Chapter 242: Jumping Dragon Door
Translator: Sheryl Editor: Hitesh
“Leader, with Ye Chen being here, we will certainly get a little bit of the luck from this Hidden Dragon Ancient Place, and I don’t think it will be a light one either.” The head master had a huge smile on his face. The three challenges of the dragon door were designed to test the general power of the contestants. Judging from how Ye Chen had made through the first challenge, his power should already be at an unimaginable level.
Luo Xinglie laughed, “Luckily, I had granted him to go out and travel. Otherwise, he would never reach this kind of level if he had trained only at the school.”
Training within a martial institution and traveling had both its up and downs. The good thing about training in the martial institutions was that it would be very safe, and there would not be much risk of dying or being injured badly, which would be a good option for most of the people. However, traveling the world would be very different. There were countless unforeseen factors, such as seeing the outside world which could easily affect a lot of warriors with weak minds, or simply being hunted and killed because of personal problems, or not having time to train at all. The scariest part of traveling was being lied to or tricked, then ending up going down a different path and never coming back. No matter which one was the case, it would be very likely able to destroy a true martial genius and end up living a mortal life. But of course, the higher the risk, the bigger would be the rewards. If the warrior was able to keep his true goal, set principles, stick to his track and survive the travels, their mentality and fighting power would increase drastically, which would lay down a stable foundation for his or her future training. Furthermore, it would not be reversible by any external factors.
Luo Xinglie knew about the benefits of traveling, but he was still shocked at Ye Chen’s achievements. It had only been one year, which was not even long for most of the warriors!
“Xu Jing has passed the second challenge while Hanshan and Zhu Mei seem to be struggling.” Right then, the fourth master looked away from Ye Chen and towards Luo Hanshan and the other two.
Luo Xinglie forced a smile, “The elimination rate of the three challenges is unbelievably high. They had eliminated seventy percent of the contestants three years ago. I wonder how many will be eliminated this year. I really hope Hanshan and Zhu Mei can make it and jump over that south city gate.”
Because fighting for the top seventy-two would be extremely hard, a lot of the martial institutions knew there was no hope for their disciples, so being able to jump up the south city gate would make them already quite happy. Being able to jump through the gate would already make them one of the great warriors.
Tag Fight Challenge was indeed what it sounded like; the contestants would have to fight for a jade tag in order to win the challenge. However, the difficulty had been increased several times from the first challenge. In that weird-looking crystal palace, shiny light kept attacking from the top, and each beam of light had the power of a peak-level Early Clasping Yuan Realm warrior’s one full strength attack. Wanting to fight against the light attack, there were only three methods; flashing past with an extremely fast speed, which was mostly impossible because the speed of those beams of light was unimaginably fast. The warriors who were able to flash past the light would already be the top martial geniuses. No matter what they did, they would be able to go past the challenge without being copied by anyone. The second method would be using their defensive layer to fight against it. This would require a great powerful martial art, and it had to reach its highest level. Otherwise, if the rank of the martial art were low, then the realm would be low, and there would be no chance for this method to work. The third method would be using powerful attacking power to blow away the light, which required the warriors to train very powerful martial skills and very fast reflexes. They would have to be able to see everything that was happening in the surroundings. Otherwise, they would be hit by the light.
Besides the first method, the second and the third method had been used by most of the contestants, which included Luo Hanshan and Zhu Mei.
Luo Hanshan had not wasted the past year at all. After coming back from the Heaven Dream Ancient Place, he had started to train a mid-rank Earth Realm martial art – the Great Rudra Godly Art. Normally, if he had been able to train till the sixth level within a year of time, it would be already quite an achievement. But Luo Xinglie was someone who had trained the Rudra Godly Art to its peak tenth level and had recorded his thoughts for each breakthrough he had. Along with his patient guidance, Luo Hanshan had reached the eighth level before the Hidden Dragon Rank competitions, and the quality and the quantity of his zhen Qi had reached beyond his ninth level Purple Qi Spell.
The same was for Zhu Mei. She had trained another mid-rank Earth Realm martial art and the inner master who had mastered the martial art had taught her with patience. So she was able to successfully reach the ninth level. Her talent in training was obviously higher than Luo Hanshan, which made her only below Ye Chen.
The two had held a layer of defensive zhen qi with all their strength to block out the light attacks. However, it was still not enough. The light attacks were very intense, and there was barely any time gap between each attack. Only the defensive zhen qi was obviously not enough, and they would have to use attacks to blow away some of the light attacks to provide enough time for their zhen Qi layer to repair itself.
Finally, the two reached out and took a floating jade tag each, then carried on flying towards the back of the palace with great difficulty.
The two had just left when Ye Chen had come in.
“It is not that tight, there seem to be a lot of flaws.”
With only one glance, Ye Chen could see through the light attacks. He did not even slow down his speed. Instead, his body extended and shot out towards those tied up jade tags.
“Who is this guy? So arrogant…he wants to get the jade tag already?”
“Indeed. Although he is a Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior, even the slightest mistake would lead him to be hit by dozens of light attacks at once, so he will eventually go down anyways.”
“Yah, exactly! There was a Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior before who was reckless and totally underestimated the challenge. He thought it would not be that difficult, but then he was hit by dozens of light attacks. What a disaster. Fortunately, the light attacks are very specially designed and will not hurt any of the contestants. Otherwise, this place would be full of dead bodies and blood rivers.”
The difficulty of the second challenge was not easy. More than hundreds of contestants had been stopped by the light attacks, barely able to take one step forward. Seeing Ye Chen run in without stopping, they were all waiting to see him fall in order to entertain their frustration from being stuck.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The attacking speed of the light was very fast. Some of the places would barely be hit while some had received all of the attacks. They had created a hopeless attacking web. But of course, there was always a pattern in everything. For example, after hitting somewhere for a long time, that place would receive fewer attacks the second moment, which would be a temporary safe zone. A lot of the contestants before had gotten the jade tag without any troubles by using this pattern. However, it would be very hard for contestants who had weaker observation and mentality. Some of them had found out about the pattern, but could not handle the pressure which led to miscalculation, and eventually getting hit and passing out.
Within the web of light attacks, Ye Chen was like a shadow or a ghost, traveling so smoothly amongst the attacks. Each time the crowd thought that Ye Chen was hit by the light attack, it turned to be only his shadow from traveling too fast. In other words, even under the attacks of the light, Ye Chen was still keeping his extremely fast speed. And with those strong visuals, all of the contestants around him started to have hallucinations that the attacking speed of the light had been slowed down.
Ah!
A contestant’s zhen Qi layer had been shattered and got knocked out. He was indeed one of the contestants who thought the attacking speed had been slowed down.
All of the others had been warned from what happened to him. They knew now that it was not the speed of the light slowing down, it was indeed Ye Chen’s speed being too fast and bizarre, which had caused such an illusion of all the light attacks following right behind him but not being able to hit him.
After getting the jade tag, Ye Chen’s body flashed and went through the gap between the attack web, landing on the second bridge.
“Damn. He can pass the challenge like that? I don’t think I have ever seen him before.”
“Me neither. I think he might be some of the new ones. This year’s Hidden Dragon Rank competition is indeed one of the most intense one after one thousand years. There are already a lot of older generation martial geniuses, but there are even more new ones. Judging from that person’s power, he could at least be ranked in the top thirties! Maybe even top twenty. As for the top ten, there might not be that much hope. Look at Sikong Sheng and the others, they are not human level anymore.”
“Stop chatting. Let’s get through this challenge first. The third challenge would be the hardest. Maybe if we go faster, we could even take a look.”
The bridge was a few miles long, after two blinks, Ye Chen had landed on the third platform.
Right then, there were already eight hundred people or so on the platform. Luo Hanshan, Zhu Mei, and Xu Jing were queuing in the back, watching the other people jumping towards that South City Gate in silence.
“Ye Chen, you are here!” Luo Hanshan looked back and was very happy.
Zhu Mei and Xu Jing had also turned their heads.
Ye Chen laughed, “I am a bit late, but luckily I made it.”
“I thought you would miss this year’s competitions, which would be such a pity.” Luo Hanshan was just like Luo Xinglie. They never got jealous of other people’s power being higher than them. For them, the higher Ye Chen managed to get, the happier they would be since the competitions of the Hidden Dragon Rank was tightly connected to the destiny of the martial institutions and individual luck. So the higher he got, the more successful their martial institution would be.
“Eh! What kind of cultivation do you have now?” Zhu Mei asked since she could not read him from far away.
Ye Chen said, “Late Clasping Yuan Realm.”
Gasp!
The two both had gasped. They thought they had finally shortened the gap between them, but they now knew that the gap would only get bigger and bigger, Ye Chen’s talent was no weaker than anyone in the whole South Rudra Region. If it was not for his lack of training time, there might even be a possibility for him to get into the top ten.
Xu Jing was also quite surprised, and there were not many things that could surprise her. Yet somehow Ye Chen was one, and he had shocked her more than once. Technically, she was the first one who noticed Ye Chen’s talent and knew him the best. But of course, it was only relatively, she knew that she did not really know Ye Chen at all. He seemed to be hidden in a heavy fog which no one would really see through. Compared to the other top ten young warriors, Ye Chen did not have that brutal superior aura, but he had this sharpness which seemed like it could cut through anything.
“Xu Jing, long time no see.” Ye Chen glanced at Xu Jing. The more he looked, the more shocked he got. Inside Xu Jing’s body was a huge amount of zhen Qi. Actually, it was no longer zhen Qi anymore. It was a kind of power that had combined with her physical strength. If it had to be described in one word, then it would be Qi power, a horrifying Qi power. After thinking for a while, Ye Chen realized why there was not much progress in her cultivation. It was because she had poured all of her zhen qi into her body to increase the body’s Qi power. Even with her physical Qi power, she would still be able to crush the other contestants in her cultivation.
‘Fifty thousand pounds, no, it should be more than eighty thousand pounds!’
Ye Chen had also got some Qi power, and it was jade in color. After comparing, he realized that the Qi power inside Xu Jing’s body was two times more than his, and it was gold colored. There was not a single impure part within, so judging from quality, hers was still better than his. Combining the both, no matter if it was the quantity or the quality of the Qi power, Xu Jing was way better than Ye Chen.
‘It looks like Xu Jing’s progress was so much bigger than Luo Hanshan and Zhu Mei and that too towards the physical strength. I wonder how powerful she would be when she got to the peak of her power.’ Ye Chen thought to himself.
Xu Jing did not know that in such a short time, countless thoughts had already passed through Ye Chen’s mind. She was focused in the front.
Jumping Dragon Door was one of the most difficult challenges of the three. In that deep cliff, there was far more intense gravity than the one in the Martial City. Besides, hearing the countless demonic beasts’ scream from the bottom of the cliff, the contestants could not help but feel scared. Then their minds would no longer be clear.
Shoo!
There was one person who had jumped on, and he was Leng Wuqing, the Monster Childe. His body slightly flashed in the air as he entered stably into the South City Gate. As for those warriors with high ranks, they were all standing on top, looking down at the people below, which included Sikong Sheng, Fire Spirit Prince, Lin Yun. Whenever they saw someone not able to handle the gravity and end up being sent to the side by the Qi flow coming from the bottom of the cliff, they would sneer without hiding it.
