After the Core Formation realm competition, it was the Nascent Soul realm competition.
The field of battle was still the arena atop the ninety-nine pillars, however the size had slightly increased and the defensive formation of the arenas were also strengthened.
Surprisingly, one of the top contenders among the Nascent Soul realm disciples stepped onto the first ranked arena early on even earlier than when Tianyi had stepped onto the rank nine arena. The Nascent Soul realm disciple was San Mirong. Tianyi had heard of her when he was on the immortal boat from Xia Yushan. Her hair was dark blue almost to the point of pure black and she wore blue robes as well.
But this only made her fair white skin stand out even more, but Tianyi had no time to appreciate her beauty because her white skin actually had countless lightning marks streaking under her skin like her body was a storm cloud.
Her eyes were even more like lightning as if they were a portal to an endless lightning storm. Just one look at her would let one know that she cultivated in lightning arts.
Her weapon was even more overbearing, a giant axe whose handle was thicker than her own slender arm!
The blade of the axe glowed a brilliantly yellow like lightning, it was in total contrast to the blue lightning that squirmed under San Mirong’s skin.
Her attacks were overbearing and tyrannical. Each one of her opponents were defeated in one strike, her axe chops resembled Pangu splitting heaven and earth in the legends, none of the defensive or evasive techniques the other Nascent Soul realm disciples displayed could block her attack.
After six to seven rounds, many Nascent Soul realm disciples were intimidated by San Mirong and for a time no Nascent Soul realm disciple dared to clash with her, but humans were creatures with short memories and soon more and more disciples were challenging San Mirong.
Although it only took her one attack to defeat each disciple,the expenditure surely wasn’t light and many people could see sweat beginning to form on her brows.
Just as the crowd thought the genius of the Eternal Night Sect would fall under the might of numbers, a storm cloud suddenly formed above Heaven Shroud Island.
Tianyi felt his hair stand on end and on reflex, he moved hundreds of meters away from the Heaven Continent and stared at the storm cloud with wariness. It was such an abrupt action that those from the other continents who noticed couldn’t help but be confused by Tianyi’s strange actions.
Even among the Buzhou Immortal Sect, not many knew that Tianyi was constantly struck by tribulation lightning.
“Elder Meng, you shouldn’t be so close to me.” Tianyi said, he was worried that she would suddenly be caught in the tribulation lightning’s range.
“Young master, look closely. That isn’t tribulation lightning.” As Elder Meng said those words, Tianyi observed the lightning once more and he noticed that it indeed wasn’t tribulation lightning. If Tianyi had more time, he would have also discovered the truth behind the lightning.
Just that the sudden appearance of the storm cloud came out of nowhere and caught Tianyi off guard and his body automatically reacted.
When he observed more closely, he discovered that it was just an ordinary storm cloud and the position was right above the first ranked arena.
As for what use the storm cloud was called for, Tianyi soon found out as a bolt of lightning struck San Mirong, but she wasn’t injured but rather seemed more relaxed than before and once again unleashed her axe chop and defeated her opponent.
Only this time the axe chop was even fiercer and her opponent was more seriously injured than all the previous ones combined. If the previous one just had scratches, this one directly had half his bones broken.
With this San Mirong created an extremely intimidating effect. First, her attacks were nigh unstoppable with no one being able to block it so far. Second, the lethality of her moves increased and the poor fool who challenged her last was made an example of. Although many had challenged her previously, their injuries were light not like the last challenger.
And third, it seemed that she had a secret method to replenish her true qi. This meant that unless someone could defeat her quickly and push her out of the arena, the chances of her losing were extremely slim.
Tianyi naturally had an idea of what San Mirong did. She summoned lightning and refined it into qi for her own use. Tianyi had been using tribulation lightning for his own cultivation when he was in the Core Formation realm, so he naturally had an idea of how San Mirong did it.
But ever since he entered the Core Formation realm, such a technique was nearly useless to Tianyi, he had more true qi than he knew what to do with.
Thus the number of challengers decreased dramatically.
Although there was an extremely humorous challenger. He was a disciple of Myriad Sun Sect and against everyone’s expectation he openly confessed his love to San Mirong.
Tianyi felt his teeth ache as he watched the Myriad Sun Sect Nascent Soul disciple crash onto the ground from San Mirong’s axe chop.
Resist the urge to look at the Earth Continent crowd, resist it Tianyi!
Tianyi resisted the urge so he didn’t see the disappointed look on Nanfang Wubai’s face, but even if he did he would not have been happy at all.
At this moment Xia Yushan floated atop the second platform. Seeing that San Mirong could actually last consecutive fights, the other geniuses didn’t want to appear any weaker and thus chose to occupy the top platforms.
However Li Mu, the other top genius Tianyi had been informed about, didn’t jump up and instead calmly continued to watch the fights.
Xia Yushan’s opponent was a cultivator who used metal techniques, seeing this Xia Yushan’s sword glowed bright red and he displayed the Fire Element Sword Arts of the Five Element Sword Arts.
If his opponent used water techniques, he would use Earth Element Sword Arts.
If his opponent used wood techniques, he would use Metal Element Sword Arts.
If his opponent used fire techniques, he would use Water Element Sword Arts.
If his opponent used earth techniques, he would use Wood Element Sword Arts.
Even if his opponent was skilled with numerous techniques, the fluidity of Xia Yushan sword arts were amazing. He was able to instantaneously switch between all five elemental sword arts and the most important part was that he was even able to borrow the opponents’ elemental attacks to boost his attack of the same element before changing the element of his sword.
In other words his source of qi was his opponent!
This created a situation which was very similar to San Mirong and his opponent was not able to force him to use any more moves aside from the ones he already showed.
The Five Element Sword Arts was also quite famous and the most famous part was merging all five elements onto one to create a sword containing the foundation of the world! Cultivators of the Five Element Sword Arts are able to nurture a lifebound weapon and through the cultivation of the Five Element Sword Arts they would be able to nurture that lifebound sword into an immortal level rank treasure!
Lifebound weapons were special, although they may not be as useful to other people once the cultivator died, but a lifebound weapon showed its greatest might in the hands of the cultivator who created it.
This was because it was perfectly suited to the creator and they would be able to display strength that was greater than ones’ stage and even realm!
And till this point Xia Yushan had yet to display his lifebound weapon, it was clear that he still had plenty of strength and qi left.
Because of San Mirong’s actions many geniuses showed their dazzling talent, not only were they a step above everyone else but their ability to continually fight was also revealed.
However this did not mean that geniuses who could not fight consecutive battles were inferior, just that they were not as shining because of San Mirong and those who followed her example.
As the time limit neared, many geniuses began to appear on stage fighting with no less talent and strength than San Mirong and Xia Yushan. It was just that they came late and thus their shine was inferior to San Mirong and Xia Yushan.
As for who was stronger between San Mirong and Xia Yushan?
That was hard to say.
San Mirong was a late stage Nascent Soul Grandmaster and she only needed one strike to defeat her opponents, but aside from that no one else had seen her use any other moves.
While Xia Yushan was in the early stage Nascent Soul realm and he used numerous techniques to defeat his opponents, displaying great finesse. And even then he was showing great growth and with each battle, although they weren’t short, he was able to show even greater variations in his sword arts despite using the same moves over and over again.
Xia Yushan showed great finesse and was continually growing, while San Mirong showed great force and did not reveal anything else.
So it was hard to say who would win between the two. But San Mirong had the greater advantage as a late stage Nascent Soul Grandmaster.
However to many people’s surprise when there was only two hours left a disciple of the Eight Pillars Sect, Duan Muli, stepped onto the first arena where San Mirong was holding fort.
The two didn’t say anything and immediately began fighting.
It was to the great surprise of the spectators that San Mirong didn’t use her axe chop to instantly defeat Duan Muli and instead embued her axe with large amounts of qi. The yellow blade became stark white and grew to the size of a metal board, ten meters tall and one meter wide.
She unleashed a chop, but that chop was extremely powerful and even space itself seemed to be affected.
But Duan Muli wasn’t a normal person either and he deftly avoided San Mirong’s strike by the slimmest of margins.
No matter how much San Mirong attacked, Duan Muli would be able to dodge it by the slimmest of margins, like a small speck in water. No matter how much you tried to grab it, it would always slip through your hands.
Duan Muli wasn’t just passively defending though, with each dodge his fingers lightly tapped the blade of the axe. After more than tens of taps, cracks began to appear on the white energy blade.
More and more cracks appeared until it all shattered revealing the original yellow axe head.
But the shattered fragments didn’t dissipate into the air, San Mirong widened the distance between them as her hands blurred through several hand seals.
At the same time the broken fragments of her axe became pillars of lightning that reached towards the heavens. At the top of the lightning bolts formed storm clouds.
It resembled a heavenly cage of lightning, this was San Mirong’s Sky Lightning Cage Lock technique.
But San Mirong wasn’t done yet as the cage began to shrink. No matter how slick Duan Muli was, he couldn’t change his size and slip out could he?
Duan Muli was unrushed as he too made several hand seals and as the cage around him neared, the space around him seemed to warp. The lightning cage naturally warped into a bubble.
It was like a bulbous seed with Duan Muli at the bottom while the upper parts of the enclosed lightning cage was the stem.
San Mirong frowned as she sensed an uncomfortable feeling, she detonated the lightning cage before Duan Muli could use it against her.
Although Duan Muli’s cultivation was very average and there was nothing special about his Nascent Soul aside from having all five colors, his attainments and insight into the dao of yin and yang was extraordinary.
He was the most skilled in reversing his opponents’ moves against them.
As for attacking up close?
That was even more dangerous than attacking from range as one wrong move and a fatal counterattack might occur.
Tianyi watched the battle intensely, especially Duan Muli. His usage of yin and yang based techniques was extremely eye opening for Tianyi. He felt that he could gleam something from Duan Muli if he continued to watch. Unfortunately for him, he could only grasp the barest of ideas from Duan Muli. It was actually much better for him to seclude himself to meditate over the manner than watching Duan Muli.
The battle between Duan Muli and San Mirong raged on.
Neither side was giving an inch and both sides were in near perfect condition. Duan Muli’s clothes and hand had been burned, but to cultivators like them, it was a negligible injury.
San Mirong didn’t seem injured but the viscuity of the lightning under her skin had fallen and her skin seemed to have dimmed.
To everyone’s surprise Duan Muli chose at this moment to exit the arena, greatly puzzling everyone.
However the reason was soon revealed as he challenged the third ranked arena once the rest period was up. It seemed that he judged he would not be able to defeat San Mirong in a short period of time, then why not just give up first place and get another arena?
Xia Yushan hadn’t fully revealed his strength and Duan Muli wasn’t confident in defeating him in a short time. The combination of five elements was equal to the combination of yin and yang.
In the end, the first place to third place was as follows.
First Place: San Mirong
Second Place: Xia Yushan
Third Place: Duan Muli
Surprisingly Li Mu had taken ninth place and he did it at the most opportune time. Not so short that others would think he was taking advantage of the time limit to steal a spot from the original disciple on the ninth arena. But it was long enough to still fight several battles to defeat over ten opponents, yet still hide the majority of his abilities.