Chapter 265: Fighting for the Qi of the Dragon Fountain
The three-hundred-meter-long and two-hundred-meter-wide battling platform looked extra huge. It was standing alone in the center of the deep cliff, which made it even more obvious.
Right then, the first battle was happening on the platform.
Both contestants were very powerful; one was at the Mid Clasping Yuan Realm while the other was a peak-level Early Clasping Yuan Realm warrior. Both of them had thrown out some ace attacks the second they went on the stage. They did not plan to test the other person first at all. Eventually, that Mid Clasping Yuan Realm warrior won the battle.
What was shocking was that when there was a winner, the dragon-shaped shadow jumped out of the winner’s body and jumped onto the loser. Visibly, the dragon-shaped shadow outside the losing opponent’s body had shrunk down by one size while the winner’s shadow had grown to a little bit more than three meters.
“Just as I expected.” Ye Chen did not have to guess before he figured out it was a way of getting the dragon fountain qi, which was all happening due to the qi itself.
The battles happened one by one, and soon, it was Lin Qi’s turn.
His opponent was someone who was ranked quite behind in the last Hidden Dragon Rank, whose dragon shaped shadow was around four meters, and after being beaten by Lin Qi, its dragon-shaped shadow had shrunk drastically. It was only three meters now while Lin Qi’s three-meter dragon shaped shadow had grown all the way to almost four meters.
Xu Jing had almost figured out a pattern, “It looks like that the more power the opponent’s dragon fountain Qi has, the more Qi you would get for beating him.”
Ye Chen nodded, “In other words, while the winner gets more dragon fountain Qi, the loser will lose some of his. Therefore, the received dragon fountain Qi should not be much and the increases might not even be noticeable.” The dragon-shaped shadow outside Sikong Sheng’s body was about twenty-five meters long. If beating a new star could easily help him gain a lot of dragon fountain Qi, then he would be able to increase his dragon-shaped shadow to twenty-seven meters with a few battles, a dozen at the maximum. It would obviously be illogical, hence Ye Chen’s analysis.
Xu Jing and Ye Chen were not wrong. Soon, a new star had beaten a young warrior who was ranked quite high up last Hidden Dragon Rank, and his dragon-shaped shadow had increased drastically; it had almost expanded by half of its size. And when a young warrior who was ranked really high in the last Hidden Dragon Rank beat a new star, his dragon-shaped shadow had only increased a little, less than one-fourth of a meter.
There were thirty-six battles in one round of competition. One battle would have two contestants. After one round, each person would have a chance to be on stage. And this time, it was the “Fire Spirit Prince” Yan Chihuo, whose opponent was a young warrior who ranked quite behind in the last Hidden Dragon Rank and was only at the Early Clasping Yuan Realm.
“I give up!”
This young warrior was very straightforward.
Awoooooo!
The second he had given up, the mysterious dragon-shaped shadow had jumped out of Yan Chihuo’s body and devoured his opponent’s dragon-shaped shadow.
However, no matter how much the shadow tried to devour, there was barely any change since the gap between the two was way too big to have any actually visible achievement.
“The twenty-fourth battle, Ye Chen versus Mo Wuxue!”
Before Ye Chen had risen up, Mo Wuxue used to be the No.1 warrior amongst the young generation from Nine Nations, including the Wind Nation. Even Yuanheng Ying and Lu Shao were slightly weaker than him. However, right now, he looked like a child in front of Ye Chen. There was zero comparison.
Gently touching the ground with his feet, Ye Chen appeared on the battling platform, facing Mo Wuxue.
Mo Wuxue’s pupils shrunk suddenly because of the pressure Ye Chen right now was giving to him. Besides his Late Clasping Yuan Realm, even his fifty percent sword intent alone would be able to shock the world and make the Nine Nations fear. He remembered when they were outside the Heaven Dream Ancient Place, he would not even bother to look at Ye Chen. But now, the tables had turned.
He calmed himself before he said, “Let’s decide the winner with one blade attack, what do you say?” He did not expect to beat Ye Chen. He just wanted to know how big exactly the gap between them was.
“Sure!”
Ye Chen said lightly.
Shoo!
Without much hesitation, a bloody long blade appeared in Mo Wuxue’s hand which he had gotten from the Heaven Dream Battle Palace. It was regarded as the top of the great blades, its power almost as powerful as a normal mid-rank great blade. Once he took out the great blade, a thin blood line sliced through the sky, tearing the air apart before disappearing.
Ye Chen had only taken out his Star Scar Sword five centimeter out of its scabbard. A beam of sword light shoot out, cutting that blood line in half. The power of that sword light kept going and eventually landed heavily on the protective zhen Qi layer of Mo Wuxue.
The zhen Qi layer shattered; Mo Wuxue stood no chance at all.
Awooooo!
The dragon roar was heard.
The dragon-shaped shadow outside Ye Chen’s body jumped onto Mo Wuxue’s body, devouring his dragon fountain Qi. Within the blink of an eye, the dragon-shaped shadow had already come back, and had grown from three meters to three and a half meters. Not only had it visibly grown a lot, its shape and appearance had become much clearer. One could almost see the majesty on the dragon’s face.
“The gap is still undetectable.” Mo Wuxue forced a laugh.
Ye Chen walked down the stage. The next battle was indeed Sikong Sheng’s, and his opponent was not weak either. It was Teng Mo, who was ranked nineteen in the last Hidden Dragon Rank. Without a doubt, Teng Mo had lost, but he had not chosen to give up.
After devouring Teng Mo’s dragon fountain Qi, Sikong Sheng’s dragon-shaped shadow was still at twenty-five meters. If one looked really carefully, it could be found to be only five centimeters longer, which was only because Teng Mo was ranked quite high in the last Hidden Dragon Rank and had a rich dragon fountain Qi. Otherwise, he would have gotten less than one-fourth of a centimeter if it was a new star.
The competition was conducted in an organized manner. Whenever it was a top young warrior, the opponent would either give up or chose to decide the winner with only one attack to figure out the gap. And normally, the result was quite obvious – the gap was so big that it was undetectable, because they did not even have the power to push the top warrior to use even fifty percent of their power.
After Murong Qingcheng had beaten her opponent, Xu Jing got on the platform.
“The twenty-seventh battle, Xu Jing versus Qi Shaofeng.”
Qi Shaofeng was a powerful warrior who was ranked thirty-eight in the last Hidden Dragon Rank. The gathering of the Three River City from the Spirit Nation was organized by him. In that one hundred million mountain forest, Ye Chen had saved Murong Qingcheng and him. He was extremely powerful, and his weapons were two unique weapons called the “Broken Moon”. The dragon-shaped shadow outside his body was twelve meters long, which was very rich.
Within one hundred attacks, one could not tell who the winner was.
After exchanging one hundred attacks, Xu Jing slowly gained the upper hand. She was covered in an almost solid golden light which was not made of zhen Qi. Instead, it was a result of solidifying her Qi power, and its attacking power would be even stronger than zhen Qi, which made Qi Shaofeng feel quite exhausted.
On the one hundred and fifty-eighth attack, Qi Shaofeng’s palms went numb. He could no longer hold on to his weapons, which provided an opportunity for Xu Jing. She threw three punches in a row, which blew Qi Shaofeng away completely.
After devouring part of Qi Shaofeng’s dragon fountain Qi, the dragon-shaped shadow outside Xu Jing’s body had grown rapidly. It was almost nine meters within the blink of an eye, which was comparable to the other medium young warrior from the last Hidden Dragon Rank.
“Pretty impressive. I almost don’t want to beat you now since that little dragon fountain qi would barely make a difference.” Lin Yun was quite happy to see Xu Jing be so powerful. He thought if the conditions allowed it, he would not devour her dragon fountain qi when he encountered Xu Jing; he wanted her to remember him. Unfortunately, the Qi of the dragon fountain was not controlled by anyone. Once it sensed a trigger, it would jump out by itself. There was no way of interfering.
“Overconfident.” Although he did not care for Xu Jing’s power, Ye Chen was the one standing behind her. Among all the people here, only Sikong Sheng and Ye Chen had given him the feeling of being mysterious, while the others were still lacking something.
The first round had finished, and the second round began immediately…
After five rounds, Ye Chen’s dragon-shaped shadow had grown to six and a half meters. He did not have much luck as all of his opponents were quite weak. After winning five battles, he had gotten less dragon fountain qi than Xu Jing after winning against Qi Shaofeng. Tuo Baku had to be the luckiest person of them all. He had beaten Zhang Feng instantly, who was ranked 9 in the last Hidden Dragon Rank. Thus, his dragon-shaped shadow had grown all the way to twelve meters. Adding the subsequent four battles, his shadow was already above twelve and a half meters, which was about the same as the top thirties in the last Hidden Dragon Rank.
In the sixth round, Ye Chen had finally met someone with a rich dragon fountain qi. It was Cui Xiao, who was ranked fifteen in the last Hidden Dragon Rank.
After devouring his opponent’s dragon fountain Qi, Ye Chen’s dragon-shaped shadow had grown all the way to almost thirteen meters, which made him right below Tuo Baku among the new stars.
Lin Qi’s power was still not that powerful after all. He had lost three battles out of the six battles in total, and his dragon-shaped shadow was maintained at around four meters.
Xu Jing had won six rounds in a row, and her dragon-shaped shadow was maintained around thirteen meters.
Soon, seven rounds of competitions had finished.
The eighth round had begun officially.
Ye Chen’s opponent was indeed Gu Qing, who he had never fought against before.
Gu Qing was ranked 10 in the last Hidden Dragon Rank. His dragon-shaped shadow was supposed to be around twenty-one meters, but after winning seven battles, it had grown all the way to almost twenty-two meters. It was a slow progress.
“Take my Blue Cloud Nine Attacks!” Gu Qing did not have a reason to give up already. In fact, he would really like to fight against Ye Chen who was very good at attacking his opponents’ weak points. Only battles like this would help him find out some of the unnoticeable flaws of his, so that he would be able to fix them.
Chin!
Taking out his Star Scar Sword, Ye Chen held his long sword with his hand and pointed it out to the empty sky. Gu Qing’s stick attacks had been shattered instantly in a row. It only took Ye Chen one attack to shatter the eight following attacks before they were even formed.
“How is this possible?” Gu Qing was shocked. The Blue Cloud Nine Attacks were so well-designed together; one attack followed right after another without a gap. If it were the latter few attacks that had been shattered, maybe he would still be able to understand since it got harder and harder for the attacker to control the attacks towards the end, and might lead to a flaw. However, there were zero flaws in the early attacks.
Ye Chen said, “I have seen the Blue Cloud Nine Attacks once. It is indeed a potent attack. Each stick attack is faster than the one before. However, the transition between the first attack and the second is the slowest. As long as the sword speed is fast enough, then anyone would be able to find that important shatter point. Right now, you should focus on creating an illusion that makes it seem patternless instead of trying to be simply fast. ”
“I have learned a lot.” Gu Qing thought about it, and just like Ye Chen had said, his Blue Cloud Nine Attack was tightly connected, each stick attack being faster than the last. But it took time from the first attack to the ninth attack, and it would be a rare case for the others to watch him while he threw out attacks. If he simply focused on increasing the speed, his flaws would still be there since there would also be someone faster. No matter how fast one could attack, there would still be someone faster than them. Therefore, in order to fix this weakness, one could only try to make it as unpredictable as possible.
With these thoughts in mind, Gu Qing could not help but admire Ye Chen. The fact that the first few attacks of the Blue Cloud Nine Attacks were too slow was relative; they were in fact very fast already. Only Ye Chen would be able to still find the gap in between and hit it with one fatal attack.
“I give up!” It was needless to continue battling, Gu Qing had already learned so much.
Awwooo!
Just as Gu Qing finished talking, the dragon-shaped shadow outside Ye Chen’s body jumped out.
When it came back, the thirteen meters dragon-shaped shadow was already sixteen meters in size, which was bigger than Tuo Baku’s and similar to Murong Qingcheng’s.