Chapter 253: A New Generation
One sword attack!
Gao Feng had lost!
All of the people who were watching the battle were utterly shocked. There was not a single sound in the whole stadium.
Before that, no one had expected that Ye Chen was hiding his sword intent. He had actually hidden the most appraisable material of a sword artist possible till now. The fact was that he had only used his almost perfect sword art to compete and beat a lot of powerful warriors while still managing to gain eleven wins.
What was even more unexpected was that once Ye Chen used his sword intent, Gao Feng did not even stand a chance before losing.
If Gao Feng were only a normal new star, maybe the crowd would not be this shocked. But in the first stage of the competition, Gao Feng was the one who beat Teng Mo, who was ranked nineteen in the last Hidden Dragon Rank. And just like Ye Chen, Gao Feng also had full marks.
No matter from what perspective one judged, Gao Feng was just not a normal martial genius. He was definitely one of the top among the young generation. However, a powerful warrior like him was still not able to survive even one attack of Ye Chen’s that had contained sword intent. That huge contrast had frightened a lot of people.
The outsiders watched the battles only for fun, but the experts watched only for studying.
Most of the Clasping Yuan Realm warriors had only known that Ye Chen was carrying sword intent, but they had not known how powerful that was. The powerful Clasping Yuan Realm warriors and Astral Reaching Realm warriors had noticed some tiny details, like Ye Chen’s sword intent had only flashed once before disappearing. It would be hard to judge what kind of level he was at from only that one glance. They had also noticed how fast Ye Chen’s sword was. Now that they had a visual contact, they knew that his reflexes had already reached beyond all of the warriors with the same cultivation. Most importantly, the way he threw out the sword attack, Ye Chen had fully displayed the peak of a sword artist. Not only was his sword art so free and without restraints, but it was also amazingly powerful and deadly.
“So impressive! This is the fifth of the top ten new star’s power? Why do I have the feeling that he would be ranked no.2?” Some of the warriors in the crowd could not help but say.
Someone standing right next to the speaker said, “I have the same feeling. Gao Feng was at least no. 9 in the top ten new stars, but he still could not handle one serious attack of Ye Chen’s.”
“Being serious or not, we cannot be even sure yet. Don’t you realize it? Up until now, do you think Ye Chen had ever been serious? Gao Feng had only pushed him to use his sword intent.”
“This year’s Hidden Dragon Rank is so interesting! We have got people like Sikong Sheng, then we have the top ten new stars. All of them were still hiding some of their powers. It would be impossible to tell what their true power was until they get in a critical situation.”
“This is why it is so interesting! Where’s the fun if we could already tell the result?”
“Haha, so full of passion! I would like to see, among the young generation, who can laugh until the end? Who can make it to the top ten?”
There were so many people watching that battle since there were only six groups left. It was not hard to tell which group was having an intensive battle. Right then, Ye Chen and Gao Feng’s fight was so thrilling; in the beginning, it was so intense and so unpredictable, but towards the end, the whole situation of the battle had changed completely. It was so drastic: First, Gao Feng was forced to use his hidden ace attack. His aura increased rapidly, and it looked like he was going to win the battle for sure. Then, completely out of everyone’s expectations, Ye Chen had so many other attacks, and he eventually revealed the fact that he had already learned the sword intent, beating Gao Feng with only one sword attack and showing the peak of being a sword artist.
People could feel the blood boiling in their veins as they were watching such an exciting battle, and they could not help but have the urge of jumping and screaming.
The group twelve judge froze for a while out of shock. He said after a long while, “The true sword artist would have to have powerful attacking power and the bravery and sharpness of being able to kill in one attack. This boy has both, what a great potential.”
The group three judge nodded, “It is easy to become a warrior, but hard to be a sword artist. Most of the people had only gotten the talent to become a sword artist, but not what it takes to be one.”
The two were both Astral Reaching Realm warriors who had seen a lot of powerful sword artists. They knew that these were the tricky ones to take on since they would barely have any flaws.
Because they were both powerful people in finding weaknesses, they knew that although Ye Chen’s attack seemed very fast and casual, it had landed directly onto Gao Feng’s weakest part, leaving Gao Feng no chance to fight back at all.
A sharp light flashed through the eyes of the head disciple of the Heartless Martial School, Li Daoxuan. Ye Chen, who had learned the sword intent, had intrigued him a little. As for how long this interest would last, it depended on how exactly powerful Ye Chen was. If it was all he had got, then Li Daoxuan knew that he would still be able to take him out in three attacks.
Sikong Sheng and the rest of the powerful ones still had no expressions on their faces. The power Ye Chen had shown until now was still quite normal for them. Once one reached their level, the gap would be extremely big. If the power were not able to be ranked in top five or top ten, they would not even care to look.
“Huh! There were too many people hiding their real power. He is only a clown at play.” The head disciple of the Sky Falling Martial School, Lin Yun, sneered. He could not care less.
The head disciple of the Sky Demon Martial School, Mo Yan, used his Sky Demon Eye. A dark red shine flashed through his eyes. He then said with a cold voice: “He will not be in the top ten.”
Murong Qingcheng frowned slightly. Her head disciple seemed really calm and mellow on the surface, but he truly was full of pride. As one of the top two exclusive Sky Demon Martial School martial arts, the Sky Demon Great Art was indeed very powerful, and its Sky Demon Eyes would be able to tell the power level of a person’s qi. But martial arts could not do everything. Plus, his Sky Demon Great Art had only reached its tenth level, what could he say for sure?
On the battling platform, putting his Star Scar Sword back in its scabbard, Ye Chen greeted before he flew back down the stage.
Gao Feng’s left hand covered his chest; he was not wounded at all. He knew that Ye Chen went easy on him after all. ‘His control over his power was just like his sword arts, so smooth and so free. That kind of seemingly-light-but-truly-heavy mentality was not something everyone could apply. Losing to him is acceptable. Plus, I have learned so much from this battle.’
Getting off the stage, Gao Feng talked to his sister disciple via zhen Qi, “Sorry! I lost!”
“It is okay. He was just too powerful. As long as I can watch you fight, I don’t care about the rest.”
“Indeed, he is indeed so powerful. I think, his power is actually even more powerful than what everyone thinks.” Gao Feng said something that would surprise everyone. But unfortunately, only his sister disciple would hear him and no one else.
Pop!
The iron ball in his hand had been crushed as Tang Xiaoshan’s face froze. He had just said that Ye Chen was about to lose, but somehow, the judge had announced the opposite, which had completely embarrassed him.
“Impressive! I had made a mistake.”
The corner of Tang Xiaoshan’s mouth twitched.
…
The competition continued. Next up stage was the third disciple of the Sky Demon Marital School – Wu Liangyu. His opponent was a young warrior who had gotten full score in the old group three.
The two had exchanged three attacks before it was announced that Wu Liangyu had won.
“There are so many powerful talented disciples in the Sky Demon Martial School! Besides the third disciple, there were another three disciples who had made it to the second stage of the eliminating competitions, so that would make it six people in total. On the other hand, the most disciples that made it from the other rank 6 martial schools had not been more than five while the least were three people.”
“The Sky Demon Martial School is definitely winning due to the quantity of great disciples, but as far as quality goes, no one would be comparable with the Floating Mountain Martial School.”
“True, they have Sikong Sheng. Besides the Fire Spirit Prince who might be able to fight him, the others would not even stand a chance.”
“This is not particularly true. That Lin Yun’s Qi seemed to be no weaker than the Fire Spirit Prince. He might have been even more powerful than him in some ways. The first place should be competed for by these three.”
“No, not necessarily. Tuo Baku should also be counted into this. The young warrior who was ranked ninth in the last Hidden Dragon Rank had been blown away by him with only one punch. That kind of power, is still not enough for the top three?”
Wu Liangyu’s performance was indeed very well, but unfortunately, he would still be not powerful enough when facing Ye Chen. Therefore, the crowd had started their intense debate over the social status of Wu Liangyu, the Sky Demon Martial School and the top young warriors. They all had different opinions.
Ye Chen and Xu Jing were standing right next to each other. On the side were Zhu Mei and Qin Yulian, who had already lost their chance in the battle.
Qin Yulian was watching the competitions that were going on right now. She sighed, “This year’s competitions are so intense that so many ranked competitors had been eliminated already. I wonder how many of them would still be there after this.”
Zhu Mei said, “Judging from the current situation, there should be at least forty percent of them who would be eliminated.”
“Forty percent would make it twenty contestants! That is a horrifying number.”
Ye Chen did not say anything. A lot of ranked contestants were indeed eliminated in the first stage of the competition, such as Lin Yue, who was ranked seventieth in the last Hidden Dragon Rank, sixty-eighth ranked Zhuang Fei, sixty-sixth ranked Wei Dongshe, sixty-fourth ranked Cai Yueyao, sixty-first ranked Lu Shao and fifty-ninth ranked Yuanheng Ying. These people had all been in the Red Ancient Desert before, and now they had all been eliminated.
Those were only Hidden Dragon Warriors from the nine nations, including the Windy Nation. Adding in the other nations, there had been twenty ranked warriors that had been eliminated until now. Therefore, the forty percent Zhu Mei had mentioned was still quite a reserved number. After the second stage, the total number of the ranked contestants eliminated would probably be twenty-five to thirty, at least nothing below that number.
Of course, there were some of them who had still been not eliminated yet. For example, Mo Wuxue, who was ranked fifty-fourth, was still in the competition, as well as Xue Heng, who was ranked fifty-seven. The two were the top level kind of existence in the Day Dream Heaven Ancient Place. But unfortunately, in the Hidden Dragon Ancient City, there were only barely standing on the edge of elimination. Whether they could make it to the next level or not would depend on the luck they never considered before.
A new generation of warriors had appeared!
A number of young warriors from the older generation had been eliminated would be replaced with new generation of young warriors. Not to mention the other nations, the Windy Nation alone had Ye Chen, Xu Jing and Lin Qi, these three people already, which was three times better than last Hidden Dragon Rank with one Zhuang Fei making it onto the rank. Therefore, the Windy Nation had gotten even stronger than before.
The twelfth battle of the second round had begun. The contestant who had just gotten on stage was indeed Xu Jing.
Seeing Xu Jing easily take control of the battle, Ye Chen had noticed something. He thought to himself, ‘It looks like Xu Jing had not trained her martial arts and skills to a very high level. It was still too short of a training time for her. Give her one more year and it would not be impossible for her to compete for the top ten.’
Ye Chen had also seen it clearly that Xu Jing had altered her martial arts. If he did not guess wrong, Xu Jing would have started altering her martial arts ever since she got back from the Day Dream Heaven Ancient Place. And it was the body exercising martial art with an extremely high rank that she chose to alter. But it was only one year’s of time before the Hidden Dragon Rank competition, plus the fact that it was extremely hard to train the body exercising martial art. There was just no way for her to train the arts to a high realm with only one short year, which would be her weakness, since all of those young warriors from the older generation would have trained each one of their martial arts for three years or more. If Xu Jing had also got three years of time, even Ye Chen could not be sure about how powerful Xu Jing could reach. After all, even her power right now was already quite scary.
Ye Chen laughed. He focused back on his own team.
‘The second round of the battles would be starting soon!’
‘I wonder who I will face.’