Chapter 390: The Arrival of the Final Match
Jiang Chen laughed coldly when he heard these words.
It looks like although Long Juxue enjoyed all the resources and fortunes of the Purple Sun Sect, her brains hadn’t improved at all.
She was as arrogant and idiotic as usual.
He didn’t even want to exchange verbal barbs with her.
“Long Juxue, go and take your time being a harlot shrieking in the streets if you wish, I’m not interested in keeping you company. Your plan does sound quite vindictive, but I have to remind you that you won’t get the chance to commence.”
Jiang Chen shut off his consciousness after speaking and didn’t bother wasting time arguing with her.
This kind of crude mind games wouldn’t even tickle him.
As time went on and the moment of the final battle approached, Jiang Chen’s dao heart became firmer and firmer, it was as unshakeable and steady as Mt. Tai.
“Alright, the sixteen kingdoms have confined me for so long, it’s time I took to the skies.” Jiang Chen’s chest was filled with lofty sentiments.
He was full of anticipation and expectation for the impending battles.
He’d seldomly set foot outside in the past three months. On the other hand, Tang Hong and Liu Wencai interacted quite a bit, becoming as close as brothers.
Tang Hong couldn’t help but stick his thumb up at Liu Wencai’s potential.
Although Liu Wencai hadn’t replicated Jiang Chen’s speed in farming points, his momentum had also been quite ridiculous.
He’d made it into the top 64 within a month and a half.
Making it into those ranks meant that he’d already obtained an entrance ticket; But for insurance’s sake, Liu Wencai still continued to request missions.
He purposefully wanted to temper his strength and so requested more missions from the martial dao and strength of heart areas, going at things with a style different than Jiang Chen’s.
His missions were mostly level one through three, with an occasional level four.
In the last couple days, his ranking had made it into the top 30, a very solid position.
Apart from the missions in the martial dao area, Liu Wencai and Tang Hong also sparred enthusiastically everyday.
Of the two, Liu Wencai was a genius of the Myriad Spirit Sect and the descendant of generations of hunters. Having absorbed and refined beast blood for long periods of time, this added a few traces of wildness to his personality.
Tang Hong had the nickname “Barbarian” amongst the four great sects as well, the wildness on himself was even fiercer than Liu Wencai’s. He was a berserker who lived to fight.
When the two of them were lumped in together, their spars were naturally quite intense.
This kind of crazy training continuously improved their strength, quite noticeably advancing both of them.
Tang Hong was sixth level spirit realm and Liu Wencai was fifth level spirit realm.
As such, logically speaking Tang Hong should’ve held the upper hand since he was a level higher. But during the last month of their sparring, Tang Hong had discovered that he was finding it difficult to take Liu Wencai’s blows.
Fortunately, the beast blood Jiang Chen had gifted him continued to display its energy the more that Tang Hong’s potential was tapped.
As the two sparred, Liu Wencai had come off worse in the beginning, then had grown to being on par with Tang Hong, before finally the latter needed to muster all of his strength to barely force a draw.
Of course, Tang Hong had an additional secret art he could deploy after refining the blood and he could use it to manipulate the strength of his bloodline and body.
Under normal circumstances, Tang Hong’s strength was similar to Liu Wencai’s. Should Liu Wencai used his full strength, Tang Hong might come off a bit worse for the wear.
But once Tang Hong went on a rampage, his body would suddenly increase by a third and his strength would increase by fifty percent.
He called this kind of rampaging his “berserk mode”. Once this mode came out, even Liu Wencai found it hard to hold up beneath Tang Hong’s attacks.
The two of them sparred like this everyday and gained quite a great deal. They admired each other greatly as they continued to fight, appreciating each other immensely and becoming brothers for life.
Their friendship had transcended the boundaries of the sects after a few months, making them forget that they belonged to different sects.
To be honest, Liu Wencai saw a trace of himself in Tang Hong. In his own berserk mode, Liu Wencai felt that it was a tapping into his own potential and making his bloodline go berserk, ascending in quality.
However, Tang Hong’s berserk mode was expressed more apparently, especially when it came to his physical body.
Time passed by day by day.
Finally, it was the evening before the final battle.
The three friends were gathered together in Jiang Chen’s yard.
Any one of them now was an existence that couldn’t be ignored in the sky quadrant. When the three of them formed a tight rope together, that made them an enormous existence that no one dared underestimate.
Jiang Chen had participated less in the past couple of months because he had been training hard. He too was greatly gratified when he saw the changes in the two of them.
“Indeed, the path of martial dao necessitates sparring with each other. The two of you must have done your fair share in the past couple of months. I can even see a bit of the other in the two of you.” Jiang Chen laughed.
“Well? Are you confident in placing in the top 16?”
Tang Hong laughed uproariously. “My ranking has never been lower than 12th. After daily sparring with ole brother Wencai the past couple months, I may even be able to make it to top 8 if I’m lucky.”
Liu Wencai wasn’t as open as Tang Hong, but didn’t conceal his thoughts in front of people he trusted either.
“Boss, my goal is to make for the top 12.”
Jiang Chen laughed. “As long as there are no accidents, that won’t be a problem at all with your strength. Don’t overthink it. The path of martial dao is thus magnificent and tempting because of the boundless unknown. Perhaps, you might be caught up in the placement of top 16 today, but after a decade or a century, you might look back to see just how small and humble your mentality was today.”
If one made great strides in martial dao in a decade, or a hundred years and entered the origin realm, they would indeed find their mentality quite laughable and childish if they looked back on this day.
However, Liu Wencai and Tang Hong were different from Jiang Chen. They didn’t have his experiences from his past life, and didn’t have his breadth of vision. They naturally wouldn’t have that depth in thought.
It was a good thing that they didn’t have an inferior mindset. Tang Hong was a rough-and-ready person to begin with and had no idea what it meant to be nervous.
As for Liu Wencai, although he had a lot of thoughts and wasn’t quite confident, his bearing had changed in this half year as his strength rose.
Confidence was always crafted from strength and enhanced by it.
When the dawn of the second day arrived, almost all candidates opened their eyes in the moment the first ray of sunlight streamed in through their windows.
The final matches were finally here!
All of the candidates in the sky quadrant were gathered in the sky quadrant’s great square. The rankings had been tabulated and were shown to the public.
Jiang Chen hadn’t maintained such a fierce momentum in the past couple of months and so his ranking hadn’t continued to shoot up.
There wasn’t much point to scores now anyway.
Of course, they weren’t completely meaningless. At least, the placements for the final match would be determined based off rankings.
The further ahead one’s placement was, the more one would have some intangible advantages.
Jiang Chen’s ranking was 6th, Tang Hong was 9th, and Liu Wencai had made it to 22nd after some furious point farming.
After the final rankings were announced, the top 64 had all made it into the final matches.
The rest of the candidates were finished with the selection.
A great hubbub broke out. Those who were unable to participate in the final matches were all depressed beyond belief, particularly those with rankings close to the top 64. They pounded their chests and were quite dejected.
The four venerated forefathers and heavyweights of the sects quickly arrived.
Time waited for no one; Since the formation had been damaged, the amount of time everyone had left within the Eternal Spirit Mountain was only two to three months.
To prevent any further accidents from happening, the final matches had to commence as soon as possible.
“Everyone, those who can remain here now are without a doubt, the preeminent geniuses of the sixteen kingdom alliance. I must congratulate you. Even if you don’t make it into the final sixteen, that will not chip away at your advantage within your sect. You are the future of the sects and will become their pillars one day. I hope these final matches become a valuable experience for you, and are an opportunity to see you walk further down the path of the martial dao.”
“Alright, let’s cut a long speech short. You will be assigned numbers according to your rankings, and eliminations will occur via matches. First ranked will fight against the sixty fourth, second against sixty third, and so on and so forth. The top 32 will be chosen after the first round, and the final 16 after the second round. We will conduct further testing on the final 16 and take you as our personal disciples.”
“Of course, those who don’t make it into the top 16 shouldn’t think too little of themselves. If you acquit yourselves well or have unique talent during battle, you may still have the chance to become a personal disciple of the origin realm forefathers. All is up to you!”
“It’s said that there is no final champion in the civil subjects, and there are no runner-ups in the martial subjects. A champion must be determined in the path of martial dao. Therefore, when the list of the final 16 is announced, another ranking match will be held. The higher your final ranking is, the more value will be placed on you. Therefore, I hope that you will treasure this stage and deploy your potential and talents to their utmost!”
Sunchaser’s voice rang out like a bell, reverberating in everyone’s ears, seemingly able pierce through a cultivator’s soul and set their blood boiling, making all of the candidates sink in fervor.
Only Jiang Chen remained as unmoving as a mountain, his heart as calm as a mirror, without a single ripple.
The promise of being a forefather’s personal disciple had no attraction to him at all. The origin realm forefathers had never been his goal for participating in the selection in the first place!