Chapter 157: Three treasures
“Hundred swords!”
Ye Chen wanted to know how powerful he was after breaking through, therefore, he shook his body and activated the [Pure Jun Zhen Qi] art with all of his power.
Swoosh
Streams of highly condensed, dazzling sword Qi swooshed around Ye Cen’s body, and exactly a hundred streams of sword Qi in total, rushed towards the same direction, releasing a terrifying amount of power, it seemed as if it could pierce through the entire universe and kill anyone in the world just with the strong vibrations released by the Zhen Qi contained in it.
“Go!”
Ye Chen swung his arm forward, and along with it, a hundred streams of sword Qi transformed into beams of white light and struck the wall in front of him, they were even faster than lightning bolts.
The wall as solid as an iron wall shook slightly, and some black powder began falling off from the wall, it was as if the structure of the entire space was loosened after being struck by Ye Chen’s sword Qi.
“A hundred streams of sword Qi, each of them could kill a peak of mid Condensing Reality Realm martial artist, and when all hundred streams of sword Qi were launched together, even peak of early Clasping Yuan Realm Martial artists would be shattered to pieces. If the Pure Jun Zhen Qi art was a low-rank Earth Realm art, it would have been even more powerful.” While calculating the effectiveness of this move, Ye Chen was a little bit surprised. Without the need of any other skills, he could now easily kill a peak early Clasping Yuan Realm Martial artist, it was indeed beyond his expectations. However, he also realised that this was only applicable to those average martial artists, to defeat those genius martial artists, it wouldn’t be that easy; to fight against those powerful, talented martial artists, he would have to use the sword intent and the Shocking Cloud Sword Art.
As he slowly let out a breath, Ye Chen murmured, “I can probably defeat ordinary peak of mid Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists, I just wonder if I can evenly fight against a late Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist.”
The differences in levels were much greater in the higher realms than the lower realms. In the lower realms, martial artists might be able to evenly fight against opponents who were two levels higher than themselves, but after they step into the Clasping Yuan Realm, that was not even possible; even though Ye Chen’s sword intent had nearly reached an acknowledgeable level and he had an incredible amount of soul power, he couldn’t possibly defeat a martial artist who was two levels higher than him.
But that was only an estimation, he still wanted to take a shot at that.
The sixth round of the trial began.
Buzz!
A white silhouette emerged from the air below the crystal ball.
Just by standing there, the enormous Zhen Qi vibrations released by its body could even shatter a mountain and shake the ocean; once the silhouette appeared, the air surrounding it was constantly being twisted.
“Late Clasping Yuan Realm!”
Ye Chen remained calm, he clearly sensed that the white silhouette was releasing an amazing amount of pressure, it was as great as the pressure given off by the Fourth Elder.
Puff!
The white silhouette abruptly launched a move, before the sword Qi even rushed out, the wall behind Ye Chen was squeezed backwards. A deep groove appeared on the wall, and black powder began falling off once again.
“It made such great damage to the wall just with the pressure being released by its sword, this fight is indeed going to be hard!” Ye Chen hurriedly raised his sword to defend himself from that huge stream of sword Qi, meanwhile, he couldn’t help but recall the ghost guard from the Ghost Corpse Mountain, that he had encountered on their way back from the Emerald Valley, he had shattered tens of ghost guards into bloody meat paste with just a single palm move. This extreme sword pressure he was facing now was exactly as terrifying as that palm move, only late Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists could achieve something like this.
The white glowing sword Qi struck against Ye Chen’s Hidden Cloud sword, Ye Chen seemed to have heard a shrill howl that was let out by the sword; this was a sign of destruction. That huge stream of sword Qi released by that silhouette was unimaginably powerful, only a low-rank treasure sword could possibly survive that.
“Break!”
Ye Chen growled out, he circulated the Pure Jun Zhen Qi art to his limits, and injected all of it into the Hidden Cloud Sword.
In the next moment, the stream of white sword Qi was suddenly shattered, and in the meanwhile, slight cracks appeared on the Hidden Cloud Sword, and were quickly spreading.
“Hang on a little longer, I’ll let you shine one last time!”
Ye Chen was a bit sad when he saw the Hidden Cloud Sword being broken, although he hadn’t been using this sword for a very long time, the sword had indeed helped him achieve victory in countless fights. He finished off a number of enemies with it, even including Hong Qianjun, a Hidden Dragon Ranked martial artist. This sword had contributed quite a lot to Ye Chen’s life as a martial artist.
Stabilising the sword with his Zhen Qi, Ye Chen launched the Shocking Cloud Art with all of his power for the very first time.
“Clear the Sky!”
A sharp and fierce stream of sword Qi rose directly into the sky, it formed an enormous tornado, which looked like a pillar of the heavens, it seemed to be more condensed and solid than before, and was even faintly glowing. This tornado roared towards the white silhouette, with fierce streams of sword Qi darting out from it, from time to time.
Clang!
The white silhouette quickly waved its sword, fighting against the tornado. Its moves seemed to be rather slow, yet, every single attack made by it had accurately stuck the weak spots of the tornado.
The streams of sword Qi were shattered one after another, while the tornado continued to move closer and closer to the silhouette.
Suddenly, the white silhouette flashed across the sky, it raised its sword high and seemed to directly attack the tornado.
Puff!
The white silhouette swiftly flashed across the tornado and stably landed back on the ground. Behind it, the tornado instantly fell apart into violent airwaves, spreading in all directions.
“[Shocking Clouds Higher than Above]!”
Ye Chen had never launched the last move of the Shocking Cloud Sword Art before, it was not because he was not powerful enough to launch it, it was just that that move required way too much Zhen Qi. Earlier, he was only at the Late Condensing Reality Realm, and didn’t have enough Zhen Qi to use this move. Now, he finally broke into the Clasping Yuan Realm, and was finally able to launch that move easily.
Floating in the air, Ye Chen swung his sword straight down. His movement seemed simple, and didn’t even bring up a stream of air, it was as if he was only trying to split a soft cloud.
Pop!
Followed by a sky-shaking thunderous sound, a stream of sword Qi darted out of the tip of his sword.
This attack was way too swift and fierce, even the silhouette didn’t even have enough time to dodge it. As it didn’t have human emotions, it only fearlessly raised its arms, and held the sword up to try and block the sword Qi.
Along with a loud cracking noise, the white glowing sword held in the white silhouette’s hands was shattered, simultaneously, a deep cut appeared on the silhouette’s chest. Nevertheless, Ye Chen still didn’t manage to kill it. If this was a real fight, the white silhouette would be quite badly injured by now. However, this fight was actually a bit unfair to the white silhouette, after all, the white glowing sword held in its hands was only condensed from a stream of white light, and was not as solid. In other words, with that attack launched by Ye Chen just now, he didn’t win against the white silhouette, instead, he had only won against the sword in its hand, which was condensed by white light and was being supported by a mysterious power.
With his feet back on the ground, Ye Chen grinned bitterly, and looked at the Hidden Cloud Sword. After the stream of Zhen Qi that had been supporting it faded away, the sword began shattering inch by inch. At last, it turned into hundreds of fragments and fell to the ground, it sounded like a beautiful melody.
“I lost.”
After losing his sword, Ye Chen couldn’t possibly win against the white silhouette, even though the silhouette had also lost its sword.
‘Hm?’
Ye Chen was just preparing to fight against the silhouette with his bare hands, even though he knew that he would probably fail. However, the space around him suddenly changed. The white silhouette suddenly darted back into the crystal ball, it was not like the last few times, as this time, it didn’t transform back into a stream of white light.
Along with a series of thunderous booms, the sealed room began shaking intensely. Four gates appeared around Ye Chen, one of them was the gate of light, while the other three each led to a long and dark corridor.
Recalling what the Head Elder had told him, Ye Chen smiled.
This Heavenly Dream Battle Palace was unimaginably magical and mysterious, and every ten years, the trail would be completely different. Once a disciple passed the final round of the trial, the palace would activate three treasures, which could be treasure weapons, secret classics that recorded ancient powerful martial arts, or other extremely valuable things. However, disciples who had passed the last round of trial still needed to spend some efforts to get those three treasures, and what the palace would offer was only an opportunity.
“It seems that it’s already been a hundred years since the last time the palace activated the three legendary treasures. Never thought that I would be able to make it here, did anyone else pass the last round?”
Passing the trial was nowhere near easy. As the disciples continuously improved during the trial, the white silhouettes would also be upgraded according to the disciples’ improvements, for example, in Lin Qi’s sixth round of trial, his opponent was at the peak of mid Clasping Yuan Realm, while Ye Chen had faced a Late Clasping Yuan Realm opponent. Although Ye Chen’s opponent was only half a level higher than Lin Qi’s opponent, the difference between their strength was huge. Normally, even if two peak of mid Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists join hands, they still couldn’t be sure to defeat a Late Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist, this was how huge the difference between these two levels was.
Ye Chen had the feeling that he was not the only one who passed the last round of trial. All those Hidden Dragon Ranking martial artists were incredibly powerful, especially those three ranked below 60, namely Mo Wuxue, Xue Hen, the top-ranked disciple of the Formless Martial School, and the ‘Murderous Eagle’ Yuanheng Ying.
Ye Chen almost forgot the one who was known as the ‘Prince Devil’, Leng Wuqing. He would be a nightmare to fight for any martial artist at the same level, if he could step into the Clasping Yuan Realm. He cultivated the [Earth Devil Body Stregthening technique], to him, breaking into the higher levels would be much more difficult than usual, however, once he did, he would have immense improvements.
As he waved his hand, the iron spear that had been put in a corner of the room flew into Ye Chen’s hand. He showed a helpless smile. Judging from the quality of this spear, it was way more solid and powerful than the Hidden Cloud Sword, but Ye Chen was a sword artist, and only a sword would allow him to perfectly release the sword intent; without a sword, he could never unleash his true strength in his battles, even a low-ranked treasure weapon couldn’t help him.
“I have to get myself a low-ranked treasure sword.”
As he quickly made his decision, Ye Chen glanced at all four gates. If he was right, the three dark gates were the entrances to where the treasures were, and the gate of light was the exit of the palace. Without any hesitation, Ye Chen walked towards the left gate. As for the gate of light, Ye Chen hadn't even thought about it. Since he came all the way into this palace, how could he go back without any treasure?
Soon after Ye Chen walked into the corridor, a few other sealed rooms had also changed in their shape.
“Just like people said, you’ll get the opportunity to reach the three treasures after you pass all the rounds of the trial. Haha, they’re mine!”
As he put the blood-red blade back into the sheath, Mo Wuxue gave a malicious grin, and then stepped into the left gate.
In another room, Yuanheng Ying licked his own lips. The sixth round was harder than he thought, and he almost failed it. Fortunately, he launched his secret move at last, which allowed him to pass the trial. However, he dared not to use that secret move too often, because he could only use it a limited number of times.
Thinking of those three extremely valuable treasures, Yuanheng Ying became a bit impatient. He would definitely launch deadly attacks towards anyone that tries to stop him from getting those three treasures.
Other than Yuanheng Ying and Mo Wuxue, a few others had also passed the trial.
Leng Wuqing, the ‘Prince Devil’ was one of them. He had also broken into the Clasping Yuan Realm, this allowed his power to increase by two times when compared to before, apart from that, his body was now even more stronger than a fifth-grade martial zombie’s; at this stage, even if he blocked an attack launched by an ordinary early Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist with his body, it wouldn’t be able to harm him.
The last one who passed the trial was not the top-ranked disciple of the Formless Martial School, Xue Hen, instead, he was Young Master Emerald, Zhuang Fei. All this time, he had been the most powerful and influential one among all of Windy Nation’s younger generation martial artists. He had never thought about giving up his place, not even this time.
Each corridor led to countless rooms, and the structure was extremely complicated. Stairs leading to higher or lower floors could appear anywhere inside the corridor. Without a map, one would never know where to go.
Fortunately, each room had a gate of light that could teleport the disciples out of the palace anytime. Otherwise, Ye Chen could only wait for the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region to lock itself and automatically teleport him out after he found the treasures, because he would never be able to walk out of this corridor by himself.
He walked into a room, and found nothing, he then walked out, and then walked into another, he continued to repeat this countless times.
Buzz!
After a while, a vibration came from below.
This vibration came quite suddenly, it was as if something was trying to attract his attention.
“The first treasure?”
Taking a deep breath, Ye Chen turned around and walked towards a room behind him. Inside the room, was a door that led to the lower floor.
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Translated by: Law
Edited by: Jaggerjakk
From XianXiaWorld