It was only after Xi Shen and Yang Su left that clamorous noise began echoing out in the venue.
Exclamations of disbelief came from the disciples and some experts in the air were discussing the events that just happened.
Soon after, the disciples began rushing down the mountain, not even waiting to see the prizes being handed out to the Outer Disciple and Inner Disciple Freshmen Competition winners. Their only thoughts were to spread the news of what had happened today.
Like this, gossip that centered around the shocking events that happen in the competition started to spread across the Academy. The disciples who weren't in attendance were a bit skeptical at first but when more and more people began telling the same series of events, they had to believe those stories to be true, and regrets about not being there to see it for themselves began eating at their conscious.
The news also spread to the outside world as well, but most clans and academies weren’t that interested in the small clash between Yang Su and Ling Tian, or Xi Shen's actions, but rather the news of Ghuanyu’s new method of cultivation through the Four Physical Realm.
Even though Shiming had been humiliated by being beaten by Yang Su with a metal pole, it didn’t diminish their interest in seeking out Ghuanyu to learn his method. After all, who could say no to possibly cultivating multiple Invincible Sea Expansion Realm cultivators?
However, another piece of shocking news rang throughout the Maple Continent, and it had to do with the announcement Ghuanyu made several days after the Freshmen Disciple Competition had ended.
Ghuanyu had announced that his Ming Clan was founding a new Academy called the Ming Academy, where it would teach its disciples how to cultivate through the Four Physical Realm using his method.
This was just as Xi Shen had predicted, that Ghuanyu would consolidate his newfound power into a tangible form. But even he hadn’t thought that Ghuanyu would build an Academy.
This meant that Ghuanyu was now trying to compete with not just the Emperor, but the powerful Academies like the Celestial Academy and the Divine Star Academy.
Although he did announce that he would seek to form a close friendship with the already established academies to avoid any hostility forming between his newly built academy and the old ones. He was even willing to allow disciples from other Academies to enter his Ming Academy and learned his method, in exchange, disciples from his academy can enter the various academies to learn the techniques they desire.
This move by Ghuanyu could be said to be extremely conniving. By implementing this exchange program, instead of holding out his hand demanding people take his side, with this, he could slowly entrench his influence into the various clans and academies on the Continent like a seed.
In the future that seed could bloom at a critical moment when conflict arises and different sides needed to be taken. That seed of influence could be a key deciding factor of whether a clan or sect chose to side with him during said conflict.
Everyone with experience in scheming could tell Ghuanyu's goal, but the thing that makes this plan of his brilliant is that he does not need to hide his intentions!
After all the benefits the clans and academies would receive from this could likely increase their overall strength. And for any power, increasing their strength no matter how small was a win for them.
The only problem is this spells bad news for the Royal Family.
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The clans and academies increasing their strength were good for the continent as a whole, but if things got out of hand then they might find themselves being a great white shark surrounded by a school of bloodthirsty piranhas ready to sink their teeth into available flesh.
The Li Royal Family had to be careful how they go about handling this, as it might lead to what Ghuanyu wanted. Creating a situation where a majority of the clans and academies join forces to stop the Li Royal Family from suppressing their growth. This could even go further to a revolt with Ghuanyu leading the charge to storm the Imperial Palace.
If one had assessed this far into Ghuanyu’s plans, then they could only feel a sensation of fear and apprehension towards him well up in their hearts.
From his simple announcement, Ghuanyu had set off a chain reaction that could very likely cost the Li Royal Family to crumble before his feet. A plan like this could only be executed by someone extremely calculative and manipulative to a terrifying degree.
Ghuanyu had been silent all seven generations he had served as the Ming Clan head, but in this generation, he seemed to be revealing a glint of his deadly dagger that he had hidden all this while.
With that said, the question remained if he had chosen the right generation to carry out his plans.
Who knows, maybe he had the bad luck of choosing a generation where something, or someone, could disrupt his plans.
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Within his mansion on the Sword Pavilion’s mountain, Xi Shen was seen sitting cross-legged on the floor in his room completely naked.
Sweat covered his forehead and entire body.
Ever so often his face would twitch and he would grit his teeth so hard they made an irritating sound as they grind against each other.
His skin was a bright shade of red due to the blood-purifying process that one undergoes in the Blood Purifying Realm. In this Realm, one goes about purifying their blood by first cutting off its production source.
Blood cells are produced from the bone marrow, to cut off the production of new blood cells a cultivator would use his Qi to encapsulate his or her entire skeletal structure.
This doesn’t necessarily cut off the making of impure blood cells but rather acts as a filter where each time a new blood cell is produced from within the bone, it would pass through the layer of Qi and wipe away any impurities it may have before joining the rest.
Though that step was easy, the hard part came after when one would need to purify the flowing blood within their body. Usually one would start with the blood within one limb, for example, purifying the blood in their fingers and toes, then moving up to their torso before completing the rest of their body.
As with any one of these Realms, this process could cause injury if one is not careful. Not only is it about refining the blood in the body, but all the blood in one's internal organs as well.
This is why it was advised that one goes into seclusion during this Realm, and only when they have fully purified their entire blood and reconstructed their bones do they come out.
But of course, there are some disciples who were still new to cultivating, that would find it completely tiring to stay motionless for days only focusing on their cultivation.
Even though exiting seclusion before completely purifying their blood wouldn’t cause life-threatening issues unless they did so when in the middle of purifying an important organ, it was still frowned upon. So seeing Blood Purifying and even Bone Reconstruction Realm experts battling was only possible during events like the Freshmen Disciple Competition.
For Xi Shen, it had been a few days after the competition and he had gone into seclusion after celebrating Yang Su’s win.
It hadn’t taken him that long to reach the peak of the Qi Condensation Realm with his Dao Foundation, and now he was in the middle of purifying his blood.
But unlike other cultivators, Xi Shen was quite different.
He had half the physique unique to a God in his past life, the Heavenly Physique.
This had come with a few perks, for example, the fact that he was able to match the strength and speed of someone in the Meridian Opening Realm despite never having cultivated. This was all because of his Heavenly Physique.
Another amazing quality of this physique is that it allows the user to be born with his or her entire body already purified, from the skin and flesh all the way to the blood cells and bone marrow was completely free from impurities.
However, this happened to half of Xi Shen’s body. The other half was his Spiritual Physique that was being formed for him to cultivate Spiritual Qi.
Because of this, if one were to get an x-ray and look at Xi Shen’s bones one could see several patches of gold that take up about half of his skeletal frame when combined. As for his blood, portions of it were golden in color.
Each time his Heavenly Physique bones produce golden blood that was free from impurities, the Spiritual Physique bones would release an equivalent amount of impure blood.
This is just one of the many scenarios of Xi Shen’s Heavenly Physique and Spiritual Physique clashing on a macro and micro level. His body was in a complete imbalance.
Thus, Xi Shen wanted to use the Four Physical Realms cultivation to “upgrade” his Spiritual Physique so it would become equal in strength to his much stronger Heavenly Physique.