Ding! Ding! Ding!
In the morning, the joyful sound of the bells came from the Martial Arts Plaza on the Windy Mountain, one after another, the ringing sound could be heard miles away.
On the way up the mountain, all the talented warriors joined the group from different directions.
Among these people, there were leaders of some small martial institutions, leaders of some big families, chief commander of some security companies, heads of some gangs, chairmen of a few unions, and even some of the mayors from the cities close by. There were also some of the top warriors in the world.
“Leader Lu, nice to see you here!”
“Of course, I would never miss this. The Sky Cloud Martial School is the No.1 martial institution in this area, our small institution can never compete with it, so this time I brought some of my top disciples with me to watch the competition. I hope they can learn something from this.”
“Hehe, I also brought two young warriors from the union, I want to show them what a real genius is, and put them back in their places.”
“Fair enough!”
Most of these people knew each other from way back, although they did not normally hang out, every time they got together, they would walk together and chat a little. And during their chatters, you could really tell who was the most powerful person of the group, because only the strongest one would be surrounded by others, instead of him sucking up to the others.
In the living area of the inner disciples, Ye Chen closed the gate behind him, and then started to walk towards the crowd.
“So many people!” After arriving at the plaza, Ye Chen was a bit surprised.
Last year, he had to lie in bed for a month after the fight with Wang Gang, because of that, he missed the chance to watch the competition. So it was his first time seeing ten thousand people gathered in the Martial Arts Plaza.
There were ten huge platforms, and each platform was round in shape, with a height of three meters. Combined with the other platforms, it formed a flower pattern, which looked very delicate and classy. Around the ten platforms, there was a circle of VIP seats, and above those VIP seats, it was the audience seats. From far away, the whole Martial Arts Plaza looked like a wok, the bottom of the wok was where the competition took place, and the walls of the wok were the seating for the audiences.
“Ye Chen, here!” There was an open space between the platforms and the VIP seats, a big group of inner disciples were standing there. Wu Zongming waved at Ye Chen from there.
With firm steps, Ye Chen walked over.
Wu Zongming said excitedly, “The third platform and the seventh platform are right by each other, so we should just wait here together. But right now, I am a bit nervous, you see, all those people in those VIP seats are very important people, even your dad is here.”
Ye Chen followed Wu Zongming’s view, and spotted his father Ye Tianhao sitting in the VIP seats, along with his mother Shen Yuqing.
Ye Tianhao and Shen Yuqing smiled at Ye Chen, you could see the expectation and proudness in their eyes. They had never imagined that their son would be able to attend the Sky Cloud Martial School Inner Disciple Ranking Competition, and even if they did, they would never have thought their son to be anywhere else besides the bottom of the ranking. But now, everything was different. They knew that Ye Chen had already reached the Mid Condensing Reality Realm, plus his talent in martial arts, they were confident that he would be in the top two hundred.
Ye Chen gave them a confident look so that they would not worry about him, then he looked away.
Right then, almost all the inner disciples had arrived, except the top ten inner disciples.
All of a sudden!
All the outer disciples sitting in the audience started to cheer.
“The top ten inner disciples are here! The one in the middle is the ‘Blood Shadow Blade’ brother Meng Chong, right?”
“Next to brother Meng Chong, it is the ‘Iron Fan’ Yi Qing, brother Xiao Ye, sister Zhou Ruo, brother Pei Shaoqing. They look so powerful!”
Just like the others, all the inner disciples looked over to the ten people present in that direction.
These ten people were indeed the top ten inner disciples. Some of them had an incredible aura with murderous intent,; some of them were two meters tall, looking like ancient demonic beasts, some of them had a smile on their face and looked extremely friendly, some of them looked like they were floating on the ground and some of them were expressionless, looking extremely cold.
The ten of them walked together, bringing up an extraordinary wave of pressure towards everyone in the audience. All those powerful people in the VIP seats were also attracted by them and turned their heads to them.
“So powerful! They can control people just by their auras.” Wu Zongming gasped.
Ye Chen smiled a little, he did not feel much different. After looking around, he realized that most of the people around him had lost their confidence. Of course, there were a few people who were even more excited after they saw the top ten disciples. ’As long as I could beat them, I can be one of them! What is life about, besides being successful? Who doesn't want to be at the top and be admired by others? And being one of the top ten disciples could be a great starting point.’
Since the platforms were in different directions, all the top ten disciples went on their separate ways. The ones walking towards Ye Chen were the ‘Flying in the wind’ Feng Ping, ‘Mad Man’ Xiao Ye, and Zhou Ruo. They maintained three steps gap from each other, neither too close, nor too far.
“I don’t see anyone powerful over here in our groups!” Feng Ping looked around and said to Xiao Ye and Zhou Ruo.
Xiao Ye had his hair down, covering his shoulders, which made him look extremely wild. He said, “They are still too young, in the past five years, the craziest time was when only three people were pushed off the top ten. Normally, it would be a surprise if two people are off the rank.”
Feng Ping moved his eyes away from the group, he did not really care who he was about to battle with, since warriors below the Late Condensing Reality Realm were very unlikely to be in the top ten. Over the past five years, only the core disciple Xu Jing had broken this pattern, even Zhu Mei was at the Late Condensing Reality Realm when she got in the top ten, before she became a core disciple.
Zhou Ruo said casually, “Don’t be too careless, you might trip yourself. It is not impossible for Sky Cloud Martial School to have another sister Xu Jing.”
Wu Zongming said to Ye Chen in a low voice, “You missed the ranking competition the one before last year, sister Xu Jing who was only at the Mid Condensing Reality Realm and had never lost a battle. She ended up being the top of all the inner disciples. Only when she became a core disciple had Meng Chong finally gotten the chance to be ranked first.”
Ye Chen nodded, he still hadn’t gotten a chance to see how powerful Xu Jing was, even when she was in the North-West Basin, she did not seem to be using all her strength. So it was really hard to imagine where the limit of her power was. Not only her, every single one of the top ten inner disciples were extremely powerful, they all had the power to instantly kill any normal warriors at the same power level, so it was extremely hard to cross-levels and beat them, almost impossible.
Changing his tone, Wu Zongming continued to talk, “However, Meng Chong was still not very strong until last year. Now he is unstoppable. Someone said that his strength might already be able to be match with the top ten of the core disciples. He is just waiting to finish the ranking competition and then he can go become a core disciple.”
While the two of them were talking, the head elder of the Sky Cloud Martial School walked to the platform in the middle with extremely light steps.
After clearing his throat, the head elder said loudly, “Everyone, welcome to the annual Sky Cloud Martial School Inner Disciple Ranking Competition. Just like the previous years, all the contestants will be separated into ten groups, with an ace contestant as No.0 in each group. They would be joining the competition within each group after five rounds, all the battles before that would be counted as a win.
The competition is conducted by taking random draws. The one whose number had been drawn out had to come up to the platform and battle until there is a winner. In addition, the competition uses a scoring system, each battle you win will earn you two points, a battle with a tie earns you one point, if you lose then there will be no points for you. The people with top three scores in the team would be able to attend the final battles, and fight for the title of top ten inner disciples.”
“Without further ado, the ranking competition can officially begun.”
The plaza was once again filled with chatter, it only got louder and louder.
After nodding his head in satisfaction, the head elder flashed back to his seat among the other masters of the Sky Cloud Martial School.
Right next to each platform, all the attendants had already started drawing lots.
“The first group, No.3 against No.9.”
“The second group, No.5 against No.23!”
“The third group, …”
After hearing their numbers, some of the inner disciples walked up the platforms and started the battles with their opponents.
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Translated by : Sheryl
Edited by : Jaggerjakk, Orphire
From XianXiaWorldchaptererror();