Chapter 32 – The Martial Plaza
Thinking about it a little more, Ye Chen opened the box next to the bed and took out a blue jade with dragon carvings on it. The jade piece looked quite old and was broken in some places due to age.
Ye Chen saw this jade when he was at the medicinal shop and thought it looked quite special. However, the Ye Chen was not able to figure it out at the time so he bought it on a whim to take home to observe a little more closely. Inside the jade, there was an continuous blue flow circling inside the jade that was continually fixing the broken part.
“Inborn Blue Jade!” Ye Chen exclaimed in surprise.
There were two different kinds of jade, Natural Jade and Inborn Jade. Natural Jade was jade that had grown naturally after thousands of years; while Inborn Jade was jade that was infused with natural Yuan Qi. The true value of Inborn Jade was that it contained a type of lingqi.
It was very hard to differentiate between the two. If it was not for Ye Chen’s powerful soul, he would not be able to tell.
With this inborn blue jade, it could save me so much time! What a great timing! Ye Chen laughed, he held the blue jade tightly in his hand.
Eased his excitement, Ye Chen took a deep breath, pushed his Pure Yuan Art to its peak then traced the Qi through his meridians into the inborn blue jade.
Pop!
The Yuan Qi and Jade Qi blended perfectly and became a different type of lingqi which was extremely thick and viscous. It was a bit hard for Ye Chen to pull it out using his Yuan Qi. The viscous Qi could only be absorbed one strand of it at a time and each time took longer than the last time.
Fine, one strand at a time. No choice but to take it slow.
Without the original Jade Qi to restrict it, the lingqi slowly flowed inside Ye Chen’s body, it spread out all over Ye Chen’s body instead of blending with his Qi.
Reciting the mantra of the Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell, Ye Chen used his powerful soul to gather the loose Qi of the lingqi and cycled it through his body repeatedly. Eventually, the Qi was completely absorbed by his body. Ye Chen’s body slowly changed with each strand being absorbed, his skin flushed with a pure white jade sheen.
...
Six days passed.
Ye Chen felt close to mastering the third spell of the Jade Body, his body had absorbed one hundred and thirty-three strands of lingqi Qi. During this time, the Inborn Blue Jade slowly lost its sheen and its lingqi. Every time Ye Chen used his Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell, his body would shine like a jade giving you a sense that Ye Chen was invincible.
Picked up a fruit knife from the table, Ye Chen bit his teeth and used about sixty percent of power to stab himself in the chest as he rotated the Jade Qi in his body.
Swoosh!
The fruit knife broke! Although fruit knife was not the great steel sword, it still was quite sharp. However, there was only a little white mark on Ye Chen’s skin.
Releasing his control over the Jade Qi, Ye Chen’s skin softened again as the white jade sheen slowly dissipated. His skin returned to its usual soft silky feel.
I have not even mastered the third spell yet and I already have this kind of defense. I wonder what it would it be like when I reach the fifth spell.
Ye Chen had previously decided that he was only going to use soul stones to cultivate after he had mastered the third spell, but now he decided he was ready. His meridians and body were tough enough to handle the soul stone without having to worry the side effects.
Ye Chen grabbed a low grade soul stone. The result was exactly like he imagined, although the Qi from a soul stone was still insanely pure and wild, Ye Chen had it all under control.
Turning the Yuan Qi from the soul stones into his Qi, Ye Chen managed to break through to Early Mortal Realm Stage 8.
Looking at the low grade stones in his hands, Ye Chen thought: A low grade soul stone that would last at least five days for an Early Condensing Reality warrior should last about ten days for my Mortal Realm Stage 8 cultivation. That elder who passed away had left me a great treasure!
In the Martial Art Plaza where the disciples of Sky Cloud Martial School compete.
Today was just another ordinary day, there was no competitions or events. However, there were still quite a lot of people gathered in the plaza, most of them were outer disciples.
Three inner disciples stood in a row, two of them were talking.
“Huang Bingwen, don’t you dare underestimate Zhang Haoran! His reputation of being a genius is not just for show!”
“Elder brother Cui was right. But don’t you dare fail and bring us inner disciples shame!”
Wearing yellow martial robes, Huang Bingwen said with pride: “Of course, I would never underestimate him. I gave him two months back then because my Maze Heart Spell had almost reached the fifth level. And each level of Maze Heart Spell is exponentially more powerful than the last. That time period was for me to breakthrough so I can crush him!”
It had been two months since the incident in the Pavilion of Martial Arts and Huang Bingwen did not forget about the bet with Zhang Haoran. Plus, he finally had someone to test the strength of his fifth level Maze Heart Spell.
“Maze Heart Spell Level 5? Good! Good! You hid it so well! Now, Zhang Haoran would not dare to disrespect his seniors.”
“Oh! I heard you also made a bet with another outer disciple?”
Huang Bingwen sneered: “Him? He was just a Late Mortal Realm Stage 6 brat. I could kill him with one finger.”
“Just Late Mortal Realm Stage 6? How arrogant of him!”
“Haha, the outer disciples this year are way too arrogant. I want to go up and teach them a lesson myself.”
However, today was all about Huang Bingwen. Upon his arrival, all the people stopped chatting to look at him which made him feel extremely prideful.
Standing on the stage, Huang Bingwen yelled: “Zhang Haoran! Come up here and accept your death!”
Among the crowd, Zhang Haoran who wore blue martial robes sneered: “Huang Bingwen, if you want to die just ask nicely. But I think you should take care of the other brat first.”
Zhang Haoran had already heard about the news that his cousin had been badly wounded, but he was not in a hurry to seek revenge. For him, seeing Ye Chen being stepped on in public by Huang Bingwen was not a bad alternative at all. There was no need for him to do it personally. Plus, if he battled with Huang Bingwen before Ye Chen, then he would never be able to witness his enemies killing each other.
“Fine, it won’t take long to beat him, and there’s nowhere for you to escape anyways.” Huang Bingwen did not care for little things like this, he scanned the crowd, looking for Ye Chen.
In the crowd, Wu Zongming was a little bit worried: “Ye Chen, although you had already reached the Late Mortal Realm Stage 9, but the opponent had been in Early Condensing Reality Realm for a long time now. Even the martial arts he trained in are all higher ranked than yours, it would be extremely hard for you to win! Just surviving and not looking bad will be enough.” In the history of Sky Cloud Martial School, there were only a few outer disciples that had beaten inner disciples, and all of them were the once in a century martial geniuses. Although Ye Chen was not bad, it was still very difficult for him to beat Huang Bingwen, impossible really.
Ye Chen smiled a little and squeezed through the crowd. Ye Chen walked towards the battle stage and he said loudly: “No need to look for me, here I am.”
Huang Bingwen’s eyes focused on Ye Chen, he laughed: “Took you a while to get here. What? Too afraid to come out?”
Shoo!
Taking a small leap, Ye Chen landed on the huge battling stage.
“To be honest, it is a mistake not to fight with Zhang Haoran first, because you will never have a chance to.”
Huang Bingwen had never cared for an outer disciple and flicked his eyebrows, “Shameless. Soon you would know how it feels like to be stepped on.”
Editor’s Note: Couldn’t figure out a better name for linqi. It translates to spirit, reiki (the japanese form of linqi), and a bunch of other things that don’t really fit/flow well so I just chose to keep it in the pinyin form. I am currently deciding between vital energy and lingqi so comment below on which one you like better!
If you want to know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki#Etymology