Kong Feng tried his best to quickly calm himself down. He did not want other people to think that he was afraid of Tianshen. He proceeded to put on a fake smile and while acting confident said ‘’Ah bad luck brother Tianshen, I guess we will never know if you have a good talent since the crystal was obviously faulty and it broke as soon as you released some soul power’’
‘’Of course it was faulty’’ said Tianshen sarcastically. Then he just turned around and walked back to his seat like nothing happened.
Although Kong Feng was arrogant, he was no idiot so he picked up on Tianshen’s sarcasm.
‘’Just you wait’’ he thought to himself. As far as Kong Feng was concerned, after he won this competition, Tianshen was next in line.
But just as Kong Feng thought that he would get away with his ridiculous claim of the crystal being faulty, Cao Bai who was still sitting in her pavilion turned to him and said ‘’Kong Feng, didn’t you humiliate yourself enough already? When will you understand that the world does not revolve around you and there are people out there that are much more talented than you? There must be a limit to how shameless one can be’’
Kong Feng’s face turned ugly, he pointed his finger at Cao Bai and said angrily ‘’losers have no right to speak to me, the truth of the words one speaks have zero significance in front of absolute power. And while I’m the absolute power among the disciples here, your words aren’t worth anything. Soon you will receive a beating like you did last year so just sit tight’’
Cao Bai did not get angry with his words, she just turned around and with a serious face said ‘’we’ll see about that’’.
The crowd obviously heard this exchange between Kong Feng and Cao Bai, they started to get excited for the competition that was to come. The number one and number two core disciples were at it again, these two never got along ever since they were still kids. But their conflicts never escalated since both of their fathers were the chief and vice-chief of the sect.
Kong Zhi was still staring at the now broken crystal, the disciples did not know it but the crystal indeed had another color to it which was black, and the reason the elders mutually decided to not mention the color was for two reasons. First, they wanted to hide it from the disciples so that they thought that purple was the highest, so their confidence would not drop as much when knowing that nobody could reach the highest color. And second, when it comes to talent, black color meant inestimable, so they really did not believe that anyone could reach it to begin with.
‘’Kong Zhi, let us proceed to the main event’’ said Cao Chen.
Kong Zhi suddenly came back to his senses, he already estimated that Tianshen’s talent was monstrous so this wasn’t a big surprise to him. What surprised him the most were the other two who managed to turn the crystal black for a moment. And they removed their hands as soon as it turned black so that meant that they were trying to hide their talent.
Kong Zhi knew that these two were just some nobodies from the outer sect until two weeks ago. But now suddenly two more monsters appeared besides Tianshen. This told him on thing, Tianshen had some extraordinary secrets about cultivation. Kong Zhi’s mind was running wild with greed now, he had to get his hands on those secrets.
He left those thoughts behind for now though and started explaining the competition to the hundred people that were left.
‘’This year’s competition will go as follows, the main stage will be further divided into ten smaller stages that will be numbered from one to ten. The core disciples will step onto the stage according to their ranking. As for the other hundred challengers, they will draw numbers at random from this box, what number you draw indicates which stage you will be fighting on. Once everyone draws a number, each stage should have eleven fighters. Then the people on the stages will fight it out until only two people remain standing on the stage. That way we will reach the top twenty, after that, I will further explain how we will proceed with the rest of the tournament’’ explained Kong Zhi.
Then he added ‘’It is also important to mention that once there are two people left on one stage, further fighting is prohibited. If you are knocked out of the stage’s boundaries, it’s considered a loss. You are also not allowed to knock out all your opponents at the same time even if you have the power to do so, since we need two people at the end. And one last thing, you are not allowed to kill. That is all, let us proceed to the first phase of the tournament’’
Cao Chen then stood up and took out a jade pendant in the shape of an azure dragon. He then lifted it high in the air. The stage started responding to the pendant and slowly started splitting itself in ten smaller stages that were all the same in size. After a moment the process was completed, there were now ten stages which were numbered from one to ten.
The core disciples all stood up and walked out of their pavilions. They all then walked up on the stage according to their rankings.
Kong Zhi the gestured with his hand and the servants brought out a big box and placed it down in front of the hundred challengers.
‘’line up and draw your number, then proceed to the corresponding stage’’ said Kong Zhi.
The hundred challengers started drawing numbers and climbing onto the stages. At this moment it was Bingyue’s turn, she put her hand inside the box and took out the number ten.
Then Wentian took out the number five.
‘’Bingyue, no need to be nervous, remember, Tianshen is watching’’ said Wentian with a smile
‘’don’t worry, I’m no longer nervous Wentian’’ said Bingyue with a smile and then turned and looked at Tianshen who was smiling at her from the platform.
‘’Looks like Tianshen really managed to boost up her confidence’’ Wentian thought.
Both of them wished each other good luck and climbed their stages. After some more minutes everyone drew their numbers and each stage now had eleven people on it.
At this point everyone was trying to sense each other’s cultivation. The muscular 10th core disciple was standing confidently on the stage, he suddenly frowned when he realized that he could not sense Bingyue’s cultivation. This made him nervous but he did not show it.
He knew that none of the other participants would try to attack him since he was stronger than them. Instead they would probably try to go for the weakest ones first and fight it out with each other until one of them was remaining. Many people were content with only entering the top twenty.
At this point everyone already picked their targets for when the battle started. Wentian also observed his opponents. Since he was at the 7th Core Formation realm, he was not worried about this stage of the tournament. At this point not even the 5th ranked core disciple Kong Jie would be his match, even if he could fight opponents one realm higher than him.
The reason for that was that after Wentian mastered the second stage of the Golden Crow flames, his combat prowess increased dramatically, he was estimating that he could now fight opponents that were two realms higher than him. He was sure Bingyue was the same so he did not worry about her either.
Kong Jie did not know this though, and being the brother of Kong Feng and growing up while looking up to his older brother, he did not differ much from him in terms of arrogance and conceitedness.
Kong Jie looked at everyone and said arrogantly ‘’if any one of you dares to attack me, you will end up miserable, you better fight it out between yourselves and act like I don’t exist, understood?’’
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The disciples did not like him, but considering this guy’s status there was really nothing they could do, plus they were not confident in beating him anyway.
Wentian was the only one that ignored what Kong Jie said. He suddenly sat down cross legged and closed his eyes.
‘’Hey you! Are you deaf?’’ Shouted Kong Jie angrily.
Wentian kept ignoring him and continued his mediation like nobody around him existed.
Kong Jie gritted his teeth and said to the other disciples ‘’As soon as the battle starts, I want you guys to knock that guy off the stage first, maybe break a leg or an arm too as punishment for ignoring me’’
The others sighed, they really did not want to do it, but this guy really asked for it.
Kong Zhi now returned to his seat, then Cao Chen stood up and shouted ‘’Let the Battles begin!’’
As soon as Cao Chen shouted, the crowd’s cheers started to get louder and louder, everyone was very excited to see the battles. Some were keeping a special eye on Wentian and Bingyue since they were now considered dark horse in the tournament. Their talent turned out to be greater than everyone else’s so no logical person would underestimate them.
On Bingyue’s stage, as soon as the battle started, chaos instantly ensued. People started fighting each other left and right and Qi attacks were flying everywhere. One girl saw Bingyue standing in one corner of the stage and charged towards her with a sword.
Bingyue responded instantly ‘’Divine Ice God stage one, Frozen sword’’
A beautiful sword made entirely out of ice materialized in Bingyue’s hand.
‘’A sword made out of ice? Little girl, you underestimate me too much!’’ shouted the female disciple while swinging her sword at Bingyue.
Bingyue met the girl’s attack with her own sword. They clashed and surprisingly, the sword of the female disciple was cut through like butter. Bingyue was careful not to hurt the other disciple as she was too gentle and innocent.
The female disciple fell on the floor shocked. Bingyue put her ice sword towards the neck of the female disciple and said ‘’you should surrender now’’.
The female disciple had no other choice ‘’I surrender’’ she said reluctantly.
She then jumped down from the stage. At the same time four more people were knocked off the 10th stage. There were now six remaining, and they were all looking for an easy opponent. They all turned and looked at Bingyue, because she was just eleven years old, she seemed like the youngest and weakest one. But looks can be deceiving. Bingyue suddenly released her soul power and instilled her Divine Ice God Qi into it. Suddenly the temperature on the 10th stage dropped dramatically and it started freezing rapidly.
The soul power that Bingyue released combined with the chilling cold made the disciples understand that she was not an opponent that they could handle, even though they could not sense her cultivation at all.
They suddenly turned and picked other targets and started fighting among themselves.
At the same time that all of this was happening. On the 5th stage, the disciples that were ordered to beat Wentian were all closing in on Wentian who was still sitting cross legged with his eyes closed.
But they noticed that the closer they got to him, the hotter they got. It was abnormally hot.
When they were ten meters away from him they found that the heat was now almost unbearable.
Suddenly Wentian opened his eyes and said ‘’Golden Crow Flames first stage, Divine Golden Flame’’ he then opened his mouth and spit fire around himself.
The disciples instantly backed away as the heat was now hurting them even though they were not directly touching the flames.
‘’I don’t want to hurt you guys, you better stay away from me for the rest of this tournament or the consequences will be severe’’ said Wentian to the disciples while releasing some killing intent that made a chill run down their spine.
Tianshen who was watching from the platform smiled ‘’this rascal really learned well, that killing intent is not too bad for his level’’
The disciples all turned to Kong Jie with an apologetic look, they could not even approach this guy, much less beat him.
Kong Jie was feeling nervous at this point ‘’this guy is much stronger than I thought, I better not risk it and take out the others quickly so I can advance’’ he thought to himself.
He then released his soul power and Qi and charges at the disciples, they really were no match for him, one by one they started flying off the stage and landing heavily on the floor. They all ended up in a miserable shape.
Wentian was observing from behind the wall of flames that he was surrounded by.
‘’This guy shows no mercy even though they are people from the same sect, what a disgusting guy’’
Kong Jie made quick work of almost all of them, now there was only one left, he was laying on the floor terrified of what was to come. He saw how merciless this Kong jie was. Some of his fellow disciples were now laying outside of the stage with broken bones, some of those injuries may even be irreversible.
Kong Jie made to grab the disciple by the head but at that moment he felt a scorching sensation on his hand that was burning through his skin.
‘’Argh!’’ He immediately jumped back ten meters while shouting in pain and holding his hand.
He lifted his head up and saw Wentian standing next to the disciple that he was just going to attack.
‘’How dare you hit me? You will suffer greatly for this!’’ shouted Kong Jie angrily.
Wentian looked at him with an angry face ‘’a worthless dog like you who does not show mercy to his fellow brothers and sisters of the same sect has no right to participate in this competition. Let’s see how you like being treated the same way’’ said Wentian.
He then released his soul power and his Golden Crow Flame which was now surrounding his whole body. It looked like his whole body was on fire now, but the flames had no effect on him.
‘’Look Wentian is about to fight Kong Jie!’’ someone in the crowd shouted.
Suddenly everyone’s attention was turned to the fifth stage. Kong Zhi who was sitting at the platform with the rest of the elders frowned ‘’this is not good’’ he thought.
Before Kong Jie could make a move, Wentian moved extremely fast and landed a punch on his face. Not to mention the force of the punch, the fire was also burning his face.
‘’AAAARGHH!!’’ Kong Jie flew ten meters back from the punch and landed on the floor of the stage with a bang.
The crowd was surprised by Wentian’s strength and how easily he was beating Kong Jie.
Loud cheers were now resounding throughout the whole arena. Wentian was quickly becoming a crowd favorite. His demeanor somewhat reminded the crowd of Tianshen, although Wentian showed much more emotion than Tianshen.
Wentian now retracted his soul power and Golden Crow Flame. He then proceeded to slowly walk towards Kong Jie.
He stopped in front of him and took a look at his face, it was now half burned from the jaw and down the neck on his left side. He was really in a miserable state.
Wentian crouched down and grabbed him by the hair while looking at his face with disgust.
‘’I wonder, do pieces of trash like you feel any regret in situations like these?’’ asked Wentian.
Kong Jie spoke through his gritted teeth and blood flowing out of his mouth ‘’my brother is going to kill you for sure in the next round of the competition’’
‘’you should be more concerned about yourself now’’ said Wentian. And while holding Kong Jie by the hair, he slammed his face on to the stage floor. Some of his teeth instantly shattered and flew out of his mouth, blood was now dripping from all over Kong Jie’s face to the stage floor.
On the first stage Kong Feng was gripping his fists so tightly that some blood was visible.
‘’You will die, I swear I will kill you in the next round!’’ he shouted.
Kong Zhi was also far from happy at this point, but he still had to maintain apperances as an elder so he couldn’t intervene.
He stood up and shouted ‘’Jie’er, surrender!’’
Kong Jie hear his father and was just about to open his mouth to surrender, but before he could make a sound, his head was slammed into the stage floor again, then again…then again.
By this point his face was unrecognizable. Wentian then stood up while still holding him by the hair and dragged him to the edge of the 5th arena and threw him out like he was a piece of trash.
‘’You’re lucky that we’re not allowed to kill’’ said Wentian angrily and then turned around, walked to the other disciple and said to him ‘’Congratulations for making the top twenty’’.
The disciple stood up and bowed down to Wentian’’ Thank you older brother Wentian for saving me and avenging our brothers’’
‘’don’t mention it, soon pieces of trash like him will not have a place in our sect anymore’’ said Wentian.
Cao Chen then stood up and shouted ‘’Stage five, match over!’’
The crowd then burst into loud cheers.