With Tianyi’s abrupt appearance on the ninth arena, many of the Core Formation disciples were stimulated. They could no longer wait, and all started to appear on the arena to complete.
Among them was He Youngli, who jumped onto the eighth arena. He Yongli’s aura surged upward like an unsheathed sword, and he had instantly defeated his opponent in one sword strike. However, despite this, He Yongli wasn’t satisfied as he glanced at Tianyi. Not once had Tianyi unsheathed his sword.
Back in the Monolith Sword Sect, what He Yongli heard most about wasn’t the strongest sword cultivator of the younger generation Xia Yushan, but rather Xi Tianyi.
Although Xia Yushan was the acknowledged strongest sword cultivator among the current generation, many others saw Xi Tianyi as stronger. Although this view was not the majority. Compared to Xia Yushan, the list of accomplishments Tianyi had was less renowned than Xia Yushan.
In addition, Xi Tianyi often stayed in the Buzhou Immortal Sect, especially after he reached the Core Formation realm, and so no one knew the extent of Xi Tianyi’s prowess. But many still thought Tianyi had a chance of being stronger than Xia Yushan.
Why?
It was because Tianyi trained in the Heartless Sword Arts, the number one sword arts in the Huang Realm!
The Five Elements Sword Arts Xia Yushan was also famed and allowed one to produce a five-colored Nascent Soul, but its fame and power were far inferior to the mysterious Heartless Sword Arts in recent years. He Yongli had grown up constantly hearing this, and naturally, he was filled with fighting spirit toward these two sword geniuses.
Xia Yushan was the openly acknowledged number one sword genius. In comparison, Tianyi, who had the halo of Sword Empress Xi’s Heartless Sword Arts, was far more eye-catching than the publicly acknowledged number two genius in the sword.
Xia Yushan had already ascended to the Nascent Soul realm, and He Yongli wouldn’t foolishly challenge him yet. On the other hand, Tianyi was currently in the Core Formation realm, a perfect whetstone to grind his swordsmanship. Since he chose the eighth arena, it could be seen that his actions were aimed at Tianyi. He wanted both to be ranked higher and ignite a desire for competition inside Tianyi.
Alas, after expending his qi after eight fights, he was kicked off the arena by the ninth opponent. He Yongli’s eyes showed his shock as he fell off the arena. The Three Heavens Connection Meeting wasn’t a regular occurrence.
The only situation when it would commence was when a resource was discovered outside of the jurisdiction of the three continents. Naturally, this meant that sometimes a Three Heavens Connection Meeting would not even occur once in a generation.
He Yongli had underestimated the difficulty of consecutive fights and thus fell off the arena. He was not like Tianyi, who was brimming with near-limitless true qi.
In fact, the most optimal way was to wait till near the deadline before stepping on the arena. But one could not delay too much; otherwise, if someone else stepped onto and defeated enough opponents to be the last one standing, then they would lose their chance.
The immortals who had long lives had witnessed many Three Heavens Connection Meetings, so they were rather relaxed. Only mortal cultivators could enter the secret realm, but the three hegemonic sects have already distributed the Unity Realm Venerables slots.
Right now, it was only competition for the slots of Nascent Soul realm and Core Formation realm disciples. Unity realm cultivators were the gold, and the Nascent Soul realm and Core Formation realm were the flowers atop the gold. In the end, gold was still gold. Unity Realm Venerables were the most important players in the secret realm.
In their relaxed mood, they even had the leisure to compliment the juniors fighting on stage.
“Oh? That sword cultivator is not bad.”
“It’s a pity he was too rash and stepped into the arena too soon.”
“But he only used one of his chances. If he were smart, he would wait until the contest neared its end before entering again. Still, he has not completely lost his chance.”
“True, right now most of the disciples are greatly expending their qi. None of them can persist. Except for that one.”
The one they were talking about was naturally Xi Tianyi. Even ten fights and no matter how much grey cloud weapons he created and even using the grey cloud giant, the amount of qi he had did not seem to diminish at all. Furthermore, Tianyi held the upper hand in all of his fights, and not once had he gotten hurt.
“But this junior attracted a troublesome character from the Myriad Sun Sect, hehe.”
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Although the Myriad Sun Sect was considered an orthodox sect on the Earth Continent, they had half their roots stemmed from a demonic inheritance. The most famous of these inheritances was the Sunflower Manual that Nanfang Wubai cultivated.
“His eyes very much resemble the august Sword Empress. Anyone who has seen the Sword Empress will immediately connect the two.”
“Hmpf, only you will banter on his appearance. The way I see it, his cultivation is also not simple. See how he fights even now without seeming out of breath? His foundations must be profound.”
“It’s not a simple question of his massive stores of qi. I’ve seen geniuses who opened up all Eight Extraordinary Meridians, but not even they would be able to last this long.”
“I’m more curious about those grey clouds he conjures. They do not seem to be of Buzhou Immortal Sect’s lineage. Is it perhaps a technique Sword Empress Xi found?”
While the immortals were discussing the fights in the arena, Eight Pillar Sect Elder Monarch Dong was intently observing Tianyi. Although he concealed it, his eyes were showing great interest in Xi Tianyi. Monarch Dong glanced at the silent Empress Voidink, who was calmly drinking her tea.
He was an elder of a longtime hegemonic sect. He naturally knew some insider information, such as Empress Voidink’s hatred for the Dragon Emperor.
During the great siege against the Dragon Emperor, the target of the alliance killed Empress Voidink’s dao companion, so how could she have any good feelings towards the Dragon Emperor clones?
Although many people would be drawn in by Tianyi’s phoenix eyes that resembled his mother’s so much to the point that they subconsciously ignored his other features, Monarch Dong could see that his appearance bore remarkable similarities to the Dragon Emperor.
Empress Voidink would have wanted to stay away from someone like Tianyi unless there was a good reason. Had he been an ordinary member, Empress Voidink as a Grand Elder could perhaps use some tricks to kick him out, but he just so happened to be Sword Empress Xi’s only son. And now it seemed that Sword Empress Xi had paid a price for Empress Voidink to even watch over Tianyi.
His thoughts reaching this point, Monarch Dong hid his thoughts deeply once more and moved his attention elsewhere.
Back in the arena, Tianyi finally released a sigh of relief when no one else came to challenge him. Many people had wanted to take advantage of his consecutive fights and defeat him after he was fatigued and expended his qi.
Although he expended vast amounts of qi, they were quickly replenished. But his heart was very tired from fighting all the freaks that had come to challenge him, but now he could finally rest his tired heart.
With plenty of time now, Tianyi began to observe the other arenas. Tianyi didn’t know if there would be much of a difference in rewards from the ranks of the arena, so he didn’t choose one that was low, but he was not at the forefront either.
Nine was a good number, plus he liked the number nine.
There was a Core Formation realm cultivator that caught his eye on the fourth arena. Tianyi had to admit. She was the most beautiful woman he had seen wearing blue. The most outstanding beauty he saw was his mother, followed by Grand Elder Zhang.
But this beauty had an exotic air to her. Her skin was milky white, and her long black hair was like silk, reaching past her knees with no accessories. Her left eye was narrow, and her iris was dark as the abyss. Her right eye was not visible as a bright blue lily growing out of it, giving her a distinct appearance.
It wasn’t just her beauty that attracted Tianyi but rather how she manipulated hundreds to thousands of butterflies as her form of attack and defense. Sometimes her body dispersed into hundreds of butterflies before reforming elsewhere on stage.
Another challenger eventually appeared and challenged Tianyi, but Tianyi also defeated him without being able to touch Tianyi at all. As the seven-day limit approached, more and more outstanding disciples showed themselves, but not a single one of those elite disciples challenged Tianyi.
It was simply not worth challenging Tianyi over the ninth arena.
Thus came another problem. Tianyi stepped into the ninth arena early because he was bored. But now that the limit was nearing, fewer and fewer people challenged him and made him even more bored.
“Perhaps I should have taken the third arena?” Tianyi muttered to himself when he looked at the third arena.
There was a scholarly-looking man with a book in his hand, and not a hair on him was out of place. His form of attack was extremely mysterious, and there were myriad changes that could pop out from the book in his hand.
The fourth arena was still the same.
The fifth to the eighth arena all had “normal” disciples who used orthodox arts and techniques to fight.
While the tenth arena...Tianyi avoided eye contact with Nanfang Wubai as much as possible.
As for the second? It was Tianyi’s senior brother, Wei Daying. Wei Daying dual cultivated both the spiritual and martial way and could be said to have no weaknesses, sitting stably at second place.
The first arena was a strange one. It was a disciple of the Eight Pillars Sect. He cultivated the martial way and had condensed a martial body that was full of pure yang true qi. Rather than a material body, it felt his whole body was condensed from pure yang qi.
His attacks were also tyrannical, able to use his body and defeat his opponent with force, but he also had great finesse. To this point, none of his opponents had forced him to use a weapon or anything other than his body.
Very soon, the seven days time limit was up, and the results were announced.
Rank 1: Yang Lingyin
Rank 2: Wei Daiying
Rank 3: San Wurong
Rank 4: Hu Landie
…
…
Rank 9: Xi Tianyi
Rank 10: Nanfang Wubai
…
…
Tianyi rubbed his chin as he watched as he descended from the platform and returned to the Heaven Continent side. 'Why do I feel like this battle wasn’t exciting enough? Normally to determine the ranks, it would be a tournament style with people fighting to claim the glory of number one, right?'
'But there is no reward except being able to enter the secret realm, it seems. There is only prestige the higher your rank is, but none of them seem to want to duke it out without a proper reward. Or maybe they are conserving their strength for the secret realm? I heard this is an especially huge stroke of fortune for us. Maybe there will be more exciting fights in the secret realm?'
It was indeed so. The true reward was actually the benefits the disciples could gain from inside the secret realm. Should they gain great fortune even if it was useless to them, their sect would reimburse them as long as they handed it over.
None of them had much information concerning what was inside the secret realm, and revealing all your trump cards out in the open was a foolish course of action. The rankings were actually not a direct correlation to the disciple’s strength. There could be an amazing disciple hiding at the lower end of the rankings.
“Hmmm, Senior Brother, what’s wrong?” Tianyi asked when he saw Xia Yushan, who had a weird expression on his face as he looked at Tianyi.
“Junior Brother, be careful of Nanfang Wubai. He’s a...extremely troublesome character.” Xia Yushan said as he used voice transmission and added. “He cultivates the Sunflower Manual.”
Tianyi looked at Xia Yushan with some confusion. “I’ve already experienced it myself. Her needles are extremely hard to locate, and she can use those threads expertly. Her methods are extremely sinister. I will naturally be wary.”
Xia Yushan saw that Tianyi didn’t understand and continued. “That’s not what I meant. His character has been warped and changed because he cultivated the Sunflower Manual. He’s half a man!”
Tianyi paused as he recalled Nanfang Wubai’s appearance. Which part made her seem like a man? “Senior Brother... that’s not true, right?”
Xia Yushan shook his head. “Only men can cultivate the Sunflower Manual. And to cultivate the Sunflower Manual, one must castrate themselves first. The Sunflower manually will eventually alter the cultivator’s personality and three world views.”
Tianyi felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he looked at the crowd from the Earth Continent. Whether by coincidence or maybe he had always been staring, Tianyi and Nanfang Wubai’s gazes intersected.
Nanfang Wubai even sent a kiss and a wink at Tianyi, totally causing Tianyi’s body to shiver.
'Goddammit, he's even weirder than the suicide bomber!'