Dominating Sword Immortal
chapter-244

The South City Gate was a dragon door, and only the ones who had jumped up the dragon door could go through. The others would have to go through the side doors, which included the powerful warriors from the top seven rank 6 martial institutions.

The city gate had been closed once again, and all of the young warriors inside the city were the contestants that were allowed to attend the elimination competition. The rest of the contestants had already lost their opportunities completely, and could only be a part of the audience from now on.

Ye Chen counted roughly. There were about seven hundred people or so that had gone through the three challenges, which was less than thirty percent of the total contestants. It was a horrifying eliminating rate.

As for the young warriors from the Wind Nation, there were quite a lot of them who had made it through. This included the “Emerald Childe” Zhuang Fei, the “North Snow Childe” Su Wen, the “North Snow Quick Blade” Lin Qi, the “Lotus Fairy” Qin Yulian, Ye Chen, Xu Jing and Zhu Mei, seven people in total.

Fifteen people from the Wind Nation in total had attended the competitions, thirteen of them being disciples from the top five martial institutions. The rest two were the “Duanmu Childe” and another head disciple from a rank 9 martial institution. Only seven of them had made it up to that dragon door, which was unimaginable knowing that among the thirty-six small nations, some of the nations had only one disciple that made it through, maybe three if they were lucky. Even the Rudra Nation – the top nation of the thirty-six small nations – had only got six disciples making it through, which was way less than the Wind Nation. It was something that did not happen in the past since the Wind Nation was one of the smaller and weaker nations, and it would be at the bottom of the rank if there were one.

But of course, among the seven people that had made it through the dragon door, three of them were from the Sky Cloud Martial School, which was the main reason that the Wind Nation had stood out.

However, it was not the time to celebrate yet. The real competitions had not started yet. In the last Hidden Dragon Rank competitions, only the Emerald Childe from the Wind Nation had made it in the top seventy-two, and it was still uncertain if he could make it this time as well since a lot of people had still not grown yet in the last competitions. Now, after three years of training, the power of a lot of the disciples had reached a horrifying level. They had even reached beyond some of the old generation geniuses. Ye Chen was a perfect example, and so was Lin Qi from the North Snow Martial Academy. It was still unknown how much the other geniuses had grown.

Therefore, this year’s competitions of the Hidden Dragon Rank were full of unknown factors. Before the last minute of the competition, one would not be able to know what would happen.

“So annoying. How could he improve so fast?! After only one year, he is already at the Late Clasping Yuan Realm.” In the crowd, Yuanheng Ying looked extra serious.

As the head disciple of the Sky Eagle Castle Martial School, Yuanheng Ying had never been on the disadvantageous side before. He was okay with losing the last time’s Hidden Dragon Rank Competitions because he did not think he had the power of being the champion. However, among the nine nations, rarely anyone had really intimidated him. Normally, it was always other people actively avoiding him and fearing him, which made him feel extra good about himself. But everything had changed when he met Ye Chen. He thought he would simply be an animal for him to hunt. But somehow, that animal was extra powerful, and even on conjoining the fight with Zhuang Fei, he was still not able to beat him. Instead, they were even badly wounded. Ever since that incident, Yuanheng Ying had trained madly, planning to reach the Mid Clasping Yuan Realm in a short time and go beat Ye Chen. With the rich resources and wealth of the Sky Eagle Castle Martial School, he had actually made a breakthrough two months ago – he had officially entered the Mid Clasping Yuan Realm. Added with some powerful martial skills, he was confident that he would beat Ye Chen and then humiliate and torture him.

When he thought everything was going perfectly as planned, he was still destroyed again on that South City Gate. He could not understand how Ye Chen increased his cultivation because he knew even if he popped pills every day, it was still impossible to grow so fast, not to mention the side effects of the drugs.

“He must have used some kind of natural treasures to boost up his cultivation, and that means it would not be that stable. Although there is one realm of gap between our cultivation, all the other areas of my power have been enhanced. My attacking power is more than twice as powerful as when I was in the Heaven Dream Ancient Place.”

In this situation, Yuanheng Ying decided to believe that Ye Chen had not earned his cultivation by working hard, and there was still a big chance of winning against him.

After scanning around, Ye Chen’s eyes were fixed on the walls on the side. Countless weird creepy paintings had been carved into those walls.

Each one of them had different contexts. There were powerful warriors and demonic beasts that could remove the mountains and blow up the oceans painted on the bottom while a vague human figure had his both hands widely extended painted on the top. There were chains being dropped down from the sky, which wrapped around the warriors and beasts’ bodies.

“The ancient cities were nothing like the modern ones. I wonder what these paintings are for.” Ye Chen was confused, looking away from the paintings.

Right then, someone had come through the side door.

The powerful leaders of the top seven rank 6 martial institutions had walked in, followed by leaders of hundreds of rank 7 martial institutions, and then the most common rank 8 and 9 martial schools.

“Disciples of the Floating Mountain Martial School follow me to the place.”

“Disciples of the Fire Spirit Martial School take one step further.”

“ …”

More than two disciples from each top rank 6 martial institutions had passed the three challenges, and there were at least dozens of them. Adding them all up, it would make up to forty percent. Therefore, the power of rank 6 martial institutions really gave people the chills. With this amount of geniuses, as long as they did not make any big mistakes, they would continue being so powerful. If one or two rare geniuses appeared within the martial institutions, they might even get a higher rank.

In comparison, all the other martial institutions that were below rank 7 looked way less cool. A lot of the martial institutions were only there as decorations, which included a lot of rank 7 martial institutions.

“You three, follow me to where we are staying.” Luo Xinglie and the group walked over and greeted.

Zhu Mei asked, “Leader, are we not fighting today?”

The headmaster laughed, “There are millions of warriors out there, they cannot just let them wait there, right? So in the first two days, there will be no competitions, allowing all the martial institutions and lone travelers to pick a place and settle in. Once everyone is well set, the competitions will officially begin.

‘This is quite workable since the Hidden Dragon Ancient City was empty anyways, and there were plenty of buildings which would allow everyone to stay comfortably. If they started the competitions at once, it would definitely be messy, which would cause a bad impact.’ Ye Chen thought to himself while he nodded. He wondered who had set the rules, as they were very humane.

The buildings in the Hidden Dragon Ancient City did not belong to anyone, so when it came to choosing places, one would have to consider power and social status. Some of the fancy buildings were not even under consideration for some of the normal Clasping Yuan Realm warriors, and only those Astral Reaching Realm warriors would have the privilege to choose them first. As for the Sky Cloud Martial Institution, it was a ranked martial institution after all, so no one under the Astral Reaching Realm warriors would dare to mess with them. Soon, following the lead of Luo Xinglie, the group had picked a big house in the center of the city with a big field and settled in.

The buildings here were ancient styled but gorgeously designed. The building’s insides weren’t in shambles as expected, or full of spider webs. Instead, the furniture and rooms were spotless.

After roughly rearranging the room a bit, Ye Chen stopped cleaning. Walked out of his room, he saw Luo Hanshan.

After being eliminated, Luo Hanshan was still able to enter the Hidden Dragon Ancient City to watch the competition as a Clasping Yuan Realm warrior.

“Brother Luo, are you okay?” Ye Chen struggled a little bit when it came to name titles since according to their cultivation, he should call him Younger Brother Luo, but it was not that smooth, and it seemed not that friendly either. But calling him Hanshan would just be too intimate and inappropriate while calling him with the full name would just be too rude. So eventually, Ye Chen decided to call him Brother Luo, since there was no one else there, and Luo Hanshan was indeed older than him.

Luo Hanshan forced a laugh, “It’s okay. It is my own fault for not getting on that dragon door. Only the hard-workers would be blessed. Speaking of which, I had not worked as hard after reaching the Clasping Yuan Realm. So, it was a lesson for me, making me remember it by heart.”

Ye Chen secretly sighed. Actually, if Luo Hanshan was able to get on that dragon door, he might be able to beat some of the geniuses at the same cultivation, which would be great training for him. But unfortunately, he had not been able to handle the beasts’ screams. Otherwise, the gravity of that deep cliff would not be able to drag him down that easily. Missing this opportunity, Luo Hanshan would not be able to join another Hidden Dragon Rank competition because he would be too old by that time.

“You want to talk a walk with me? It is my first time here.” Offered Luo Hanshan.

“Of course!”

Ye Chen nodded.

The Hidden Dragon Ancient City was enormous. If counting with a family of four as a unit, then it could contain billions of families. However, all of the warriors that had entered the city were Clasping Yuan Realm warriors or above, so no one would like to share a room with someone else. Therefore, it was basically one person taking over one building, and the ones who were good friends would stay in the same area. Relatively, the streets here were very wild. Looking over, they were at least hundred meters’ wide. They were laid down with gray square stones which looked very ancient. If looked closely, one could see the shallow patterns on top of it.

The two walked on the street together as they admired the architecture of the building from the ancient era.

“The Life and Death Realm warriors could live for one thousand years, experiencing things that would take a normal person ten times of their lifetime. This ancient city was here for at least millions years, which is way older than all of the Life and Death Realm warriors.” Sensing the ancient aura from the buildings, Luo Hanshan could not help but comment.

Ye Chen said, “Everyone would die unless they had reached beyond the life and death.” This saying just came out of his mouth without thinking, but it then confused Ye Chen. ‘Will there be another realm beyond the Life and Death Realm?’

There were a lot of Clasping Yuan Realm warriors coming and going on the street. Suddenly, very loud noises came from the intersection in front of them.

“F***, my attacking power is only forty-two, how is this possible?”

“Mine is only forty-three. Let’s try again.”

“Hehe, mine is above fifty.”

Ye Chen was intrigued. He said to Luo Hanshan, “Let’s go have a look!”

There were a lot of people in that intersection. The two had to squeeze their way in to find a stone column standing in the middle of the intersection. It was three meters’ tall and one meter’s wide. There was a thin layer of crystal piece sticking around the lower part of the column and deeply carved in.

There were eight rows of crystal stones, ten of them for each row. A Clasping Yuan Realm warrior had knocked on the crystal part of the column and then fifty-three crystal stones had lit up. There were eighty crystal stones in total.

“This is for testing attacking power?” Luo Hanshan asked in surprise.

Ye Chen’s observation skill was much better than Luo Hanshan. He had realized that for Early Clasping Yuan Realm warriors, it would be really hard to reach beyond fifty stones, and Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors could basically reach between fifty to sixty stones, which meant this stones could sense the warriors’ cultivation. The first and second rows were for Mortal Realm warriors, the third and fourth rows would be for Condensing Reality Realm warriors, and the fifth and sixth rows were for Clasping Yuan Realm warriors. As for the seventh and eighth rows, they should be for Astral Reaching Realm warriors.

“I will try!” A young warrior walked up to the stone column.

Boom!

After kicking on the crystal piece, half of the stones had been lit up, reaching fifty-four stones.

“Hmm, he should be at Mid Clasping Yuan Realm. It was even higher than that Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior.”

If sixty stones would be the limit of a Clasping Yuan Realm warrior, then fifty-four stones were already very high for attacking power. Plus, he was only at the Mid Clasping Yuan Realm.

Luo Hanshan could not help but go up and test himself, the result of which was forty-five. Not bad, but not that great either.

“I did not expect here to be fighting power testing column. Let’s play!”

Another young warrior had walked out. Someone had recognized him, it was indeed the second disciple of the rank 6 martial institution – the Sunset Martial School – Qian Yun, who was one of the hotshots for competing for the top ten places.

Boom!

The crystal stones had been lit up, reaching sixty stones. A Perfect score! Furthermore, the sixtieth stone had been bright for a long while, and eventually, its color turned red, which meant his attacking power had reached beyond sixty stones but had not reached sixty-one stone yet.