If it were just a normal Sea of Souls Realm warrior, they might not react this drastically, unless the warrior purposely put pressure on them. But, Ye Chen had only glanced casually once, and that expression on his face was not even cold; it was more like a senior looking at a junior warrior. But, the pressure was so powerful that even with the most casual glance, they thought they were about to faint. If Ye Chen really wanted to, they might even be wounded psychologically.
Ye Chen obviously did not do it on purpose; he had just finished training his sword spell, so all of his sword intent was still dense. The slight sword intent of his could make other people feel awful, since no one at the Sea of Souls Realm could have this powerful a sword intent. Plus, the fact that he had just accepted the Sword Master title made him even more untouchable due to that extra majesty.
“Ye Xuan, this is your friend?”
Ye Chen had forgotten about what happened in the past a long time ago. Back then, Ye Xuan was only a teenage girl, and she was not bad at all. Not to mention her, even the matters related to his uncle Ye Batian had already been forgotten by him. Being a sword master, if he really could not let go of anything, he would still have to be able to be decisive.
As Ye Chen’s older cousin, since he had already spotted them, it would be mean to Ye Xuan if he just said nothing. Therefore, he decided to greet them.
Indeed, a joyous expression appeared on her face as she nodded and said, “Yes, cousin Ye Chen!”
“Come on over!”
Hearing him, the four of them flew down the pavilion and walked into his yard carefully. Right then, even Di Hongyin, who was normally really sassy, seemed rather careful. Her tiny hands held onto the corner of her clothes tightly. Luo Baishuang and Lan Cuicui were all extremely nervous as well.
“Don’t’ worry. I am just as old as you are.” Ye Chen chuckled as that remaining sword intent had been put away.
“It would be strange if we are not nervous.” Di Hongyin talked to herself.
Lan Cuicui asked carefully, “Brother Ye, what kind of sword spell did you train? That sword of yours flew out just now!”
She did not know what to call Ye Chen, but luckily, she was still a bit younger than him. So, she decided to call him ‘brother’.
Ye Chen said, “This is the Defensive Sword Spell which would require soul power to control.”
“Defensive Sword Spell?” Ye Xuan and the other three looked confused. They had never heard of this sword spell.
“Defensive sword spell could travel thousand miles away and cut off people’s head. You could just understand it that way.”
After training the defensive sword spell, Ye Chen could manage to make his sword fly with his thoughts. And because that his soul power was so powerful, the speed of his sword was traveling even faster than the sword light. It was already reaching beyond most attacks, which was something the sword light flying art could not reach.
Hearing Ye Chen, the fours’ eyes brightened as an image naturally appeared in their heads: a top sword artist standing on that flying sword and traveling with it. He was so light but so sharp. Without a doubt, this sword artist was naturally Ye Chen.
“Cultivating to the Astral Reaching Realm at this age is already really rare. If your will power is tough enough and still manages to stay true, then reaching the Sea of Souls Realm would not be impossible.”
Ye Chen did not measure the four with the standards in Sky Martial Region, since that place was filled with crazy martial geniuses. But, in the South Rudra Region, the four were already rather talented. And for such martial geniuses, the door to Sea of Souls Realm was still wide open.
“Will power? I thought I would need talent?” Luo Baishuang asked.
Ye Chen shook his head, “Talent can help you reach the Astral Reaching Realm, but for the Sea of Souls Realm, it would be extremely hard. When you cannot make a breakthrough, then you will start doubting yourself, and before you know it, you will lose all the confidence in your cultivation. That would be the most terrible thing that could happen to a martial warrior. If you have strong enough will power, then even if your talent is a bit lacking, it will still be fine. After all, once you reach the Astral Reaching Realm, everyone will be starting again at the same place. The ones with a strong mind will succeed eventually.’
The talent Ye Chen was talking about was the kind of talent for their level; if it were the warriors inside the Sky Martial Region, then it indeed it would be crazily powerful, to the extent that they would very likely reach the Sea of Souls Realm even without enough will power. However, regardless if it were the Sea of Souls Realm or the Astral Reaching Realm one, at the end of the day, everyone would need will power.
Hearing him, the four started to think. Besides Ye Xuan, who knew a bit about Ye Chen in the early stages, the other three had also heard about his past being a not-so-talented warrior. They knew that the reason that he ended up having this much success was indeed because he had the kind of will power that no other normal people could imagine. If Ye Chen were just like them and was an Astral Reaching Realm warrior, then they would not have thought so as well. But, Ye Chen was already a legend in their eyes; nothing he said would be wrong.
After that, Ye Chen coached them separately. Ye Xuan and Luo Baishuang had trained sword arts, but they did not know too much about top rank earth realm sword arts. But, after being coached by Ye Chen, they realized that they started to have more inspiration. Meanwhile, Di Hongyin and Lan Cuicui had trained the whip arts, which Ye Chen also coached for. As a result, they did not learn any less than the other two. Ye Chen’s experience and understanding of martial arts was something that no one could compare with. Although he trained the sword art primarily, but no martial arts seemed to be impossible to train for him. Plus, the top rank earth realm martial arts were still not profound sense martial arts after all; the former were way simpler.
Day passed fast, and Ye Chen soon trained to the peak of his first level. Within one hundred of steps, he could cut off a dozen flies’ wings.
While the three could rarely see him in person, they did not seem to plan to leave anytime soon. Ye Xuan could not even say goodbye to them, almost as if they wanted to be a part of the family.
Of course, they would not dare to bug Ye Chen, and would only bring their martial arts related questions to him every three to four days. For them, he was someone they could never get close to, but it would not stop them from visiting him.
Just like that, one month had come and gone. It was already the end of October.
Ye Chen left the family toward Murong Qingcheng.
The girls saw that Ye Chen had left, so there was no reason for them to stay. Hence, they soon left as well.
Ye family was not that far away from the Murong family, but there was still a distance of couple thousand miles. During the journey, Ye Chen went past one of the big cities in the Black Dragon Emperor, the Black Pattern City.
With a change of thought, Ye Chen controlled his flying puppet to go down.
The information pavilion of the city had a huge amount of warriors standing there in line. The second ranking had come out one week ago, and there were a lot of people who came to purchase it. There were the most people on the first day, and the number seemed to have decreased as time passed. It had only been one week; if one wanted a copy, then they would have to line up as well. The ranking had become one of the landmarks of the whole land; if one did not read the ranking, then he or she might not even be confident enough to talk to others.
“This ranking indeed includes a lot of young warriors such as Shangguan Fei, Helian Wuhua, Situ Hao, Yan Fengfeng, Beiming Hui, Xiao Chuhe, Lu Shaoyou, Xia Houzun, Du Gujue, Bai Wuxue…Wait, what? Ye Chen is ranked No.1, with the title Sword Master!”
“Ye Chen? Sword Master?”
Some of the people who were still waiting in line could already hear some people mumble, so their eyes widened as they could not believe what they had just heard.
“Are you sure you read it right?” Someone hurried to ask.
“Yeah, I am sure. The No.1 is indeed Ye Chen, titled Sword Master.” The person was so shocked that he was a bit annoyed by the question.
“Hey, owner, please give me one!”
All of a sudden, the atmosphere around the pavilion boiled up. Ye Chen being the No.1 warrior on the ranking was way too shocking of a news. Now, the ones who were still in the line could not wait for another second.
“Alright, don’t worry! There is one for everyone.” The owner of the pavilion was sweating.
After lining up for a while, Ye Chen also got a booklet. Just as he was walking out, someone noticed that it was him, and the person was shocked again.
However, by the time he realized what he had seen, Ye Chen had already left.
“I think I just saw Ye Chen.”
…
High in the sky, Ye Chen sat on his flying puppet. He opened the first page and could already see his name.
“No.1 of the master level warrior ranking, Sword Master Ye Chen. This warrior is a rare sword art genius that would not appear for thousands of years. With only twenty-six years of age, he has already made it to the top of the list, and was given the title Sword Master…On the eighteenth of September, he had beaten Lu Shaoyou and Du Gujue. Then on the twenty-fifth of September, he had beaten Xia Houzun on the Turtle Mountain. After examining the situation with dozens of masters in the pavilion, we decided to rank him as the No.1 master level warrior. The title ‘Sword Master’ is still temporary, but we at the pavilion agree unanimously.”
The pavilion had given out a very high rating for Ye Chen. By the sound of it, they felt very certain about it as well.
“Calling me directly as Sword Master?” Ye Chen was a bit surprised. Gao Changtian had called him the sword master, but that was just a title. It was completely different from the fact that now the whole pavilion was addressing him as the sword master. At least, the latter sounded more official than the former. But, whether this decision was endorsed by the leader of the pavilion or not, there would be no way of finding out.
Without caring too much, Ye Chen continued reading.
There were indeed a lot of young warriors in this ranking, seventeen in total. It was almost one-fourth of the entire ranking, which was a very high percentage.
Amongst them, Du Gujue was ranked the fourth, and the second was the Axe Master, with the third being the Earth Sword Master Xu Yuan. Xie Baiting was the sixth while the seventh was still Bai Wuxue.
“The Sword Master title is really mine now, I guess I will have to work hard now.” Closing the book, Ye Chen smiled lightly.
…
“This is ridiculous! What the hack is the pavilion thinking ranking our head master at second? What does that Ye Chen have to be ranked at the top?”
Inside the Surreal Martial School, a lot of the disciples could not believe what was said in the ranking. Some of the masters looked a bit annoyed as well.
Inside the head master palace…
Axe Master Lin Ruhai closed the booklet, “The Sword Master…I am afraid you cannot have that title for long. Those old ones are not going to be quiet about it. They might not care about the ranking, but this Sword Master title will not be something that they can dismiss. I, as the head master of the school, cannot go out there and do it myself, but I guess it would not be needed.”
Within a string of sword mountains, an elder with white hair let out a long breath which then became white fog, seeming like the sword or a blade. At the same time, it seemed like a piece of silk that flashed across the sky.
Crack!
A straight sword like mountain peak had been cut off half, the edge smooth like a mirror.
“It seems like it has been long since I went out, and the world is not taking us seriously anymore. Even the title of Sword Master is given out so easily.”
The elder looked relaxed, but every slightest movement of his brought out a sword like qi. If there were a sword artist here, he or she would be shocked for sure.
