Chapter 154: Trial and opportunity
Although the difference between the Late Condensing Reality Realm and peak of the Late Condensing Reality Realm was not that huge, to Ye Chen, this was still a valuable improvement. If he only had thirty percent chance to kill Yuanheng Ying before, now the chances should have increased by ten percent. If he could break into the Clasping Yuan Realm, killing Yuanheng Ying would be as easy as chopping vegetables.
The other disciples had also sensed the improvement of their powers, however, none of them managed to break into a higher level like Ye Chen did.
“The gate of the Heavenly Dream Battle Palace is open!”
“Go! Go! Go!!”
“I instantly sensed an improvement when this when light came out, I can definitely break into the Clasping Yuan Realm after I get inside the palace!”
Except those Hidden Dragon Ranking martial artists, most of the other disciples went crazy with excitement. The only reason they risked their lives and came into this ancient region was so that they could achieve a breakthrough. As long as they could become a Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist, they could hold their heads high in front of those Hidden Dragon Ranking martial artists, and they’d never need to be afraid of them or obey to whatever they said; to these disciples, this was just like taking one step into the heavens.
“Go away!”
Those Hidden Dragon Ranking martial artists were the fastest ones to move, their silhouettes flashed across the square and darted into palace right away. Before he entered into the palace, Yuanheng Ying conveniently crushed a disciple who was in his way, in an incredibly brutal and cruel way.
Seeing the group of madly rushing disciples, Luo Hanshan said, “Let’s go in!”
Ye Chen activated his Zhen Qi and checked his own body a few times, he didn’t find any problems, so he nodded and responded, “This Heavenly Dream Battle Palace can indeed help us achieve a breakthrough in our cultivation.”
“Hm, I think so.”
Closely following the group of disciples, the four of them walked into the palace, it was also filled with the dense white light.
“Ah!”
Taking a deep breath, Zhu Mei said in surprise, “Such dense and pure Yuan Qi, it is much stronger than the Yuan Qi contained in spirit stones, and it also requires nearly no effort to absorb.”
Actually, not just Zhu Mei, all the others also had sensed this different Yuan Qi once they stepped in.
However, the white light inside the palace was way too strong, and every single one of these disciples was instantly blinded after they walked in. They couldn’t see anything, were also unable to perceive anything, even Ye Chen’s soul power had lost its function; it seemed like only the most basic sense of touch and the sense of hearing still remained.
After around fifteen minutes, the gate of the palace suddenly shut down behind Ye Chen, letting out a muffled and thunderous boom; right after that, a small-scale earthquake occured inside the palace. The floor under Ye Chen’s feet sank along with waves of muffled noise, as a wave fell, another rose. He somehow felt that the space surrounding him was sealed by something.
“Be careful! The inner structure of this palace has changed!”
No one responded.
Smiling bitterly, Ye Chen realised that he was separated from his fellow disciples. Fortunately, this Heavenly Dream Battle Palace couldn’t kill people by itself, so everyone inside should be safe.
Sitting down on the floor with his legs crossed, Ye Chen prepared to meditate.
‘Hm?’
Visibly, the dense and bright white light surrounding him quickly condensed into a sphere, and merged into a gigantic crystal ball, it was multi-coloured and was floating in the air.
Ye Chen stayed calmed as he closely observed that crystal ball.
Buzz!
The air slightly shook, and followed by that, a faint, white human silhouette gradually emerged from the air under the crystal ball. That human silhouette was holding a sword and had its body straight. Looking carefully, Ye Chen found that this human silhouette had the exact same body shape as himself, even the shape of its sword was the same as his Hidden Cloud Sword. It was just like a duplication of himself.
Of course, that was only a silhouette condensed from light. It was pure white and had no face, it only had a human-shape, at first glance, you could tell that it was made from some kind of mysterious power, rather than flesh and blood.
Swoosh!
Once the human silhouette was formed, it stepped forward and sent a stream of Sword Qi towards Ye Chen.
“The Peak of Late Condensing Reality Realm!”
Ye Chen perceived that the Zhen Qi vibrations released by this white silhouette’s body were as strong as his own Zhen Qi vibrations. This move was also launched swiftly with a stream of perfectly controlled power, it was quite amazing, and was even no worse than Luo Hanshan. This meant that this white human silhouette was at the pre-Childe level.
Staying passive was never Ye Chen’s style. Besides, if he guessed right, this was the trial of this Heavenly Dream Battle Palace, and if he wanted to stay, he would probably have to defeat this silhouette.
Clang!
The Hidden Cloud Sword darted out from the sheath, and at the same time, Ye Chen flashed across that silhouette.
In the next moment!
The right arm of that pure white silhouette flew out from its body, along with the sword held in its hand; thin streams of white light darting out from its broken shoulder.
That silhouette, which had lost one arm, still tried to launch its counterattack, however, Ye Chen right away swung his sword backwards and chopped its head off. Right after that, the white silhouette transformed into streams of white light and darted back to the crystal ball.
In the meanwhile.
In less than three-hundred completely sealed spaces, same thing was happening to the other disciples.
“Same level as me, even same martial skills…”
“Just slightly weaker than me, but it still seems quite difficult to defeat!”
“How come this is different from the trial ten years ago, it shouldn’t be!”
Some of them immediately started to fight against those human silhouettes, some could barely suppress those silhouettes, but couldn’t defeat them within a short period of time, while some were shocked by the sudden appearance of these white silhouettes, which made them unable to react in time. All in all, every one of them had started their trial; the difficulty of each disciple’s trail was different, it was specially set based upon his or her power and cultivation level.
The first round of the trail ended, five disciples didn’t react in time, and they were hit by these silhouettes on their vital parts, they were then immediately teleported out of the palace.
In the Scorching Ancient Desert, and beside the enormous gate of light.
Five people flew out of the gate, and thudded against the sand.
“Yao Kai!”
“Li Jing!”
These five people were disciples who have failed the first round of trial. They stood up from the ground, they looked both shocked and confused; but soon, they seemed to suddenly realise something and headed down with a frustrated look, they didn’t even hear their own elders calling them.
“It’s not a big deal, no one would ever blame you for it. You should just work harder after you get back, do not drown yourself in your frustration, otherwise, you can never improve in the future.”
“How many of our disciples are left in there?”
“What?! You’re the only one that survived?!”
Some elders encouraged their disciples, some asked about what had happened inside, while some were informed with the sad news of the death of their disciples, they couldn’t help but shed tears.
None of these disciples knew what would happen if they failed the trial, and even if they knew, they couldn’t do anything about it. Once the first round of trial ended, the second round began.
“Childe-level!”
Ye Chen’s face now looked very serious. This newly emerged silhouette in front of him was not too powerful, however, it was still only the second round. Without a doubt, the third and fourth round would be even harder. To defeat a same-level opponent, they not only required power, they also needed better fighting skills.
The silhouette dashed over, and at the same time, Ye Chen swung his sword down.
Puff!
The head of the silhouette flew up, it transformed into a stream of white light and darted back into the crystal ball.
The second round of the trial ended, way more disciples had failed in this round. In the first round, only five disciples have failed, but the number had increased to thirty-five in the second round.
As more and more failed disciples were teleported out of the ancient region, those elders who had been waiting in the Scorching Ancient Desert got a general idea of the situation inside the ancient region, and it deeply shocked all of them.
Every single one of them was clearly aware that the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region was a dangerous place, however, the death rate was still beyond the expectation. In total, six-hundred and sixty disciples were sent in, but only less than three-hundred managed to get into the palace. As for the others, they were either killed by the ancient demonic beasts, or by the disciples from other institutions, or died in the battle against the Black Gold Serpent. The death rate was higher than ever, more than fifty-five percent of those disciples have lost their lives.
“The only good thing is that the surviving disciples will have a ten percent chance of breaking into the Clasping Yuan Realm. Otherwise, why would we even send them into that horrible region?”
“Too many have died, but fortunately, a part of our disciples managed to survive.”
The third round of the trail started.
This time, the white silhouette was as strong as a martial artist ranked 100 on the Hidden Dragon Ranking, almost as powerful as Qiu Heng back in the swamp, who was able to kill a martial artist at the same level with a single move.
Even though he easily defeated the white silhouette, Ye Chen felt that something was different.
Every time his attack strikes the white silhouette, he would feel a slight, magical shake; as the shaking grew stronger and stronger, he realised that a stream of extremely pure Yuan Qi was contained in that shake and it was being injected into his body every time he harmed his opponent. In other words, every fight against a white silhouette would help him improve, the longer he remained in the palace, the greater his improvement be. By the end, he might even directly break into the Clasping Yuan Realm.
After he came to know this, Ye Chen let out a long breath and murmured, “So this is the real deal of this Heavenly Dream Battle Palace. This is a trial, and also an opportunity, it just depends on whether we can take it or not.”
The third round of the trial was not that difficult to Ye Chen, yet, it was extremely hard to the other disciples.
East side, in the seventh sealed space.
Lou Hanshan had been gasping continuously. The white silhouette in front of him was slightly more powerful than him, this meant that he couldn’t possibly defeat it purely with power. ‘What should I do? I can’t just fail like this.’ thought Luo Hanshan.
“No, since it’s a trial, there must be a way to pass it!”
Boom!
The white silhouette didn’t give too much time for Luo Hanshan to come up with a plan, it abruptly sent out a heavy punch with a roaring stream of power that was as violent as a surging river.
“Purple Qi, Great Monument Suppression!”
Lou Hanshan tried his best to boost up his Zhen Qi to his limits and launched the Purple Extreme Art and the Great Monument Kingly Punch in combination, as a special and powerful defensive skill, to defend himself.
Crack!
The gigantic purple monument condensed from Zhen Qi didn’t even manage to hold for three blinks of an eye, it was instantly shattered.
Lou Hanshan hurriedly leapt sideways, and luckily dodged that terrifying stream of power, yet, he still felt that his heart began beating faster and his blood started boiling under the great amount of stress, he even felt a little dizzy.
“Ah! If I can use the ninth level of the Purple Extreme Art, I might be able to defeat that thing!” Lou Hanshan’s eyes suddenly started to shine. After reaching the ninth level of the Purple Extreme Art, the martial artist would be able to draw a purple lotus from the void, and under its protection, the defensive power would immediately raise to another level.
The white silhouette launched another attack right away, but this time, Luo Hanshan didn’t step back, he also did not try to dodge, instead he sent out two solid punches in a row.
In another sealed space.
An amazing amount of power had burst out from Xu Jing’s body. She had been fighting against the white silhouette evenly, showing no signs of a disadvantage. Every single attack launched by her would accurately hit the white silhouette’s vital parts; the surging waves of the punches were swooshing around like water streams, while waves of golden light were sparkling around her body, it was just like multiple rivers rapidly flowing around her, it seemed magical and magnificent.
If Luo Hanshan and Zhu Mei were here, they would certainly be shocked by Xu Jing, because at this moment, Xu Jing’s opponent was even more powerful than Young Master North Snow. According to what they know about Xu Jing, she absolutely hasn't reached that level yet, which only meant that Xu Jing had been hiding her real strength all along.
Clang!
Xu Jing’s fist directly clashed against the fist of the white silhouette, it let out a loud and resonant metal clashing noise, scorching hot fire sparks flew everywhere.
“Break!”
Locking the silhouette’s right arm with her left hand, Xu Jing intensely shook her body, releasing a stream of bright and pure golden light, which struck the silhouette’s body, disabling it from moving; after that, Xu Jing launched her ultimate punch, which struck right on the silhouette’s head.
Followed by a popping noise, the white silhouette darted back into the crystal ball in the form of a stream of white light.
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Translated by: Law
Edited by: Jaggerjakk
From XianXiaWorld