Chapter 31 – Plateau Empire Youth Tournament

Every year, the Plateau Empire would hold a tournament for the newly awakened youth. Any 13 year old was eligible to participate. The primary point of this was to see the new and rising talents within their own empire. However, after a few years of this, the Plateau Empire’s youth tournament turned into an international contest since the Plateau Empire was not a direct subordinate to any of the peak powers.

A few years ago, Hai Yun had especially helped his best friend cheat his way to the championships. That friend was a boy named Long Zhiyun, who had awoken with a Blood Phantom appiration and inspired a heavenly phenomenon two days before the competition. At the time, Long Zhiyun was the only person on the continent known to have awoken with the supposed “Divine Physique”. Sadly, two days of cultivation would not easily match the other competitors who had been training for a few months. Thus, a few cheats were put to use.

At the time, Hai Yun was just breaking into the Ancestor rank for alchemists and had already been able to influence the entire tournament. This time, not only was he a Divine Ranked Alchemist, he was even competing after having awoken for more than a month and had reached the 3rd level of the Nascent Spirit stage on the day of his awakening. It was partly because of this that he refused to practice any martial arts till the few hours before the tournament.

His reasoning was that if Long Zhiyun had been able to win the tournament with 2 days of training at the 1st level of the Nascent Spirit Stage, then shouldn’t he be able to win with only a third of the training time? Thus, he refused to practice any martial arts and just wholy absorbed himself in alchemy to prepare for this. It was also a test of his own latent abilities and future potential. If he couldn’t even do this much, he shouldn’t even dream of toppling 21 peak powers.

Thus, precisely 16 hours before the tournament in the Isle of Wailing Souls

“Come on boy, you look so disheveled and its only been a few minutes. Stretch those muscles and don’t you dare put down those weights,” Xue Yi roared.

Hai Yun was currently walking up a hill with 50 kg of weight strapped to his back and each hand stretched all the way out to his side holding another 50 kg weight. He was being forced to walk without allowing either arm to come down to his side even a tiny bit.

This training was the most basic and crude form of strength training where one would be forced to support high amounts of weight and rip ones muscles. This not only built physical endurance, it was the easiest way to train ones body.

The first parts of cultivation is to train the body so it becomes capable of bearing the load of absorbing the qi of Heaven and Earth later on. Thus, to increase in level to the peak of the Nascent Spirit Stage, one only needed to raise the strength of their physical bodies.

“Ok, enough. I am tired now,” Hai Yun cried out exhausted.

Being an alchemist in his past life, he had naturally not bothered training his body like this. He just wore a few kilogram weights in his robes and walked around for a few months. When that was too light, he added a few more weights. Coupled with his bodies natural growth, he had reached the peak of the Nascent Spirit Stage in about 2 and half years, with the crappiest foundation known in the continent.

Now, to ensure he had a solid foundation, things would be a bit more difficult. Or so he thought…

“It’s only been a few minutes and you can’t keep up already! At your age, I would push myself to keep training till my muscles turned red!” Xue Yi scolded.

On the side, Qin Cheng was learning some basic theory from Si Wang on combat and how to counter an opponents moves. Si Wang had especially created a projection of simulated battles where fake people were fighting using the techniques Hai Yun had described from his experience.

With Qin Cheng’s innate talent, she had also broken through to the 3rd level of the Nascent Spirit stage in the last month of hard training. She also did a whole lot less complaining through it.

After a few moments a dull thud sound could be heard. Hai Yun had slipped and rolled down the hill.

Seeing this Xue Yi faced palmed himself in frustration as he let out an exasperated sigh. However, it was because of this that he never noticed Hai Yun swallowing a small bead sized pill on his route downhill.

This small pill was actually a spirit supplement. Hai Yun was well aware that he did not have the so called “heart of martial arts” nor the willpower to use hard work for improvement. He was and shall always remain an alchemist for that reason. This spirit supplement pill helped him avoid becoming tired mentally and rapidly recovered the energy in his muscles.

One should note that there was no better place to learn about the makings of the body than the Crystal Ocean Alchemy Sect. Over the thousands of years of their existence they had already determined the functions of various human organs and compiled this information into massive chronicles. The benefit of this was apparent very quickly in medicinal alchemy. When one understands the inner working of the body, it is easier to determine which type of elixir would cure the ailment.

Hai Yun, had memorized these books when he was creating his first Ancestor ranked elixirs. That was because Ancestor ranked elixirs all shared a certain quality. That was the ability of the elixir in specialized targeting. For example, a normal alchemist would be able to concoct a weak elixir that is consumed through the mouth and spreads its power through the digestive system and the main internal organs but as it gets further away from the source of the elixir it becomes weaker until there is practically no effect in the muscles at all.

A Grandmaster ranked alchemist would be able to concoct a stronger elixir whose potency could reach the muscles. Thus, the difference between a normal alchemist and a grandmaster is simply based on the potency of the elixir. For a more potent elixir one only needs a stronger soul force, thus there are many grandmaster ranked alchemists in the various sects.

However, to become an Ancestor ranked alchemist increased soulforce is not the only qualification. The other qualification is to create elixirs which are capable of specialized targeting. For example, a grandmaster elixir would spread throughout all the muscles in the body equally, but an Ancestor ranked elixir would be able to focus itself on a single particular muscle. This is what it means for an elixir to have the ability of specialized targeting. And in order for one to create even a basic amount of targeting within their elixirs requires not just lots of soulforce, but incredibly precise control over soulforce as well as every single ingredient within the elixir. Only an Ancestor ranked alchemist, can be considered a true alchemist. In the Crystal Ocean Alchemy sect there may have been hundreds of Ancestor ranked alchemists, but outside the Crystal Ocean Alchemy sect there could barely be 150 total. And no peak power had more than 5 under their control. This was the rarity of Ancestor ranked alchemists.

The pill which Hai Yun snuck into his mouth, was actually one of the best quality Ancestor ranked elixirs in existence. Even the most prodigal members of the younger generation would only be able to taste 3-4 in their life time. It was an elixir which was capable of seeking the tears in muscle and instantly rebuilding the muscle cells in that location, allowing people to build muscle atleast 50x’s faster than the normal rate!

However, this elixir had been further buffed by the incredibly tenacious and highly spiritual herb Blue Silver Grass. This not only increased the potency of the elixir by nearly one time, it also had the effect of reducing ones exhaustion by resupplying one with mental force! This ability alone would be enough to make any one of the peak powers masters be willing to spend a fortune for a single one of these pills just for this effect.

To be able to replenish ones mental strength was completely unheard of before this elixir. When two peak experts fight then they would both become tired after a long period of time, however if this pill were to be with one of them, than they could surely outlast the other and maintain a clear head while the opponent became more prone to mistakes due to the passage of time! If they were to know that such a godly medicine was made by a 13 year old child because he knew he didn’t have the willpower of a mainstream martial artists and were being popped into his mouth every 5 minutes they would probably gnash their teeth so hard their jaws break off.

…

“Somehow this disappointing idiot broke through a level of cultivation in a few hours… But in order to build muscles one must first work so hard that their muscles burn and then spend a day or two allowing their body to rest and reconstruct itself to become stronger. How did he manage to complete 2 days of training using less than ¼ of the maximum weight and suddenly increase his strength by a single fold! Even for the awakened Ocean Flame soul this shouldn’t be possible! How can one gain the strength of 400 kilograms by training by carrying only 50 kg weights! And why does he look as tired as a dog after holding that 50 kg block for only two and a half minutes!” Xue Yi scowled. No matter how he looked at this situation, it shouldn’t have been possible. If he knew that it was due to Hai Yun sneakily eating elixirs every time Xue Yi face palmed himself than he would probably puke out a pint of spirit blood.

…

“Brother Yue, why do there appear to be people from many different powers attending this tournament?” Qin Cheng whispered as she looked around the stadium.

She and Hai Yun had switched out of their disguises to register for this tournament. That was due to the Plateau Empire’s registration pillar, which was capable of seeing through disguises. Every person entering had to prick their finger and put a drop of blood on the pillar. The pillar would then use that blood to construct an image of what their face looked like as well as determine their age. This way, no one who was 14 could participate in the competition.

“There aren’t that many powers here. Only about 4 peak powers and a few subsidiary powers. The rest of the peak powers will go to the other tournaments,” Hai Yun explained.

“Other tournaments?” Qin Cheng questioned.

“Yeah, there are about 12 of these youth tournaments every year. One at the end of each month. Each of the peak powers will usually only go to one of them, which would be the one when their most promising 13 year old is exactly 13 years and 11 months old. This way they can train their super talent for 11 whole months and send them to the competition where they will already be at the top,” Hai Yun paused for a moment before continuing, “Don’t worry, after we win this one, we can head to the next one and win that one as well. There isn’t any reason for us to not go and win all the awards from all the tournaments. Considering that we are a few days less than 13 years and 1 month old, we could go and compete in 11 more of these…”

As she heard Hai Yun speak as if they had already won this tournament Qin Cheng’s nervousness from entering her first competition eased considerably.