Most of the disciples down below had their curiosity peaked due to Yang Su’s unknown battle strength.
That, as well as his boastful words in the previous round, where he said he was going to win the competition.
They wanted to know where he got his confidence for saying such words, and if he really had the strength to back them up.
Immediately after, the elder started the match, Weimin drew his long sword by his side and dashed towards Yang Su.
‘Swoosh!!’
His sword sliced through the air at inhuman speed, only leaving a silver streak as it quickly approached Yang Su’s chest.
However, to his stupefaction as well as to everyone else’s in the crowd, the sword only went through Yang Su’s body.
It was an afterimage.
Weimin was caught off guard by this sudden development, and before he even had time to register what was happening, Yang Su’s figure appeared behind him and threw out a single punch.
With the sound of bones breaking, Weimin coughed out a mouth full of blood as he was knocked off the stage.
After rolling a few meters from the stage Weimin’s pitiful figure came to a stop.
He was defeated so quickly and so easily it flabbergasted everyone. All the disciples had expected to watch an intense and grueling match, but with this display from Yang Su, their previous perception of how the match would turn out was completely shattered in a matter of moments leaving them stunned.
Looking at Weimin's dirt-covered figure on the ground with blank expressions, all the disciples in the venue then turn to look at Yang Su shocked. After seeing that he was looking down at his fist with a shocked expression himself, the disciples' faces couldn’t help but become even more incredulous.
“What the flipping fuck just happen?!! I only turn away for a moment and the match is already over!” A disciple yelled out as he couldn’t contain his emotions anymore.
From close by, an equally stunned disciple followed up and said, “You think it was that fast? All I did was blink and senior brother Weimin was already K.O’ed!”
“Is senior bother Weimin really that weak, how could he not have withstood a single punch from that newcomer? This is strange, even if that second prince’s assistant was stronger than him, he should have at least taken him a bit of effort to beat senior brother Weimin who had opened 46 of his meridians. But using only one punch?! It’s just too ridiculous that I can’t even wrap my head around it!”
Suddenly the questions shifted to Weimin’s quick defeat, they were all baffled at how easily he was beaten by Yang Su.
Soon more and more comments like these were heard coming from different disciples in the crowd. They all shared similar thoughts on this matter. With Weimin’s level of talent even if he was one of the weaker ones in the competition, he was still considered powerful in his own right.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Even other senior Inner Disciples like Guiren and Xiasheng wouldn’t have been able to defeat him with one strike, much less a simple fist only backed by their physique.
That was another thing that stunned them as well, the fact Yang Su hadn’t even released a shred of his aura, or used his Internal Qi in that fist but yet it was enough to send Weimin flying off the stage.
This made all of them extremely suspicious.
A disciple suddenly asked in a questioning tone, “Hey, do you guys think this was planned?”
When this question reached the ears of nearby disciples, they became quiet all of sudden.
However, a voice could then be heard saying, “You!” That disciple pointed at the speaker while he said, “If you know what’s good for you, you would shut up and stop making wild accusations. Do you even know what you just suggested? If someone from the Li Royal Family had heard that, they would have immediately beheaded you for defaming their family and second prince.”
When the surrounding disciples heard his words, thoughts of Xi Shen manipulating the competition so his assistant could win quickly faded from their minds.
On the stage, Yang Su’s shock at how weak that senior disciple was slowly went away.
He then thought to himself utterly confused, ‘All I did was dodged his sword slash and made a simple counterattack to test his strength. If that was senior brother Shen, he would have already beaten me with that metal pole over a dozen times before I could even raise my arm to carry out that punch.’
When Yang Su finish thinking that, another thought that had slightly come to him in the previous round when he had beaten Renxiang, appeared at the forefront of his mind once again.
‘Wait, how strong is elder brother Shen compared to these other disciples in this Freshmen Disciple Competition? Is he a lot stronger?”
With that Yang Su might have figured out why Xi Shen was so confident he would win.
‘H-have I unconsciously been measuring their strength against elder brother Xi Shen’s to determine how I fair against them? If they are weaker compared to him, then it would make sense why their movements seem so dull and lacking in power when I was watching their matches. I-I think I might have overestimated them then as well since I had gotten so used to fighting someone as strong as elder brother Shen. Now I don’t know how much of my strength I should use to battle these weaker disciples. Huh? Wa-wait, isn’t that a bad thing? What if I end up injuring someone too badly?’
As Yang Su realized that his perception of his strength as related to everyone else’s was completely off due to him only ever sparring with Xi Shen, who was who knows how many times stronger than these Inner Disciples, he was starting to get extremely nervous all of a sudden.
If he were to compare Xi Shen’s fluid and ferocious attacking power to these disciples, they were way behind him.
Now, Yang Su’s worry was turning from him not being able to win against his competitors, to him being afraid of accidentally crippling them.
Suddenly, the voice of the elder snapped Yang Su out of his “troubling” thoughts that would have made anyone speechless.
“Child you have won the match, since you were the one that was challenged, you have the option of fighting your second match now or waiting until everyone else finished their first match to battle again.”
Yang Su thought for a moment before he open his mouth ready to answer, however, before he could say anything, Xi Shen’s voice suddenly echoed out into the venue.
Although his voice wasn’t very loud and was almost drowned out by the disciples chattering, everyone still heard it loud and clear, and they were completely stunned by them.
“I have a proposal! Why not let my assistant Yang Su battle every participant one by one? If he defeats everyone then he gets the first place position!”
Immediately after his words, silence occurred across the venue as all eyes turned to look at Xi Shen, who was slumped in his chair with a casual expression on his face.
Ghuanyu couldn’t help but narrow his eyes at Xi Shen upon hearing his words.
He was already upset about the level of strength Yang Su was showing, but hearing the words of this complete waste of a second prince, caused him to become even more annoyed
The elder in charge of the competition broke the silence by saying, “Second prince I’m sorry to say that I can’t grant your request. It’s just too…”
The elder paused when he reached that part as he was hesitant to speak his mind any further.
However, an upset Ghuanyu had no problem doing so, “Harrumph! It’s preposterous that’s what it is! Second prince, since its creation the academy had always selected the winners of their Freshmen Disciple Competition with this method, for you to come and try to change their tradition is you not giving them any face at all! Is this how the Li Royal Family does things?!”
When everyone heard Ghuanyu’s words they were taken aback for a moment at the sudden attack, but afterwards, they couldn’t help but think to themselves that he was really a scheming and cunning old fart.
With just a few words he had already made it out to seem like Xi Shen was trying to go against the Celestial Academy.
Xi Shen frowned at this and thought to himself, ‘The hell is wrong with his old geezer? I was only making a casual comment, I wasn’t actually expecting the academy to go along with it, that would mean showing partiality to one participant. But still, this bastard was so quick to pull a load of dog crap out of his ass and attack me with it. Fine! If you're going to be like that then…’
The frown on Xi Shen’s face quickly fade away to be replaced with a warm smile that could melt the coldest of ice.
He then said, “Your right Clan Leader Ghuanyu, my words might have been a bit rash, but I think there is some merit to them. However, instead of my earlier request how about this instead, we have the eight remaining participants have a battle royal?”
When everyone heard that they were slightly taken aback.