Chapter 34

34

As a hot tempered person, long-winded people were the most irritating. Xu ZiYan could not ensure that, should Xu Mo continue to be so wordy, he would not just begin cursing at him.

Cursing madly in front of Xu ZiRong would completely ruin his good older brother image! Thus, Xu ZiYan must put an end to that possibility!

However, perhaps Xu ZiYan's self-confidence had infected the other members of the Xu family, because everyone was now looking forward to Xu ZiYan's performance tomorrow.

The disciples capable of representing the Xu family at other Sects were naturally quite qualified. They had long heard of how hard-working the main branch's Young Master was.

Having this level of cultivation at his age was enough for him to be proud. In fact, with his strength, as long as there weren't any mishaps, it was practically impossible for him to be eliminated.

Liu Guang Sect's assessment was three days long. After the assessment finished, the rest of Xu ZiYan's entourage would go to the other Sects to try their luck. The reason for this timing was that although Xu ZiYan's entry into Liu Guang Sect wasn't a big problem, Xu ZiRong's Tri-Spirit Vein made things a bit difficult.

His innate gift was his ability to comprehend. However, it was said that high comprehension skills only gave an illusory advantage. Although Xu ZiRong's current cultivation was quite astonishing, in the face of the talented Heavenly Spiritual Vein and those Mutated Spiritual Vein cultivators, there was simply nothing to compare.

Xu ZiYan was actually more confident in Xu ZiRong than the others in the Xu family regarding this issue.

Who was Xu ZiRong? In his past life, he was the infamous demon cultivator! Although Xu ZiRong didn't cultivate the Blood Sea Heart Sutra in this life (wrong!), he wouldn't be that badly off. What about the Tri-Spirit Vein? There were quite a few Nascent Soul cultivators with the Tri-Spirit Vein. The so-called Lightning Spiritual Vein was good, the Water Spiritual Vein was also good, and of course the single Spiritual Vein was pretty good. However, these cultivators would merely have a slightly better foundation compared to other people. Their future developments still depended on their respective opportunities and destinies.

Although high comprehension skills were sometimes useless, everyone had to admit that cultivators with good perception could use half of another person's effort and achieve twice the results. It was the same as Xu ZiYan's moment of enlightenment from before. In a short period of time, his cultivation level would rise as if it was flying. Although Xu ZiRong had never had epiphanies before, his cultivation was already astonishing enough. Xu ZiYan believed that as long as the Elders at Liu Guang Sect weren't stupid, they wouldn't drive away this rare talent for the other Sects.

In fact, Xu ZiYan thought that perhaps in the eyes of those old foxes, Xu ZiRong was more valuable than himself.

The two brothers passed a night in silence. Nowadays, Xu ZiYan thought that with Xu ZiRong being eleven already, sleeping together wasn't the best. However, every time he proposed preparing an individual bedroom for Xu ZiRong, the other would always stare at him pitifully. That expression, one that was the same as an abandoned puppy's, made Xu ZiYan unable to even finish his sentence.

Perhaps Xu ZiRong was insecure because of his mother's early death combined with how their father didn't really care about him. This point could be felt from how Xu ZiRong would tightly hug Xu ZiYan whenever they were sleeping in bed.

To Xu ZiRong's great fortune, Xu ZiYan's sleeping position was much better than before. After all, being kept in a python-like grasp every night as he slept would influence his position to a certain extent.

Yeah......nowadays, Xu ZiYan's sleeping position has already changed from rolling around three hundred sixty degrees to rolling around one hundred eighty degrees. As such, Xu ZiRong's amazing ability to coil along could not be ignored......

Early the next morning, the two brothers who were coiled around their blankets like fried dough twists were woken up by Xu Mo's loud voice. The two of them glanced at each other before they climbed out of bed with much difficulty.

Xu ZiRong felt somewhat vexed. His alertness was becoming more and more terrible, and that wasn't a good sign.

After the two of them washed up, they made their way to the woods outside the West gate of Fa An City accompanied by the indifferent, middle-aged man.

The protection Liu Guang Sect offered Fa An City only covered the grounds within the city gates. Without any exceptions, the fights that happened outside of the city walls were no longer part of their jurisdiction. Thus, the walk that covered the distance between Fa An city and the grove could be considered Liu Guang Sect's first test for these candidates.

In reality, the route to the grove had already been cleaned up by the people from Liu Guang Sect. Any spiritual beasts that had cultivation levels greater than Foundation Establishment Stage were thoroughly slaughtered. However, the part that had been cleaned up was only limited to the route to the woods, where the gathering place was. In addition, the route that brought one from the city walls to the forest had no one supervising it.

The top three candidates for the inner-sect disciple test would receive extremely generous rewards, and the top candidate even had the right to select their own master. In other words, if they selected the Sect Leader as their master, they would even possess the chance to inherit the title in the future. Of course, that would still just be a chance.

In any case, the top three positions were always fought over extremely fiercely. This time, since Xu ZiYan intended to fight for the first place position, he naturally wouldn't treat this lightly and lower his guard.

When the original came to participate in this test, he had only been at the seventh layer of Qi Condensation Stage. In addition, the only martial arts he had learned was Thunder Jolt. That Xu ZiYan had an empty Lightning Heavenly Spiritual Vein but no skills to match it. Among those disciples, the original Xu ZiYan could have only been considered a candidate who was a bit above average.

Perhaps it had been because the original's strength was not up to par, but the other Xu ZiYan got through that exam in an awfully ordinary manner, receiving a grade that was neither good nor bad. However, all of the candidates who had been the strongest were intercepted with attacks halfway to their test.

These kind of attacks didn't aim for one's life, but it would injure them, which would affect their gameplay. In this life, Xu ZiYan could also be considered one of the extremely talented candidates, so he naturally had to prepare for any underhanded moves.

That habitually silent middle-aged man only needed to escort him to the entrance of the grove. The path inside the woods was one Xu ZiYan had to struggle through by himself. In reality, bringing along that middle-aged man was merely for the purpose of protecting himself from the attacks of the other candidates' families. Regarding the candidates themselves, Xu ZiYan was relatively more assured of an outcome in his favour.

"Alright, Uncle Liu, sending me to this point will be enough." Xu ZiYan stopped walking when they reached the entrance of the grove, then spoke up to allow the middle-aged man to return.

That middle-aged person nodded his head before turning around to leave. However, before leaving, he gave the woods a profound glance.

Xu ZiYan knew that this was the other's way of reminding him that within the forest, there would certainly be other people watching them. Right now, he just didn't know if those people were from the Liu Guang Sect or if they were actually other candidates.

Xu ZiYan took a look at the time. There was still around half a shichen1 before they had to be at the gathering site. Thus, he smiled before he held Xu ZiRong's hand, then began confidently leading him into the woods.

After they entered the forest, although Xu ZiYan looked serene on the outside as he headed toward the meeting place, in reality he was already very alert. He had raised his guard for anyone's sneak attack, and he was ready to respond at all times.

These sneak attacks between candidates were the prequel to the main competition. After all, if a cultivator wanted to go far in life, just having strength and power wasn't enough. One must also possess a smart mind. The excited candidates who entered the forest without any prior preparations would only be harmed by others. They wouldn't even be given a chance to say any grievances.

"ZiRong, stay close to big brother. Don't run about." Xu ZiYan said in a low voice.

Xu ZiRong nodded his head in an obedient manner. Although he hadn't experienced this exam in his previous life, he could tell that it wasn't as simple as he had thought just from Xu ZiYan's current behavior.

Once more, Xu ZiRong celebrated the fact that his Blood Sea Heart Sutra was capable of storing one's spiritual energy in the user's blood. At this moment, regardless of who tried to investigate his cultivation level, no one would be able to discover that he had already finished cultivating the Qi Condensation Stage.

The two brothers deliberately looked happy as they walked in the forest. To others, they seemed to have taken this walk as an ordinary trip in which one had to be slightly hasty. The two of them walked forward to their destination, yet they also leisurely strolled around, so much that sometimes Xu ZiYan would pick some wild fruits to eat.

These two didn't act as though they were participating in a test at all. Instead, they seemed to be on a fun stroll in the spring.

On a small tree not far from them, a bird that was only as big as the length of a finger was currently watching them with curiosity.

That bird looked completely normal. It stayed on a tree branch, and every now and then, it would even peck its own feathers. Its actions were vivid and realistic. No matter who saw it, they would all think it was just an ordinary bird.

The only unusual thing about this bird was its eyes. Those pitch-black eyes, ones that could be compared with obsidian, didn't have any vitality within them.

Far away, in a side palace hall of Liu Guang Sect, around ten or so disciples were currently busy with recording something in a book.

Every one of them had a shallow basin filled with water in front of them. The basins were filled to the brim with water, and inside the basins, a Solidifying Water Mirror Technique was used. The outside of the basins were embedded with a lower grade spiritual stone, and the spiritual energy of the stone was unceasingly drawn out.

Many different images emerged on the surface of the water. Most of it was related to the candidates who had came to participate in the exam, so the two brothers Xu ZiYan and Xu ZiRong were naturally included. In fact, these two brothers were some of the people these disciples were most concerned with.

The person responsible for watching Xu ZiYan was a normal inner-sect disciple. When he saw how Xu ZiYan was walking to the meeting place in a manner as if the other was enjoying a spring hike, he couldn't help but reveal a mocking smile.

Naturally, from his mirror's angle there didn't seem to be anything wrong. However, what was displayed in his neighbouring mirror was a man in all black. He had concealed himself and was currently only around two hundred meters from the two brothers.

This inner-sect disciple shook his head before sighing. He firmly believed that Xu ZiYan would be unable to escape this man's ambush attack, and thus, would be inevitably wounded. Originally, there had been an Elder who had been somewhat interested in him. This was why Xu ZiYan was classified as an important target for observation. However, no one would have expected that he didn't have any vigilance. Although his cultivation level was high, with the situation like this, he probably reached that level only by dumping in a bunch of pellet medicine.

If things were really like that, then Xu ZiYan would merely be at this standard. Without real combat experience, even if he could successfully make his way to the meeting area, he wouldn't be able to perform too well in the actual exam.

"What a waste. Why couldn't I be the one who had interested that Elder?" This disciple pouted a bit, feeling quite unhappy. However, the image that appeared on the water next made him so surprised, he practically dropped his jaw.

The Xu ZiYan who seemed to be extremely relaxed suddenly jump up. He patted his interspatial bag once and then withdrew a silver bow.

Xu ZiYan did not take out any arrows. Instead, he used two fingers to pull back the bowstring. Following the backward movement of his fingers, an arrow made from a purple bolt of fizzling lightning gradually formed.

Xu ZiYan didn't hesitate. With the loosening of his fingers, that arrow made out of lightning flew out. The disciple who was responsible for observing Xu ZiYan practically turned to the other mirror in a reflexive manner. Even then, he only saw a purple light suddenly appear. That man in black didn't have any time to react, and was thus hit in the shoulder.

The man was immediately surprised. He would have never imagined that the other would discover him when he was this far away. In addition, Xu ZiYan was even able to shoot out arrows that actually wounded his body.

1. One shichen is about two hours.↩