CHAPTER 238 BEING KILLED IN AN INSTANT

Darren decided to condense the blade and sword cores simultaneously, which turned out to be far

more difficult than he imagined.

Three months' time had quickly elapsed, but he felt that he was still far from finishing condensing the

cores.

One day, while Darren was cultivating as usual, there was a rumble from a distant mountain, stirring its

surroundings and everything within close proximity to it. The tremendous spiritual energy that poured

into it caused a shock so violent that it reached Darren's location.

The rumbling was an apparent sign of someone reaching the Wonder Realm.

Darren raised his head and glanced towards the direction of the mountain. "Hmm, not bad. That

cultivation speed is almost as quick as mine," he muttered.

But he was not really concerned much about it. Even at his normal speed, he was able to reach the

Wonder Realm two months ago. And so, he ignored it and went back to condensing his cores.

Time flew by and five months passed. Darren felt his sword and blade intent had finally reached the

limit which meant that he was now on the threshold of forming his sword and blade cores. But frankly, it

was still easier said than done. Over the past months, Darren had tirelessly devoted himself to the

cultivation of the sword intent and blade intent. Day in, day out, he hardly ever slept or took any rest.

It was much more difficult to cultivate the two kinds of intent together than just one of them, but he was

still determined to do it anyway.

At that moment, as Darren gathered his blade intent and sword intent into his elixir field—the energy

center inside his body, his mental state also arrived at the limit.

He had reached the realm of selflessness.

He made various gestures with his hands, making the perfect blade and sword formulas appear. The

blade and sword intent spun together inside his elixir field and slowly formed into what would be the

beginnings of a blade core and a sword core.

He was starting to make progress, when suddenly, he felt a heavy fluctuation in the heaven and earth

spiritual energy. It could only mean that more warriors had reached the Wonder Realm.

'Huh? What's with this change?' Darren felt something different.

He found a subtle change just when his blade intent and sword intent were on the point of formation.

Quite a number of imperceptible whirlpools appeared on the cores. It sucked in all the blade and sword

intent that approached it, compressing them at a rapid speed.

Darren tried to pour a mass of blade and sword intent into his elixir field and all of it was almost

instantaneously compressed into the whirlpools. As it happened, the color of the blade and sword cores

turned from red to orange.

'I see! This is the way to improve the level of the core!' Darren was overjoyed. The level of the sword

core or blade core was ranked according to its color: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple

from low to high level. The higher the level was, the more powerful the "intent" was.

Realizing this, Darren did not bother trying to form his blade and sword cores. On the contrary, he

focused his mind to cultivate more blade and sword intent and send them to be compressed into the

whirlpools.

However, this process seemed to have taken longer than he realized. In almost a blink of an eye, one

year had passed and there were only four months left until the first examination.

...

The talents scattered around the Ancient Void Battlefield all stopped cultivation in the last four months.

They were thinking that it would be near impossible for them to enter the middle stage of the Wonder

Realm in such a short amount of time in spite of the fact that they had all reached the Wonder Realm.

Maximizing their fighting capacity was the more crucial point to their victory anyway, so they just

focused on that aspect. Once the talents had reached the Wonder Realm, it was necessary for them to

fully comprehend the martial art skills that they chose and try their best to practice those skills to

perfection.

On this day, three years had passed. Every talent was flying back to the spot where they first came

three years ago.

"Huh? We initially had fifty participants. There's one who's missing. Who is it?" a participant pointed

out.

Soon, all the others took notice of the missing participant.

It was not long before they found out that it was Darren who was missing.

Don snickered. "Hey Boyce, do you have any excuse for that lad? That rubbish wasn't that far from my

cultivation spot, but I've reached the Wonder Realm half a year ago. Him, on the other hand... Well, we

haven't heard anything about him at all!" he said, eyebrows raised in arrogance.

"Oh, don't be a fool, Don. You're no better than that rubbish. What are you bragging about?"

a few disciples from the Dragon Alliance defiantly quipped. They knew that Don's and Boyce's realms

were extremely normal.

"Enough! What are you arguing about? All of you are rubbishes to me." A young man dressed in white

leaped into the air. His overwhelming aura made a lot of cultivators on site feel greatly oppressed.

None of the talents, including the superior talents had reached the middle stage of the Wonder Realm,

but judging from the aura released by the youth in white, he was definitely close to the middle stage of

the Wonder Realm. What a powerful man he was!

"Ants!"

A cold voice full of disdain interjected.

She turned around and waved her hand at the young man suspended in the air, instantly pushing him

back several feet away. Everyone let out an audible gasp.

"She's Miss Violet Wang!"

"Yes, it is her! She was the first one who reached the Wonder Realm! A talent at the eighth level of the

Earth Degree!"

"Superior talent! This is a superior talent! I'm starting to feel ashamed of my inferiority. She would

probably be the first place in the examination."

Everyone was busy rambling on about Violet Wang, when all of a sudden, the shadow of the guardian

of the Ancient Void Battlefield appeared before them.

"Time is up! Let's begin the examination," he bellowed as twenty-five chairs were placed at the edge of

a huge battle platform that appeared out of the void.

"The rule is simple. Each chair has been numbered. Anyone who thinks he is able to win, go up the

platform and choose a chair to sit on. As for the remaining twenty-five people, you could challenge

anyone who is seated and go up against him. The winner will then go to the next round of the

examination."

After the guardian finished talking, as if on cue, the beautiful woman called Violet stepped forward.

"Excuse me, sir, but you didn't mention how the twenty-five winners would battle it out." She was

aiming to be the number one among all the other participants.

The guardian turned to the woman. "I will choose three people from the twenty-five winners to battle

each other in challenging the top three rankings. For the rest winners, the ranking isn't important. Don't

waste time. Let's start." He then glanced at everyone.

"One more thing, sir," Don hastily said, "If someone fails to come here when the cultivation time has run

out, is he eliminated or not?"

"Of course he is eliminated," the guardian sternly replied.

"Ha! I'm sure that little rubbish has been expelled from the Ancient Void Battlefield!" Don sneered.

He then leaped onto the battle platform and sat in the first chair, arrogantly waiting for his challenger.

Boyce began to feel worried about Darren and was starting to get fidgety. 'Where is he? Has he really

been eliminated?' Anxious thoughts ran through his mind.

In a blink of an eye, all the twenty-five seats were full.

However, there seemed to be some fussing among the other talents.

The twenty-five talents who were seated on the chairs glanced around to see what the commotion was

about. As their gazes landed on the corner of the battle platform, they saw a juvenile standing there,

pitch-black hair cascading down his face. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

"Darren!" Boyce's eyes widened in delight. He ran up to Darren and asked him, "When did you come

here? I thought you were already—"

"Eliminated?" Darren gave Boyce a faint smile. "I'm the first one here, how could I be eliminated? Stop

joking, Boyce."

Everyone was surprised by his words. Was he really the first one to arrive at the site? They never saw

Darren, nor did they feel Darren's aura.

Some of them even thought that he was just bluffing. Don was a firm supporter to this thought.

He disdainfully glared at Darren. "You little piece of rubbish. Don't blow your own trumpet. Does anyone

feel his realm? He's only at the Mysterious Realm, far from the Wonder Realm," he shouted aloud,

making sure that everyone heard him.

Darren ignored Don and turned to the guardian. "I dare to ask you a question, sir. Are we allowed to kill

our opponents in the challenge?" His voice was so icy that it sent a chill down all the talents' spines.

"Killing is allowed," the guardian started. "But, only on the condition that you would be able to kill your

opponent in three moves." He then kept his eyes focused on Darren, curious about what the young

man was devising.

"Well then, I will kill Don," Darren said dryly, not a trace of emotion on his face.

Don's face was starting to grow red from trying to hold in his laughter. Just as he was about to burst out

laughing and mock the foolish lad in front of him, his face curdled and his grin disappeared.

"Hey, what's wrong with Don?" Everyone was disturbed by the strange look on Don's face.

Soon enough, they all realized what was wrong. "He's dead! Don is dead!"

The shout stirred up a storm deep in the talents' hearts. One after another, they all stood up and gazed

at Darren in surprise.

'This is impossible, absolutely impossible!' Even Violet was left wide-eyed in shock.