Chapter 214 - Next
Ye Wei remained calm the whole time, unmoved by the pressing energy surges and undaunted in the midst of screams and tremors. His eyes were focused on the tilting sword array, registering its every slightest sway.
He took a ghost step to the side as the array fell onto him, pulling his fist back quickly while his nose was close enough to smell the layer of evaporating ice on the swords. With a quick springing action, he threw a heavy punch.
There was no trace of Qi around the fist, but his skin, bones, and muscles were toughened by the energy that was outwardly absent. His knuckles were pointing straight towards the array, in which the air in front of him was quickly compressed, exploding shortly after. Marked by a series of ear-piercing noise, his fist crushed down on Luo Han’s stance countless times.
“Bang!”
The swords were blown to smithereens by the explosive force of Ye Wei’s plain but effective counterstrikes, turning into a small blizzard. The loud explosion did not help assuage the buzzing in their ears, so the initiates fortified their shields, nullifying the rain of ice shards while the ground trembled.
Each of them was an expert in combat, so the newcomers were all shocked to see an earth stance being countered by sheer physical strength.
“Impossible!” Baili Hengtian widened his eyes, staring at Ye Wei as though he was looking at a rare monster. He could not imagine even a beast or a demon equivalent in tier to the returned prime Warrior stage possessing bodily strength comparable to Ye Wei’s. “What is he!? Luo Han’s stance can even drop a three-star retuned prime Warrior! How can a newbie at ten-star condensed prime level withstand it with body strength alone!”
The Eternal Star Stance, created by a Supreme, was a Sky-grade body strengthening technique everyone in the palace didn’t even know existed. For a faint moment, everyone present began to feel a light sense of dread as they watched Ye Wei fight. They could all see how the young Runemaster possessed a strange power, an unfamiliar strength that nobody understood.
Ye Wei did not hesitate for a split second, and having visualized and predicted the sword array’s movement with his extraordinary soul-sensitivity, he calculated the shortest path to Luo Han. With the Starblink Steps, he turned into a beam of light and reappeared a hundred feet ahead at nigh instantaneous speed.
“Your turn to take a hit.”
The young Runemaster’s fist carried the speed of a shooting star, aimed at Luo Han’s chest.
‘Yin Yang Punch!’ Luo Han’s mind cleared up as the turbulence that came with Ye Wei’s punch brushed his face. He realized he had no time to obsess over why his stance was countered, because the cultivator who effortlessly nullified his stance was now on the offensive.
“Om!”
With both his arms drawing a semicircle simultaneously, Luo Han conjured a round shield in front of him. He then transferred all of his freezing Qi into his left hand while he condensed and heated up his will-force on his right. His hands’ fluid motion perfectly merged together the two extremes, and the essence of the burning sun and the freezing moon rotated, enlarging the shield.
“Bang!”
Just as the shield materialized, Ye Wei’s fist connected. Although the sheet of rotating energy was thin, but extremely resilient, the punch could not penetrate its defence. Ye Wei subtly swung his shoulder, giving his strike an extra push, and stretched the shield. His fist then powered on and hit Luo Han in the chest.
The moment Luo Han was sent flying, his shield bounced back the momentum that was applied to it. Ye Wei lost his balance, flung to the opposite direction.
Luo Han grunted as a drop of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. He frowned, feeling his moderate injury. Ye Wei quickly used the Starblink Steps to outspeed the force that was reflected from his strike, looking calmly at Luo Han as he regained his balance.
“You will lose.” Ye Wei said with an appreciative smile. He could not feel the slightest sense of exhaustion, owing it to the Eternal Star boost that had given his body as much endurance as it had explosive strength, and this without tapping into the power of his Supreme blood. In contrast, he could sense Luo Han’s disrupted and decelerated Qi flow.
“Losing to you is not at all shameful.” Luo Han wiped away the blood with his sleeve. He stood up straight and smiled back. Graceful in defeat, his eyes expressed a slight but undisguised disappointment.
He couldn’t help looking back at the time when he was an initiate himself, and better appreciated Ye Wei’s strength; he had a feeling the young Runemaster was probably strong enough to challenge the black dragon list, enough to make the listers keep an eye on him.
“Haha, I was the strongest initiate before today. I was impressed by how I set myself up to be the rising star before today…” Luo Han looked at Ye Wei, mumbling. His competitive spirit had awoken.
“This will not be our only fight, and I do not plan on staying at the losing end! A word of advice, beware of the veterans, for they will come after you. Shaming initiates is a petty tradition, but it has its place.” He said frankly, sighed, and lifted his head.
“I hope fighting them will be as inspiring as our exchange today!” Ye Wei fearlessly replied, sincerely smiling.
“Farewell!” Luo Han could not understand but nodded, approving of the young Runemaster’s enthusiasm. He turned into a flash and returned to the magnificent villa at the hilltop.
Zhou Kuang and Bai Qing were silenced by what they just seen, as neither of them expected Ye Wei’s prowess nor could they figure out how he attained that crisp but tough fighting style of his.
“He won!”
“Two in a row!”
“He is a solid fighter.”
The initiates lowered their barrier, boiling over in excitement. They looked up at the levitating Ye Wei with great admiration.
“This is only the beginning. I wonder how tough the top listers are…” Ye Wei muttered while narrowing his eyes to look at the distant hills.
Aiming at the summit of cultivation, the young Runemaster was always ignoring the difficulties, trying to look further ahead and learn more; always thinking a step ahead, but he was aware that quickly moving forth and challenging stronger opponents was the only way to carry himself to the top.
Zhou Kuang stood silently at the top of the hill at the back of the villa. His presence was cold and his face was twisted. The responsibility to harass this year’s initiates was solely his, which meant his reputation and credibility would be besmirched if his task remained unfinished.
“Even Luo Han lost against him…” Bai Qing had his eyes at the square, whimpering as he tried to reassess the situation.
Neither of them had heard of initiates with the strength of three-star returned prime Warriors, let alone seen one. Newcomers as strong as two-star returned prime Warriors were rare, but not unheard of. However, throughout the Million Star Palace’s lengthy thousand years long history, the former was rarer than a phoenix’s feather or a dragon’s horn.
“Veterans are responsible for guiding the new, as arrogance and laziness need to be purged before the initiates grow into their own. This tradition is quietly approved by the Helian family, and it’s not going to end under my watch!” Zhou Kuang’s golden robe fluttered as he channeled his Qi
Now that Luo Han, the best cultivator under his command, had lost, he could no longer lead the mission from a distance.
“Zhou, don’t let your guard down at all times. You have to remember this kid had only used a strengthening stance and nothing else. It’s hard to imagine a kid at his age being good at more than one thing, but I have a bad feeling about this.” Bai Qing raised his brows, speaking in a concerned tone.
Neither Zhou Kuang nor Luo Han wished to recruit Ye Wei. They figured it would be more trouble than good, and how managing someone so strong and outspoken would not be efficient.
“Only black dragon lister can beat me within these wall! This newbie cannot!” Zhou Kuang impatiently jumped off the hill and flew towards the square, his fluttering golden robe leaving behind a long glittering trail in the sky.
“I don’t agree, but I guess we don’t have the luxury of choice now.” Bai Qing watched Zhou Kuang’s figure becoming smaller, muttering to himself.
Neither of them would bow to an initiate, but this task of restraining the newbies was given to the duo by a higher power. They had no grounds for declining anyway.
The veterans enjoyed vast resources and had access to secret realms, and with those privileges came pride. When the weaker veterans occasionally lost against new blood, the stronger would always avenge the weaker to justify the Helian’s trust and honor the opportunities given to them.
The only way for Zhou Kuang to be blameless would be by losing, as defeat could also validate Ye Wei’s strength. However, Zhou Kuang was not the kind to surrender just to be blameless; he wanted to be approved by the listers, not forgiven.
“Beating Feng Shan is not at all an unachievable task, but beating Luo Han as a newbie?”
“This kid will become a monster!”
“I don’t care about Luo Han! It’s time for Zhou Kuang and Bai Qing to wrap it up. We need the newbies to know their places.”
“Indeed. This is not about amusement, this is about tradition.”
The traditionally brief fight series and induction had ran for almost double its normal duration, the violent Qi disturbance had caught the attention of the palace’s veterans. They gathered in small groups and showed great interest in the young Runemaster, who had caused all the disruptions.
Under the attention of thousands, a brush of golden light arrived into the square. The initiates felt a sharp discomfort as the sudden pressuring Qi disturbance descended like a flash of light.
“Now a three-star returned prime Warrior? What’s next? A Sage!? Does bullying appeal to the veterans this much!?”
“It wouldn’t mean anything even if Ye Wei gets beaten! You lot have been training with all the resources you’d need! Just let him pick a new villa to live in! We are not stupid. You may want us to respect the veterans, but we respect credibility as much as we respect power!”
The initiates screamed and bickered. They could see Ye Wei’s chance to win was diminishing as the veterans seemed uninterested in putting an end to their cause. There was no fairness in a cultivator of several years’ worth of resource-advantages denying a sixteen-year-old initiate without the same mileage of his promised benefits.
‘Ye Wei has gone too far now… He will be an enemy of the public here in the palace unless he gets onto the black dragon list.’ Baili Hengtian thought to himself and sighed. ‘He had just threatened twenty-nine thousand veterans… All of them will just see him as a competitor and alienate him! He has to get himself into the top thousand to be respected now.’
‘He might be able to beat a three-star returned prime Warrior, but it takes much more to take down a lister. They all have their own specialties…’ The caretaker knitted his brows worryingly. His heart rooted for the underdog, but his experience objected to the wishful thinking. ‘A three-star returned prime lister can probably beat any ordinary cultivator at four-star returned prime level and fight evenly with a five-star returned prime Warrior outside the palace.’
The initiates looked at Ye Wei’s back in awe. None of them saw him as a rival and instead considered him a leader figure, as though they were seeing a hero of revolution in the flesh. They were humble and supportive.
“He can win.” Jian Chen’s eyes were staring at the ring. He was not bothered by the gap between Ye Wei and himself, rather he was oozing with determination. He would fight and get stronger until he overtakes his rival.
Baili Hengtian gazed upon Jian Chen. He could feel that the sword-wielding teen was one of the strongest present in the square, “The man in golden robes is Zhou Kuang. I personally can’t think of anyone outside the black dragon list beating him. Your friend there is not likely to last more than three exchanges, so don’t get any funny thoughts, or you will just be sabotaging your future here.”
Baili Hengtian had become numb, having played the game of greed and power for years. He felt refreshed by Ye Wei’s boldness. Although he didn’t have a good network nor had he powerful friends, he reflectively did what he could to try to protect Ye Wei’s ally. “Nobody is strong enough to, trust me, so stay back even if Ye Wei gets beaten badly.”
“Help him when this is all over, help him recover. If you two partner up, in a year or two, you can even start thinking about the black dragon list.”
All the initiates were looking at the square’s center with clenched fists and hoped for the best.
“Nice to meet you. May I ask if your name is on the black dragon list?” Ye Wei looked at the fluttering golden robes, sensed the three-star returned prime level magnitude of Qi disturbance, and asked calmly.
Ye Wei was not scared – he merely lusted for a chance to push himself to his limit.