In the martial tea gathering, Xie Zhiqiu had brought top three young warriors of the Eastern Regions to come with him. He thought that he could outshine all the young warriors in the Southern regions without even doing anything himself. He had guessed the beginning, but failed to foresee the ending. When it started, the top three warriors of the Eastern regions were indeed unstoppable; first, they managed to beat Li Xiaoyun quickly, then Jing Aoxuan. Although the situation did not go as smoothly as expected with Chu Zhongtian, it was not because of their weaker power, but Chu Zhongtian’s unbreakable defense. But even him, seemingly invincible on the surface, he still lost the upper hand in the battle.
And then came out Ye Chen.
Once he appeared, everything went south. Moving so casually, he first beat Cui Yinghao, then Ling Luohan. Even Xie Zhiqiu, who was so powerful already, had still lost to him without a chance to even fight back.
The three had arrived with such a powerful aura, but had to leave so embarrassedly; only Ye Chen’s invincible reputation had been left behind from that day onward.
Xie Zhiqiu knew that without reaching the Sea of Souls Realm, he would not be able to get his Demon Qi Power Spell to reach its highest realm, and it would be extremely hard to beat Ye Chen. Therefore, ever since he got back from the Eastern regions, he had been in closed training, trying his best to make a breakthrough. Finally, he managed to reach the Sea of Souls Realm half a year ago. And in the next couple of months, he had trained his Demon Qi Power Spell to its fifth level, which allowed him to increase his battling power by five times. Compared to him in Astral Reaching Realm, his power had reached a completely different level; there was no comparison anymore.
After reaching the Sea of Souls Realm, Xie Zhiqiu’s confidence had increased drastically. He had been wanting to beat Ye Chen to recover his reputation, but the Sky Martial Pavilion only opened once per year. So, if he missed out on this chance, he would have to wait for another year. Therefore, he prepared to test his potential at the Sky Martial Pavilion first before taking his revenge.
What surprised him was that Ye Chen had come to this pavilion as well, and he did not even need to go out and search for him anymore.
“Huh! This time, I will beat you like a dead dog!”
Thinking back on the day when he was beaten, Xie Zhiqiu tightened his fist, looking very unfriendly.
“This guy is still on that, wanting to take revenge from Ye Chen.”
Li Xiaoyun and Jing Aoxuan sneered. They did not know exactly how powerful Ye Chen was right now, but with the fact that he had extremely horrifying power when he was at Astral Reaching Realm, it would not be hard to imagine what his power would be like when he was at Sea of Souls Realm.
The testing speed was very fast, and soon, Ling Tianhao and Miao Yin had started theirs.
After a couple of moments, the two’s rankings appeared on the name wall, one at 285th and the other at 276th, which was already a rather impressive ranking. There were so many martial geniuses, and being able to be ranked in the top three hundred was already very hard.
“Ye Chen, let’s join in as well!”
Fewer and fewer people were still waiting. Li Xiaoyun walked a step earlier into the testing area and Jing Aoxuan followed. Ye Chen nodded, walking into the area as well.
“Yan Fengfeng, he isn’t from the Mysterious Martial School, right?” Hai Wuya asked Yan Fengfeng.
She answered, “He is a genius from the South Rudra Region.”
“Oh?”
Hai Wuya frowned. He could not imagine that a martial genius from the South Rudra Region could have Yan Fengfeng as a guide here. It was definitely a top honor.
She laughed, “Hai Wuya, do not underestimate him. In the battle between martial geniuses inside the Sky Martial Region, he will definitely be one of the leaders.”
“Hehe!” Hai Wuya chuckled. There was not a doubt that he thought she was joking, since the Sky Martial Region was not just a region or a cluster of regions. It was the center of the whole land, and all of the top warriors from the whole world would be gathered here. Wanting to make something out here would be extremely hard, not to even mention becoming one of the top ones.
She chose not to explain, since she knew that it would be pointless. If one wanted other people’s trust or appreciation, one would have to demonstrate what they had. Anything else would be useless.
…
It was a silent world, and there was no sign of living beings here. On top of this land of nothingness was forming a vague human shadow. It was getting clearer and clearer, and his facial features and clothes had been soon made out; it was indeed Ye Chen in his blue robes. Right then, his expression was dull and numb, as if he did not have a consciousness at all.
All of a sudden, Ye Chen’s unfocused eyes moved once, and a clear light appeared from within.
“The mental consciousness did not have an actual consciousness, so one would need to use his own to control it.” Ye Chen had some vague understanding. Even the mental consciousness had rankings, and obviously, the one he had right now was the lowest one. The high rank ones could actually have consciousness of their own, which would be a real clone that would not be needed to be controlled remotely.
Whoo!
Hundreds of meters in front of Ye Chen, a human figure appeared out of nowhere. It was a sword artist in yellow, whose cultivation mentality seemed to be at Ye Chen’s level, but its face was vague.
“Hm? He has a sword but I don’t!” With that thought in mind, a sword appeared in his head.
“Another one!” And like that, one appeared on his waist as well.
Shoo!
The sword artist in yellow robes had used the killing attacks which were completely different from Ye Chen’s. The sword light was sharp and powerful, slicing through the air.
Ye Chen moved slightly and turned into a beam of sword light that shot through that incoming sword light. The longsword in his hand had been taken out, and a bright light flashed once before disappearing completely.
A vaguely similar human skull was blown into the sky while the opponent’s headless body slid out into the distance.
“The first round was not hard. Although the simulator warrior’s cultivation mentality was similar to mine, but its battling technique was too textbook-y. There were no characteristics at all, more like a program that had been preset.”
Ye Chen secretly calculated the battling power of the mental consciousness.
Whoo! Whoo!
After about three breaths of time, two sword artists in yellow robes appeared again. They both had a vague appearance; only their eyes shone with bright light and locked onto Ye Chen.
After that, they started to attack sharply and aggressively again without even stopping for a second.
“Kill!”
Ye Chen did not back out at all, jumping at the incoming two.
Pooh!
Pooh!
The three went past each other. In the next second, two heads shot up into the air, but there was no blood.
…
“The pressure is getting greater and greater!”
In his mental world, Li Xiaoyun was killing through a crowd; there were a total number of sixteen people around him, all with a similar cultivation. Their killing attacks were not that much weaker than his. Even if their attacking techniques were not as smooth or fluent, the quantity was sixteen times more than him alone. There was no need to mention the level of pressure out here.
Boom!
Closing his iron fan, Li Xiaoyun smashed into three heads as he got hit once in his back. He tumbled around and went through the gap between two figures.
“Seven Star Across!”
Turning around immediately, Li Xiaoyun performed his killing attacks.
…
“Royal Extreme Tyrant Fist!”
“Extremely World Shocking Fist!”
Jing Aoxuan was not like herself from before who only knew how to attack forward but not backward. Her body was like a lightning bolt, shooting from different angles. With one punch, one person would be blown away for sure. That intense thunder power was like a chain lightning in the sky.
“Huh!”
With a low sound emerging, it was not hard to tell that she had been wounded quite badly. It was still sixteen just-as-powerful consciousnesses attacking her at the same time. It was not impossible to beat them all, but there would be a price to pay.
After a pot of tea worth of time…
“Eh? Who is Li Xiaoyun? He is ranked 108th on the ranking!”
“And Jing Aoxuan, 95th!”
Names on the wall contained to flash as two more blue names appeared there.
“Not bad! That Jing Aoxuan is even ranked above you.” Xie Zhiqiu smiled lightly and said to Ling Luohan right next to him.
The latter said, “Their potential is indeed no weaker than mine.”
Although back then, Ling Luohan was indeed winning against Li Xiaoyun and Jing Aoxuan, but his potential might not be above the two, since power and potential were two different things. It would be much more complicated and harder to compare.
Opening their eyes, they chuckled sadly to themselves—they both lost in the fifth round.
“I killed thirteen of them. How about you?” Li Xiaoyun asked.
“Fifteen!”
“What a shame!”
There were sixteen of them in the fifth round, so there was only one left for her to have advanced to the sixth realm.
“Ye Chen is still in there?” Li Xiaoyun looked at Ye Chen in another testing area.
…
Inside the consciousness world…
The sword light was like spider web shooting out in all directions. It might be from the mental consciousness, or Ye Chen. That sharp sword intent looked like it wanted to puncture through this surreal world itself.
“Kill!”
Ye Chen had deployed his battling technique to the next level. In his hands, he would hold one sword sometimes, and two at other times. Within a split second, no one could tell how many sword attacks he had thrown out exactly. All they knew was that his body flashed once and countless opponents fell onto the ground. There were still twenty opponents remaining, but the sword qi was horrifying.
The sixth level!
Ye Chen had managed to reach the sixth level, and he had to face thirty-two opponents at the same time.
Although facing thirty-two opponents at the same time was not easy for Ye Chen, he had not been wounded even once yet. Being able to stay scratch free even in the sixth level was already unbelievably powerful. It would make his potential at least be worthy of reaching the top fifteen. After all, Xie Zhiqiu had only managed to beat one person on the sixth level before being killed in the consciousness world, leaving him no chance to even defend himself.
Ye Chen turned his body and avoided an area of sword light before backing down again to avoid another wave of sword light. His body turned into a shadow and traveled closer to the ground, avoiding another wave of sword lights. Ye Chen was able to blend his escaping techniques into his battling skills—while he was escaping the incoming attack, he could also attack at the same time, and vice versa. All his opponents failed to track his traveling route.
Shoo!
Three heads on the same straight line were blown into the air as Ye Chen stopped his body and turned around to watch all of the consciousness bodies disappearing into nothingness.
“The seventh level… I wonder how hard it would be!”
Outside, in the real world…
“What! He is still in the test? Perhaps, he is in the sixth level!”
A lot of people had started to notice Ye Chen; they knew it very clearly that Ye Chen had joined the test just when Li Xiaoyun and Jing Aoxuan did. According to normal level-reaching speed, he should be in the sixth level, fighting for his life right now. Of course, they would never expect that his passing speed would be even faster than they could have imagined. He was about to reach the seventh level.
“Impressive! As long as he can last a couple of short moments, he will be able to reach into the top fifteen. Once through level six, even top ten would be possible. But, the longer it gets, the harder it will be…”
“Passing level six…? It should not be possible, right? On the name wall, only nine people had managed to make it through level six and enter level 7.”
If one entered level six, the color of the name would be light red, and dark red would be for level seven. On the wall, only Du Gujue and Dantai Mingyue had purple ones, while only nine people had dark red ones. It was not hard to imagine how hard it would be to reach level seven.
