During this rest day, the judging panel announced the namelist of the top 64. Both Xie Cang and Bai Shuang’s personal students were in it.
Normally, it would have been an absolutely dazzling achievement. But this year, it was a bit lackluster because all of Sun Mo’s personal students were in the top 64.
Hence, those reporters were as though they went crazy as they kept trying to find the origin stories of Sun Mo and his students.
Right now, Sun Mo was an extremely popular rising star. Who cared about Bai Shuang from the Skyraise Academy or Xie Xuan from the Black White Academy or Xie Cang from the Jixia Academy?
No one was interested in them. The citizens wanted to read about Sun Mo’s news.
Right now, as long as any newspaper had stories about Sun Mo, they would be selling like hot cakes. The volume of sales per newspaper had reached over tens of thousands of copies, almost surpassing their yearly sales.
Hence, Sun Mo easily gained loads of favorable impression points just by sitting at home.
Although the favorable impression points came in bit by bit, there were many people living in this city after all. In just a day, he collected over 30,000 favorable impression points.
All these points came from the citizens of the city. Some people even went to investigate Sun Mo’s hotel and brought their children over, wanting him to accept their children as his personal students.
This scene caused the other examinees of the hotel to feel extremely envious.
However, Sun Mo tactfully rejected them all. This impulsive behavior would never be accepted by him. What if the student or their parents regretted it in the future?
At the same time, the namelist of the top 64 came out, and the lot drawing ceremony was held as well.
Sun Mo had the qualifications to represent his three students in drawing lots, but he allowed Xuanyuan Po and the others to do it themselves. After all, the battles belonged to them.
Actually, Sun Mo had thought of getting Lu Zhiruo to draw the lots for them. However, he was afraid because the papaya girl’s luck was too good, she would manage to get superbly good lots for the three of them.
After all, Sun Mo didn’t really yearn to get the first place. He would prefer to see his students get more experience in combat and become stronger.
The 64 students were split into ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ groups, with 16 students each. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ groups were in the upper bracket, while ‘C’ and ‘D’ groups were in the lower bracket. The matches would be a 1-on-1, and the victor would proceed to the next round.
By counting like this, if one wanted to become the champion, they needed to fight a total of six matches.
The combatants had to fight one round every day until the semifinals came. Then, they would be permitted to rest for a day before they started the matches again.
16th on the lunar calendar was a good day where the moon shone brightly. It was very good for fighting.
Sun Mo’s group went together as they headed to the Westmountain Academy.
“Alright, don’t put on such a face anymore!”
Li Ziqi could tell that Xuanyuan Po was unhappy. She persuaded, “It’s just being placed in the ‘D’ group. Is there a need to feel sad about this?”
“Hmph!”
Xuanyuan Po snorted and turned away.
“Getting the championship trophy is the most solid proof of your strength!”
Tantai Yutang could understand the thoughts of the combat addict. The combat addicts wanted to draw ‘A’ group and also the #1 tag. “Speaking of which, why would a combat addict care about numberings and groupings?”
“#1 is the most beautiful number!”
Xuanyuan Po bluntly spoke.
“What aesthetic concept is that?”
The papaya girl munched on candy and felt surprised. “I feel that #8 is not bad!”
“Because you want to be wealthy?”
Ying Baiwu’s eyes brightened. She liked the number ‘8’ too.
“Nope!”
The papaya girl shook her head.
Li Ziqi smiled. She knew the word ‘8’ rhymes with ‘father’, and the papaya girl worshipped her father a lot.
“You are right, winning the championship is more beautiful than the number ‘1’!”
Xuanyuan Po instantly thought things through and revealed a happy smile on his face. He then stretched his hand out toward Lu Zhiruo. “Do you have some melon? Give me one piece!”
“Wait a minute!”
Lu Zhiruo quickly opened her bag and took out a smooth and round watermelon. She then lifted her right hand and smashed the melon open with a ‘kacha’ sound.
The watermelons from Westmountain City were one of the best items to quench one’s thirst in summer. It was an absolute necessity.
Li Ziqi was speechless, mentally musing how good it would be if Lu Zhiruo’s combat strength was as proficient as how she cut open melons.
Zhang Yanzong who was following behind them had a face filled with black lines. He was similarly speechless. (Do you guys treat me as non-existent? No matter what, I’m also a competitor for first place, alright?)
(Is my presence really that weak?)
“Eat some melon!”
The papaya girl passed a piece of melon over.
“Oh!”
Zhang Yanzong caught it and smiled happily. He then passed it to Ying Baiwu. “Baiwu, eat some melon!”
Zhang Yanzong was in the ‘C’ group, while Jiang Leng and Ying Baiwu were in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ group respectively.
“If everything goes smoothly, Teacher Sun’s students could join forces during the champion battle!”
Xia Yuan felt envious. If they succeeded, Sun Mo’s fame would be incomparably bright without comparison!
They arrived at the battle dojo.
“Teacher Sun, I’m going to the spectator stands.”
Xia Yuan bade farewell and watched with some envy as Sun Mo and Gu Xiuxun led their personal students backstage.
Zheng Hao had wanted to say that he would work hard so his teacher would be able to join such a competition in the future. But in the end, he didn’t dare to say such a thing.
“Zheng Hao, it’s a good thing to know your limits, but you also have to have self-confidence!”
Xia Yuan guided and rubbed his head. “In my eyes, you are not in any way inferior to Sun Mo’s students!”
“Teacher!”
Zhang Hao’s eyes were a little red.
“I’m already very satisfied that you got into the top 100. Let’s go and watch the match.”
Xia Yuan led the way.
When Sun Mo entered the resting area, one-third of the examinees here stood up and took the initiative to greet him.
“Teacher Sun, good morning!”
Xie Cang walked over and even introduced his personal student to Sun Mo.
Bai Shuang was more reserved and nodded from afar.
“Teacher Sun!”
Fang Wuji similarly introduced his personal student. “He’s my student, Duan Qiao, you have seen him before!”
Liu Mubai suddenly didn’t know what to feel when he saw this scene. Sun Mo’s reputation was much much greater compared to his and he was clearly older than Sun Mo!
(Also, Fang Wuji, why do you have to sound so humble when meeting with Sun Mo?)
In the past, Liu Mubai felt a little happy with regard to the beautiful title ‘twin jade annulus of Jinling’. But now, he no longer wished to be ranked alongside Fang Wuji.
Actually, even if Liu Mubai didn’t want to admit it, he also understood that once they returned to Jinling after this examination, no one would mention the ‘twin jade annulus of Jinling’ any longer.
Because the #1 great teacher of Jinling would be born – Sun Mo.
“Teacher Liu, Sun Mo of your esteemed school is truly impressive!”
An examinee at the side probed, “I heard that he’s also the fiance of An Xinhui? How is their relationship?”
Liu Mubai immediately grew depressed. (If you don’t know how to speak, just shut up!)
But after hearing An Xinhui’s name, Liu Mubai’s weakened battle intent rose again. (I might have lost, but my personal student has not.)
“Zisheng, do your best!”
Liu Mubai encouraged.
“Mn!”
Han Zisheng wanted to fight for his teacher’s glory.
In the corner, Han Xi and Hua Jianmu were conserving their energy. When they saw Sun Mo arriving, Hua Jianmu subconsciously stood up, wanting to greet him. After all, Sun Mo had helped him before.
“What are you doing?”
Han Xi frowned.
“Eh!”
Hua Jianmu started and sat back. His teacher had lost to Sun Mo. Even if she didn’t hate him, she definitely wouldn’t admire him. Hence, his behavior might cause his teacher to feel unhappy.
“Ignore everyone else, just focus on meditation. When you win the championship, you will also enjoy all this attention.”
Han Xi placed all her hope on Hua Jianmu. (I’ve lost, but I still have a personal student. At the very least, I can prove that my teaching capabilities don’t lose out to all of you.)
At 9 a.m, the competition officially started.
Jiang Leng was the third to start a match. His opponent was a girl.
After the two exchanged greetings, Jiang Leng immediately unleashed his ferocious attacks. The deadman face had no looks of cherishing the fairer sex on his face. He was as fierce as he had always been.
In the spectator stands, Bai Wenzhang frowned. It was actually Jiang Leng. Moreover, all the spirit runes on his body really seemed to have been removed completely.
Although Jiang Leng had learned a new cultivation art, his battle style and strategy were still similar to what Bai Wenzhang remembered.
After all, he had taught and guided Jiang Leng for five years.
According to Bai Wenzhang’s habit, after an experiment failed, the guinea pig would be put to death to ensure that the secrets of the spirit runes wouldn’t be leaked. But because he was very fond of Jiang Leng, he chose to abandon him instead of putting him to death. That was the first time he had done something like this.
Every few days, Jiang Leng had to endure the pain from the backlash of the spirit runes. From Bai Wenzhang’s point of view, Jiang Leng would definitely not be able to endure it and would choose to commit suicide.
However, he didn’t expect that Jiang Leng not only managed to continue living, but he was even leading a good life.
He felt like saying ‘As expected of a child that I heavily regarded in the past’.
Very soon, Bai Wenzhang discarded all these unnecessary emotions and purely observed Jiang Leng with the pure eyes of a researcher, collecting data.
Five minutes later, Jiang Leng won easily. From the start until the end, he securely held the advantage.
In the preparation area, the examinees all had heavy expressions.
No one had expected that the youth with the word ‘cripple’ on his forehead was so strong. He definitely had the strength to be ranked within the top three.
Hua Jianmu heaved a sigh of relief as a look of rejoice appeared on his face. If he hadn’t found a dawn potion, he would surely not be a match for Jiang Leng.
“Teacher, I was lucky to not have disgraced you!”
Jiang Leng reported.
“Well done!”
Sun Mo praised, not surprised by this result at all. After all, a genius with extremely high potential value would simply be this powerful.
Jiang Leng sat down but because of Sun Mo’s praise, his lips were slightly curled upward and hints of a smile could be seen.
When Li Ruolan saw this, she immediately knew that there must be a story between Sun Mo and Jiang Leng. She had to dig it out and if she managed to do so, the story would definitely sell like hot cakes.
Seven matches later, it was finally Ying Baiwu’s turn. She was in the ‘B’ group.
For this match, the spectators witnessed the gorgeous performance of archery. Ying Baiwu’s opponent was a tall and muscular male, but before he could even get near the iron-headed girl, he was already crying from all the fired arrows.
He truly stood no chance!
It was then Zhang Yanzong’s turn. He spent some time before he finally won. After that, Sun Mo saw Mei Ziyu’s personal student, who was a mysterious girl wearing a cloak, easily winning against her opponent. At last, it was Xuanyuan Po’s turn.
“Why is it another person surnamed ‘Ding’?
When Xuanyuan Po heard his opponent’s name, he cluelessly scratched his hair. Did he poke the hornet’s nest that was the Ding Clan? Why were there so many opponents with the surname ‘Ding’?
The combat addict didn’t know that ‘Ding’ wasn’t a surname. It was Ding from ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’*. They represented the fourth generation of combatants from the Dragonspirit Manor.
Just when Sun Mo wanted to use his Divine Sight to survey his target when he heard the name ‘Ding Er’, the sound of the system notification rang out.
[1] The chinese pronunciation of the word ‘8’ sounds similar to ‘wealth’.
[2] The alphabet ‘D’ in chinese is pronounced as Ding.