Chapter 249 – Jingchan Duo

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Lin Ming turned around to see that the speaker was actually Jiang Lanjian. Although Lin Ming didn’t really know him, he could tell that Jiang Lanjian was someone with a very broad and accurate sense of judgment; he wouldn’t easily label someone as a ‘talent’.

Lin Ming laughed and smiled as he spoke, “Interesting. If the first group stage was a husband and wife fighting, then this second stage is truly a gathering of masters!”

Jiang Lanjian looked at Lin Ming in surprise and replied, “Your group is quite strong, but it seems that you’re confident in yourself.”

In the seventh group, there was Fang Qi, Bi Tinghua, Jing Chanyu, and Zi Ling. With Lin Ming, that was five altogether. These five people were competing for three spots. However, Fang Qi’s place could already be considered as guaranteed. Jiang Lanjian thought that Lin Ming would be extremely solemn facing these experts, but he hadn’t expected Lin Ming to be merrily laughing. Either Lin Ming had entirely given up on entering the first tier, or he had extreme confidence in his own power. As for Jiang Lanjian, he thought that Lin Ming was part of the latter.

“Who do you think will win, Jing Chanyu or Zi Ling?” Lin Ming asked Jiang Lanjian.

Jiang Lanjian shook his head. “They still haven’t revealed their true strength. Not only that, but since they both reached this stage by having complete victories, I don’t know what to expect.”

There were four or five people in each group that had achieved complete victory in the last stage. In the seventh group there were five. These five were Lin Ming, Fang Qi, Bi Tinghua, Jing Chanyu, and Zi Ling.

However, after this group stage, at most, there could only be two participants who would possibly remain undefeated.

As the two boys spoke, the battle on the martial stage had already begun.

This was an extremely strange fight. From the very beginning, the audience hadn’t been able to see where Zi Ling was. They only saw lights flashing just like celestial beauties that were scattering flowers, blinding their eyes.

However, Lin Ming was able to rely on his powerful perception in order to clearly see what was happening on the martial field. Zi Ling waved her arms to create six sharp bladed edges. These edges seemed gentle as they emitted light, but each one was able to instantly destroy an early Pulse Condensation martial artists.

Because the speed was too fast, the light beams drew a series of rainbows in the air as they let out sharp whistles that made the scalp tingle.

“Manipulating the power of light is truly an incomparably mysterious and amazing ability.” Lin Ming felt that although those light blades were formed of true essence, they also contained a hint of light essence. This was a mystical power that was more elusive than the seven natural heaven and earth origin energies of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, and thunder.

In an instant, 36 light blades hovered in the sky. These light blades howled in the air as they danced around, but they still hadn’t attacked Jing Chanyu. Suddenly, Zi Ling clasped her hands together and shouted out, “36 Light Blade Extreme Execution!”

With this cry, the 36 light blades all focusses in one direction and soared towards Jing Chanyu.

Facing this light blade attack that attacked from every dead angle, Jing Chanyu hadn’t even lifted her hands. Instead, her hands lay flight, and a soft light emanated outwards from her chest, forming a thick light cover that all over her just like an eggshell.

Chi chi chi chi!

The blades of light struck against the thick barrier and encountered a massive resistance, instantly coming to a near halt. Meanwhile, the blades of light also caused the eggshell to rapidly melt away.

“Halcyon Reflection 1000 Shaded Hands.”

Jing Chanyu turned over both her hands, and a series of shadows condensed from her fingers and flew into the air, covering the sky.

Bang!

Zi Ling, who had been hiding in the distorted light, suddenly gave a stuffy cough and was directly forced out into the open by Jing Chanyu’s strike. Zi Ling was holding a sword of blazing light in her hand, an expression of shock twisting her features.

“Be defeated!”

Jing Chanyu parted her delicate rose red lips, and began to hymn in a low voice. A massive, glowing, golden hand slowly manifested in front of her.

“Halcyon Reflection Great Wisdom Palm!”

Bang!

A huge golden palm imprinted onto Zi Ling’s body. The sword of light in Zi Ling’s hand broke apart, and she let out a spray of blood before being sent flying backwards, landing onto the safety net outside the stage.

“Jing Chanyu, victory!”

With the announcement of the referee, the audience hadn’t even had time to react. From the beginning of the match until the end, only a short period of ten breaths had passed.

Jing Chanyu had only used three moves. One defensive, and two offensive. After three moves, Zi Ling had been defeated! However, Jing Chanyu hadn’t even moved a single step. The veil that lightly hung on her face hadn’t even been blown by the breeze. From start to finish, Jing Chanyu had been incomparably tranquil.

Zi Ling wasn’t a useless nobody. When she was young she had already been chosen as a core disciple of the Mirage Faction. Her talent was simply amazing, and at the last Total Faction Martial Meeting she had reached rank 56. During this Martial Meeting, she had achieved complete victory within the first group stage, and would have easily strode into the top 30. But now, she had actually lost to Jing Chanyu! And in only three moves!

This Jing Chanyu was simply too strong!

Jiang Lanjian’s eyebrows ticked up. Between Jing Chanyu and Zi Ling, he hadn’t really thought either side had an advantage. But to his surprise, Jing Chanyu won by a landslide. This was enough to prove that she had the ability to reach the top 20 rankings!

If she could really reach the top 20, then she was an existence to be considered. As far as Jiang Lanjian knew, Jing Chanyu wasn’t too old. Three years later she could return to the next Total Faction Martial Meeting.

At that time, her limelight might even be greater than this Martial Meeting’s Zhang Yanzhao!

If anyone of the 36 countries disciples could break into the top ten, that was sufficient enough to be recorded in the annals of the Seven Profound Valleys history. That would simply be an extraordinary result!

Also….Jing Chanyu had an older twin brother, Jing Chanshi; his strength shouldn’t be any weaker than Jing Chanyu. The tiny Grace Venerate Nation had actually produced two talents that were capable of reaching the top 10 rankings in the Total Faction Martial Meeting within the next three years; this was unprecedented in the last 100 years!

Jiang Lanjian couldn’t help glance at Lin Ming and was surprised that Lin Ming was still looking on with bored indifference. Although he may have been surprised by Jing Chanyu’s strength, he obviously wasn’t too worried for himself.

This fellow was simply too confident! The quality of talents during this year’s Total Faction Martial Meeting was exceedingly promising. The 36 countries and 16 martial families had managed to produce Zhang Yanzhao, the Jingchan Duo, and Lin Ming, four peerless talents. Not only that, but the Jingchan Duo and Lin Ming were still young, they would have a tremendous amount of growing they could do in the next three years….

With this thought, Jiang Lanjian’s eyes suddenly jumped up. Lin Ming looked like he was 16 or 17, but just how old was he?

Although there was only a one year difference between 16 and 17 years of age, this actually created an enormous difference in a martial artist’s cultivation.

Normally, a child raised in a large sect would start practising martial arts as soon as they could walk. During their entire childhood, they would practice martial arts in order to lay a solid foundation for their future achievements. They would build up their body with rare and precious medicines, but they wouldn’t cultivate true essence yet.

In order to cultivate true essence, one needed the body to grow. Starting at 12 years of age, a martial artist child would begin to cultivate Body Transformation’s Six Stages such as Strength Training, Flesh Training, and Viscera Training.

A 16 year-old would have cultivated for four years whereas a 17 year old would have cultivated for five. This difference was neither small nor meaningless.

If Lin Ming was 17 years old then he could be considered a first-grade talent. If he was 16 years old then he would be considered as an extreme talent that wouldn’t be inferior to any of the Seven Faction’s direct disciples by much!

……………………………..

“Second match, Fang Qi to Zhou Yan.”

As Lin Ming heard Fang Qi’s name, he couldn’t help but pay a little attention. The Seven Profound Valley’s Seven Factions were respectively the Sword Faction, Array Faction, Puppet Faction, Zither Faction, Acacia Faction, Refiner Faction, and Mirage Faction.

Of these, the Sword Faction was the one whose disciples had the strongest attack power. However, that didn’t mean that the disciples of the Sword Faction were the most powerful. Each of the other six had their own unique skills and abilities. For instance, the Puppet Faction, Mirage Faction, and Array Faction had extremely peculiar defensive and offensive skills; they could use a nearly endless variety of outlandish and absolutely bizarre moves. Although they might not be as strong as the Sword Faction, they were actually much more difficult to deal with than the Sword Faction.

To Lin Ming, out of these Seven Factions, he was most interested in the Array Faction. When he had obtained the second memory fragment from the Supreme Elder, he had also obtained that Elder’s memories as an array master. Unfortunately, Lin Ming’s cultivation was simply too low to make use of any of those array master’s memories, thus, he was unable to practice it.

Lin Ming had thought that he would need to be at least at the Xiantian realm of cultivation to create the large scale array formations in those memories. However, the Seven Profound Valleys’ Array Faction had taught him a very good lesson.

The small Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead had actually saved Lin Ming’s life.

Lin Ming had never dreamt of sealing a tiny array formation configuration within a tiny bead.

Lin Ming had even considered that if he were to enter into the Seven Profound Valleys Total Faction later, wouldn’t it be best to join the Array Faction?

From the start of the match Zhou Yan had used a defensive martial skill in order to cover his body with layer upon layer of protective true essence. However, nobody laughed at him for being cowardly. In fact, it was already a kind of courage to have the guts to face a direct disciple of the Seven Factions.

Zhou Yan wasn’t some worthless disciple; during the last Total Faction Martial Meeting, he had been ranked 70. Throughout the group matches, he had only dropped one fight. Although it wasn’t very hopeful for him to enter into the first tier, it would be simple for him to enter into the second tier.

“Scarlet Blazeflame!”

After he had cloaked himself in his ultimate protection, Zhou Yan instantly let loose his do-or-die finishing blow. He was a disciple of the Refiner Faction and in his body was a Hollow Flame Essence. He had poured the entirety of his true essence into this Hollow Flame, and a lifelike fiery dragon surged out from his body.

The martial stage was surrounded by a fantasy array formation so that that the audience outside couldn’t feel the burning heat of that fiery dragon. Still, from the way that light twisted around the flame dragon, one could imagine just how hot it was.

This sort of fiery dragon was enough to turn an entire lake into steam. If it struck a martial artist, even a middle Pulse Condensation period master would be charred.

But, Fang Qi only lifted his right hand and drew a golden array symbol in the air. Then, the impossible occurred. The fiery dragon crashed into the golden symbol and disappeared inside without a trace left. It was as if that golden symbol was connected to a different space and shifted the fiery dragon to a completely unknown land.

Seeing such a bizarre scene, Zhou Yan only let out a depressed sigh and uttered, “I admit defeat.”

The Scarlet Blazeflame was his strongest skill, but in front of someone like Fang Qi, not even a tiny spark had struck his robes. Instead, his flame attack had simply disappeared into nothingness. This caused Zhou Yan to feel extremely inadequate and useless; the disparity between them was just too great, enough that he wasn’t even able to imagine how much it was.

“Fang Qi, victory!”

This was already expected. The audience only murmured about how strong a direct disciple was and waited for the next match.

Lin Ming was actually thinking back on that symbol. How could such a small symbol swallow the scarlet flames that Zhou Yan had forced out with all his strength?

He felt that there was an enormous difference between the array formation system in the Realm of the Gods and the array formation system in the Seven Profound Valley’s Array Faction. It could even be said that they were two completely different set of skills!

To Lin Ming, it seemed like the Array Faction’s array formation system could play a much bigger role for the current him.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

At this moment, the voice of the referee interrupted Lin Ming’s thoughts.

“Third match, Lin Ming against Bi Tinghua!”

Lin Ming raised his head and saw that Bi Tinghua was looking at him with a bright smile plastered across his face.