Chapter 86: Fight yourself

——(POV third person)——

In front of the group, 10 clones of them stood at a distance and were ready to attack at any time. The disciples were also ready to lunch forward to attack themselves.

"Anyone who can use sword Qi, attack all the clones before they get close enough." Hu Anjing said to the group.

"You each know your weak points, try abusing them." Li Huang also said before starting channeling sword Qi to the point of his sword.

"Now you can start." The old man's voice could be heard announcing the start of this fight.

Li Huang shot many sword Qi from his swords like bullets toward the clone of his fellow disciples without any hesitation.

Hu Anjing on the other hand also was sending out arcs of sword Qi toward the clones that hindered their movement and increased their chance to collide with Li Huang's sword Qi bullets.

Needless to say, Lai Xinyue's clone was dodging the attacks easily. The formation didn't duplicate her physique but translated it to having great evasion skills.

Before they could get close, 3 of the clones were already eliminated by the projectiles. Now that they were close enough for a direct confrontation, They had to change strategies.

"Me, junior sister Ye Ling, and junior uncle Li Huang will fight our clones. The rest of you also fight together…" Hu Anjing said. She was trying to get the main powers of the clone forces busy with themselves so that the others could use their numerical advantage against rest of the clones.

Li Huang showed off his skills in sword dance in the last fight so now his clone should know that but that can be handled as Ye Ling and Hu Anjing only showed a normal level of mastery in the last fight.

There wasn't any need for planning between them as they could read the situation well so they didn't waste time and attacked the trio of clones.

"How do I look?" Li Huang asked Hu Anjing as he was trading blows with her clone.

"Hmm, you look like a dead person." Hu Anjing who was fighting with Li Huang's clone said.

"You could have worded it better…" Li Huang said. Sure the clone was emotionless but still…

"Like what?" Hu Anjing said as she deflected a blow from Li Huang's clone twin blades.

Li Huang know she was playing with him but decided to continue.

"You could say that the real me looks more attractive." Li Huang said without shame. He then had to dodge a sword Qi arc that came from where Hu Anjing was— The real Hu Anjing.

"Oh, sorry about that. Your less attractive clone dodged that one." Hu Anjing said in a similar shameless manner.

Li Huang wisely decided to stay silent.

Ye Ling who was fighting her clone couldn't believe that Hu Anjing and Li Huang have taken the test this lightly but didn't know what to say so she focused on her fight.

On the other side, Jin Fen was fighting his own clone who was still alive.

'The test is to put me against myself? How ironic, how can this cheap imitation be comparable to me?' Jin Fen thought as he was slowly overpowering his clone.

Aside from him, the one that was creating the most problems was Lai Xinyue's clone as it was near impossible to hit. When you can't land a hit, it doesn't matter how powerful you are.

…

It only took the trio minutes to solve their clones as none of them wanted to use their trump cards to save energy. Getting back to the group, only two clones were left.

Lai Xinyue's clone and Dai Bao's clone.

Making short work of those two now that they could easily overwhelm them, the group finished the second part of this stage.

As usual, the old man appeared again after they finished this fight.

"Good work so far. Now that you have finished this stage, you can go to the next one…" the old man said as he pointed at somewhere behind him. The moment he vanished, a portal formed exactly where he pointed at.

Entering the next test location, they could see tens of mediation setups in the room. It was like a training ground of the heavenly sword sect.

"This is your next test." The old man said from behind the group as he walked right through them. Everybody gives him way despite the fact that this is a projection of sorts with high certainty.

But no one hesitated in this, even Jin Fen. Who knows what can happen if you touch this old ghost or worst, let it pass through your body.

After the old man walked a distance he turned and spoke.

"These meditation spots are special. If you sit on them they will improve your cultivation speed by tenfold for as long as you are sitting there." The old man said and let his words sink in.

All 10 disciples of the heavenly sword sect were shocked beyond their cognition. The reason for the continent being number one in the world is that they have the densest Qi here but imagining something that can amplify the densest Qi by tenfold is something straight out of fiction.

"You can see this meditation session as your reward for passing previous stages." The old man said to everyone's delight.

"But remember, you only have half a day here…" The old man said and vanished again.

One might think that only ten times improvement is not important in a long term but it couldn't be further from the truth.

Almost all the time, cultivation is based on external Qi sources so this tenfold improvement in Qi quality means that you can for example form your meridians faster. No, it is not only ten times faster because the Qi density is the variable that limits your efforts, and now that it is improved your result would improve more than tenfold.

Knowing this, no one wasted time and choose a place to meditate.

~'Are you thinking about what I'm thinking?'~ Li Huang send a sound transmission to Hu Anjing while he sat in one empty position.

~'You bet.'~ Hu Anjing said as she sat beside Li Huang and gave him a toothy smile.