Chapter 44: The last boss

After we spoke about everything we knew about the trial, we concluded that this could be a very hard trial for anyone who is a participator, even the ones from our sect.

Now I get the meaning behind grand elder Wan's words when he said that 'I wouldn't accept any of you dying in there, so make sure you don't get too greedy'. You would probably die if you decide to test each and every formation because there are some traps.

And even if the traps don't kill you, there is a chance of others killing you. Well, I don't think anyone has the guts to even try to kill any of us, but the fact that they 'can' is still there.

You might think that no one would try to kill us because we are from one of the seven holy lands, but no, this kind of bullshit only happens in novels. If you really wanted someone dead, you would do it regardless of their background and would only do it more covertly so that you don't get discovered.

So why did I tell you they don't dare to attack us?

It's because of an open secret about seven holy lands. All of the disciples in the seven holy lands have an artifact that captures its master's last moments and in case you die, would send them to a central node that is the sect.

But how does it know these are your last moments? The short answer is that it doesn't. The artifact would store the events for as long as it can and in each passing moment, it would add the new events and delete the oldest event that was stored.

In the event of your death, the artifact would simply send back the information that has been stored to the main node that is predefined in the time of its creation.

And these artifacts also have grades, meaning that the higher that their grade are, the more information they store. Obviously, the higher grade artifacts would be given to the most important disciples so that in event of an attempt on their lives, the sect would be able to find more clues in the data.

If you want to look at it simpler, you can compare it with having a GoPro with you all the time…

Anyway, I can say that they won't try to kill us with high certainty. Why? One, because of the existence of this artifact, and two, because they can't send anyone to kill us in the trial. All of the participants are disciples so they are not that good of an option when it comes to killing someone.

'Well, Hu Anjing can kill easily but she is a teammate so there is no problem.' I nodded to my own thoughts.

So what could be our main problem is small beast hordes that can easily be baited to surround us. I have to think of something for this possibility when I have the time.

I don't have time right now because this fight is Lai Xinyue's fight. I need to watch this and Jin Fen's reactions so that I can find some hints about Jin Fen's attraction to Lai Xinyue.

"Junior niece, watch this fight. This will be a good one…" I told Hu Anjing to watch the game before she could throw some sly remarks about me looking at Lai Xinyue.

Hu Anjing was looking at me with an amused look on her face. It seems that she didn't think that I would act like this and stop her from teasing me.

But her face slowly morphed into the face of a wronged puppy.

"Don't worry junior niece, there will be more chances for you in the future…" I consoled her in an over-exaggerated manner while I put my hand on her shoulder.

We both laughed a little and then focused on the stage to see the fight. Each of us had a reason to stay focused, I was focused to find some clues about Jin Fen and as for Hu Anjing, she was focused to see the potential of her future junior sister.

Two participants got to the stage, one was Lia Xinyue and the other one was a female disciple from the inner court and had neck-length black hair. She was one of those people who had a permanent mildly angry face.

After they got to the stage the referee also got on stage and introduced them. From this I got to know the other girl's name, she is called Ye Ling. Now that I know her name, I remember that I have heard a fare share about her before.

Lia Xinyue was at the eighth stage of the Qi Gathering when we sparred but now she is almost at peak of the ninth stage of the Qi Gathering.

This was a surprise to me. I trained with grandpa long but she trained by herself and reached the next small realm. I don't know if she was at the peak of the eighth stage of the Qi Gathering or not, but either way, her achievement shows her dedication to her cultivation this past week.

Well, to be fair reaching the next big realm, the Meridian Formation realm, is a big step that would take some time even if you are at the peak of the ninth stage of the Qi Gathering so I think she would be needing way more time for her next breakthrough.

The only reason that i could break through this fast was because i had that medicinal mix that helped me greatly.

Her speed in cultivation was fast and there was no problem with that. The problem was her opponent, to be more precise her level of cultivation was higher than Lai Xinyue.

Ye Ling was at the second stage of the Meridian Formation realm and that in itself was a clear indication of this fight's level of difficulty. You can't simply say that you can fight people with a higher level than you and win, even more so when you can't use external resources to boost your chance like using scrolls or treasures.

A fight like this is purely based on one's strength and technique.

You might think that Lai Xinyue has a rare physique so she would be fine but don't forget that I have also won against her in the same realm, so if the opponent has enough technique winning against her physique is not that much of a problem.

That aside, her opponent is not only on higher levels in comparison to her but also is one of the brightest talents in the sect. Many core elders wanted to accept her as a disciple but she politely declined. So if it wasn't because of her decision, she would be already in the core court as a core disciple.

You might be thinking why would she decline such an offer? Well, her reasoning was that she wanted to test herself by getting into the core court by her own power using the yearly competitions. She said that she would accept a master after she got into the core court.

In just two years, she got from a new outer court disciple to the top inner disciple of the sect. The yearly competition to get into the core court is going to be held in a month and almost no one in the sect has a doubt that she would get the first place without much difficulty.

Now that you know the strength of both sides, you know that this is going to be an interesting and exciting fight.

It wouldn't be wrong to call Ye Ling one of the last bosses of this competition for the 10 thrones. After all, she and Hu Anjing are the ones that I can see having a good chance of winning against me…