Chapter 64: The Second Match Begins! A duel with no suspense regarding the outcome...
"Admit defeat!" the speaker said firmly and without any politeness.
The sword tip was an inch closer to his throat, almost piercing his skin. Ji Mingran lowered his gaze slightly, unmoved, and continued to look at the man on the next dueling platform.
Not far from her sat a man alone at one end of the cloud platform. He was dressed in a black robe and wore a bamboo hat. He was tall and aloof, with an indistinct face.
Ji Mingran wasn't the only one who noticed him.
"This disciple's injuries are far too severe; he probably won't last a quarter of an hour." The discussions among the cultivators on the observation platform drifted into my ears.
Blood kept oozing from the man's body, dripping onto the ground and forming a pool of blood.
Ji Mingran frowned, still unable to understand why her spirit healing array had no effect on Yu Tianxing.
The participants on the viewing platform were in an uproar, with waves of voices surrounding her. She had to turn her attention back to the second round of the spiritual competition.
Yes, the second round of the spiritual competition started without any warning.
She shattered the last illusion of the Realm of All Beings, the secret realm collapsed, and all those within it were released, then appeared one by one in the sky thousands of miles high, plummeting rapidly.
Fortunately, the disciples who managed to remain until the final illusion had some hidden tricks up their sleeves. They used their skills to descend to the nearest floating cloud platform.
That's right, a gimbal.
The second round of the spiritual competition took place on the Duel Platform, where each duel took place on floating platforms of varying sizes.
Ji Mingran was quite disheveled when he fell onto the cloud platform.
One moment she saw her former self vanish like a bubble, the next she was suddenly pulled away by a force. She quickly activated the Spirit Return Array, but perhaps because her cultivation level was too low, the power of the secret realm she absorbed turned her consciousness into a mess.
In her hazy consciousness, she realized she was falling rapidly. Her body instinctively used the teleportation array to control her falling speed. The teleportation array sent her to the nearest place, but as soon as she landed, she was hit by a strong force and thrown out.
She instinctively grabbed the edge of the ground to steady herself. Half of her body was suspended in mid-air, and in her blurry vision, she was holding onto the edge of the gondola. Below her was a height of tens of thousands of feet, and gondolas of various sizes were floating around her.
Turning her head, she saw the culprit who had rushed at her before she could react.
"Qi Refining?" The man held his sword against her, scrutinized her closely, relaxed his brows, and said dismissively, "To be able to hold out until the end of the competition, you do have some skill. I am a disciple of Xiaosu Pavilion, the challenger in the second round of the Spiritual Cultivation Competition, your opponent."
Perhaps believing victory was assured, the cultivator from Xiaosu Pavilion stopped his attack and even leisurely explained the rules of the competition to her.
The second round of the Spiritual Cultivation Competition is an attack-defense duel. The disciple eliminated in the final illusion of the first round becomes the attacker, while the disciple who holds out until the Mysterious Realm of All Beings is completely solved becomes the defender. The defender will randomly fall onto the platform where the attacker is located.
The challenger who wins will gain the qualification to participate in the next competition, while the defender who loses will not lose the qualification to participate in the next competition, but will lose the advantage in the next competition.
With a little thought, it's not hard to understand that the second competition is a chance for cultivators who were unfortunately eliminated in the final round of the illusion in the first competition to return to the arena.
Of course, if the opponent is a disciple from another sect, the defender will do everything in their power to prevent the opponent from returning to the competition. But if it is a teammate from the same sect, the defender will not say much and will concede defeat to allow their teammate to automatically advance to the next round.
According to the rules of the first competition, the contestant who solves the most illusions will have priority in the second competition.
In other words, the disciple who solves the most illusions in the first round can take this opportunity to bring their teammates back to the Spiritual Cultivation Competition.
Ji Mingran had just escaped from the Realm of All Beings and didn't know who the cultivator who had broken through the most illusions in the previous rounds was, but it certainly wasn't her.
Moreover, according to the competition rules, those who remain in the illusion until the end of the previous competition will enter the second duel once they leave the illusion.
The eliminated disciples are able to adjust themselves to their best fighting state while waiting for the challenger to appear, and take the initiative to strike before the challenger can react after leaving the illusion.
She landed awkwardly, and Ji Mingran's heart leaped into his throat, thinking of Yu Tianxing, who had been seriously injured in the previous match...
Before leaving the Realm of All Beings, she was closest to Yu Tianxing. Logically, the two should not be far apart after leaving the secret realm. Ji Mingran looked around and, sure enough, saw Yu Tianxing, who looked like a blood-soaked man, on the cloud platform next door.
He sat crookedly on the stone ground of the cloud platform, supporting his body with one hand and raising the other, his index finger slightly raised. An invisible sharpness in the air went straight for the throat of the challenger opposite him, who was frozen in place and unable to move.
Yu Tianxing turned his head slightly to one side, causing his straw hat to hang askew, his chin completely hidden in the shadows.
He was looking at her too.
Ji Mingran felt slightly relieved. Although blood was gushing from his body, it seemed that he could still handle this duel.
The cloud platform beneath her feet floated and moved, and the distance between the cloud platforms where she and Yu Tianxing were located grew farther and farther away, while other cloud platforms floated in from the sky.
On each cloud platform, the cultivators launched fierce attacks, with a constant stream of crackling and booming sounds. The lightning and illusory wind phenomena caused by their spells were dazzling.
This is quite interesting, Ji Mingran thought to herself. She wondered if her friends would be on the next cloud platform that floated by.
Her performance was witnessed by countless observers and practitioners.
"This is like giving up altogether; it's not like they're even looking for a fight."
"I was actually quite looking forward to it, thinking that she would be different since she was the first one to come out."
Even the observers felt that the second round of the competition started suddenly. They were watching with great interest as the participating disciples battled various monsters on the projection stone, when suddenly, the projection stone image froze, and the cloud platforms carrying the eliminated participating disciples floated in the air one by one, while the cloud shadows on the horizon changed and the colorful glow of the sunset was dazzling.
The cultivators were shocked to realize that the secret realm of all beings in the first competition had been broken.
Then, the young ancestor of the Dingsheng Sect appeared on the cloud platform first. The subsequent battles on the cloud platforms were tense and exciting, but her cloud platform remained silent. She sat there blankly, looking around at the cloud platforms, and had not made any outstanding performance so far.
The strength they displayed was, as always, disappointing.
That makes sense; a Qi Refining cultivator against a Foundation Establishment cultivator is a foregone conclusion, unless she can unleash some divine weapon. Moreover, even a superior spiritual weapon requires a certain level of cultivation to unleash its true potential.
She herself has no cultivation or foundation whatsoever.
The cultivators on the observation platform had already decided the outcome of this cloud platform duel, and no longer spared their attention to observe it. They were still incredulous: "So, how did the Dingsheng Sect manage to overcome the final illusionary barrier?"
"It couldn't possibly be her doing. She was only concerned with escaping on the Qilin beast. We all saw it."
The projection stone showed the scene of the four members of Dingsheng Sect entering the city until they were blocked by the faceless doll. Everyone could see that only two people had broken away from the group: Guan Wangzhen, who stayed behind to guard the city gate, and Ji Mingran, who rode away on a Qilin beast.
Because the Qilin Beast was too fast, the projection stone lost track of Ji Mingran's aura, and no one knew where she had gone.
Fortunately, the projected vision did not lose sight of Guan Wangzhen, who remained at the city gate, or Zhu Shibai and Shen Qingluo, who stayed behind to fight the strange dolls. All the cultivators watched the exciting fight scene between the three.
"It seems that the evil doll that Zhu Shibai and Shen Qingluo worked together to solve was the key to the illusion."
"Perhaps the monster that Guan Wangzhen knocked down at the city gate was the key to the illusion."
"Meng Yingyang is really unlucky. He's been stuck in this illusion for so long and hasn't gained a single point. It has to be said that Meng Yingyang has the strength, but his luck is nowhere near that of the ancestor of the Dingsheng Sect. He relied entirely on his teammates to carry him and still managed to hold out until the end."
"No wonder Venerable Chongjue looked so unwell."
After the first round of the competition ended, the hundred projection stones stopped operating, and the projected images stopped displaying themselves. Most of them showed the cultivators who participated in the competition, as well as various disgusting alien monsters.
In the first-class seats of the observation platform, Venerable Chongjue gazed at the projected image on the stone for a long time, his expression solemn.
The observer shook his head. "Ultimately, the competition depends on strength. If you can pass the first round by luck, how can you possibly pass the second and third rounds?"
"A Qi Refining cultivator versus a Foundation Establishment cultivator, this duel on the Cloud Platform isn't very interesting."
“Look at the Dingsheng Sect, not a single person is nervous, which means they don’t have any expectations and have already given up.”
The rogue cultivator sitting next to the disciples of Dingsheng Sect who were observing the examination also felt a pang of regret, as he quite liked Dingsheng Sect.
He was originally sitting near the disciples of the Beast Taming Sect, the Zhu family, and the Shen family who were observing the test. However, these disciples were either lifeless, mocking each other, or sitting solemnly. As a spectator, he felt uneasy, so he changed his seat to this side.
As soon as he sat down, a disciple of the Dingsheng Sect dressed in a sky-blue robe stuffed a handful of snacks into his hand, chattering and praising his own little darlings who were participating in the competition.
The atmosphere was harmonious and relaxed, and he felt at ease, which allowed him to focus more intently on watching the grand spiritual competition.
His arms were filled with a dazzling array of snacks: dried meat, mint cakes, sugar-filled pastries, licorice sticks, and so on. He sincerely hoped that the Dingsheng Sect's team could make it to the end, otherwise the Dingsheng Sect disciples observing the test beside him might not be able to watch until the end.
The disciples of Dingsheng Sect also noticed Ji Mingran, who was the first to land on the dueling platform. They watched as their little ancestor was caught off guard and suffered a blow, and watched her fall to the edge of the platform, barely maintaining a posture of not falling off.
He watched as the disciples of Xiaosu Pavilion drew their swords against her, and she stared blankly at the cloud platform beside her, completely out of it.
"What a boring match." Jin Yu, sitting among the disciples observing the Dingsheng Sect's test, turned to Jin Lu and complained, "A mere mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator from Xiao Su Pavilion, any one of us could defeat him." Why bother Granny Ji with her help?
The rogue cultivator heard this but felt it had another meaning, and sighed inwardly, "Yes, if the Jin siblings, who were originally scheduled to participate, had participated in the competition, the matchmaking wouldn't have been so passive."
This young ancestor of the Dingsheng Sect was thin and looked like he could be blown away by the wind. He couldn't help but sigh inwardly, wondering how he could possibly defeat a Foundation Establishment stage disciple of the Xiaosu Pavilion.
The disciples of Dingsheng Sect beside him had clearly already recognized the truth. One or two of them remained calm and composed, showing no signs of worry or tension, and were only focused on eating snacks.
That's true. Even if she can't win, it won't prevent her from entering the next match; she'll just lose a slight advantage.
He couldn't help but say to the Dingsheng Sect disciple beside him, "Alas, the outcome of your ancestor's competition is not in doubt."
The disciple observing the test from the Dingsheng Sect popped a green dumpling into his mouth and chewed it: "Yeah, there's no suspense."
Their little ancestor, it's no surprise he'll crush a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
