by <unknown>
"In fact, your capability is quite good. Your performance was very stable that day despite your thick gloves. If you try your best today, with any luck, you are almost certain to be a dark horse and make it into top 300!
"However, of the ten contestants, only one can go to the next round. So… don't blame me, but I'm definitely going to do my best!"
Li Yao smiled and stopped talking. He found his seat according to the number he'd been given. Then he sat down, crossed his legs, and placed his hands on his thighs dutifully.
His hands were shaking.
Luo Dong noticed that. He secretly sighed; the guy was a newbie to the Skyhill Sword Seminar after all, and he had lost control over his hands before the match began due to anxiety!
Let the match begin now! Li Yao thought. He felt like his two hands had turned into two ferocious animals that couldn't wait to devour the wasted blades in front of his eyes!
The soft background music was switched to high-pitched shrills, before it came to an abrupt end. The first round of the Skyhill Sword Seminar had officially begun!
Bo! Bo! Bo!
The barriers that had been enveloping all the wasted blades broke apart simultaneously!
There was no other sound in the vast honeycomb-like refining center except the rattling noises that were the result of 3,200 pairs of quickly-moving hands!
…
"The match has begun!"
"The best result of the first around last year was 54'22''! The record of the recent ten years is 51'24''! I wonder, is anybody going to break either of the two records today?
"Let's switch the picture to Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya, our top two seed players!"
"Wow. Mo Tianshui is really fast. In less than one minute, he has dismantled the ten wasted blades into the most fundamental components!
"Waves are spreading out of his fingertips, make his hands five times larger than usual. The hundred components are all covered!"
"Ms. Bi, would you please explain what is going on?"
"Of course. Mo Tianshui's hands are shaking at a frequency that is too high for the human eyes to catch. He has placed more than ten metal pieces among his fingers, and when the pieces collide, a special soundwave is triggered, which removes the rust on the blades instantly!
"This method is known as 'supersonic rust eradication'. It is not a secret in the circle of refiners. But there won't be a second refiner younger than forty who can perform it as fluently!
"Alright. Let's move the camera to Huangpu Xiaoya. Hiss… Her hands have turned into two balls of lightnings! Countless electric arcs are causing the components to dance crazily in the midair!
"The competitors near her are dumbfounded!"
"It appears that the two monster-level geniuses are both confident about securing the title of 'Sword Master' in the Skyhill Sword Seminar this year! Incredible, truly incredible!"
In the live stream that followed, Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya occupied most of the picture.
The two of them did not disappoint anyone. Their unbelievable maintenance skills were dreamy and marvelous!
As time went by, the number of blades they had repaired gradually increased.
"Everyone, it's only been 49 minutes and 33 seconds, and Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya are both close to completion right now. Will they break the record and make a miracle today?
"Almost there. Almost there. Ah, Huangpu Xiaoya's last battle saber has passed the test! 49'55''! A new record has been born! Remember this remarkable moment, my friends!
"Mo Tianshui has completed the match. 49'59''! It took him less than 50 minutes, too! I can't believe my eyes! Any other year, this would have been a groundbreaking result! Too bad he met Huangpu Xiaoya this year and has to let her steal his thunder!
"I'm looking forward to the confrontation of the two geniuses in the final round very much!"
"Alright, let's switch the camera to some of the other groups."
After the conclusion of the two geniuses' performances, both the host and the two guests apparently lost their momentum. They continued changing the camera while they chitchatted with each other and commented on the contestants' presentation uninterestedly.
"Not bad. This contestant is cleaning the surface of the magical equipment with 'Fire Melting Technique'. Very creative."
"This contestant's skills are quite fluent, and reasonably good, yes, reasonably good."
"This is Luo Dong from the Luo family of East Brightness. He came 124th in the Skyhill Sword Seminar last year and is famous for his fast hand movements. His performance must be very enjoyable. Let's watch his show for a moment…
"Huh? Luo Dong's actions are quite awkward. He seems to be quite anxious. It does not befit his usual performances!
"Oh? Luo Dong is not the fastest in his group. Another contestant has been suppressing him and going faster than him. The guy has finished the maintenance of nine blades and completely disrupted Luo Dong's pace!"
Inside the picture, Luo Dong was perspiring, his hands shaking violently.
What emphasized his uneasiness was Li Yao's movements, which were as focused and precise as a clock.
His actions were accurate, to the extent that one might call them rigid, and were not in the least enjoyable compared with Mo Tianshui's and Huangpu Xiaoya's eye-catching styles.
However, his speed was as equally shocking as theirs.
The components in front of him were quickly assembled into sharp sabers and swords despite the somewhat warped operations.
1 hour, 2 minutes, and 34 seconds later, Li Yao finished the maintenance of the ten blades first in his group. He passed the first round and marched into the top 320!
Luo Dong grunted. He stared at Li Yao in a daze with a pale face.
His fingers were trembling violently, indicating that he was experiencing cramp in his hands!
"Unbelievable! A previously-unknown young man from the Great Horn Exo Society has defeated the heir of the Luo family of East Brightness. His hands were indeed clumsy, but they were really fast too!
"Although Li Yao's movements do not fit the standards, the procedures of his maintenance were seamless. I barely saw any pause or interruption. He must've received unimaginably cruel training and will likely be the dark horse this year!"
"This is the most interesting part about the Skyhill Sword Seminar. There are more experts living in seclusion in the sea of stars than anyone can count. In the next round of the match, I suggest we focus more on this Li Yao. Everybody should widen your eyes and see how far he can go!"
One or two dark horses appeared in the Skyhill Sword Seminar every year. The host and the two guests had all seen many of them, and therefore, were not very surprised.
Now that the winner of this group had been determined, the camera was soon shifted to other groups.
An hour and a half later, all the groups had completed the match.
A commercial cut in. The host and the guests were all relieved to take a moment of rest.
Master Dustless, the old professor from Flying Star University, frowned and was deep in thought.
After pondering for a moment, Master Dustless asked, "Can you replay Li Yao's performance at one tenth the original speed and zoom in on the picture, preferably with ancillary technologies, so that we can see his hands more clearly?"
The host was surprised. "Master Dustless, why do you—"
Bi Luoling, the rising star in Red Line School which was one of the three main crystal suit centers, raised her eyebrows. "Master Dustless, do you also feel that Li Yao's actions were odd?"
"A little bit."
Master Dustless shook his head and mumbled, "The picture of his performance keeps coming back to me. I sense that there's something wrong about it, and it gives me a weird feeling. Let's watch it first and discuss later!"
"Alright!"
The host projected a light beam immediately and asked the technological department to replay Li Yao's match video. The speed was set in one tenth of the
original; the picture was zoomed in with the resolution enhanced. Li Yao's stiff and clumsy hands were focused in the center.
Three heads drew close to the light beam.
After watching for a while, Master Dustless' and Bi Luoling's faces turned solemn, if not appalled. They looked at each other in disbelief.
The host did not understand what had happened at all. He asked, "Is there a problem?"
"Look at his hands, his fingers!" Bi Luoling's voice was coarse.
The host observed the subject carefully for a moment and still failed to notice anything wrong. There were no airwaves nor electric arcs on his fingertips. It was the most ordinary method of polishing. The speed of his hands was amazing, but definitely not something that deserved such attention.
"Didn't you notice that he only used eight fingers from beginning to end?"
Bi Luoling exclaimed, "His two thumbs were kept still while his two hands were moving at an extremely high speed. They never touched a single component and were not part of the maintenance work!"
Chapter 492: Butcher's Cleavers |
"What?"
The host was truly stunned.
Although hands were of paramount importance to refiners, a lack of one or two fingers did not necessarily mean that one could not refine anything.
There were many masters of refining who only had nine fingers in the legends.
However, the fingers that were missing were never thumbs!
Without thumbs, one could not even hold a saber or a sword, not to mention the delicate tools that were used in refining!
This guy, Li Yao, had not used his thumbs from the beginning to the end, and yet he had defeated the heir of the Luo family from East Brightness who was best known for his hand speed?
The host had a try himself. He folded his thumbs and picked up items on the desk with the remaining eight fingers. It took him quite a long time before he lifted the water cup with some difficulty. But soon, he faltered and knocked the cup over. His shoes were drenched.
The host was stunned. "How did he do the maintenance work like this?"
Bi Luoling mumbled, "Hiding his fingers was still enough for him to beat Luo Dong easily. If he had tried his best, he definitely could've made it shorter than 55 minutes. With any luck, he could've even—
"However, why is he doing this? Trying to hide his prowess on purpose? It is unnecessary, is it not, Master Dustless?"
Bi Luoling was somewhat confused.
Master Dustless gazed at Li Yao's hands for a long time, before he shook his head and answered solemnly, "He was not hiding his sharpness; he was merely trying to activate his fighting will!"
"To activate his fighting hill?"
"Yes. Luoling, as third place last year, you must've had similar experiences. During the match, one cannot enter their best state at the very beginning. They have to encounter a few competent opponents and fighting against them with all they can. Only in such a way can they turn excited and crazy and be blessed with the strongest fighting will. They enter their best state, in which they forget who and where they are. Only after such intense competitions can they march forward unstoppably!
"If an expert of martial arts is asked to fight a three-year-old, they would certainly be lethargic.
"Maybe, for this Li Yao, Luo Dong was merely like a three-year-old. He could not summon any fighting will when he was trying to defeat him at all!
"If the strongest fighting will came too late, he would have been at a great disadvantage when he meets with the real experts.
"The reason he hid two thumbs on purpose was not to show off but to increase the difficulty of the competition for himself, so that he could trigger the strongest fighting will while he was surpassing his limits!"
The host was dumbfounded. "The real experts? Even the heir of the Luo family of East Brightness was not a 'real expert' in Li Yao's eyes? Then who is his target? Could it be—"
Master Dustless murmured, "I've been studying the art of refining for more than a hundred years, and I have never seen such a weird newbie and such a pair of queer hands… Look at his hands carefully and compare them with other contestants'. Do you see any difference?"
The host projected a few other light beams on which he displayed the pictures of the hands of other experts of refining including Mo Tianshui's and Huangpu Xiaoya's.
Most of the hands were as translucent as jade, as smooth as silk, or as hard as steel. Some of them were even glowing with soul-stirring beauty while the fingers were moving.
Li Yao's hands were the only exception. His were the same as those of the ordinary people at first glance. There were some tiny injuries on the back of the hands and a few callouses on his palms. Even his fingernails were untidy!
The host blinked and said, "His hands seem rather plain. There's nothing unusual about them."
Staring at her own sparkling hands, Bi Luoling replied solemnly, "That is the problem. Watched from whichever angle, this pair of hands should belong be a low-level Cultivator or even an ordinary person. But, in fact, the owner of the hands is an expert refiner who has crushed over Luo Dong effortlessly. I can tell absolutely nothing about his background and expertise from his hands, and I have no idea how he trained himself with such skills!"
"I suggest…" Master Dustless remarked, "we switch the camera to this Li Yao more often besides focusing on Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya. I'm going to carefully observe what kind of performance he's going to dedicate later!"
…
"What? You lost… to that Li Yao guy?"
Inside their personal chambers, the 320 contestants who had won the first round were taking a brief rest.
Long Yunxin, who had secured the victory without any trouble, was soaking her hands in the special liquid to refresh them, while she enjoyed the excellent show of the top two seed players, only to be interrupted by Luo Dong's incoming message.
Inside the light beam, Luo Dong's face was so awful that it seemed like he could cry at any moment. Even then, he still didn't know how he had failed.
"It's like ghosts walking in daylight. Ghosts walking in daylight! The guy's actions were the opposite of elegant. His fingers were rigid, too. I was secretly laughing at the beginning and thought that the stupid movements were because of his nervousness and lack of experience.
"But before I knew it, he had completed all the maintenance tasks with the awkward actions and the stiff fingers!
"You didn't see his eyes. The horrifying eyes! They were like two furnaces, two refining furnaces where black fire was burning and swallowing all the blades in front of them!
"Dreadful. It's too dreadful! In the end, I did not dare look at him at all. Whenever there was eye contact, I felt that my soul was being melted in a bottomless refining furnace!
"Disrupted. My pace was completely disrupted, and I lost the match foolishly just like that!"
"Hehe. It's nothing new to see ghosts in daylight. Hundreds of spectral Cultivators are watching the game right now!"
Long Yunxin sniffed and replied straightforwardly, "Maybe the guy has indeed got some petty tricks up his sleeve, but the real problem is that you are too weak. In social occasions, I've been trying to save your face, but since it's just you and me right now, I'm going to be frank. Your life has been too comfortable. I've read too much of news about your affairs over the last year! I think it was on the girls' bodies that your soul was melted."
Instead of waiting for a response, Long Yunxin cut off the call immediately. She took a long breath and continued readying her mind.
It was unimportant.
There were too many fellows who read a few novels and thought that they could play the pigs that could eat tigers.
However, those pigs could only eat tigers that were fat and stupid at best. When they were faced with ferocious dragons, they would be stomped into pork pies instantly!
A giant light beam was floating in front of Long Yunxin, on which the names of the 320 contestants were displayed. They were shining non
stop and were about to be classified into new groups of ten randomly.
The second round was still one out of ten. The elimination process would begin after the top 32 were determined.
Long Yunxin prayed to herself that she would not be put in the same group with monsters such as Mo Tianshui or Huangpu Xiaoya.
She was a seed player. Under the stochastic algorithm, the odds that two seed players would be sorted into the same group were quite low.
However, to make the match more enjoyable and to attract a larger audience, two seed players might still be able to meet before the final round, which would often be quite thrilling.
The second round of the match was the realization of designated structural designs.
Every contestant had an independent refining furnace and an operation platform. Three structural designs—namely a chainsword, a vibration saber, and a heat axe—would be offered to them.
The three kinds of melee magical equipment were the most classic models. They represented the peak of damage from revolution, damage from vibration, and damage from heat. Every refiner should be familiar with all the details on them.
What they needed to do was refine the three pieces of magical equipment from scratch within five hours with the same materials.
The criterion of victory would be the damage of their works. Those who boasted the strongest blades in their group would be qualified to enter the elimination match!
During the elimination match, the top 32 players would be engaged in one-versus-one competitions. That was the real 'Skyhill Sword Seminar'!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
The 32 groups had been formed.
Long Yunxin's heart was racing. Her eyes sped over the family names of her group's contestants Thankfully, there was neither 'Mo' nor 'Huangpu'!
Relieved, she read on at ease, only to find an unexpected name on it—Zhou Xiaoyu, the young master of Snowy Sword Village!
Zhou Xiaoyu was a seed player, too, who had defeated her in the Skyhill Sword Seminar the previous year.
The unlikely event of two seed players running into each other in advance had happened to her after all.
