As the night fell and Hong Li was assured that Li Zhen wouldn't pass through the deans in his absence, he quickly made his way back to the Tiger Martial Institute.

With his abilities, it took no time before he reached the room where the instructors watched over their white disk.

They felt a gust of wind pushing against their back so they turned their heads and looked only to notice their dean standing behind them, the door of the room open.

He moved so fast a small gale was sent forward as he came to an halt.

The three instructors immediately stood up and bowed down before Hong Li.

"Have you watched it?" He asked.

"Not yet, we were waiting for you as we knew this matter was too important for the dean to overlook it." The instructors' gaze shone, they instantly knew what Hong Li was referring to.

They turned around and one of them placed his hand before the disk, tapping on Ye Mo's name with his fingers.

Then, with his palm pressing against the disk, he poured out his Qi in the artefact.

Hong Li approached as the two other instructors immediately made a place for him.

Light shot out from the disk and formed a small screen in the air, it was completely black and there was nothing else to look at.

Hong Li frowned as he stared at the screen before he looked at the eldest instructor.

"Is it because this is night currently?" The one with his palm on the disk, wondered aloud, stressed to displease the dean.

The eldest that was looked at quickly denied, "Even during the night, you would usually see some moonlight or the shadows of the trees, it wouldn't be completely black like that."

While they were in doubt, Hong Li remarked, understanding the situation, "He is hiding his token in his clothes."

His and the instructors purpose this night was to understand what happened to Li Qiang and how he died.

The tokens handed over to the students by the institute didn't serve only to record their points, they were also a spying device that could be used to watch them fight and observe their abilities.

With the white disk connected to the tokens of the participants, you had to expend some Qi to look at the current situation of the chosen student, but you could also rewind it to watch what already took course in the previous days.

However, there was a problem this time as they attempted to observe Ye Mo for the first time and discover everything about his encounter with Li Qiang.

After entering the forest, Ye Mo untied his token from his waist and placed it inside his garment.

Usually, these tokens are worn tied at the waist, they are precisely designed this way, with a small hole at the top to pass a cord through. The institutes also prohibited the students from placing them inside their spatial pouches, announcing they couldn't sense the surrounding life forces confined in this separate space.

While it wasn't incorrect, the biggest reason was for the higher-ups to be able to watch everything when necessary as the screen from the white disk was operated from the point of view of the token.

It just happened that Ye Mo, by personal preferences, but also because he had some doubts about it, was among the minority who didn't hold their token to their waist, but tugged it in their clothes.

Since he has always been seen as unpromising and unimportant, no one has bothered observing him before, the only ones that were watched from time to time were important members and those that were placed in the top 100 at least.

Now that he reached the third place in one big leap and that Li Qiang's name disappeared at the same time, creating a big commotion in the city, of course they wished to see all of his movements in the forest.

Yet, because his token was hidden behind layers of fabric, nothing could be seen on the screen.

It must also be known that the tokens and the white disk were designed so the institutes could only spy on their own members. In accordance to a prior agreement between the three deans, the corresponding formations to perform the screen were added only for their own members by the formation master.

Members of the Tiger Martial Institute couldn't watch the participants of the Sky and Golden Institute and this was the same for them.

Hong Li looked in thought for an instant before he informed his instructors, "Li Qiang's name disappeared from the leaderboard so we can't watch anything from his point of view either, there is no choice, we will wait for the end of the competition then retrieve his token and use it to witness how he could lose his life against Ye Mo."

When this was said, he left the room as fast as he came, creating another gust of wind that sent the instructors' robes swaying.

In less than the time to drink a cup of tea, he was back to the Rallying Stone Plateau.

Similar to Hong Li, this night was uneventful for Ye Mo.

A few blood beasts were encountered, even less humans.

Although he hunted using Shadow Walk, he couldn't increase his score much. Wether it was the amount he just gained or Yan Mei and Zhang Xuanhan's efforts, it was actually all inconsequential.

They didn't know it, but Ye Mo was rooted at the third place, a big gap separating him from both those that were ahead of him and those ranked behind.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

If there wasn't a big battle to change the dynamic of the rankings, two days wasn't enough to go further in the leaderboard.

The sixth day quickly arose while Ye Mo remained in the eastern part of the forest searching for students.

He came across Li Qiang not long after coming around and Jin Hao Tian told him that Gao Lixin and Yan Mei were in the area as well, there was no reason to move for the time being.

If he was lucky, he could face them.

"The best would be to encounter Gao Lixin. There was a certain enmity Li Qiang had against me, our confrontation couldn't end in any other way than death. But if what is said about Gao Lixin is true, we could spare amicably and maybe he would hand over his token once he's defeated without the need to kill him, one major clan going after my ass is enough, if possible, I would rather avoid having another one. There is no grudge between us and he probably won't hold one just because I won, what is sure is that things would be much more complicated against Yan Mei."

Ye Mo harbored no illusions towards an encounter with Yan Mei, she would fight fiercely for her token until the end if she wasn't the one to kill him during their bout.

He kept moving throughout the woods thinking of all kinds of possibilities, yet, he was bound to be disappointed as luck wasn't on his side and he didn't encounter any powerful student of the day.

He met some, but they only possessed a few thousand points and the rest of his confrontations were against blood beasts.

His score increased slowly and his day wasn't very fruitful.

In no time, another cycle of the moon and the sun took course before it was already the last day of the competition.

Ye Mo kept searching around for a few hours until he accepted his fate, he wouldn't come across anyone here.

"This is the last day, I can't waste time lingering here anymore, I can only go west to face Jin Hao Tian and Ma Shinfei, they should already be waiting for me right now. With my current points, I only need to win against one of them to be confident in gaining the first place, it won't be easy, but I don't have any other choice."

Taking his decision, Ye Mo backtracked and ran at full speed eastward, expecting to find the two geniuses of the Tiger Martial Institute at the designated location.

In the afternoon he finally reached the precipice they talked about, but as he looked at it from a distance, he decided to not join them immediately.

"This competition hasn't reached its conclusion yet, we have until the first rays of light to pierce the night sky for it to officially end. Ma Shinfei and Jin Hao Tian are very strong, they should be left as a last resort, I will go around and scout a bit, hopefully finding some students with enough points to spare me the fight with these two. As long as I don't come across Shen Xue or Qiong Lieyu, it should be fine."

Ye Mo left the area without a sound, he didn't explore this part of the forest so far, with a bit of luck he might come across participants with a good amount of points.

In the case he wouldn't meet anyone, he could still return in the evening to face Ma Shinfei and Jin Hao Tian.

They yearned so much to battle Ye Mo that they surely would wait for him all day, expecting him to show himself at any moment. Even before he killed Li Qiang, Ye Mo had a huge amount of points so even in this aspect, it assured a good leap in the leaderboard as long as you were confident in your victory, it was much more profitable to wait for him and gain them rather than walk around randomly trying to encounter some students.

It was the seventh day of the competition after all, the death count was so high at this point that you would rarely meet anyone, even with an investigative battle skill.

Ye Mo scoured the woods in the vicinity until he found a glade not far from the precipice. When he went on to have a good look of the zone, he noticed someone standing in the middle of the clearing in the distance.

When he approached and fixed his gaze to have a better view, he saw a man in a long grey robe. His skin was unblemished, his eyes a pure blue looked like two pieces of blue crystal, cold and emotionless. His silver white hair reached the lower part of his back.

At this moment, he also realized that the ground in the surroundings of this man was littered with several dozen of corpses, all students from the institutes.

There were those that were full of wounds with a vacant look, as if they didn't realize they have been killed. There were also many that were completely frozen like ice statues.

All these were accompanied by lone limbs or pieces of flesh and organs strewn around in what seemed like a grisly massacre.

Strangely, the blade of the sword he was holding in his hand wasn't stained by a single drop of blood.

When Ye Mo understood what he was looking at, the swordsman turned his head and stared at him as well before he stepped over the bodies and walked in his direction.

Ye Mo looked down with a wry smile as he felt the spiritual sense pass over him, "It had to be Shen Xue..."