘one step away’? Didn’t you mean to say, he already has failed to breakthrough. Otherwise instead of ‘one step away’ it would be he is a Condensing Reality Realm cultivator.” The person who made the speech had a squared face and thin lips, looking extremely evil.

“How dare you to insult Wu Zongming?” The outer disciple who defended Wu Zongming said angrily.

The guy with the squared face wouldn’t back down, “I know you are a friend of Wu Zongming, but I am not, besides I only have stated the fact. Ask anyone, is what I said false?”

“Hmph, what did you say?”

Out of nowhere, there was a bright voice, then a powerful aura suddenly appeared like a tornado.

Everyone turned towards the new speaker. Just ten steps away was a teenager in blue with a long sword on his back standing there, staring at the people who had unknowingly mocked him.

It was the number one outer disciple – Wu Zongming.

Ye Chen he stood to the side observing with interest as he waited for the drama to unfold.

The square-faced apprentice who just insulted Wu Zongming, frightened by his strong aura stammered, “I…I… Isn’t the thing I said…the truth?”

Wu Zongming smiled cheekily, “You know what kind of people I hate the most? Cowards. Cowards who only will have the balls to say stuff behind people’s back. Now I offer you a chance of redemption: if you could take a punch of mine, I would let everything go. Do you dare?”

One punch! The square-faced apprentice thought. My power level is at Mortal Realm Rank 8, with two ranks between us, taking a punch should not be too bad, a small wound at most, but if I refuse this offer, then I really will be the coward, I will be the butt of people’s joke forever!

“Okay! One punch it is! What’s there to be afraid?”

He arched his back as he lifted his his right arm, his clothing started to whip back and forth even though there was no wind, a clear sign of the man gathering all his Qi to his right arm.

“This is the beginning of the Little Yasha Palm!” Someone recognized the movement, couldn’t help but yelled it out.

The square-faced apprentice smiled complacently. Little Yasha Palm was a top ranked mortal realm martial art. Normally with his as an outer disciple, he would never be able to obtain this, but his father was an elder of outer disciples at the Sky Cloud Martial School, he was able to get any kind of martial arts.
With the Little Yasha Palm, he was confident that he could handle Wu Zongming’s punch, and secretly hoped that with this conflict, he would gain some fame.

Wu Zongming looked the same, didn’t seem to be affected by the commotion from the crowd and said quietly: “Ready?”

“Anytime.”

Everyone in the crowd held their breath, staring at those two without any distraction. The number one disciple versus a Mortal Realm Rank 8 cultivator, although they would only attack once, but from the brief contact, they should be able to see part of their actual power, and even if they couldn’t tell the difference, it was still be worthwhile to just be able to witness such an event.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 12 – Genius vs Genius


Wu Zongming stared and laughed at the other disciple gathering his Qi. Wu Zongming slowly walked towards that square-faced apprentice without a sign of Qi gathering.

Ten, nine, eight, … five more steps to go!

Surprisingly, it was not Wu Zongming that attacked first, but the square-faced apprentice. His legs bounced up from the ground as he took a huge step, his hanging right arm drew a strange curve in the air to attack Wu Zongming from below.

Poonn!

With an air breaking sound, there was a vague dark colored light around that square-faced apprentice’s right hand signifying that his Qi was about to break out his body.

“Hmph. Useless!”

Wu Zongming yelled in a low voice as he thrusted one of his palm at that square-faced apprentice’s right hand.

Boom!

The square-faced apprentice was sent flying with both of his feet up in the air to exactly where he started from and had to back up for another ten steps, almost falling on the ground.

Gahg! Spitting out a huge chunk of clotted blood, the square-faced apprentice pointed at Wu Zongming, “You, you…” He only managed to squeeze out one word before he passed out.

All of the sudden, the plaza was filled with clamor.

Everyone knew that the square-faced apprentice could not match up to Wu Zongming, but no one actually expected that the gap between the two was that large, especially since Wu Zongming did not even use any martial art or Qi, he only used the most basic movement of a palm thrust. Everyone could sigh in amazement at the power of the number one outer disciple.

Unlike the rest of the crowd, Ye Chen had his own opinion. The gap between Mortal Realm Rank 8 and Rank 10 should not be this big, plus that square-faced apprentice used a top ranking Mortal Realm martial art – Little Yasha Palm which boosted his power level to the threshold of Mortal Realm Stage 10. Even if he is not as good as Wu Zongming, it is highly unlikely for him to pass out. There must be another reason.

If Ye Chen guessed right, the martial art Wu Zongming utilized was much higher ranked than that square-faced apprentice, in addition, his Qi controlling skills was much, much higher than the other disciple as well.

Ye Chen could not help but be forced to smile.

The world he lived in was called the Land of Souls, its land covered countless miles without any borders. No one knew how big it actually was nor how many people or demonic beasts that lived in it. But only one thing was certain. It was a world filled with martial arts and warriors.

On this land, there were only two things that mattered to warriors: skills and movements.

However, compared to skills, the movements were few times more important.

A low rank Mortal Realm movement could be even more valuable than a middle rank Mortal Realm skill.

If a warrior could master a new skill, it could unleash power about three times stronger; on the other hand, movements were considered to be the core of warriors. A strong core gave the warriors a better advantage to master martial arts.

Normally, when the warriors mastered a higher level of movement, their total Qi would increased about thirty percent, that meant if there were two warriors with the same cultivation, but one of them trained in a low ranked Mortal Realm movement, while the other one trained in a middle ranking one, the total amount of Qi in the latter person would be thirty percent more than the previous person; if the latter trained in a high ranked Mortal Realm movement, then they would have seventy percent more, and if it was a top rank Mortal Realm movement, then it would be two times plus ten percent more Qi. This kind of gap was almost insurmountable.

Besides, with a higher level of Mortal Realm movement, the quality of Qi would have a noticeably large improvement. For example, if you looked at the Qi that was produced by training low ranked movement as a chuck of wood, then the Qi from a high ranked movement would be like a stone, or maybe even a metal. A wood could never compete with a stone or a metal in density because obviously they were not on the same level.

Wu Zongming as the number one outer disciple, the movement he trained must have been at least middle ranked Mortal Realm level. Ye Chen’s movement was low ranked Mortal Realm. So even if the Wu Zongming’s cultivation was the same as his Mortal Realm Rank 6, then Wu Zongming would have thirty percent more Qi than him, not to mention that Wu Zongming’s power level was actually higher than him.

Thankfully, Ye Chen was fairly confident about the quality of his Qi, even if he had to compare, he was sure that it would not lose to Wu Zongming’s. He had already trained his Cloud Air Spell to its highest stage which was one stage higher than it was described in the manual which was equivalent to a common middle rank Mortal Realm movement.

After beating that square-faced apprentice in one move, Wu Zongming did not show any complacency at all. For him, that square-faced apprentice was just a clown, beating him did not bring him any satisfaction, he was just trying to send a message that even if he failed to get to breakthrough to the next realm, he was still invincible to them.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

A young, pretty teenager applauded as he walked closer, “Bravo! Number one outer disciple indeed. Wu Zongming, you are qualified to by my opponent.”

Wu Zongming turned his head before he caught sight of the newcomer, “Zhang Haoran.”

Although Zhang Haoran’s appearance seemed young, he had a very mature temperament. He smiled, “I wonder which stage you are right now at that high ranked Mortal Realm movement - Sky Fall of yours.”

“Not too great, just the peak of the fourth stage.”

Ye Chen was shocked, no wonder Wu Zongming could knock out that square-faced apprentice with only one punch, it turned out that he had trained in the Sky Fall movement. As a high ranked Mortal Realm movement, the Sky Fall was not considered the best but had one extremely strong point: the Qi from training the Sky Fall was extremely thick. Plus, the Sky Fall had only five stages, so being able to reach the peak of the fourth stage was quite impressive.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Haoran laughed proudly, “Compare to a normal person, you are indeed a genius. However, right now, I am way out of your league.”

Wu Zongming sneered: “Arrogant people never have happy endings.”

“Oh yeah? I was afraid to shock your ego, but truthfully, I trained in the ‘Clouds and Beyond’ high ranked Mortal Realm movement and have already reached the fifth stage, highest stage. This is the gap between us.”

Hearing this, the plaza was immediately filled with discussions.

“No way! Movements are very hard to train in! Zhang Haoran received that manual four months ago, and had already reached the fifth stage?! How is that possible?”

“Yes, high ranked Mortal Realm movement normally have five different stages. For a normal person to get to the first stage would take at least three or four days; the second stage would need ten days and the third would need a month, the fourth stage three months, and for the fifth level it would at least take a year. I remember there were some inner disciples that just gave up on finishing a high ranked Mortal Realm movement when they were transferring to the top rank movements.”

“Speaking of talent, it seemed that Zhang Haoran is even more talented than Wu Zongming.”

Unlike other people people, Ye Chen thought it was quite reasonable. Wu Zongming was definitely not bad, especially that he was only one step away from the fifth stage which would only take him at least half a month to reach it.

Wu Zongming was truly surprised, he got the Sky Fall manual half a year ago when he won the champion of Mu Ren Gang. He thought it was already quite impressive to reach the fourth stage in six months since a normal person would need about five months time to go from the first stage to the fourth stage and plus another five months to reach the peak of the fourth stage. He never expected that Zhang Haoran was even more genius than him, spent only four months to reached the highest fifth stage.

Tooke a deep breath, Wu Zongming said calmly: “Needless to say more, I will see you at the challenge.”

Zhang Haoran gave him a smile, “that’s right. And I will be the champion of this coming Mu Ren Gang challenge.”

Speech over, he walked away, leaving the crowd staring at his back.


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[xianxiaworld]

Editor Note:
We will be using the word Stage instead of Rank when talking about cultivation level.

Chapter 13 – The Wooden Guardians


Watching Zhang Haoran leave, the crowd were full of respect and envy that even though Zhang Haoran and the people in the crowd were all human beings, he could reach the Mortal Realm Stage 10 and the highest stage of the Over Sky and Clouds Movement at the age of thirteen.

Is the difference between a genius and a normal person really that big?

Ye Chen shook his head and walked towards the notice board.

On that giant piece of white paper, there was a line of characters the size of a fist. It was perfectly written, probably by a master of calligraphy.

Besides some disclaimer information, it also listed that those participating in the Mu Ren Gang contest would receive one of Sky Cloud Martial School’s special Qi boosting pellet. It could save a month of training, and if it was used upon reaching a bottleneck, it could help breaking through to the next realm. However, it could only help with breaking through stages of the Mortal Realm.

What I need the most right now is time. This Qi boosting pellet that would save me a month of hard work would be really helpful. Ye Chen smiled, and carried on reading.

“The top ten winners of the Mu Ren Gang would be able to choose one High Ranked Mortal Realm Skill; the top six would be rewarded with three Windy Dew pellets; the top three could learn one High Ranked Mortal Realm Movement of their choosing and the champion would also be rewarded with a Yuan Boosting Pellet.”

Ye Chen squeezed his eyes, he didn’t really care about the High Ranked Mortal Realm Skills, but the Windy Dew pellets would be such a good asset to have for training Qi. In the first ten days after using the Windy Dew pellet, a warrior would feel extremely purified and fresh both physically and mentally, their training speed would also increase dramatically and would have a higher comprehension of martial arts. There were even a lot of inner disciples that desperately looked for it, it was valued at more than ten thousand silvers. The only bad thing about it was that it could not be used too often, each use of the pellet would be increasingly worse than the last time until its effectiveness completely disappeared.

However, a High Ranked Mortal Realm Movement was even more valuable. With a High Ranked Movement, Ye Chen could train at a much faster speed and the quality and quantity of his Qi would be on another level qualitatively. In other words, if he could get his hands on a High Rank Mortal Realm Movement manual, it would even be possible for him to breakthrough to the Condensing Reality Realm.

Ye Chen smiled helplessly as he saw the prize for the champion.

Needless to say, a Yuan Boosting Pellet was the most valuable among the listed prizes, it could help a Mortal Realm warriors step straight into the next stage, it could even be used to breakthrough the bottleneck of the Condensing Reality State. However in regards of obtaining first place, Ye Chen was not confident at all. Even Maq Wu, who was a Mortal Realm Stage Ten warrior, could never compete with Wu Zongming and Zhang Haoran who were the sons blessed by the heavens. The movements and skills they had mastered were much stronger than anyone else, and with their genius comprehension abilities, it was almost impossible to beat them to take first place. Only if Ye Chen could reach the Mortal Realm Stage Eight from Stage Six, then would he even have a chance to contend against those two.

Slowly letting out a breath, Ye Chen made up his mind. He dare not to dream for first or second place, but third place would be his! Failure will not be tolerated!

…

The night was over, the first beam of sunshine raised from the east side.

In the yard, Ye Chen had just finished a movement and was rubbing himself with the body boosting ointment.

Six months after the Mu Ren Gang, it will be the Ye Family Gathering. Whether or not I will attend will depend on what happens today!

Ye Chen understood clearly, his eldest uncle’s son Ye Tang and his fourth uncle’s daughter Ye Xuan were both rare geniuses of the Ye family. They had reached the Mortal Realm Stage Five at the age of twelve. And now, after three years’ time, they may have very likely reached the peak of Mortal Realm Stage Ten, or perhaps they had even broken through to the Condensing Reality Realm.

A Condensing Reality warrior was on a different level! Even if Ye Chen had amazing comprehension and insights, there was still a huge gap between him and them.

Before Ye Chen had even left the house, the Sky Cloud Martial School was already filled with chanting. It was an important day for most of the people, the day of Mu Ren Gang. What’s more was that during the challenge, some outer elders and inner disciples would come to watch the competition, and at some of the rare cases, a couple of inner elders would be present as well. If an outer disciple did well today, it could considered as a ticket to heaven if an elder took an interest in them.

Because the Mu Ren Gang was located right in the front for the message center which was usually closed so you could not really see what was actually happening inside.

Ye Chen arrived in the message center and found the place already crowded with people: half of the three thousand outer disciples were already waiting here, along with a few inner disciples and outer elders sitting in the high tower in the end of the plaza, looking down over the crowd.

“Elder Lin, who do you think will be the top ten this Mu Ren Gang?” A teenager who was about sixteen years old asked. He was very good looking, although his skin was oddly pale.

The elder man who was called Master Lin laughed: “Yuntao, you are already one of the top inner disciples, yet you are still interested in this?”

Yuntao nodded as he replied: “I didn’t really have an outstanding talent back in the day, and for that I really struggled during those days, so I really relate to the outer disciples, especially with their desperate desire to do well.”

“Right.” Master Lin nodded, “In my opinion, the top ten for this Mu Ren Gang would probably be the same but with Zhang Haoran in there somewhere.”

“Zhang Haoran? I heard of him. They said he is the number one genius among the junior apprentices.”

“Yesterday I heard that Zhang Haoran had already mastered his High Ranked Mortal Realm Over Sky and Clouds Movement to its highest stage. What a rare genius!”

“The fifth stage of the Over Sky and Clouds Movement… no wonder those elders have been praising him so highly.” Yuntao seemed surprised, when he was still a outer disciple, he also trained in the Over Sky and Clouds Movement but he still had not reached the final stage yet.

Elder Lin looked at Zhang Haoran who was standing in the plaza and said gratefully: “The more geniuses that the Sky Cloud Martial School have, the more potential we have. Perhaps one day we can even upgrade from a Rank Nine to a Rank Eight Martial School, I would be so happy that even if I died I would die with a smile.”

Yuntao felt extremely motivated from Master Lin’s speech, “Don’t worry, Elder Lin! Although I still cannot compete with the core disciples, I will give everything I have and do my best to help the Sky Cloud Martial School promote to the next rank!”

“Haha! Wonderful! It is really great that you have this kind of determination.”

It is time for the Mu Ren Gang to begin!

Crack!

The huge wall in the front of the plaza suddenly cracked open. Revealed in front the crowd was a dark path of unknown length and unknown destination.

At this moment, Master Lin stood up and said: “Everyone, today is our semi-annual Mu Ren Gang challenge, all outer disciples are eligible to enter. As for the prize, you probably had already read about it on the message board so I won’t go in details. Now, let’s get to the first round of the challenge: to enter the Mu Ren Gang, you would have to beat a wooden guardian.”

Master Lin’s voice naturally was not very loud, but when fortified by his Qi, it spread miles away allowing everyone heard him loud and clear.

“Shit, I almost beat one of those wooden guardian last time, this time I can definitely do it!”

“Me too! But I heard that there are not just wooden guardian in Mu Ren Gang but also a wooden sword artist, I am not sure if I can make it.”

Regardless what everyone thought, the challenge of Mu Ren Gang had officially started.

Click, click, click…

A row of twenty wooden guardians walked out.

These two-meter-tall wooden guardians were made of a special kind of wood, their eyes were made of two thin slices of crystals sparkling with cold lights, they were obviously not normal puppets.

Ye Chen was not surprised. Rumors said that those wooden guardians were a special puppet which were invented five thousand years ago by the rank 5 Martial Academy – the Puppet School. Although the puppets were not intelligent, they could sense people around them and attack them in different ways which was very impressive.

Sky Cloud Martial School received the manufacture instructions in a fortuitous occurrence. However these wooden guardians were only powerful to an extent, equivalent to a Mortal Realm warrior, so they were only great for training the outer disciples.




………


Editor and Translator’s Corner:
Hi all! Just a little clarification on what a movement is. Movements are a set of routine movements that one practices in. Movements are divided into palm, sword, finger, and etc arts which are also meant for attacking. Deeper comprehension results in a better quality and quantity of Qi. The difference between movements and skills are that skills are a single “movement” that increases your attack in a short burst with no benefits for your cultivation versus movements which are a set of stances that are both meant for attack and increasing your cultivation.

If anyone has a better term for movement please comment below since Sheryl and I are going nuts over trying to find a better term that could be used in a bunch of different ways for different things!

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 14 – Ruling the Ranking


During the first round, the outer disciples were tested twenty people at a time. The ones who made it through would be sent to the right to wait for the actual challenge of Mu Ren Gang; and the ones that failed would be sent off to the left to leave the competition.

Last time, Ye Chen had only lasted ten seconds until he was beaten into submission, even to the point of vomiting blood.

Donnng! The challenge had started!

Surprisingly, Wang Gang was one of the first twenty people. With his Peak Stage 7 of the Mortal Realm cultivation, it was fairly easy for him to beat the wooden guardians. Getting knocked out would be a humiliation.

The wooden guardian sensed the incoming disciples and activated its heavy body. It rose up and threw a punch towards Wang Gang suddenly. The punch was so fast that the wind generated made Wang Gang’s hair fly up.

Wang Gang did not specialized in speed and had to immediately cross his arms in front of himself to block the strong punch which pushed him three steps backwards.

“Breaking Stone Palm!”

After dispersing the force from the punch, Wang Gang jumped up and hacked towards the wooden guardian’s head with his right palm.

Boom!

The wooden guardian actually had a sharp sensitivity, and raised up its right arm and blocked that deadly attack of Wang Gang’s. Then it immediately threw another attack with his left hand, which was so fast that it was almost impossible for most people to react in time.

“Damn, that wooden guardian is killing it!” Some of the fresh junior apprentices couldn’t help but exclaim. Even Ye Chen was amazed by these wooden guardians. They were not living creatures yet their arts and skills were strong and steady, perfect textbook display of martial arts.

Suddenly, Wang Gang’s left leg bent as he threw his knee towards the wooden guardian and attacked for the second time, then with the counterforce, he bounced back and landed safely five steps away.

After putting himself in a distance, Wang Gang realized that he could not defeat the opponent with only brute force.

“Twin Dragon!”

Seeing the wooden guardian rushing forward, Wang Gang decided to give up on his Breaking Stone Palm and chose to use the Twisting Snake Fist which he rarely used before. He twisted his arms like two fierce snakes and attacked the wooden guardian.

Crack!

The wooden guardian’s fist was blocked.

Wang Gang grunted, with both of his arms occupied, he kicked out his leg.

“Falling Star Kick!”

Hoom!

The wooden guardian was kicked over by that powerful heavy kick, as the supervising elders on the side yelled out, “Pass!”

Unlike Wang Gang, you could continuously hear people yelling “Failed” all over the place.

Soon, the first twenty people finished their entry test. Only four of them passed, and the rest had failed and had to leave the plaza in disappointment.

Despite the numerous attacks given from each disciple, the wooden guardians were surprisingly not damaged at all. Thankfully, people could pass once they knocked down the wooden guardian, otherwise they would probably die of exhaustion if they were to damage the wooden guardian.

Shortly after, the second group was finished their test, shockingly only one man had passed.

The third group, five people had passed.

The fourth group, three people had passed.

The fifth group, none of them had passed.

…

The one hundred twentieth group had both Wu Zongming and Zhang Haoran in it. They glanced at each other as they walked up to those wooden guardians emotionlessly.

Facing those wooden guardians, they attacked almost at the same time.

Wu Zongming’s figure suddenly disappeared from sight and reappeared in front of the wooden guardian like a ghost. At the same time, he put his right palm over that wooden guardian’s chest, as a sudden huge force went through his palm to attack the guardian. The wooden guardian was blown away instantly like a pile of straws, its chest branded with an obvious palm mark.

However, Zhang Haoran’s attack was even scarier. As his body relaxed, he instantly appeared in front of the guardian, despite the ten-meter distance between them, and locked onto the guardian’s head in his extended hand, then suddenly went still as he threw his hand out.

The wooden guardian was thrown out about ten meters.

“Damn, an instant-kill!”

The crowd stood there with their eyes wide open, completely shocked by what they had just witnessed. Wu Zongming were already quite impressive, with one palm up close and one palm extended, he knocked out the wooden guardian. But Zhang Haoran...Zhang Haoran was even more impressive, the wooden guardian was like a vulnerable toddler in front of him.

The one hundred and twenty-third group, Ye Chen finally entered.

Unlike the fast speed of Wu Zongming and Zhang Haoran, Ye Chen started out with a simple yet smart approach, and with only few attack, he successfully beaten the wooden guardian and passed.

When the first round of the challenge had finished, Elder Lin stood up and said, “A total of three hundred and sixty-five people had passed. Now for the second round, all contestants please enter the Mu Ren Gang.”

“Haoran, you said you were going to help me to get the third place, right?” There was a tall teenager standing right next to Zhang Haoran, he was about fifteen years old. He couldn’t help but ask nervously.

Zhang Haoran didn’t mind, he said: “Cousin, relax. With your power level, it won’t be too hard to pass the challenge. To reach the top ten would be a little bit difficult, but I will help you by blocking the other apprentices at the right moment.”

“Great!” It turned out that that teenager was Zhang Haoran’s cousin, he joined the Sky Cloud Martial School a bit earlier than Zhang Haoran, and attended the challenge of Mu Ren Gang before. But he only reached rank thirty something which was far away from the top ten not to mention the top three. If he could make it to the top ten, he could not only get a manual of a High Ranked Mortal Realm Art, plus a High Rank Mortal Realm Skill of their choice and three Windy Dew pellet which would be more than enough for him to reach the Condensing Reality Realm.

Suddenly, the tone of Zhang Haoran’s voice changed, “However, I had to do it covertly, you know the rules.”

“I know, don’t worry, I am confident to be in the top ten even without your help.”

“Good, let’s go!”

The Mu Ren Gang was shaped like a gourd and had a narrow entrance which could only fit five people at a time. Once you walked pass the entrance, there were ten different-sized lanes, and the space inside each was massive.

The three hundred and sixty-five people were divided into ten groups and entered different lanes.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The walls and the floor of the lane that Ye Chen chose suddenly cracked open, and out jumped a group of wooden guardians and wooden sword artists equipped with wooden swords. They knocked out five to six people in the blink of an eye like a violent summer storm, causing the place was to be full of moaning sounds.

Ye Chen tilted his body and dodged an attack from the wooden sword artist as he took out his great steel sword out of its scabbard and sliced the opponent’s wooden sword in half. Ye Chen followed up by ducking his body and passing the wooden sword artist smoothly.

Wow, that was close. Luckily I wasn’t stuck in the crowd, otherwise I would not have had any space to dodge.

As he moved forward, contestants were being eliminated left and right, among the forty people from the beginning, there were only twenty people left. As they passed through, five more different narrow lanes appeared in front of them. The group of twenty looked at each other as they were once again divided into a group of four to five people and entered a lane.

In another lane, Zhang Haoran took sudden large steps, his feet moved inhumanly fast, keeping his robe up in the air. All of the wooden guardians and wooden sword artists tried to locate him but failed, and the ones that tried to block in front of him were slapped away casually like dolls.

As Zhang Haoran moved forward, the space in Mu Ren Gang changed from wild to narrow. Zhang Haoran stopped and thought, The upcoming place is filled with wooden guardians, if wait for the right moment, I could create troubles for the other contestants to help my cousin easily obtain third place.

As for the first place, Zhang Haoran thought it was already in the bag, Wu Zongming was no where near his power level and definitely not a threat which was also why he could help his cousin. Plus, this was the only path that led to the finish line, so even if there was someone that could be a threat to the number one position, he would still have plenty of opportunities to fix it.


…


Editor and TL’s Corner:
Thanks guys for your responses! We will be using ‘arts’ instead of ‘movements’ from here on forward!

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 15 – I Will Ruin You


Slash!

The first one to arrive was Wu Zongming who was only a bit slower than Zhang Haoran.

Wu Zongming looked at Zhang Haoran in confusion, Didn’t he say he wanted to be the champion? Is he waiting for me on purpose? That’s outrageous! How could he be so arrogant?!

Although he had a myriad of question and indignation, Wu Zongming would not any waste time with him, all he wanted to do was to finish the competition.

As he was walking by, Zhang Haoran suddenly blocked his way, “Wait!”

Wu Zongming gloomily turned and asked: “What do you want?”

Zhang Haoran replied casually: “Nothing much, don’t you think it would be more fun when there are more people? There’s no need to hurry.”

“I don’t care if it’s fun or not, piss off.”

“Sorry, I can’t let you pass.”

“Then die!” Wu Zongming was furious, his body suddenly rotated swiftly as he brought up his right fist which glowed bloody red, and along with a powerful hot wave, shot out towards Zhang Haoran.

High rank Mortal Realm Skill – Burning Fist!

Zhang Haoran was still smiling, as he also brought up his fist and intercepted the incoming fist.

Boom!

With a touch of both fists, the walls and the floor started to shake, and a strong wave of wind suddenly blew in every direction.

All Wu Zongming could feel was his arm’s numbness, suddenly he felt three different level of force coming through the opponent’s fist which shook his body and had to back up three steps just to find his balance. He couldn’t help but yell, “The Three Forces Floating Cloud!”

The Three Forces Floating Cloud was a well known martial skill of the Sky Cloud Martial School. Although it was only a High Ranked Mortal Realm Skill, a lot of outer disciples practiced it. Many took it up because of its special aspect. The higher cultivation a warrior had, the stronger the three forces would become! This aspect made this skill quite popular.

Zhang Haoran shook off the sparks left on his fist, his face seemed surprised, “I seemed to have underestimated you, your Burning Fist can make real flames.”

“Same here.” Wu Zongming truly did not underestimate Haoran’s talent and slowly began to accumulate all of the Qi inside his body without showing it, waiting for the most important moment to attack.

The surprise on his face slowly faded away as Zhang Haoran laughed: “What ‘same here’? Don’t get me wrong Zongming, but I had only used seventy percent of power. How much did you use?”

To be honest, Zhang Haoran had the right to be arrogant. At the age of thirteen, he had not only mastered his Qi to the Peak of Mortal Realm Stage Ten and the Over the Sky and Clouds Arts to the highest stage, but also mastered the Three Forces Falling Cloud. He was confident in his ability to evenly compete with an early Condensing Reality Realm warrior, not to mention a Stage Ten Mortal Realm Wu Zongming.

Wu Zongming didn’t argue with him, because he knew that nothing he said could change anything, only by his strength could he prove himself.

Boom!

The bloody red fist started to spark, and slowly, it became a little flame. And in the middle of the burning fire, was his fist smoldering like a piece of iron burning hard and hot.

Wu Zongming sneered: “So, it was not just I who did not use their full power.”

“Interesting…Interesting.”

Zhang Haoran was a bit surprised and a trace of anger appeared in his eyes. His opponent hid his real power repeatedly, making him feel underappreciated. Until today, everyone was forced to use their full power whenever they faced him if they wanted a chance to survive.

Sparks rolled off Wu Zongming’s fist as Zhang Haoran breathed deeply as he glared at Wu Zongming.

Right at that moment, a human figure suddenly appeared, watching the two intense figures, he alarmingly slowed down and leaned towards the shadow from the other side of the lane.

It was Ye Chen!

Although he was a little bit slower than Wu Zongming and Zhang Haoran, he had tried his best and could not be compared with the rest of the contestants. Because facing the slow, clunky wooden guardians, using the martial arts cleverly was better than just brute forcing his way through.

It really is unexpected that they would fight against each other during a race. Noticing the cracks on the wall, Ye Chen did not have to guess to know that there had already been an intense fight with a tied result or possibly they were still battling each other.

However, even if they didn’t care about the ranking of the Mu Ren Gang, he did!
If these two still wanted to fight it out, then the champion could very well be him. Even though it was a little bit underhanded, who would turn down this kind of opportunity.

Quickening his pace, Ye Chen tried to enter the lane.

“Presumptuous! Since when was it your turn?” Zhang Haoran was already a little bit of pissed, and seeing that Ye Chen had ignored them and wanted to enter the lane, he poured out all of his anger on him.

Zhang Haoran’s right hand pulled then shot forward. An ice cold wind suddenly spread out, every step he took, the floor was covered with ice.

High Rank Mortal Realm Skill – Soaking Cold Palm!

Ye Chen was frightened, he did not have any enmity with Zhang Haoran but Haoran decided to launch a deadly Soaking Cold Palm. With Zhang Haoran’s Mortal Realm Stage 10 power, it would be stronger than anyone else he had faced before. If he was hit, it would take a couple of months to heal from the injuries, not to mention the possibility that it could freeze his meridians and ruin his chances of any future in martial arts. Even though the Ye family was extremely rich and had many rare elixirs to heal it, that did not mean he wanted to put himself through that suffering.

“The Mountain Avalanche!”

With the great steel sword out of the scabbard, Ye Chen moved like an avalanche tumbling down a mountainside, it was so fast that it was like a lightning in a flash.

It was a movement in the Lone Peak of Thirteen Sword that was specialized in steps and speed.

Crack!!

The place Ye Chen was just at was suddenly covered by ice cold frost, he could not imagine if he hadn’t managed to dodge it.

Kept distance with Zhang Haoran, Ye Chen said emotionlessly, “You crossed the line!”

“You are just a plain old Mortal Realm Stage 6 outer disciple, how dare you dream to be in the top three? And to think you dare to take first place? Piss off!” Zhang Haoran did not take Ye Chen seriously at all, even though Ye Chen had just dodged his attack.

Everyone had a consuming anger once someone crossed their bottom line, especially Ye Chen. Eyes sparked cold light, the veins in Ye Chen’s arm suddenly popped out as he squeezed the sword in his hand. Although he didn’t know how this was going to end at all, but if he tried with his life, I was sure that he could wound him.

“What? You want to fight? Believe me, I could end you right now. And even if the school caught me later, it would be just a light punishment at best, what are you compared to the I, the genius Zhang Haoran.” Zhang Haoran sneered as murderous intent ran across his face.
Wu Zongming could not stand Zhang Haoran’s attitude and he sarcastically said: “Hmph, big words. Do you think I will just sit here as you beat him in front of me?”

Zhang Haoran replied ghastly: “Wu Zongming, have you decided to fight against me? Don’t you dare regret it.”

“What a joke, where is there for me to regret?”

“Hmph! Let’s see who will become a Condensing Reality warrior first! But as for this guy in front of me, I would definitely beat him in front of you.”

His shadow was stretched out, Zhang Haoran’s left hand hiding behind his back, his right hand filled with ice cold breeze as he walked towards Ye Chen with huge steps, aiming for his head. Normal people would never stand a chance facing his extremely fast movements, and in Zhang Haoran’s opinion, Ye Chen was a dead dog, like the rest of them.

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XianxiaWorld Sincerely Recruiting Translators

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 16 – Tiger Dragon Roaring Fist


With the powerful aura bearing down on him, Ye Chen felt his life was in danger. He held his sword with two hands in a defensive guard to receive the incoming attack.

Hongg!

Haoran’s palm broke through his guard like a hot knife through butter. Seeing the opponent’s incoming palm breakthrough his guard, Ye Chen grunted as he punched out with his left fist to meet Zhang Haoran’s palm.

“King Kong Unlimited Fury!”

This was the strongest attack of the King Kong Fist Art, which Ye Chen had already mastered to the unity stage. Under the extreme pressure of this life and death situation, the strength of Ye Chen’s fist reached an unimaginable level.

Their hands had not even collided, and yet the pressure of their attacks was creating such pressure as to create the sound of an explosion. Zhang Haoran was surprised, he had never seen such a strong King Kong Fist before, its power almost reached that of a top rank Mortal Realm Skill. But so what? The quantity and quality of my Qi is much better than his!

“Piss off!”

The coldness of his palm had increased as Zhang Haoran added more Qi. His palm streaked out like a lightning and covered Ye Chen’s fist.

Boom!

With his arm frozen, Ye Chen was instantly pushed back. Blood leaked out from the corner of his month and his left arm was ice cold and he could not lift it up anymore.

“Next time think a little before you you mess with someone who’s better than you are.” After a second, Zhang Haoran attacked once again.

At this moment, Ye Chen threw caution to the wind. Ye Chen twisted his right wrist slightly, and a bright cold light shot out from his great steel sword, blinding everyone in range. Even though it was very close, it gave people the illusion that it was very far away, even Zhang Haoran was confused for a second. Haoran hurriedly moved his left hand out from behind his back to try and catch that sword light.

Wu Zongming saw what had happened and knew that, even if Ye Chen managed to wound Zhang Haoran, Haoran would still ruin him. He swore to himself that he would not let that happen as he watched.

“Emotionless Burning Fire!”

Sparks flew everywhere as Wu Zongming took a few large steps and then threw a punch towards Zhang Haoran.

Realizing that he was surrounded, Zhang Haoran became furious. He shifted back and threw both arms out in front of him. His sleeves waved in the air and caused his shadow to expand. In a blink of an eye, he escaped out of their attacks.

High Rank Mortal Realm Skill – Inching Steps!

Wu Zongming face changed as Zhang Haoran’s power kept surprising him. The fifth stage of Over the Sky and Clouds Arts, Three Forces Floating Clouds, the Soaking Cold Palm, and now the Inching Steps… what else does this crazy bastard have?

“Young apprentice, what is your name?” Wu Zongming took a deep breath, turned his head and asked Ye Chen.

Ye Chen was breathing heavily, trying to circulate his Qi to remove the icy numbness from his left arm as he answered: “Ye Chen.”

“You probably already know my name so I will skip that, but honestly, your fist and sword arts are quite impressive! I underestimated you.” Wu Zongming actually noticed Ye Chen’s punch from before. Although Haoran was wounded from fighting against Zongming, not many others could pull off that kind of punch and go toe to toe against Haoran, especially not someone with a Mortal Realm Stage 6 cultivation.

“Thanks.” Ye Chen sounded calm, but he was actually quite anxious about the persisting coldness in his left arm. Right now, he started to regret that he had not practiced a Middle Rank Mortal Realm Art. Even though his Qi quality would not be as good as Zhang Haoran’s, but he could have reduced the gap between them and definitely would be able to remove the coldness.

Obviously, It was not Ye Chen’s fault, a Middle Rank Mortal Realm Art was equal to a Top Rank Mortal Realm Skill, and, as a outer disciple, Ye Chen would never have been able to get it. However, there were some crappy Middle Rank Mortal Realm Arts, but they was not easy to master and required a lot of effort and time. Also, if a warrior wanted to change to another art later on, he would have to spend more time to train his Qi. Therefore, Ye Chen wanted to win the Mu Ren Gang so that he could get a high ranking art. However, he never expected this kind of situation.

“Wu Zongming, do you want to die too?” Cornered by the two, Zhang Haoran face turned bright red, then white, then purple, which was extremely creepy.

Wu Zongming replied without any emotion: “You don’t have what it takes.”

“Great! Today, both of you will fall under this skill! Storms of the Universe!” Layers of his Qi had just bulged, there was a bright blue light flashed on Zhang Haoran’s body. That was a sign of his Over the Sky and Clouds Art being pushed to its peak.

Zhang Haoran used both of his hands to draw a circle in the air. The freezing cold breeze suddenly became a ball that started to swirl. It flew towards Wu Zongmin and Ye Chen.

Whooooooo…

Cold wind whipped everywhere like a tornado. The floor was covered with rapidly spreading frost.

Wu Zongming was surprised. It was easy to tell, from this attack, that Zhang Haoran was able to turn illusions into reality which meant he was very close from changing his Qi into Real Qi, which was the difference between Mortal Realm warriors and Embracing Reality warriors. Otherwise he would not able to master the Soaking Cold Palm to this level.

“Prairie Burning Fire!”

Wu Zongming had not used his full power for a long time, but right now he was using everything he had. Suddenly, heat pushed in every direction like a wave. His face slowly turned red, and eventually became bright red with steam coming out.

And both of his fists were so hot they seemed like they were going to melt. The massive heat reached out and faced that coming cold storm.

The ground shook, the walls violently vibrated, and chunks of the wall fell to the ground.

BOOOOM! A loud sound.

Zhang Haoran and Wu Zongming both were blown away, however, it only took Zhang Haoran three steps to recover while it took four steps for Wu Zongming to recover.

Right at this moment, a shockingly bright sword light suddenly appeared, stabbing straight into Zhang Haoran’s left chest like a sudden summer storm appearing without any signs.

“Die!”

Zhang Haoran didn’t even have time to take a breath before he was stabbed by Ye Chen. Furiously, he ignored his body’s limitation and accumulated all his remaining Qi to throw out a punch.

The great steel sword was being bent by a strong wind and would not move an inch. Ye Chen’s eyes opened wide as he realized Zhang Haoran’s true power.

“Zhang Haoran, take this!”

Wu Zongming jumped up to Zhang Haoran and threw out a punch.

Without the support of Qi, Zhang Haoran couldn’t use his Inching Steps. He fiercely went head on with Wu Zongming, andthere was blood came out from the corner of his mouth.

“You made me do this.”

After being pushed backout ten steps byfrom that punch, Zhang Haoran wiped the blood offoff the blood on his mouth and said creepily.

Hearing Zhang Haoran’s word, Wu Zongming thought: No way! This guy still has more skills?

Ye Chen also frowned, he had to admit, Zhang Haoran was truely a geniusthe only genius he truly admired. Every one of those martial arts he had displayed had been mastered to a high degreesuch a degree.

Watching the two people standing in front of him fearlessly, Zhang Haoran grippedturned his hands into fists. A bright blue light suddenly came out of the fists then turned into beautiful flowing ribbon of air.

With the blue air floatingfloating blue air flow around, a quiet tiger roar suddenly resoundedappeared. It sounded quite fierce.extremely scary.

“Tiger Dragon Roaring Fist!”

Wu Zongming’s face suddenly changed and he spoke without realizing it, , he didn’t even realized his mouth moving as he said: “Top Rank Mortal Realm Skill, Tiger Dragon Roaring Fist! Damn, this is not good. How could this guy have so many skills?”

Ye Chen had heard about this skill before. Rumors said that, among the top rank Mortal Realm skills in the Sky Clouds Martial School, only the Monster Killing Fist and a few other skills could match it in power. According to the rules, only inner disciples could practice Top Rank Mortal Realm Skills, but obviously, Zhang Haoran had somehow gotten around this rule. got around this rule somehow.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 17 – Third Place


Zhang Horan smiled viciously and relaxed his body, moving towards the other two at an extremely fast speed. When he was half-way to his opponents, he started swinging his fists forward, the blue light creating a stream behind his fist which made it look like a roaring dragon was coming with the fist.

The punch was not even close, yet Wu Zongming and Ye Chen were already wobbling. In their view, there seemed to be a ferocious dragon coming their way, it was so powerful that they almost froze in fear.

Obviously, they would have to fight back to survive. It was the only way.

Ye Chen was about to do something before he realized that Wu Zongming was already prepared.

“Zhang Haoran, don’t think that you could so easily beat me with a Tiger Roar Dragon Fist! Burning Sacrifice!” Wu Zongming put his hands together, quickly accumulated his Qi, blocked out Zhang Haoran’s punch. Then he jumped toward Zhang Haoran with his whole body and threw out a punch that seemed slow but extremely fast.

Hearing Wu Zongming’s words, Ye Chen was shocked. The Burning Sacrifice was a extremely strong skill, it burnt Qi in exchange of a higher power level. However, it only lasted a short amount of time, and had a severe consequence on user’s body. If it was used too many times, the user would eventually wreck their ability to do martial arts.

Boom!

When the two fists touched, the rocks on the ground shot out, away from the explosion.

The next moment, both of them bounced back and there was blood coming out both of their mouths.

“No wonder you would dare to fight against me, it turns out you have mastered the Burning Fire Sacrifice Spell.” The Burning Fire Spell was only a high rank Mortal Realm martial art. However, once mastered, the user could bring up his power level for about thirty percent, but in return, the user would suffer in severing side effects, if they were lucky, only the user’s body would be damaged, otherwise the user might be wrecked, so no one really dared to use it regularly. Therefore, it was marked as a forbidden skill in the Sky Clouds Martial School. On the other side, even Zhang Haoran gave up on fighting Wu Zongming, he had already put in too much, if he backed out, it might affect his attempt to reach the Condensing Reality Stage.

Wu Zongming was about to say something, but he realized there were people chasing up from behind, he sneered: “Sorry, got to go!”

Woosh!

With his Burning Fire Sacrifice Spell active, Wu Zongming increased his speed to its peak, brought up a wave of heat, and disappeared into the distance.

“Consider yourself lucky, this time.”

Zhang Haoran really wanted to teach Ye Chen a lesson, but he was afraid that Wu Zongming would steal his No.1 place. Plus, he had already been wounded, and that Tiger Roar Dragon Fist had already burnt out his Qi, he was not even sure if he could make it, so he could only leave this meaningful comment and then run after Wu Zongming.

Ye Chen sneered and then he stood still and continued to remove the coldness.

Shortly after, at least ten people showed up in the lane.

Minutes later, Ye Chen opened his mouth and let out a breath of cold air. His right hand squeezed the sword, his steps lightly touched the ground, and he shot out into the lane like an arrow.

Deep in the lane.

The wooden sword artists jumped out one after another, chopping at whatever they sensed. The ten people running in front of Ye Chen had to slow down, so that they would not be attacked at the last minute.

“Damn, that guy behind us is so fast!” The person who was in the back yelled when he saw Ye Chen ignoring all the wooden artist as he ran, and managed to dodge the deadly attacks every single time.

Ah!

Right after yelling, he was knocked, by a wooden sword artist, to the ground, regretting his carelessness.

Ye Chen jumped above him, effortlessly cut off the incoming wooden sword, then passed between two wooden sword artists dangerously with perfect timing.

The reason that Ye Chen could be so calm about this, it was all because of his strong soul power. He could sense the surroundings within five meters without his eyes, then calculated a perfect route to travel, which saved plenty of time.


Ye Chen finally made his way back to third place, and ditched the number four far behind him.

…

The exit of Mu Ren Gang was the same as the entrance, which meant all of the contestants had to run in a huge circle. One could imagine how huge the Mu Ren Gang field was.

Although Ye Chen could already see the exit, but that did not mean he had succeeded yet.

There was a skinny short wooden sword artist standing by the exit. It was made of a hundred pieces of dark red wood. Holding a long thin sword in its hand, it did not seem to be alive, however, it projected a fierce aura.

Click, clack, click!

The wooden sword artist came running towards Ye Chen, faster and faster. When it was only five steps away, it swung its sword.

Ching!

Ye Chen almost lost the sword in his hand, he was surprised at the wooden sword artist’s power.

With its first attack being blocked, it started its second round of attack with the same power and speed.

“The Search for Opportunity!”

Ye Chen took a breath, his great steel sword twisted like an eel, and hit the wooden sword artist’s elbow at an awkward angle.

Although, it did not break its elbow,it created a flaw in its sword’s path Ye Chen quickly punched it in its chest.

Boom!

The wooden sword artist was blown away.

Challenge completed!

Outside the exit, Master Lin was a little bit surprised when he saw Ye Chen, he smiled: “Congratulation, you have won the third place. Here are three Windy Dew pellets. As for the high rank Mortal Realm skill and art, you would have to go pick it out yourself in the Pavilion of Martial Arts. And this is the access permit for the second floor, however, it can only be used once.”

Put away the pellets and the permit, Ye Chen finally let out a breath, it was not easy to get third place.

Wu Zongming smiled as he walked close, “Once you have a high rank Mortal Realm Art, I am afraid you will catch up with me in no time.”

Ye Chen could handle Zhang Haoran’s punch with only his Mortal Realm Stage 6 cultivation, it made Wu Zongming very interested in becoming friends with him. A friend was always better an enemy.

Ye Chen humbly replied: “No way. If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t even be standing here.”

“Never mind that, we need to hang out in the future.”

“Certainly.”

“Oh yeah, be careful around Zhang Haoran. Although he can’t really do anything to me,he might try to mess with you, so be careful.”

Ye Chen nodded, and looked towards Zhang Haoran.

Zhang Haoran did not look good, he had failed epically today. Not only he did not beat Wu Zongming, he failed to help his cousin. Luckily, he won the championship with his Inching Steps, otherwise, he would never forgive himself.

Actually, Ye Chen could not care less about Zhang Haoran. With the new high rank Mortal Realm art, he was confident he could reach the next level in a short time. In a few months time, when he trained his Qi to stage 7 or 8 and he took his arts to the highest stage, it would not be impossible for him to fight against Zhang Haoran. However, the opponent’s Tiger Roar Dragon Fist would be a threat which would be very tricky to deal with. It was rated highly among top rank Mortal Realm skills. However, Ye Chen would not be far behind, with his unique Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, he was confident he could handle Zhang Haoran.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 18 – Choosing A New Martial Art


After a night of rest, Ye Chen went to the Pavilion of Martial Arts in the morning.

Besides most of the inner disciples and all of the core disciples, the pavilion master knew only a few other disciples such as Zhang Haoran and Wu Zongming. But surprisingly, the pavilion master recognized Ye Chen and smiled the minute he entered the pavilion.

Ye Chen felt flattered, but still politely greeted the elder, “Pavilion Master.”

The pavilion master nodded, as an elder in the martial art world, he said: “It is not necessarily a good thing to have too many martial skills. Don’t bite off more than you can not chew, you know what I mean?”

Ye Chen obviously understood him perfectly and forced a smile. “Master, I am going to the second floor, here is the access permit.” He said and handed over the permit.

“Permit? What? You won the third place?!” The pavilion master forgot his position and exclaimed surprisingly.

“Yes.”

The pavilion master hesitated to ask: “You really mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords?”

Ye Chen nodded, the pavilion master still could not really believe him: With an unfinished martial art – the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, he won third place? Isn’t that a little bit too easy? Not to mention Ye Chen was only a Middle Mortal Realm Stage 6.

As the pavilion master, it was inappropriate for him to ask more so he warned Ye Chen: “Only inner and core disciples can access the second floor, so when they see outer disciples, they may be a little harsh. Try not to be bothered by it. Also, since you are not a formal outer apprentice yet, you will only have fifteen minutes to make a selection, so make up your mind quickly.”

“Yes, elder.”

Ye Chen understood the rules, although the inner disciples and outer disciples were all just disciples, status was very important. It would not end well for him if he got in trouble with an inner disciple. As for the fifteen minutes rule, it was probably used to prevent the outer disciples trying to memorize other martial arts.

The stairs were on the left-hand side deep within the pavilion, Ye Chen walked calmly towards it.

Once he was on the second floor, he could feel invisible pressure from all over the place. Scanning the place, the whole second floor was filled with about twenty people, some of them were reading the manuals carefully, some of them were chatting quietly, some of them were in the process of making the difficult decision of choosing between manuals. All of those people were under twenty and the youngest was probably the same age as Ye Chen. They all had an unmeasurable aura that only inner disciples radiated.

The inner apprentice who was the closest to Ye Chen subconsciously turned his head and scrunched up his face in confusion, then he seemed to recall something as he mumbled: “I almost forgot, yesterday was the Mu Ren Gang, this guy was probably in the top ten.”

After the comment, he looked back at his manual.

Walking forward, Ye Chen examined the place and found it was similar to the first floor, but was much more classy and fancy. The rows of bookshelves were made of valuable sandalwood which had a relaxing aroma.

There were five rows of shelves on each bookcase, the bottom three were stacked with High Rank Mortal Realm manuals while the top two were stacked with Top Rank Mortal Realm manuals. Each row had about three to seven manuals. On the side of each roll, there would a label such as “Mastering Martial Arts”, “Assisting Arts”, “Body Boosting Arts”, “Attacking Skills”, “Guarding Skills”, and so on.

There was no time for Ye Chen to waste! He only had fifteen minutes!

He first arrived in the area of martial art manuals, he randomly took out a manual off the shelf and browsing the content, then he put it back and picked up another one, putting it down, …

After scanning tons of manuals, Ye Chen had only liked nine of them which were –

“Burning Fire Fist, Attack Skill!”

“Inching Steps, Body Movement Skill!”

“Chasing Cicada: Eight Steps, Body Movement Skill!”

“The Power of Yuan, Defense Skill!”

“The Reflection, Defense and Attack Skill!”

“Golden Swallow Art, Attack Skill!”

“Disintegration Fist, Attack Skill!”

“Sword Draw Art, Attack Skill!”

“The Withered Wood Seal, Attack Skill!”

These nine martial skills probably were not the best High Rank Mortal Realm skills, but they were definitely the best fit for Ye Chen which was why he was torn to make up his mind.

The Burning Fire Fist was Wu Zongming’s primary martial skill, its prowess was already proven by Wu Zongming. When a warrior mastered it, their fist could produce an actual fire and execute a deadly attack. Inching Steps was what Zhang Haoran used before. A warrior could move extremely quickly, seemingly causing the ground to shorten into inches which were also very powerful and practical for movement. The Chasing Cicada: Eight Steps detailed how to use the explosive force within the eight steps a warrior took, it could raise the user’s speed by at least fifty percent. No matter how fast the opponent was, no one could escape from the person using this technique, it was the best choice for hunting enemies. The power of Yuan was a little bit different, a warrior drew Qi out then transformed it into out a unique Yuan Qi, which was the same as Qi but was stored inside the user’s body. It would automatically activate when the user faced an enemy, causing it to swell over the user’s body in defense. However, it was not recyclable. Once it was used, the user had to create more Yuan Qi to replace it.

The first four martial arts were one of the best options, if Ye Chen did not have the other five options, he would have already picked one from the four. However, with the other five, Ye Chen decided to give them up.

Comparing to its defense, the Reflection Skill was actually more of an Attack skill. It allowed users to not only protect themselves but also reflect the opponent's’ attack. The skill’s strength solely depended on the opponent, if the opponent was very powerful then the reflected attack would be powerful as well. It could only be activated when the user was under attack. The best part was that a user could bounce back an attack without even noticing they were under attack! Therefore, once mastered, it would not be necessary for the user to master another defensive martial art.

The Golden Swallow Art was a movement art, once mastered, the warrior not only could walk on water but when mastered to its extreme, the warrior could also walk in the air for hundreds of meters like a flying swallow.

When Ye Chen saw the introduction of the Disintegration Fist, he could not help but made a face. How could this martial skill be so powerful? It did not have any stage other than just mastering the punch. However, with one punch, the target would definitely break into pieces. In other words, it helped a warrior display their power to the utmost.

Sadly, this extreme power would not last long. According to Tai Qi, everything is about the balance of Ying and Yang, powerful and gentle. Especially in a battle, if I could not beat the opponent in that punch, then I would be beaten, this art is way too extreme. Ye Chen shook his head and gave up the Disintegration Fist.

As for the Sword Draw Art, it focused on the moment of drawing the from its scabbard and its explosive force, its power and speed was much faster than simply waving the sword. This kind of art was extremely advantageous during the beginning of a fight. It allowed the user to beat the opponent in the first attack, killing in one attack.

Ye Chen had mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, if he could master the Sword Draw Art as a supplement, he would be invincible in every case except opponents that were stronger or had much better skills.

However, nothing would be that easy. The Sword Draw Art was great but it was not a wise choice for a warrior learning the way of the sword. Similar to the Disintegration Fist, it was too extreme, aiming for an instant kill. If it failed in that moment, then it was useless.

Hence, the Sword Draw Art was not suitable for sword artists. It was an art for assassins.

The last one art was the Withered Wood Seal Art. It specialized in hiding the user’s fighting intent, it allowed the user to be almost invisible when attacking. Most of the time, the opponent was killed because of such an unexpected attack. Although the name ‘Withered Wood Seal Art’ sounded quite lifeless, it was actually the opposite. The user could accumulate and lock his Qi on his opponent, then suddenly release it at the moment of attack. Like an old tree dead during the winter that suddenly bloomed to life in the spring, his calm attack would suddenly burst full of horrifying explosive power.

http://www.xianxiaworld.net/Dominating-Sword-Immortal/

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 19 – Pure Yuan Art


Which skill should I learn?

Ye Chen stood there quietly before he made up his mind. He grabbed the manual of the Golden Swallow Skill.

He made a very reasonable decision, compared to an attack skill or a guard skill, a movement skill would be much more helpful for his survival. While there were hundreds of “unbeatable” and strong arts in the world, Ye Chen could only protect himself and hurt his opponent when he had speed, when his speed reached a certain level, it would be more powerful than any attack skill. In the end, even if he failed to hit his opponent, Ye Chen still could escape. Comparatively a guard skill could also protect him, but he would be a turtle, forced to defend until he no longer had the strength to.

As for why did he choose the Golden Swallow Skill instead of the Inching Steps or the Chasing Cicada: Eight Steps? It was nothing more than a hunch of Ye Chen’s.

After choosing his martial skill, it was now time to choose a martial art.

“What are you doing? I called dibs on this Iron Shirt Art first!” All of the sudden, someone started arguing down the third row.

Ye Chen recognized the voice the second he heard it. Out of curiosity, he walked between the shelves towards the sound, searching for that familiar face.

There were two people standing ten steps away, one of them was quite handsome and seemed to be only thirteen years old. Just like Ye Chen thought, it was the one and only Zhang Haoran. The other guy was about seventeen years old and wore yellow gear. He was physically quite impressive, his arms were thicker than Zhang Haoran’s thighs. He had a square face, square chin, and his long, narrow eyes shone with a cold light. He looked like a combination between a tiger and a poisonous snake.

They were arguing about the High Rank Mortal Realm Martial Skill – the Iron Shirt. Although it was not the highest rank skill, it was extremely effective and practical in a battle which even made it more popular than some of the top rank skills. Zhang Haoran wanted to practice it to supplement his weak defense, and had just taken it off the shelf when the other guy appeared and took it out of his hand unexpectedly. He even rolled his eye in a manner that seemed to say “piss off”. Zhang Haoran did not expect this kind of treatment at all, and quickly became furious.

The young man in yellow laughed: “Outer disciple? Where do you think you are? Piss off now, go back to your mama on the first floor!”

Zhang Haoran had an extremely ugly look on his face, “Don’t think I don’t know who you are. Huang Bingwen, seventeen years old, Early Condensing Reality Stage, the second child of the Windy Town mayor.”

“Good! Now beat it kid.” Huang Bingwen’s proud face had a wide smile.

“Hmph. You are weak! At the age of seventeen, you have only reached the Early Condensing Reality Stage? You’re a joke! To come out here and brag about it…you are not qualified to stand in front of me and do so.” Zhang Haoran’s word surprised everyone in the room.

The room suddenly filled with the sound of quiet murmurs as interest built up.

“Is that guy Zhang Haoran? No wonder he dared to confront Huang Bingwen! But honestly, that was way too brutal though, he might offend some disciples by not giving us face.”

“The Peak of Mortal Realm Stage by the age of thirteen…if he can reach the Condensing Reality Stage by the end of this year, he would be one of the top five genius in the Sky Cloud Martial School!”

“Doesn’t look to good for Huang Bingwen. I heard that Zhang Haoran was greatly favored by by the Inner Court Elder Liu, he even made an exception for Zhang Haoran to practice the Top Rank Mortal Realm Skill – Tiger Roar, Dragon Fist!”

As Huang Bingran heard the discussions, his face soured as he said ghastly: “You little brat. Good job to make it here because of your little connections.”

“Good job? I, Zhang Haoran, need connection? Please, don’t make me laugh at your ‘insults’. Do you dare to make a bet? A battle, in two months, on the Martial Arts Plaza! The loser has to apologize to the winner!” Once again, Zhang Haoran threw out a big “bomb”.

Huang Bingwen and the other inner disciples in the room were all shocked. They couldn’t believe their ears that an outer disciple wanted to challenge an inner disciple.

“As you wish, young master. I will crush you in now, and I will crush you in two months.” Competing with a junior apprentice was below his status, but as long as he could beat him effortlessly then it would be fine. People would even turn against Zhang Haoran and call him unrespectful and would not blame him for taking such a bet.

As Zhang Haoran grabbed the Iron Shirt manual out of Huang Bingwen’s hand, he left without looking back.

Huang Bingwen’s face tinted purple as he felt a burning anger smolder him with no place to release. He soon discovered Ye Chen, the only other outer disciple in the crowd and yelled with a low voice: “****! What are you looking at?!”

Ye Chen froze. He had never expected that he would suddenly become Huang Bingwen’s emotional punching bag. Masking his anxiety, he said emotionlessly: “My eyes… are on my head, do I need your permission to see from them?”

Upon hearing this, the crowd was shocked again. They were all wondering what was going on, the outer disciples this year were the most arrogant bunch they have ever seen. At least the other disciple had reached the peak of Mortal Realm Stage 10 and had the backing of a senior master, but this guy had only reached the Middle Mortal Realm Stage 6 and had zero reputation. However, he was as arrogant as Zhang Haoran.

Huang Bingwen felt like he was about to explode. His clothing began to whip up even though there was no wind. A dark brown colored light began to emit from his body along with an invisible pressure in preparation to attack Ye Chen.

“Huang Bingwen, what are you doing?! Remember where we are!” A dark hair senior apprentice in black rebuked.

Huang Bingwen shivered as he remembered that he was in the Pavilion of Martial Arts where fighting was strictly forbidden. There was a huge punishment plus a six-month ban from the Pavilion of Martial Arts if you were caught.

After taking a deep, calming breath, Huang Bingwen dissipated his Qi and stared at Ye Chen murderously. He threatened: “Once we are outside, I will finish you!”

Ye Chen frowned, the guy standing in front of him was like a mad dog, biting whoever came close. Ye Chen knew his power level was still quite low and definitely would not be able to beat him at this time. If he did not come up with something quickly, this might not end well for him.

Making up his mind, Ye Chen lifted up his head, “I will also make a bet with you. Battle me in two months on the same Martial Art Plaza as Zhang Haoran. Whoever loses has to apologize to the winner. Do you dare?”

It was like a lightning in a sunny day, Huang Bingwen froze.

“Haha!” He looked like he just heard the funniest joke ever, Huang Bingwen pointed at Ye Chen with his finger, said: “You? You think you can beat me in two months? Did you lost your mind?”

“What? You afraid?”

“**** I knew it, you are just baiting me into a fight. But brat, why would I be afraid? I will teach you and Zhang Haoran both a lesson in two months.” Huang Bingwen was actually patient, he knew the longer he waited, the better he would feel when it actually happened. Plus, this two months would pass in no time at all.

“In that case, I will take my leave. Excuse me.” Fifteen minutes was about to end and Ye Chen had yet to choose a martial art. He did not want to waste another minute.

Watching Ye Chen leaving, the rest of the inner disciples began conversing animatedly. They desperately wanted the next two months to go by quickly so that they could watch those interesting battles.

Standing next to the book shelf, Ye Chen was trying to make a decision.

“Six Sun Art, Extreme Power with Extreme Yang!”

“Withered Wood Spell, Hidden Tracks and Concealed Intent!”

“Sinking Cloud Force, Supreme Qi Manipulation, Invoking Flames!”

“Little Star Art, Qi Purification, Destroying those who stand above!”

…

There were not many training arts, but Ye Chen was torn with all the different kind of arts. There were even some random arts that he had never heard of.

Tick tock. Time slipped by.

Ye Chen began to become anxious. He knew if he did not hurry, time would run out.

Losing his patience, he randomly picked up a manual. However, his eyes caught sight of something. There was another manual under the one he was holding, it seemed to be hidden on purpose.

On the cover of that manual was three black-inked characters,


“Pure Yuan Art”!


...

Editor’s Corner: Don’t confuse this chapter’s “Pure Yuan Art” with last chapter’s “The Power of Yuan”. Last chapter was a defensive skill, and compared to this chapter’s offensive art.

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