by <unknown>
After all, since they were all disciples of the same teacher, they would naturally hold back and refrain from fully unleashing their powers.
On the other side, the disciples were bustling with noise, busied with competing with each other; but in the corner of the room, Zhong Yue was still at his own pace practicing his own rendition of the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill 】, seemingly oblivious to the competition.
The more he practiced, the more unwieldy and mundane his【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】seemed to be. The thunderbolt he imagined with his psyche twisted and meandered like a crooked line; within its recalcitrance was revealed an ancient and old force, the atmospheric air was simple and unsophisticated, much like a thunderbolt that struck an ancient pine tree or a sudden clap of thunderbolt in the amidst a desolate mountain.
His【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】 ... sometimes it seemed like a thunderbolt tree, shining and flashing with rays of lighting ... sometimes it was dull and empty with only a piercing line of sword rays!
When the psyche was highly focused, it could manifest the visualizations. If one visualized the Jiao Dragon, a Jiao Dragon would be created, if one visualized the thunderbolt, it would bear the immense power of the thunderbolt.
But the only thing was that the lightning that Zhong Yue imagined was not as magnificent and spectacular-looking as the other disciples, it wasn’t anywhere close to their dazzling and conspicuous【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】 — sure enough, he wouldn’t be spared any attention.
It was quite some time before the upper house disciples came out with the last two potential winners, the heroic-looking female disciple and another male disciple. Their psyches were strong enough to manifest their visualizations, a simple thought and they could give form to real lightning from their psyches, extracting a thunderbolt out of thin air!
They moved around the quiet room swiftly, fast like lighting, casting the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】. The cacophony of the thunderclaps and the blinding flashes of the lighting were as if they were really wielding swords of thunderous lightning, they dashed towards each other — the scene was astounding!
Moments later, rays of lightning crackled below the feet of the female disciple and she was lifted four feet away from the ground, maneuvering in mid-air she slashed a ray of the thunderous lightning sword into the chest of the male disciple.
It was out of his expectation that she would be able to fly through the air using the lightning as a vehicle. He was caught by surprise and was slashed by the ray of lightning, his chest was charred black and his hairs stood straight as he fell down onto the ground.
“Senior Martial Sister Ting, I lost!”
The male disciple was frank, he blurted out black fumes out of his mouth and he placed his hand on his chest, he looked at her with a pair of admiring eyes, “Senior martial sister is really better than I am and can actually use lightning to levitate up in the air, no wonder Elder Pu says that only one disciple has truly grasped the quintessence of his teachings!”
“Is junior martial brother badly hurt?”
The female disciple landed down, she smiled and said, “I can only control the lightning rays for a short period of time, a hundred feet at most and I would have to land and I can’t fly too high either. It is still a far cry from what was described by Elder Pu, riding the thunderbolts to travel a thousand miles.”
The upper house disciples all stepped forward smiled and said, “Senior Martial Sister Ting has truly grasped the teachings of Elder Pu, this is beyond doubt. After Senior Martial Sister Ting becomes a Qi Practitioner, riding the thunderbolts and traveling a thousand miles will definitely not be a problem!”
Senior Martial Sister Ting also showed a face of content; suddenly, she looked at Zhong Yue who was practicing alone in the corner of the room, but his【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】was getting weirder, it was such a departure from what was described by Elder Pu, she frowned and thought to herself, Such a peculiar【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】, he should not be the one, it seems like I must be the one Elder Pu was talking about.
“Zhong Shan Clan, Junior Martial Brother Zhong Yue!”
Senior Martial Sister Ting came forward and with a big smile, she asked straightforwardly, “I am from the Da Ting Clan, Ting Lanyue, I came into the upper house a year ago. Junior Martial Brother Zhong Yue, do you want to compete with me? You never know, you might be the one that Elder Pu was talking about!”
Zhong Yue shook his head, smiled and said, “Senior Martial Sister Ting, I am only here for four to five days, how could I be your match?”
“That’s true.”
Ting Lanyue didn’t force him, she smiled, “All of us, the martial siblings, are going to train in the Swords Gate’s Demon Ruins, we will fight with the demons and improve our【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】, I wonder if you are interested in tagging along?”
“Swords Gate Demon Ruins?”
“Don’t you know about it?”
It suddenly dawned on Ting Lanyue, “Oh yes, you had just joined the upper house, you do not know much about the Swords Gate. Many years ago, the martial ancestors of the Swords Gate escorted and protected the human race to migrate from the Barren Wild to the Great Wilderness. Before that, the Great Wilderness was a land of demons, races of demons conquered and resided on this land. It was the martial ancestors of the Swords Gate that slashed and opened up a land for humanity to survive; the native demons were suppressed in the Demon Ruins of the Swords Gate. The mantis demon you met in the Cloudless Hall examination was only the weakest demon from the Demons Ruin.”
Another disciple also smiled and continued, “The number of demons is countless in the Demon Ruins, they are mostly weak minion-class demons such as the mantis demons and spider demons. We, the upper house disciples, can train in the Demon Ruins, the mantis demons and spider demons are just the perfect targets for us to practice on. We have just been introduced to the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】, we need some real combat experience to improve upon sword skill; furthermore, only through a real battle can we come to understand the esoteric nuances of the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】.”
“Senior Martial Brother He is correct!”
The upper house disciples were enlivened, they all laughed and said, “But there is something Senior Martial Brother He left out, that is, we can be rewarded with Yuling Pellets, totem pillars and soul weapons through killing the demons in the Demon Ruins.”
“Yuling Pellets? Totem pillars? Soul weapons?”
Zhong Yue was moved, totem pillars were helpful in both cultivation and combat while the soul weapons were combat weapons that could greatly improve his combat capability, not to mention the Yuling Pellets that were of utmost importance to him!
Cultivating the【Sui Sovereign's Flame Order Palace Imaginative Skill】 required a tremendous amount of resources like Yuling Pellets to be able to persist in it!
His Yuling Pellets were all depleted, he needed to look for more Yuling Pellets or otherwise, continuing in cultivating the【Sui Sovereign's Flame Order Palace Imaginative Skill】would drain up his whole body — it would be unwise to do so!
Zhong Yue replied hesitantly, “Even if I am not Elder Pu’s disciple, can I still enter?”
One of the female disciples answered, “You can enter as long as you are an upper house disciple, but only once a month and also, the Demon Ruins is littered with demons; there are demon lairs everywhere. We will only be safe if we move in groups. This time, we have Senior Martial Sister Ting and Senior Martial Brother He; in addition, Senior Martial Sister Ting has truly grasped the teachings of Elder Pu and Senior Martial Brother He is only a step behind, there will be no risk at all!”
Senior Martial Sister Ting smiled as she listened to the words and said, “To fight with the demons... it will be of great help to all of you in comprehending the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】.”
Zhong Yue nodded, smiled and said, “Then, thank you all for your troubl
es.”
The Senior Martial Brother He was, of course, the one that was defeated by Ting Lanyue, he came from the Bi He tribe with He as the tribe’s surname; his full name was called He Chengchuan, a talented young man within the ranks of the disciples of Elder Pu — cheerful and loquacious.
Zhong Yue, along with the hundred over disciples, climbed the Swords Gate mountain. The mountains grew steeper as they continued ascending; the clouds floated around them as if lifting them from beneath their feet.
Zhong Yue looked down and his sights started spinning, the mountains beneath them looked so small — the whole upper house was only the size of a palm.
It wasn’t too long before the mountain slopes turned gentle and the paths widened, they reached to the half-mountainside of the Swords Gate mountain, there were palaces after palaces surrounding the mountainside. One after another, they looked like giant ganoderma growing on an ancient tree.
Zhong Yue had the experience of harvesting ganoderma in the mountains, the ganoderma grew outwards in a hoof-like formation on the trunks of the trees, while the palaces were constructed on similar platforms like the ganoderma. Below them was the dark black bottomless abyss enshrouded by a layer of white fluffy clouds!
“The country bumpkins of Swords Gate really did construct this place magnificently.”
Through the eyes of Zhong Yue, Xin Huo took a good look at the surroundings, he praised, “The Qi Practitioners that constructed this place, their strengths must be close to the gods!”
The disciples came onboard a round-shaped platform, in front of the palace sat a white-haired, white-dressed old man, beside him was a pillar shackled in an iron chain of a thigh’s diameter, while on the other side of the palace, sat a similar old man with the same pillar and iron chain.
The other end of the iron chains were connected to mid-air, Zhong Yue focused his sights but there wasn’t anything at all; the two iron chains were suspended in mid-air as if they were really restraining something.
He Chengchuan stepped forward, he bowed and greeted the elders, “The two elders, we intend to enter the Demon Ruins for training purposes, I request the two elders to let us through.”
One of the white-haired, white-dressed old men nodded. He said, “All of you, stand and look into the mirror in front of the palace.”
The disciples walked to the copper mirror in front of the palace, the copper mirror was huge; it had a height of forty-some feet, Zhong Yue was filled with curiosity, He Chengchuan whispered to him from the side, “Junior Martial Brother Zhong, this copper mirror is an exotic treasure within the soul weapons! Your image will be recorded and retained in the mirror, as long as you had slain any demons in the Demon Ruins, then your contributions will be recorded by the mirror, the greater your contributions, the better the prize you can exchange from the Swords Gate!”
Zhong Yue stepped forward and looked into the mirror, his image appeared in the mirror while the images of the others were filled with words, with records of their entering time and their killing points, his statistics were still blank.
That’s the difference in circumstance between the upper house and lower house, cultivation in the lower house was boring and dull, but it was more interesting in the upper house.
Zhong Yue couldn’t help but feel deep emotions; he had been living in the lower house for five to six years, the days were hard and difficult, the cultivation was tedious and dull, the stark contrast to the upper house was palpable.
The two white-dressed elders raised their hands, each grabbing on the iron chains and exerted their strength in pulling the chains. One could hear the sounds of the door creaking open and with the pulling of the chains, a Sword Gate slowly materialized out of thin air!
The gate was akin to the body of a sword longitudinally separated into half at the middle, the chains were connected to the two doors. As the body of the sword was colorless, it wasn’t easy for one to notice the gate.
Presently, the two doors were pulled opened by the elders, light rays were radiated out from the gate, it seemed to be empty in front of the gate before but as the light rays shone down, a flight of stairs emerged all the way from the gate to the round-shaped platform.
Faint black demonic Qi leaked out from the gate, malevolent and monstrous sounds emanated from within the gate, terrifying those who heard it.
Ting Lanyue and He Chengchuan were the first to walk into the gate, followed by Zhong Yue and the others — eventually, they all entered the Demon Ruins.
Zhong Yue looked around, the skies of the Demon Ruins were bleak, overcast by a stratum of gray gloomy clouds — it was dark and ominous.
The mountains afar were also steep and perilous, crisscrossing each other like the teeth of a monster — much like a forest of mountains.
The faint black demonic Qi formed into gushes of strong winds, blasting the rocks sized like stone mills up into the air; the situation was very precarious.
“Little human heifers!”
Suddenly, a weird laughter came from afar, there were numerous demons rushing towards their direction, it was a tribe of mantis demons that had noticed their arrival!
The mantis demons came rushing like a swarm of bees, their mouths they made weird noises, “Kill the males, pickle and dry them up, they will be our food! The females we will capture and make them serve us to produce the next generation!”
Chapter 11: I Am The One |
“Can mantis demons even speak?”
Zhong Yue was stunned by its capability to speak. The demons he encountered in Cloudless Hall attacked anyone in their sight once released. Due to this, Zhong Yue thought that all mantis demons acted based on their strong urge to kill and he was oblivious to the possibility of them actually being capable of speech.
However, the fact that these mantis demons who described Ting Lanyue and the other female upper house disciples as little heifers had struck Zhong Yue off guard. In his point of view, he regarded these female upper house disciples as a million times prettier and cuter than heifers, how were these demons able to make such a comparison between the girls and heifers.
Ting Lanyue shouted, “Dear brothers and sisters, prepare for combat! Junior Martial Brother Zhong, you are the weakest among us and have no prior experience with combat like this so you must stick close to me!”
Upon hearing her command, Zhong Yue was startled and did not know whether to laugh or cry.
As Ting Lanyue and the other upper house disciples got galvanized themselves to engage the demons, Ting Lanyue whispered, “Junior Martial Brother Zhong, the mantis demons you encountered in Cloudless Hall were still in their infancy stage, which was why they were unable to speak and their souls are feeble. However, these mantis demons here are those in their adulthood, they are a cut above their siblings in Cloudless Hall in every way – sturdy body figures, strong souls and efficient in combat, they aren’t easy to kill.”
Zhong Yue gaze focused towards to the army of mantis demons, only to find that these demons had advanced another ten feet closer to them. Unlike those mantis demons in Cloudless Hall, the demons in front of him now were so much bigger, stronger and faster!
Not only that, the arms of the demons in Cloudless Hall had no flesh, only bones in the shape of a scythe; whereas the bones of the grown-up mantis demons had a metallic luster.
This meant that their arms were no longer bony scythes. The metal components have completely infused into their bones, transforming their arms into metallic scythes, thereby vastly increasing their threat level!
“Charge!”
Ting Lanyue shouted, unleashing her psyche and activating the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】. Dazzling lightning appeared from within Ting Lanyue and morphed into thunderous lightning swords, piercing the mantis demons in their paths.
As the other upper house disciples attacked using the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】, deafening roars cracked the skies, and one after another, thunderous lightning swords flew out and struck the areas concentrated wi
th mantis demons.
“The digestive system of mantis demons are incredibly strong. The grown ups are able to directly consume darksteel ores from which, the distilled darksteel will be absorbed into their bones!”
While slaying mantis demons one after another, Ting Lanyue said to Zhong Yue, “These mantis demons are just average grown-ups, the most dangerous ones are the mutated mantis demons. They are inherently born with the mantis demon carvings and when they reach adulthood, their bones will be completely supplanted by darksteel, becoming invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The weight of their bones are usually around two to three thousand kilograms and they have an explosive force of a few hundred thousand pounds. If your soul weapon is weak, you may not even be able to penetrate their skin! Fortunately for us, the occurrence of mutated mantis demons is very rare, there might not even be one among a few millions of them. They are mostly found in the large-scale mantis demon lairs, so the possibility that we will encounter one in this small lair is extremely remote.”
In the time it took for her to say this, she had already struck down five mantis demons. Her attacks were fierce, fast and steady. All of this exhibited her strength as the superior senior martial sister unequivocally acknowledged by all a hundred of the upper house disciples.
The other upper disciples were also busy dealing with their enemies and tempering themselves at the same time. The size of this lair of mantis demons did not appear to be too big as it contained only around two hundred demons. Other than Ting Lanyue who had slain these demons easily, there were also a few of the upper house disciples who were also quite capable in their own right. With their respective masteries of the【Spring Thunderbolt Swords Skill】, they easily made short work of their foes.
He Chengchuan was among one of the more outstanding disciples. His strength has always been as equally strong as Ting Lanyue so his attacks were also as accordingly fearsome.
