Shivering, Qing Yan woke up in the treatment room.

Her clouded eyes blinked twice, then realization dawned on her face. Wiping the crust off her eyes, she rose from the bed and yawned.

‘’Young lady, please close your mouth when yawning.’’

‘’Huh—’’

Looking to her left, Qing Yan saw a granny laying by her thigh. She had a disciplined gaze on her wrinkled face, seemingly displeased.

Qing Yan blinked again, then looked to her right. There was a young woman sleeping in a weird, curled up posture. She had a headband that read’ Xu Liao Number One’.

‘’Huh?’’

Then voices came, and Qing Yan raised her head to survey the room.

There were at least a thousand people inside the cramped treatment room. Attendants kept pouring in with new medicine and bandages, tending to the wounded en-masse.

Groans, moans, hissess, coughs; then the smell of sweat and blood all came in a single wave that knocked her consciousness out.

Laying back on the bed, Qing Yan felt something hard under her chest.

She cast a glance down.

‘’Young lady, it is bad manners to sleep on someone.’’

The granny had occupied her part of the bed without notice. Now, she looked at Qing Yan with an admonishing gaze, all the while pushing down the headband wearing girl.

‘’This must be a dream.’’ Qing Yan muttered and laid back again. ‘’Yes, this must be a dream.’’

‘’Young lady, it is bad manners to sleep on someone, especially when they tell you.’’

Qing Yan ignored her and closed her eyes.

‘’Young lady, it is bad manners to ignore elderly.’’

‘’Young lady, it is bad manners to suffocate elderly.’’

‘’Young lady, it is bad manners.’’

‘’Bad manners.’’

‘’Bad...man...’’

Hearing her choke, Qing Yan shot to her feet and retreated to the nearest wall. Back pouring with sweat, she noticed that she stepped on the face of a wounded man.

‘’Heavens, what happened here!?’’

‘Did I not just sleep for a while? Did a demon army attack or something!?’

Ignoring the granny’s remarks and the guy below her feet, she leaped forward toward a familiar figure.

‘’Sun Jian!’’

‘’Oh—’’ Her senior brother also noticed her. ‘’I was looking for you, junior sister!’’

Sniffing, the boy gestured to the bemoaning crowd. ‘’Do you know how hard it is to find someone in this crowd?’’

‘’...I noticed. What happened?’’

Sun Jian, beaming, told a short summary of what happened, then pointed to the person who caused the chaos.

Qing Yan saw Lei Ningyue, Lei Jin’s mother, near an empty bed. People rounded her as she pulled Li Ao and Lei Jin’s ears, shouting something at them.

‘’...will he be disqualified?’’

‘’Why should he be?’’ Sun Jian shook his head with certainty. ‘’Junior brother defeated the bad girl fair and square. Also, are there any rules preventing advertisement?’’

‘Does the competition have any rules at all?’ Qing Yan rubbed her temples.

Apart from the barebones basic rules any decent competition should have, there wasn’t any specific limitation to the fighting format. Who would have thought someone could incite a mass brawl through advertisement?

Looking at a corner, where two old men laughed to themselves in bandages, Qing Yan sighed and let Sun Jian lead her outside.

‘’How is master?’’

‘’Angry.’’

‘’Understandable.’’

Outside, the duo saw a dozen cultivators fly around the arena. Each wave of their hands raised and lowered certain parts of the platform, transforming the venue into a small range of one hundred hills. Lights of a grand formation flashed by once in a while.

‘’There is still an hour to begin.’’ Sun Jian explained. They sat on a pair of chairs prepared for the attendees, right below the viewing platforms.

‘’I heard some bad things near master.’’

‘’What kind of bad?’’

‘’Junior brother won fair and square, but those bald donkeys kept making complaints about him.’’

Eyes a little down-cast, Sun Jian took a deep breath. ‘’I’m actually not confident about his disqualification. They might take away his championship.’’

‘’That makes no sense. Would anyone accept it?’’

‘’Not many would oppose it.’’ Sun Jian shook his head. ‘’Junior sister, those people are too blatant in their opposition. They don’t seem to be against master.’’

‘’Its like they are targeting us, specifically?’’

Sun Jian nodded.

‘’That is only natural. Would they dare to fight against master, old in their age and weak in their strength? They can only find trouble with us.’’

Qing Yan sighed. ‘’...I’m fine if they bully you or me.’’

‘’I’m of the same mind. But—’’

‘’You know Xu Liao is strong, right?’’

Sun Jian waved his hand, then a small silencing formation sprang up around them.

‘’He is going to leave soon. Master told me.’’

‘’I’m aware.’’

Sun Jian showed a rare, ruthless glint as he glanced at Qing Yan. ‘’Where do you think he will go?’’

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Qing Yan looked towards the high seats.

‘’His path is long to the north.’’ Sun Jian whispered. ‘’After the Servant Mountain, there is no friend of my family to keep an eye on him.’’

He sighed.

‘’Neither yours.’’

Both Sun and Qing families were Grand Noble families, but they were also courtly families.

They didn’t boast great strength in cultivation or profession. The former excelled in forging, and the latter mastered alchemy, but beyond that they were not a strong power in the grand picture of things.

After all, bureaucratic power meant nothing in front of true strength. In the cultivation world, strength reigned supreme. That was why the Bai Dynasty was in power.

‘’Those people now know what he is capable of. They will prepare for the best of him. How do I even help him, then? Do I go out with him to wherever he goes?’’

‘’My grandpa is already too old. He can’t make anymore breakthroughs...I can’t go away when he might die in a decade or two.’’

‘’Sun Jian.’’ Qing Yan patted his trembling back. ‘’You aren’t in any position to think about these things.’’

‘’I know you are anxious, but you need to trust Master. She wouldn’t put junior brother in danger, especially when her enemies are concerned.’’

Sun Jian nodded.

Still, he seemed to have thought about this matter for a long while.

Deep down, Sun Jian was honest, but also shy about his feelings.

Most of the time, the scenes he caused came from repressed thoughts. He would not share what he thought, only acting aloof and naive. That was why his exaggerated reactions made him kind of isolated from his peers.

It had been a long time since he shared his distress. This made Qing Yan happy, but also bitter.

After all, she also faced this problem..

In her position, perhaps she was in an even worse situation.

Xu Liao was the strongest among them, no doubt. He was also shrewd enough to not be trapped by easy words. They couldn’t stand up for him at all in that department.

Sun Jian, however, had a big edge on him with forging. He could forge strong enough armaments to keep Xu Liao safe.

She was inferior to him, even if not by too much.

She also knew Xu Liao’s elder cousin was the young Alchemy Master Xu Fuqiu. Qing Yan helped him when he sent pills to Xu Liao to cultivate. She also had a hand in gathering some of those pills for his cultivation, after all.

In alchemy, then, she couldn’t do much as well.

She couldn’t protect him with his strength, couldn’t forge him an equipment better than Sun Jian, nor prepare life saving pills for him as Xu Fuqiu did.

Formations, she knew little, enchanting, nothing.

Wealth-wise, Sun or Lei families could match her Qing family. Position wise, again, Xu Fuqiu would be able to help him most with their blood relations, let alone Fan Yueyin as a Grandmaster Forger.

Qing Yan didn’t degrade herself. She was still successful, counted as a genius among millions.

Yet, she was the least useful when her junior brother was in danger.

Though it was a short time between them, she treasured her close friends as family.

And even though they both had certain mental problems, Qing Yan was closest to the two of them. Hence, she couldn’t sit easy when there was a blatant threat to one of them.

That kind of helpless feeling made her chest heavy. Her breaths felt too little, air too thin.

Shaking her head, Qing Yan sighed.

‘You aren’t in any position to think about these things.’

She intended those words to herself, not to Sun Jian.

‘’The Forging segment of the Bai-Wide Youth Competition is about to begin! Take your seats—attendees, line up on the stage!’’

Standing up, Sun Jian and Qing Yan walked over to the stairs leading up the hills.

Qing Yan glanced at his stumbling feet. ‘’Will you be okay?’’

‘’I am always okay!’’

‘’Don’t let me surpass you then. I might be your senior sister if you do~’’

Sun Jian’s face paled.

*********

A majority of the audience left after the fighting segment.

The nature of other competitions were vastly different from fighting. Unless one knew about forging, formations, or alchemy, they couldn’t understand anything happening before their eyes.

Hence, only a few thousand people remained in the audience seats. Among them were few mortals, hopeful of gaining an enlightenment, while most were there to bet again.

Few people also had ambitions to crack the techniques of the participants. However, only true heaven’s chosen could reverse-engineer a forging technique by watching.

All in all, they were a bunch of good for nothing.

Aware of that, the judge didn’t make much of a preparation for another brawl. The thought lingered in his mind as he glanced at Li Ao making his way to his assigned hill.

Sensing the peculiar gaze on him, Li Ao waved at the old man with a smile.

Soon, others took their place as well. Sun Jian, Lei Jin, Qing Yan, and surprisingly Jie Mentai and Yun Fanghe all sat a bit closer to each other, their own hills at most thirty-meters apart. Su Jingpei and Ren Shuren, eldest disciples of the two grandmasters eligible to join the competition, also had their hills near them.

A fierce staring battle broke out between them and his senior disciples. Li Ao evaded Jie Mentai’s glare.

Li Ao was the only one isolated from the rest. Apart from a heaven’s child who got eliminated early on, as well as Pu Shu whom he knew from Fan Yueyin’s test, he didn’t know any of these people.

The duo greeted each other and chatted a little, then the judge lowered himself and shouted in the air.

‘’There is everything you need on the hill you stand—be it forging a sword or an armor, anything is within limits!’’

‘’There are three pieces of unique ore for you to choose—they are all of the same grade, but take care to discover the properties of your own!’’

Li Ao cast a worried look at Sun Jian.

It wasn’t well known, but still not a big secret that he had difficulty in picking his materials. His improved cultivation wasn’t much of a help.

Coupled with his leg injury, it seemed he was in for a bad time.

‘There is still Qing Yan.’’ Li Ao thought. ‘I’m here as well.’

His upper limit was still 7-th grade Earth-Quality, and Li Ao assumed not many could surpass it around their age. That was the case for weapons, however. For complex things like armor, he would need detailed blueprints and experimentation to work on them.

In general, making armor was several times harder than making a weapon. Not only would it consume more time in the process, just taking the elementary steps for it proved a hellish task.

After all, one had to consider what kind of an audience they wanted this armor to reach. Its height, width, and the in-plate size specifications had to be optimized for the general cultivator. For commissions, one would need to make arduous calculations to get the right measurements.

Assembling it was another work. Then, if one wished to enchant or engrave formations, it created another threshold to surpass.

An armor also needed more materials than a few weapons would require.

‘...he can try one.’

Naturally, making an armor would raise the evaluation Sun Jian received.

Li Ao wasn’t sure if Sun Jian would pick to do so, however.

The boy’s forging talent was unique, similar to Lei Jin’s passion.

He was simply obsessed with what he did, and he was obsessed because it was fun.

Li Ao knew he didn’t exactly like making armor and such. Apart from Prismatic Gloves, he never saw the boy attempt one.

‘I shouldn’t worry.’

Sun Jian would be fine.

Even slightly wounded, he was on a standard beyond most could reach.

There was a reason Fan Yueyin didn’t attempt to completely heal him.

‘She likes showing off...’

Sighing, Li Ao watched a wall of light envelope his hill. It blocked sound from outside, even divine sense. Only naked eye could peer inside and see what happened.

This was all in good order.

Forging required more focus and less interference.

In the fighting segment, the audience was always a part of the fight.

A good cultivator carried expectations to be charismatic to some extent—hence, no one would bat an eye if someone stumbled because of an overbearing audience.

For forging, it would be a cause of concern for anyone involved in it.

Though this made Li Ao wonder why Sun family didn’t make use of silencing formations in their competition.

‘They wouldn’t have forgotten, would they?’

Shaking his head, free of thoughts, Li Ao threw a piece of firestone into the furnace beside him. A fire expanded from its dark entrance, then cast a deep red light on his focused face.

Now, it was time to work.