Chapter 96: Who Dares To Say They Are First?

The Discipline Committee Head left. He was left with no choice but to leave.

Ye Guan stared at Ji Xuan and asked, “Are you really willing to join the Daoist Sect?”

“No, I was just provoking him.” Ji Xuan chuckled.

Ye Guan sighed bitterly at that.

Ji Xuan explained, “I’m used to being alone, and I don’t like to be tied up.”

Ye Guan thought about it for a few moments before nodding. “All right, I understand.”

The Daoist Sect was indeed quite pitiful. If Ji Xuan were to join their sect, Ji Xuan would have to build her own residence there. Ye Guan himself didn’t think that it was appropriate to make a sect’s disciple build their own residence in the sect.

Ji Xuan suddenly added, “The Destiny Contest is nigh, so you have to work even harder to become even stronger in the meantime. Be extra careful of the An Clan and the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan!”

Ye Guan nodded. His enemies still hadn’t made a move since Ye Guan killed a Major Tribulation Realm cultivator and shocked the world. He actually found it a bit strange, considering the An Clan and the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan’s track record.

Ye Guan hurriedly asked, “Lady Ji, I have to make a move first. Take care, and I’ll see you again.”

Ye Guan hopped onto his sword and flew into the distance.

Ji Xuan watched as Ye Guan flew into the horizon.

She smiled and remarked, “He really looks charming whenever he’s flying.”

Moments later, her figure blurred and vanished.

The Discipline Committee Head noticed the departure of both Ye Guan and Ji Xuan.

A middle-aged man stood next to him, and the two of them were staring at the horizon. The middle-aged man was the new Academy Chief of Zhongtu Divine Continent’s Guanxuan Academy—Gu Chaoyuan.

The Discipline Committee Head sighed. “What a pity!”

Gu Chaoyuan shook his head as well and said, “It truly is a pity! They should have belonged to the academy. We would have had participants that would have allowed us to hold our heads high in the upcoming Destiny Contest!”

“The An Clan has really made a fool of themselves this time,” said the Discipline Committee Head.

Gu Chaoyuan laughed and pointed out. “They could have killed Ye Guan in the Upper Realm. Unfortunately, they kept on underestimating him, which led to their current conundrum.”

Gu Chaoyuan sighed and said, “The An Clan and the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan need to salvage the remains of their reputation, and they can only do that by killing Ye Guan. Ye Guan has to die, or the people would think that such great clans can’t even deal with a swordsman from the Lower Realm. They’ll be a laughingstock.”

The Discipline Committee Head frowned. “They reaped what they sowed.”

Gu Chaoyuan asked, “Are you saying that the An Clan and the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan should apologize to Ye Guan?”

The Discipline Committee Head went silent. There’s no way the An Clan and the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan would apologize to Ye Guan.

They were living in a world where strength mattered the most, so who would be willing to admit their mistakes and make themselves look weak? Those two clans would never apologize to anyone unless they had offended a true powerhouse.

Of course, they could be coerced into apologizing, but they would never bow down.

It was the pride of a powerful clan.

“Things have gotten more complicated. Ye Guanzhi’s intervention made the great clans wary?of Ye Guan. Now, those great clans want to kill Ye Guan to intimidate Ye Guanzhi,” said Gu Chaoyuan.

The Discipline Committee Head’s voice deepened as he asked, “Academy Chief, aren’t you on the side of the great clans?”

Gu Chaoyuan laughed, “Yes!”

“Why did you ask me to try and convince Ye Guan to join the academy?”

Gu Chaoyuan explained, “I am on the side of the great clans, but I am also from the academy. The internal strife within the Zhongtu?Divine Continent made us lose two extreme talents, which is a massive loss for the academy, and…”

Gu Chaoyuan’s eyes narrowed as he continued. “Do you really think that the great clans can suppress Representative Ye for an extended period of time? Have you already forgotten that Academy Chief Qingqiu and the Sword Master are still alive?”

The Discipline Committee Head chuckled bitterly and said, “It’s been thirty million years since they appeared!”

Gu Chaoyuan said, “That’s exactly why those great clans have become arrogant and why they have been acting like they own the academy.”

Gu Chaoyuan stood rooted for quite a while before he sighed and left.

The Discipline Committee Head followed closely behind him.

…..

Meanwhile, Ye Guan soon arrived at the Profound Tower.

However, he decided not to enter the combat trials. He wanted to cultivate the aspect that he had been cultivating all this while. Ye Guan also had no opponents that could withstand his attacks.

Ye Guan paid the necessary fees and went directly to the fortieth floor of the Profound Tower’s spacetime trials. The gravity on the fortieth floor was immense, but Ye Guan didn’t activate his sword intent.

He could easily defend himself using his sword intent, but he decided not to activate it. He was planning on acclimatizing to the extreme gravity with his fleshly body alone. He didn’t want to rely on his sword intent in the meantime.

Ye Guan started practicing his sword moves. As usual, his movements were very slow at the start, but he gradually got quicker. He continued his training, and he would climb up at least one floor a day.

The trials soon got hard enough that Ye Guan could only climb the next floor after a few days of acclimatizing to his present floor.

Whenever Ye Guan grew tired, he would eat dragon meat and drink dragon blood.

The effectiveness of the dragon meat and blood greatly increased under his extreme training regimen. Time passed quickly, and it was already two months since Ye Guan entered the spacetime trials.

Ye Guan was currently on the fiftieth floor of the spacetime trials. He had never used his sword intent nor the Path Sword while he was making his way over to the fiftieth floor. He focused on acclimatizing to the extreme gravity with his fleshly body alone.

……

Meanwhile, Clan Leader An Ya was seated in the yard of the An Clan’s Residence in Qingzhou.

An old man bowed toward her and started talking.

“Is that so?” An Ya asked, “Ye Guan might be a Great Sword Immortal?”

The old man nodded. “He received enlightenment from the mysterious stone stele of the Profound World and achieved a breakthrough. In other words, it’s highly likely that he’s already a Great Sword Immortal.”

A Great Sword Immortal! An Ya fell silent. If Ye Guan were just a Sword Immortal, the An Clan would have had no reason to get worried about him.

However, Ye Guan was truly an extreme talent, and he displayed that by becoming a Great Sword Immortal despite his young age.

An Ya’s eyes narrowed. “It seems that I have truly underestimated him.”

She looked at the old man and asked, “Did you manage to investigate his background?”

The old man replied, “The Ye Clan of the Lower Realm’s Nanzhou adopted him, and they raised him by themselves. However, his true identity remains a mystery.”

An Ya’s eyes narrowed into a fine line. “Is that it?”

The old man nodded.

An Ya glared at the old man and asked, “Have you not sought out the Immortal Treasures Pavilion?”

The old man replied, “I reached out to them, but they’re also not sure of his true identity.”

An Ya?frowned. “Even the Immortal Treasures Pavilion is unaware of his identity?”

.

The old man nodded with a grim expression. “Yes! It’s really strange!”

There was a moment of silence before An Ya declared, “We can’t allow him to live any longer because he’ll definitely become a massive threat to our clan down the road.”

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

”If he ends up joining the Main Guanxuan Academy, it’ll become exceptionally hard for us to hunt him down by then.” An Ya slowly closed her eyes and continued. “In other words, he has to die here—he has to die on the Zhongtu Divine Continent!”

The old man hesitated for quite a while before saying, “Clan Leader, I think we have to be careful. We’re not sure of his backer, so if we get careless, we might end up attracting a disaster to our clan. I suggest we—”

“How dare you!” An Ya glared at the old man and said, “So what if he has a strong backer? Can his Dao Protector alone overpower our clan? Our clan has produced two martial goddesses who ended up being the followers of two Chosen Ones in their own generations, so how can he compare to our clan?”

An Ya’s eyes flashed coldly as she added, “If the An Clan claims second in terms of backing, who will dare to say that they are first? Who will dare?”