Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Morning came and colorful silk banners began to float up into the sky above The United University of Cultivation.
In the Blue Sky Plaza, which could hold a capacity of close to a hundred thousand people, a myriad of flowers bloomed and tall trees swayed in the wind. On their branches, there were colorful banners attached with messages like “Welcome to the Dao Exchange Conference”.
Fifty thousand students from the university were gathered in the plaza.
Aside from them, the representatives for the Dao Exchange Conference and entourages from the Buddhist Kingdom, the Garden of Eden, and the Hall of Creation were also gathered there, totaling a few thousand people.
An Lin was in fantastic condition today. He didn’t know whether it was due to the meal from yesterday, but he felt as if his body was brimming with power.
The Dao Exchange Conference of the Four Powers had not officially begun. An Lin, Liu Qianhuan, and Wang Xuanzhan were all representatives of the Heavenly Court, and they were chatting among themselves by the Dao Exchange’s platform.
The younger generation representatives of the Buddhist Kingdom, Qing Zhi, Qing Yan, and Qing Xin sat in silence beside the Dao Exchange’s platform with their eyes closed.
Shirley, Augus, and Arthur from the Garden of Eden were showered with divine light as they smiled lightly at the people gathered in the Blue Sky Plaza. Their supermodel looks, combined with their endearing smiles instantly attracted countless fans.
Shirley peered at An Lin from time to time with meaningful glances, as the blue ring in her hand flashed with a faint, peculiar light.
The least popular group among them was none other than the group of young representatives from the Hall of Creation.
Hong Dou was a thick and burly rock golem with a ball of flames burning in his chest and two fiery red eyes glinting with bloodlust, perfectly encapsulating the look of an antagonistic BOSS character in video games. And an abstract one at that.
Dong Yan was even taller than Xiao Yanzi from “Pearl Princess” [1. This is a reference to the main character of an iconic Chinese drama]. Her wings emitted a dazzling gleam, and her body exuded an air of frostiness, making her appear both cold and heartless.
As for Huang Shan, he was a bit more handsome. He was humanoid at least, and his whole body was a smooth and shiny golden hue which emitted a metallic glint, while his eyes seemed to have golden flashes of lightning crackling within.
The entourage from the Hall of Creation was also a bunch of strange creatures who appeared as if they were a bunch of highly intelligent monsters that had come to attend the Dao exchange.
With a formation like that, not only did they receive no attention from the students in the plaza, even the thousands of creatures in the Hall of Creation’s entourage were all standing idly, picking their noses, and popping their pimples in boredom.
“Classmate An Lin, will you be using your full strength later on? If you plan on fighting with your full strength, I’ll just stand off to the side and not get in your way,” Wang Xuanzhan looked over at An Lin and spoke earnestly.
An Lin winced at his words, what was this about fighting full-strength! This was his full strength for God’s sake!
His chest felt a bit tight as he reiterated with a solemn expression, “I’m only a student of Spirit Nurturing Initial Stage!”
Wang Xuanzhan gave him a knowing look. “Alright, if Classmate An Lin wants to conserve his strength, then I’ll have to display my lowly skills.”
An Lin did not know what else to say and could only stand off to the side while smiling in silence.
“Don’t worry, with Wang Xuanzhan on our side, we can just do nothing and win anyway.” Liu Qianhuan elbowed An Lin lightly with a smile on her face. “How about we have a little match first before the Dao Exchange Conference starts?”
An Lin immediately shook his head at her suggestion. “Sister Liu, there are tens-of-thousands of onlookers here, please don’t toy with me.”
“Hmph, so what, you scaredy-cat?” Liu Qianhuan glared at An Lin with disdain before bringing up some single-player game on her phone.
An Lin sighed lightly. All the other representative groups were either attracting fans like some sort of superstars or sitting silently like sages.
But over at the Heavenly Court’s side, only An Lin’s handsome looks were worthy of note.
Liu Qianhuan was also quite beautiful, but she was always staring at her phone like an immature little girl with no class.
As for Wang Xuanzhan, he was not as intimidating as the representatives of the Hall of Creation, nor was he as handsome as An Lin, so he became the most ordinary-looking out of the three.
Of course, that would all change after the Dao Exchange Conference officially commenced and he could show off his skills.
Vice-Principal Yu Hua of the Heavenly Court, the Lion King of the Hall of Creation, Vanessa of the Garden of Eden, and Hui Ming from the Buddhist Kingdom were all gathered at the forefront of the spectator stands.
Aside from that, a woman in a simple robe with beautiful features straight out of painting had her gaze resting on An Lin.
She spoke quietly but in an extremely determined tone. “An Lin, this time… I’ll be sure to even the score!”
Out of the blue, An Lin suddenly felt a shiver running down his spine.
He turned to find a rock golem with flames burning in his chest smiling at him with a sinister expression.
Their eyes met and Hong Dou puffed out his burly chest, the flames within seemed to burn even more brightly than before.
An Lin: “…”
Right at this moment, a voice suddenly sounded, “Welcome fellow cultivators from the Garden of Eden, the Buddhist Kingdom, and the Hall of Creation who had to travel from afar to participate in our Dao Exchange Conference, which is held once in every five years. We shall sit and participate in the Dao Exchange here and witness the grace of the young prodigies from the Four Powers…”
As the host, Vice-Principal Yu Hua was the first to make a speech.
Right on the heels of which the leaders of the other three powers, Hui Ming, the Lion King, and Vanessa also all gave simple speeches.
These were all tasteless scripted speeches so no one paid much attention.
You could make your speech as brilliant as you want, but if your young representatives were useless, then there was no point. So the main thing everyone focused on was how the young representatives performed.
An Lin always felt like this situation was a little similar to the Olympic Games held on Earth. As long as you swapped countries out for the Four Powers and thought of the participants as athletes who were fighting for glory for their “nation”.
The competition was divided into segments of Spells, Dao, Intent, Life, and Seize, thus comprising a total of five events. Each event was worth a different number of points and the team with the most amount of points would not only receive a fabulous prize but more importantly, there was a lot of glory up for grabs.
The reason why An Lin did not want to participate in the Dao Exchange Conference was that he had no confidence in himself and was afraid he would drag the team down.
If he made a fool out of himself, not only would he be an embarrassment to the school, he would also be known as a disgrace throughout the Kingdom of the Nine States! What a terrifying notion!
Soon, the speeches concluded and the Dao Exchange Conference officially commenced.
The first event was Spells. It was actually just a competition between the level of spell techniques used by competing cultivators.
Bodhisattva Hui Ming walked onto the competition stage and brought out a huge black stone plaque from his Buddhism beads. The plaque was a hundred feet wide and a thousand feet tall, settling with a loud rumble on the stage.
“This is a stone plaque for testing the level of a spell technique, it can determine the level of a spell technique used by a cultivator by dividing it into the four levels: Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow. This segment requires the young representatives of each side to unleash their spell techniques at the stone plaque, with the Yellow level initial stage as one point, all the way up to Heaven level final stage as twelve points…”
Bodhisattva Hui Ming’s words reverberated around the Blue Sky Plaza. The rules were simple— cultivators simply had to demonstrate their most powerful spell techniques as a show of their talent and the education they had received.
An Lin felt like the huge black stone plaque was a bit like the red crystalline walls of the Vermilion Bird Sect, but the types of spell techniques the stone plaque could detect were more varied, which made it a more advanced tool.
He nodded his head lightly. He should be fine for this segment at least.
After all, he had a trump card!
“Alright, then let’s begin!”
