Beside the Sky Martial Institute's entrance stood an immobile middle-aged cultivator in lavish clothing dumbly looking ahead.
"Hey, isn't that mister Hei, what are you doing here, are you also interested in the martial institutions' competition ranking?" A short and stout man approached when he noticed him and asked.
The cultivator looking was Hei Qiong, the forgemaster of the Ironheart Weaponsmiths establishment.
He has been actively forging a spiritual weapon for the past two days and was reaching the final steps, but drained by the efforts necessary he needed some fresh air and took a break.
When Hei Qiong forges spiritual tools or weapons, he isolate himself from the outside so when he passed by the banner in front of the Sky Martial Institute, he couldn't help asking himself if he fell asleep in his forge or if it was reality.
"Are my eyes playing tricks on me or is Ye Mo really at the first place with over one hundred fifty thousands points?" Hei Qiong thought in wonder.
Seeing that Hei Qiong wasn't responsive at all to his salutation, the stout man followed his line of sight and glanced at the leaderboard, "Yeah, I was suprised too. I don't know who this Ye Mo is or how he could achieve this place, but he will surely be famous from now on and with the competition's rewards, he might be able to meet the expectations of the Raging Saber Sect and become a definite external disciple."
Hei Qiong didn't say anything as he kept staring at the banner obsessively.
The short man was starting to worry for him, "Are you okay, do you need to sit down?"
"Am I okay? You must be kidding, I have never felt better in my life haha, stay in tune, you will hear of my Ironheart Weaponsmiths establishment soon enough." Hei Qiong answered excitedly before he rushed back to the smithy like a gale, the news having the effect of a good night's sleep, invigorating him.
Back on the Rallying Stone Plateau, Hei Qiong was haggard swaying left and right as he walked unaware of his destination.
"This is impossible, who is this Ye Mo, how can he have this much points. Wait, is he the kid who stole Shen Xue's token back then? Even so there wouldn't be such a big gap between our points it must be a mistake, yes, it should be a dysfunction from the tokens, or he must have used some foul methods to deceive everyone. I will report him right now!"
Qiong Lieyu gritted his teeth as he ran forward enduring the pain. He noticed his dean in the distance and quickly reached him, yelling with conviction.
"Sir, there has been a big mistake! Ye Mo is only an 8th layer Qi Gathering cultivator, he can't possibly have this much points, I could kill him with one strike of my saber, you must quickly bring justice and eliminate him from the competition, if it's from you, everyone will come back to reason and realize the deception."
The dean reacted coldly to these accusations, "Do you mean that we are all fools who couldn't realize any fraud, or maybe you are so smart compared to everyone that none but you would detect it? Maybe these tokens we have been using for years without any defect suddenly went crazy and attributed thousands of points solely to this kid, without any of our monitoring instructor discerning anything? If you are done wasting my time, find a seat and wait in silence, I don't want to hear you again today."
Qiong Lieyu immediately followed-up, "But dean, I am the winner..."
"Shut up! Don't make a scene here, I am disappointed enough already. We will have a long talk after we return to the institute." Without giving him another glance, the dean turned around and walked away.
Qiong Lieyu slowly lowered his head, looking at his own lonely shadow. The excitement in his heart turned into emotions of confusion, resentment, unwillingness, puzzlement, fear and other complicated feelings.
"I can't accept it! I was so hardworking, but this guy just stole a token and left without a fight, if he was renowned and powerful I could accept it, but he is only a petty 8th layer Qi Gathering nobody. How is this fair? Why? why?"
In another tent, Ye Mo felt his head heavy and his mind sluggish as he slowly recovered, probably sequels from Li Zhen's attack.
Time passed as students left the forest and reached this place one after another, among them was Yan Mei. She was overjoyed to learn she achieved her objective and attained the third place then completely stunned to learn that Shen Xue was eliminated from the competition.
She was much more composed than the prideful Li Qiang who wouldn't accept anything but being number one, her target was the podium, however she didn't have much hope to defeat Shen Xue or Qiong Lieyu and was satisfied with the third position she targeted. Next, her clan members informed her that Ye Mo won the competition, which made her blank out, putting her in a position where she didn't know if they were joking or being serious. Finally she learned that he killed Li Qiang and was so shocked she asked for confirmation from many students.
When she finally heard of the circumstances of the fight, she sighed, "To think he would die here, I would never have expected it. I thought we would all take the lead of our clans, fight each other while our children grows and compete against each other like we did, but this is his own fault, how could he get caught off guard by poisoned needles, hmph, he bragged so much but it was all empty talk."
Yan Mei said coldly, but there was a trace of melancholy in her voice.
In the past, she greatly hated Li Qiang and had the intention to kill him many times, but now that he truly died, she took a step back on their situation while all her childhood memories with him and Gao Lixin resurfaced and she believed he didn't deserve such an awful end.
Another person that arrived was Jin Hao Tian who was able to narrowly surpass Ma Shinfei's score, after they separated, along Gao Lixin, finally placing himself at the ninth place.
Gao Lixin came soon after, annoyed but also dubious. He waited for Li Qiang the whole last day of the competition at the rendez-vous place, but he never came. They agreed to fight it out between each other after Li Qiang insisted so much, the winner adding both scores to reach the first place, yet he didn't even show his face, making him lose so much time and points that he was barely at the tenth place. Gao Lixin was both vexed and finding it strange as it was completely out of character for Li Qiang to avoid a fight, making the first wonder if something happened to him.
Gao Lixin was as usual very well surrounded and at the moment when he reached the Rallying Stone Plateau, he was drowned by a sea of information from the students rushing to his group and welcoming him back. However, when he heard Li Qiang was killed he immediately froze up in disbelief.
"That can't be true... are you sure it was him?" Gao Lixin was unable to process the news immediately.
You see, as the heirs of the great clans, the four young masters knew each other even before they became cultivators. It was a time when they could still talk to each other without any kind of animosity or competition interfering between them.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
They had many memories together, few were good, but they competed against each other for a long time, vying for superiority. Ultimately, they believed if one of them had to die, it would be at the hands of the other.
After a long time, Gao Lixin raised his head to the sky, reflecting, "So this is how you ended, alone and in torment... Humans by themselves are small and feeble, they can't accomplish anything. Only when standing together can we surmount difficulties and have the strength to move forward, finding meaning in our lives, Li Qiang, I won't forget you."
Many things could be said of Gao Lixin and Li Qiang's relationship, they were rivals, stark opposite, but also complemented each other.
No matter what Li Qiang put him through or how much they fought, Gao Lixin in his heart never really came to detest him. Now that he wasn't here any more, he actually found himself nostalgic.
Both he and Yan Mei, knowing the Li clan well, were also surprised that Ye Mo still had a head on his shoulders.
Others made their appearances like Zhang Xuanhan who was furious to be fourth, glaring at Jin Hao Tian intensely.
Ma Shinfei came as well with a self-deprecating smile, finding he didn't even make it to the top ten, sitting at the eleventh position. After he was injured by Shen Xue, he spent his day running away from his pursuers and healing himself, since he wasn't in the top ten from the start as he originally took turn with Jin Hao Tian to fight their targets, he didn't make it.
He joined his friend as they slapped hands together, his depressed mood greatly alleviated by the hot-talks in the surroundings, "He killed this arrogant dude in black robes? Hahaha, you never get bored with this guy, he always have a surprise for you, well done Ye Mo!"
Ma Shinfei raised his thumb up in an approving gesture.
The flow of participants gradually slowed down and after a few hours, only one every few minutes would arrive to spectate the final results.
The deans decided it was time to conclude this competition, below the platform, less than half the students who entered the Jade Forest were present, an implacable, but expected result.
The ten best participants were invited on the platform to be seen by everyone while Shen Xue who was eliminated was kindly sent below for the time being.
Many found it painfully humiliating for him to be the only Foundation Establishment cultivator to wait on ground with all the Qi Gathering students, among the crowd he was painfully apparent.
The Tiger Martial Institute was evidently the greatest winner of the competition with the most students in the top ten and two in the podium.
Ye Mo as the champion was asked to step forward and be the most visible among all the students as he received his rewards.
The year-end competition was collectively held by the three institutes and each of them had to offer something to the champion of the year. However, the reward of obtaining a peak-tier Yellow Class martial art was already fixed and the three deans agreed that this would be offered by the institute whom belonged the champion.
This way the institute that came out on top this year would incur no loss, gifting a martial art was no big deal for any of them, it was just a copy that would be returned by the student quickly enough.
Hong Li approached first and handed an iron black token to Ye Mo with "4th" written on the back, but nothing on the front hinting this token could be used to access the last floor of any tower.
Hong Li was at a loss for words standing in front of this unpredictable youth, all the speeches he had prepared were lost by the current of circumstances.
After a few breathes, he stretched his arm and patted Ye Mo's shoulder.
"Work hard." Hong Li finally said, giving Ye Mo a deep look.
He was not entirely at fault though. After all, this situation was completely out of everyone's expectations.
One must know that Hong Li has been the dean for two decades now and is extremely experienced. Even before that he was still a member of the Tiger Martial Institute assisting the previous person in charge and has seen many champion taking the first place of the competition in the past, but all of them were either rank 3 talents or 9th layer Qi Gathering cultivators at the minimum.
A rank 2 talent, 8th layer Qi Gathering cultivator taking the top spot was unprecedented. Not to mention that in this batch, there were peers with Foundation Establishment cultivation and rank 5 talent.
Next, the Golden Martial Institute's dean handed over a spatial ring.
This ring was similar in use to the spatial pouches, but much more advanced. It was a refined product created by rare experts, holding many and more complex space formations than those inscribed in spatial pouches.
If first-rate pouches could contain a dozen cubic meters of space, a spatial ring easily possessed hundreds of them.
Simply put it was akin to a portable warehouse you could bring with you everywhere.
In Azure Water City, only the deans possessed spatial rings and those were obtained solely through their connection with the sects, the only places in the central lands where they could be commonly found.
To manufacture them, it recquired an extremely well-versed expert in spatial formations, however the few formation masters present in the city didn't have the ability to make one, instead sects held much more power and resources than the city, powerful adepts and specialist in all kind of fields were drawn to them and proposed their services.
Only there could elders and disciples alike have access to these artefacts depending on their performances or wealth.
The most important difference between spatial rings and pouches, beside the size of the space inside or the fact rings were much easier to carry, it was that spatial rings were tied with a drop of blood to the bearer.
Only the owner tied to the ring could have access to the space inside compared to spatial pouches that could be snatched and immediately plundered of its contents without any form of protection. The connection between the ring and its owner would be lost only when the last would pass away.
"The Golden Martial Institute is undoubtedly the wealthiest of the three by far, such an extravagant gift they prepared for the champion."
One student stated, his eyes burning with envy.
The dean of the Sky Martial Institute gave five Qi Condensing Carps, the same Ye Mo had observed in the fountain at the center of the Tiger Martial Institute. They weren't as valuable as the Spatial ring, but the carps were very beneficial towards one cultivation and Ye Mo gladly accepted them.
The quality between the rewards of the institutes recruitment competition and the year-end competition clearly were incomparable.
Yet, it wasn't the end.
The deans each willed from their rings and in their hands appeared three small white stones weakly scintillating in a pure white light.
At this sight, no one could keep their calm and many gulped down heavily, moved by the rewards. Even Han Zhen Jun was filled with desire at the sight of these stones.
"Essence Stones!"