Kong Zhi Continued speaking ‘’The top 100 most talented people will proceed to the main competition, the rest will be eliminated’’

Many people thought it was unfair for them to be eliminated in the preliminary round before even getting a chance to fight, but this is how the cultivation world worked. Your talent for cultivation is everything, it indicates how far you can reach and how strong you can become during your lifetime. The sect only wants to put their resources into talented people that can bring them success in the future.

At this point it is important to mention that being a cultivator was not your only choice in the cultivation world. The world had countless mortals who had no talent for cultivation and therefore lived ordinary lives. The difference was that their lifespan was much shorter than that of a cultivator. Some people that had low cultivation talent chose to become alchemists or blacksmiths. Some others even sought to change their fate by risking their life in tombs left by famous cultivators.

In some corners of the world, certain alchemists and blacksmiths were treated with greater respect than cultivators. Especially the ones that were talented in cultivation, alchemy and blacksmithing at the same time.

But at the end of the day, a strong cultivator held absolute authority and power in this world, some alchemists and blacksmiths had a great reputation because they excelled in what they did and made great fortunes because of it. But if it ever came down to a dispute between a strong cultivator and a famous alchemist, the strong cultivator would obliterate him.

At this point people started lining up in front of the crystal, there were about a thousand of them that wanted to participate. Wentian and Bingyue were in the back of the line, they were wearing outer sect robes and did not want to attract attention to themselves. So they kid behind the crowd of inner core disciples.

Then suddenly Kong Feng spoke from the first pavilion to his father ‘’Father, we should let the core disciples do the test first since it’s going to take too long for all these people to finish the test’’

Kong Zhi smiled at his son, then turned back and looked at Cao Chen, who in turn nodded to Kong Zhi and said ‘’sure why not? They are core disciples after all, they should have privileges’’

‘’Okay then, we will start from the core disciples, Feng’er you go first then’’ said Kong Zhi proudly with a confident expression. He was sure that this son of his will most likely be the most talented out of the bunch, but even if he wasn’t, he was still the strongest so there was no need to worry at all.

Kong Feng walked out of his pavilion and people started cheering for him, he was really popular in the sect and a lot of people aspired to be like him. That was probably also one of the reasons why he disliked Tianshen so much and wanted to take the legacy disciple position from him, because now he had to share the glory and attention with someone else besides Cao Bai.

He walked up to the crystal and touched it with his hand, then released his soul power. The crystal then started changing colors, after a moment it settled on a deep blue, which meant that he was in the upper limit of the blue category.

The crowd burst into cheers, their first core disciple had a great talent. Some people were now wondering what kind of talent Tianshen had and were regretting that he was not participating in the competition since they felt like they were missing out on a good show.

But before everyone knew it, Kong Feng spoke again, but this time he was directly speaking to Tianshen.

‘’brother Tianshen, everyone knows that you are now our legacy disciple. But not many people know what kind of talent you have. I don’t mean to be rude, but how do we know that you are even qualified to sit in the position that you are sitting in now?’’ he said with a smirk, totally not trying to hide his hostility.

Cao Bai that was watching from her pavilion had a smirk on her face ‘’this idiot doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into’’ she thought.

Tianshen looked at his with a blank expression and replied ‘’I have nothing to prove to anyone here, the chief and elders picked me to be your legacy disciple, are you saying that you don’t trust their judgment?’’

Kong Feng looked taken aback, he did not expect this Tianshen to be so good at arguing. He hurried to fix the situation ‘’Of course I’m not saying that, but I think everyone here is still curious about what talent our legacy disciple possesses. I’m asking you if you want to participate with us so everyone can witness it. If you don’t dare, you don’t have to of course’’

Tianshen’s face went from expressionless to a slight smile ‘’so be it, I will go after everyone is done’’ he replied to Kong Feng. If this Kong Feng really wanted to be humiliated so much then he wouldn’t mind doing it.

Kong Feng was walking back to his pavilion while Cao Bai was passing next to him to go next. She was not wearing any armor which surprised people, she looked even more beautiful. Their eyes met and she said to him ‘’you think your talent is better that everyone else here? Don’t make me laugh’’

People seemed to also cheer for Cao Bai a lot, although most of her fans were males unlike Kong Feng. She then touched the crystal and released her soul power, Tianshen could feel that it was clearly more powerful than the one Kong Feng released so he already knew what the result would be and he smiled.

After a moment the crystal turned deep blue, and then slowly changed to light purple, and settled there. People started cheering even louder than before, nobody expected that Cao Bai would be more talented than Kong Feng. That means it was only a matter of time before her cultivation passed his.

Cao Chen laughed loudly while Kong Zhi had an ugly expression on his face but then quickly calmed down. ‘’This doesn’t mean anything’’ he thought.

Cao Bai was not walking back with a smile and announced to everyone with a loud voice ‘’this year’s first place is definitely mine!’’ while lifting her fist to the sky.

People were cheering, their blood was boiling, and they were excited for the competition that was going to begin soon.

‘’If I was you I wouldn’t be so sure’’ thought Tianshen to himself while smiling.

Next came the boy from the 3rd pavilion ‘’Miss Cao Bai, don’t underestimate the rest of us, you might be surprised by the end of this competition’’ he said with a smile and then proceeded to touch the crystal.

It instantly turned deep blue and then stopped at light purple like Cao Bai. People were surprised nobody expected this. One purple was already amazing but two from three was really unexpected.

The youth calmly walked back while still having a smile on his face. He did not mind that people were cheering less for him.

Tianshen turned to Cao Chen and asked ‘’chief, who is that boy?’’

Cao Chen replied ‘’His name is Jin Ju, he joined our sect last year and climbed the ladders pretty fast and at the end claimed 3rd place in the last year’s ranking tournament’’

‘’you should watch out’’ said Tianshen with a serious look.

‘’you noticed too?” Asked Cao Chen with a surprised face.

Tianshen nodded to him and then they stayed silent while watching the rest of the preliminaries.

The talent test was proceeding smoothly and there were no surprises anymore after the first three core disciples. The 4th ranked core disciple had a deep red color crystal, the 5th which was Kong Feng’s brother Kong Jie got a light blue, then the rest of the core disciples all got deep red.

Then the inner disciples started approaching and touching the crystal one by one, some of them got white and others got yellow, then there was the occasional red, a couple of them even got light blue.

The elders were all keeping track of the colors so they can rank the top hundred. The elders understood how the crystal functions better than anyone else since they were the ones that created it. Yes, the crystal only had five colors to it but the result also depended a lot on how light or deep the color is. Being strong, experienced cultivators, their eyesight was much sharper than any disciple’s.

Then came Wentian’s turn. It was at that moment when most people finally noticed that there were two people with outer sect disciple robes within the participants.

‘’Shameless bastards wanted to sneak into the competition, they deserve punisgment!’’ some people shouted from the crowd.

‘’Are they trying to get themselves killed or something?’’ commented the 10th core disciple with disdain.

‘’Haha, insects will be insects at the end of the day’’ laughed Kong Jie

Kong Zhi who was the main judge besides Cao Chen looked at Wentian and Bingyue and said ‘’you know what if your cultivation level is not sufficient you will die?’’

Wentian nodded with a confident look. As far as he was concerned this was his time to shine, he spent the past two years in the outer sect getting bullied by others and learned almost absolutely nothing. Then he spent two weeks with Tianshen and advanced by leaps and bounds, he wanted to make his brother Tianshen proud and nothing would stand in his way.

‘’If you are sure then proceed’’ said Kong Zhi with a nonchalant look, they could both die for all he cared. The only thing he cared for was for Kong Feng to get first place again.

Wentian walked up to the crystal and before touching it, he looked at Tianshen who was sitting on the platform. Tianshen smiled at him and nodded.

‘’Look guys, eldest brother Tianshen just nodded at him’’ someone said

‘’Wait aren’t those two the disciples that Tianshen took from the outer sect? Could it be that they already reached 5th Core formation realm? That’s unthinkable!’’ someone else said.

Almost everyone noticed the brief interaction Wentian had with Tianshen and understood the connection. Most people already knew that there were two more people living on the lonely peak with Tianshen, and they were both outer sect disciples. But rumors said that one of them defeated two Ice God sect inner disciples when they went to the lonely peak to cause trouble.

Everyone was now curious as to how these two would do.

Wentian then touched the crystal, it didn’t even change colors before it settled on one, like what happened with the others. This time when Wentian touched it, instantly turned a very deep purple color and almost started turning black but Wentian suddenly took his hand away, and silently walked back towards the line.

Tianshen suddenly smiled brightly ‘’so he did it, I expected nothing less’’ he thought to himself.

Everyone was astonished, some elders had a smile on their face while a couple of others had an ugly expression. Cao Chen was smiling and turned towards his right ‘’Tianshen, your methods are indeed extraordinary, how did you manage to make them grow so much in such a short amount of time?’’ he asked curiously.

Tianshen just smiled back at Cao Chen and did not reply. Cao Chen took no offense from that, he was already used to Tianshen being mysterious and he did not mind Tianshen not telling him his methods. He was happy that he stumbled upon Tianshen and thought that he made the right choice of risking to make him the legacy disciple.

Then Bingyue walked up to the crystal, she was very shy and never did well around huge crowds like this. She was trembling a bit and was obviously quite nervous. Unlike Wentian, she had zero confidence in herself, nobody except Tianshen ever praised her or showed that they care.

While she was still looking down on the floor, being nervous. Suddenly someone touched her hand, she trembled a bit and looked up. The she saw Tianshen’s face smiling at her while holding her hand.

‘’There is nothing to be afraid of Bingyue, whatever happens I’m always going to be there to protect you, if you fail I will help you succeed, if you fall I will pick you up, if someone wants to hurt you I will slaughter them, there is nothing in this world that should make you nervous or afraid when you are by my side’’ said Tianshen with a smile.

For Bingyue, Tianshen’s voice right now was like that of a guardian angel. She suddenly felt safe and more confident that she ever felt before. Then Tianshen disappeared and reappeared back on his seat. Many people in the crowd did not even see how he moved which amazed them.

‘’What a great movement technique’’ whispered Cao Bai to herself

She saw how close Tianshen and Xia Bingyue were and she could not help but feel a bit jealous. But she suppressed those feelings very fast.

Xia Bingyue gathered up her courage and touched the crystal while unleashing her soul power.

Much like Wentian, the crystal instantly turned deep purple and then black but Bingyue also took her hand away in time before it completely turned black.

People were surprised, Kong Zhi clearly stated that purple was the last color and mentioned nothing about black but two people looked like they were going to get it before they obviously stopped on purpose. People cheered for Bingyue, they found her really cute so everyone took a liking to her, plus he talent was monstrous.

Then about a dozen more people tried out the crystal without any significant results. That was when Tianshen stood up and walked towards the crystal with an emotionless face. Some elders and disciples that witnessed the Ice God sect incident knew what it means when Tianshen’s expression turns blank and emotionless, that is when the inner demon comes out, it is like he is a totally different person. Some elders knew that he was generally a very cheerful and polite person, and especially so with the people that were treating him with respect. But they also knew that there was another side of him that was reserved only for the unlucky bastards who tried to stand in his way or humiliated the people close to him. For those people he was capable of turning into a God of judgment that valued human lives no more than the lives of bugs.

Tianshen stood in front of the crystal and released his soul power without even touching it. Everyone suddenly felt an intense pressure, it felt like they were suffocating but they still tried their best to keep watching the crystal.

But they were disappointed because before they knew it, the crystal instantly turned black and after a second it shattered into pieces.

It was dead silent now and nobody was speaking, if a needle fell to the ground now everyone would probably hear it.

Tianshen then turned emotionlessly towards Kong Feng who was now sitting in his pavilion, completely astonished ‘’Convinced?’’ he asked him while looking him straight in the eyes.

Kong Feng felt like those eyes resembled two dark holes that could swallow everything in this world.