“Ah! Senior brother Ye! We didn’t know that you were here!”
While Ye Chen was pondering, three female disciples showed up not too far away from him. They were all about fourteen years old, young and lively. Seeing Ye Chen’s bare upper body, they quickly turned their heads around and their faces instantly blushed.
Ye Chen smiled bitterly. In his world, a man being with his upper body bare was quite normal, but things were different here in this world. His storage ring sparkled and a neat outfit immediately appeared in his hands.
Putting on the clothes, Ye Chen asked the few girls, “Are you looking for a cultivation ground?”
“Yeah! Senior Brother Ye, were you taking a shower here?” Among the three girls, the moon-faced one was the most adorable, and she was also the only one who didn’t turn her head around just now. However, that was only because her eyes were blocked by the other two.
“I was cultivating here. If you like this place, it is yours now.” After he said this, Ye Chen leapt high above the waterfall, and soon disappeared without leaving a trace, after he flashed a few times.
“Ha! I told you that Senior Brother Ye is quite nice, you just wouldn’t believe me!”
“Haha, Brother Ye has a good body, and he is so talented.”
“Senior Sisters, why did Brother Ye run away?”
……
Going to the Floating Cloud Palace every three days had become a habit to Ye Chen. In fact, he wasn't always going for missions, his main purpose was to read those big or small news about the recent events around the Windy Nation, from the list of missions. It was much better than not knowing anything that was happening out there.
As he walked past the Ranking Jade Wall, Ye Chen took a quick glance at it. His name was still the first one in the third line. Names on the first line and the second line belonged to the twenty-four core disciples. Of course, as long as he wanted, he could also become a core disciple anytime, and his rank would also be quite high, at least in the top four. However, he didn’t plan to do so yet, as he was not quite sure if he could win against Zhu Mei, who was known as the ‘Secret Fragrance Sword’, unless he uses the ‘Heart Refining’.
“It would be meaningless if I can’t become the top-ranked core disciple.” shaking his head, Ye Chen walked into the palace.
“Look! Senior Brother Meng Chong is back!”
“I heard that he accepted a three-star black mission this time, it seems that he has already completed it!”
“Compared to his performance in the Inner Disciple Competition, Senior Brother Meng Chong has indeed achieved great improvement, I just wonder if he is now more powerful than Senior Brother Ye Chen.”
The surrounding inner disciples began talking as they fixed their eyes on Meng Chong, who was standing nearby.
Meng Chong seemed to have not realised that he was now the focus of the rest of the disciples in the hall. He only said something to Ye Chen, who was standing in front of the palace entrance, “You and me, we will determine the winner on the Martial Plaza. I hope you have had some improvements since then.”
“As you wish.” Ye Chen turned around and responded.
Usually, Ye Chen wouldn’t challenge others, however, when someone challenged him, he would usually accept. Even if he wanted to refuse, he would have to find a reasonable excuse for that, otherwise, if everyone refused such challenges, there won’t be any competition among disciples, and the Ranking Jade Wall would lose its function.”
Once Ye Chen gave his response, the surrounding disciples became excited.
“Brother Meng Chong once again challenged Brother Ye Chen! It’s big news! Go tell the others!”
“It’s been a month since the last fight between them, both of them had improved quite a lot in the past month, it’s going to be a splendid fight!”
“It looks like Brother Meng Chong is not willing to become a core disciple until he defeats Brother Ye Chen!”
Within a few minutes, most of the Sky Cloud Martial School’s disciples had heard about this news, they immediately rushed to the Martial Plaza. Soon, over a thousand disciples had gathered in the plaza. Among them, around two to three hundred were inner disciples who didn’t have any missions, and the rest were mostly outer disciples. A few core disciples had come as well, they intended to find out what level Ye Chen and Ming Chong had achieved.
Ye Chen and Meng Chong slowly walked up the platform located in the middle of the plaza.
“It’s been a month since the last time I met you, if you didn’t have any huge improvements since then, you will probably lose.” Meng Chong seemed calmer than before, it was as if he was accumulating a fierce fighting aura inside his body.
Ye Chen gave a measuring glance at Meng Chong, he then shook his head and said, “You have indeed improved, but the difference between you and me is getting larger and larger.”
Meng Chong snorted scornfully and responded, “We will find that out later, and you will certainly want to take those words back.”
A sharp gust of wind fluttered Ye Chen’s hair and clothes.
“Bring it on!” said Ye Chen.
Clang!
Meng Chong’s long blade roared out of the sheath, it slashed towards Ye Chen at lightning speed.
“Soaring Blood Light!”
As he darted towards Ye Chen, Meng Chong gripped the black hilt of his blade with both his hands and swiftly swung the blade. Because of the amazing speed, his arms seemed to have merged with the air, leaving only a blood-red blade light flashing across each other, shrouding the entire platform. Those streams of blade light completely sealed the space around Ye Chen, blocking all the directions leaving him no way to dodge. He could only try to face the attack head on.
“Wow! Amazing! How will Brother Ye deal with that?”
“I suppose he could only fight against it, right?”
“The last time, if Brother Meng Chong had been this powerful, he would have definitely been able to keep his position as the top-ranked inner disciple. Of course, if he can defeat Brother Ye Chen this time, he will once again become the top-ranked inner disciple.”
“It won’t be this easy, will it? Brother Ye has gone to the Emerald Valley and met so many powerful people, how could he not have any improvements after that?”
Most of these disciples had no idea about the fact that Ye Chen had defeat Cheng Jun and Shi Potian back in the Emerald Valley. Only those core disciples knew a little bit about that. However, in one or two days, this news would absolutely spread out, and no one would be able to imagine how sensational it would be.
When the stream of blood-red blade light reached its peak level, Ye Chen made his move.
Swoosh!
No one clearly saw how Ye Chen pulled out his sword, they only sensed that a thin wisp of white Sword Qi that was as thin as a wire, flashed across the air; and in the very next moment, Ye Chen’s silhouette had already moved across the stream of blood-red light and appeared right behind Meng Chong.
Clang!
Puff!
The long blade flew away from Meng Chong’s hands, and got stuck in a stone pillar in the corner of the plaza. After that, Meng Chong’s cloth near his ribs were ripped apart; the cut was extremely smooth, as if the cloth was cut by a scissor.
As he put the Hidden Cloud Sword back into the sheath, Ye Chan blandly said, “Your blade skill is not bad, but I have already stepped into a higher level, so you can’t rival me anymore.”
Too powerful, he was way too powerful. Meng Chong thought ‘I had absolutely no chance of fighting back. At this moment I can’t even evenly fight against him I definitely wouldn’t have believed this back then, but now I have to. Because this has already happened to me.’
Meng Chong was overwhelmed by this sudden loss, it made him pause. All the other disciples who had been watching the fight were also dumbfounded, their eyes popped out and their mouths were wide open, they remained with that expression for quite a while.
The plaza fell into a deadly silence. When people realised what had happened, Ye Chen had already left.
“Damn! What have I seen?! Brother Ye Chen defeated Brother Meng Chong with only one move! One-move! How powerful would he need to be to do that?!”
“It’s overwhelming, the difference between them is too huge!”
“No one among the inner disciples would be able to take Brother Ye Chen’s place.”
“Even my scalp went numb once I thought about that! Brother Meng Chong could defeat the rest of the top-ten inner disciples with a single move, but Brother Ye had actually, just defeated him with a single move.”
Hearing such conversations, the few core disciples glanced at each other.
The time passed by peacefully, like a flowing stream.
Twenty days just went by, and the August had arrived.
During this period of time, Ye Chen had never stopped his cultivation. The amount of Zhen Qi in his body was gradually reaching the peak of the Late Condensing Reality Realm, almost reaching Luo Hanshan’s level. As for his sword skills, he himself didn’t know what stage he had achieved, perhaps he could only fnd that out if he fought against a powerful Childe-level opponent.
Compared to his personal improvement, recently, something huge took place in Windy Nation.
There was a spy in the Purple Sun Martial School, one of the five top-ranked institutions.
This spy’s cover identity was an inner elder of the Purple Sun Martial School, but in fact, he was an elite warrior under the Ghost Artist’s command. He had been hiding in the Purple Sun Martial School for a whole fifteen years. Recently, he betrayed the Purple Sun Martial School for no reason and killed an inner elder and three outer elders. This news shocked all the big institutions throughout the entire nation.
Ye Chen didn’t know much about the details, but all the core administrators of the big institutions should probably know about them clearly. The plan to attack the branch stronghold of the Ghost Corpse Mountain on the eighth of August was also ruined due to this spy in the Purple Sun Martial School. He came to know about the plan and sneakily sent the information to the Ghost Corpse Mountain. But, another elder found him doing that and they instantly started to fight; later, three outer elders also came to help. However, this spy was incredibly powerful, he killed all four of them within a very short amount of time and ran away from Purple Sun Martial School.
In the main meeting room of the Sky Cloud Martial School.
At this moment, a group of Inner Elders had been discussing something else.
“Leader, he Heavenly Dream Ancient Region is about to unlock this October, we should come to a decision regarding the disciples we want to send there, so that we can tell them to prepare for it.” said the Fourth Elder.
Luo Xinglie looked at the elders and asked, “Do you have any ideas?”
The Head Elder cleared his throat and responded, “The Heavenly Dream Ancient Region only unlocks once every ten years, this opportunity is extremely precious. Every time after the trials in the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region, nearly ten percent of those younger generation martial artists step into the Clasping Yuan Realm, therefore, we have to send our best disciples. As a rank 9 institution, we can only send four disciples. In my opinion, Zhu Mei and Luo Hanshan have to go, and Xu Jing as well.”
“What about the last one?”
“I think Ye Chen is good.” said the Fourth Elder.
The Head Elder nodded, he was also thinking the same.
Hearing this, a few Inner Elders immediately shook their heads and said, “Although Ye Chen is talented, and has already comprehended the half-step sword intent, his level is not as high as the other three, we can’t give an explanation to the others if we send him to the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region.”
“Indeed, the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region is a historical region, every single quota of disciples is an extremely precious opportunity to us. We can’t afford to waste it, so we have to send disciples who have a chance to break into the Clasping Yuan Realm.
“I think the ranked three core disciple, Tao Xiaofeng is a good choice.”
“Jing Yan, the fourth-ranked one is also great.”
The Head Elder blandly glanced at the others and continued, “Tao Xiaofeng and Jing Yan both are indeed talented, but they are not as amazing as Ye Chen. Even if they did manage to break into the Clasping Yuan Realm, they could only be counted as elite, but they could never kill an enemy who is at a higher level than themselves. However, Ye Chen had already comprehended half-step sword intent, this means that he could definitely attain the true sword intent with enough time. In this situation, do you understand which level he will achieve after he steps into the Clasping Yuan Realm?”
“This…”
The few elders who disagreed with the Head Elder couldn’t come up with anything to say at the moment.
Lou Xinglie announced his decision.
“The Heavenly Dream Ancient Region is in the vast desert in the middle of nine nations, and is hundreds of thousands of miles away from our Sky Cloud Martial School. We have no time to lose, these few disciples should leave in half a month. They are Zhu Mei, Luo Hanshan, Xu Jing, and, Ye Chen.”
Hearing the last two words, the Head Elder and Fourth Elder glanced at each other, both of them had a grin on their face.
Translated by: Law
From XianXiaWorld
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