"Thi- this Light energy is so pure and dense!"
Wu Tai could not exclaim loud enough to match his shock inside. He even began doubting reality – is what happening in front me really real?
Zhao Mei also had the same reaction as that with her guardian. She looked at the cotton in the air with longing in her eyes. Could this be... the Sacred Cotton?
All of these events happened in a flash, as the cotton that was sliced into two fell on the ground and the Light energy quickly spreaded out into the surroundings.
Zhao Mei and Wu Tai had now just realized what the child had done – he wasted such a valuable material just to prove his point!
Does this mean... that this child had much more of these?
Otherwise, with his only leverage against them now gone, coupled with the fact that he had just sliced into two what they were looking for so desperately with that exact knowledge, he might just not be able to live through this.
Wu Tai hurriedly asked him. Zhao Mei's eyes flashed with a glint of hope.
"D- do you have more Sacred Cotton?"
Li Bai, hearing the uncle's question, frowned. Did you not hear my previous statement? I already said that Sacred Cotton is nonexistent!
"I don't have any Sacred Cotton."
Upon hearing these words, Wu Tai and Zhao Mei almost puked a bucket of blood. This... this extremely valuable plant... and you just sliced it into two... only to reveal that you don't have anymore...
Wu Tai misunderstood Li Bai's words. He thought that Li Bai was rubbing into their faces the fact that there was no more of that specific plant in the area, possibly even the whole continent!
This made Wu Tai extremely angry. Energy accumulated around his fist as he readied to turn the brat before him into mush. No, into dust!
However, Zhao Mei was indeed listening earlier, and so understood what Li Bai was trying to say properly. He was saying that he never had any Sacred Cotton in the first place, because it was nonexistent!
Looking at her guardian's fist, Zhao Mei suddenly turned gloomy. She hurriedly tried to stop him.
"Wait, Uncle Tai, wait-"
Yet, even with her swift words, she was too late.
Wu Tai punched towards the direction of the child, producing an extremely strong gust of wind in the process!
Li Bai sensed the imminent danger. Brute! This grandpa already showed you I have the plant you need! Forget it, I shall find other ways to gain this princess as a disciple.
With a thought, he entered his ring.
The Silverstone Ring was made out of, obviously, Silverstone, so it was extremely resilient from physical attacks.
Wu Tai's punch was, although imbued with energy, ultimately still a physical attack. The ring didn't suffer one scratch from the punch. However, due to its extremely low weight, it was sent flying several thousand li!
Zhao Mei looked in despair as the child abruptly disappeared, seemingly due to her guardian's punch.
It didn't take long for the punch's impact to reach the crowd. The Jin clan, including Master Jin, was in the general direction of the punch, thus all of them... were turned into dust!
"Aah! No!"
Master Jin and his subordinates cried as they all disappeared from the face of this planet.
His final thoughts were rather twisted.
"I just wanted to conquer a city by massive genocide... who knew that it would end up like this! At this rate, I would not have anything to offer the sect master to promote me from outer disciple..."
The arena now had a huge gaping hole. There was also a small valley that formed just now on the ground.
The crowd went extremely silent. They were experiencing a myriad of emotions as they sat in their respective seats.
For one, they were extremely thankful that they weren't the ones that turned into dust.
They were also utterly terrified of the unfathomable cultivator's strength. They had a rough idea of what it would be like if he exerted all of his strength, but witnessing the act firsthand, they discovered that they were severely underestimating him.
Some of the more twisted ones were satisfied that the trash Li Bai was erased from this planet. They felt that it was the ultimate retribution for being too arrogant.
"Wh- what did you just do?!"
After she recovered from the shock, Zhao Mei was very much indignant towards her guardian. After all, she understood the child's words. He was implying that there was no such thing as a "Sacred Cotton", but that he had plenty more Heavenly Cotton in stock.
However, this musclehead guardian of hers acted too rashly, and destroyed the only hope of her recovering.
She got an idea – the child pulled the plant from his storage ring, and that means there's plenty more of those in the said ring. Maybe the storage ring survived?
Zhao Mei dropped on the floor of the stage... well, the remaining part of the floor, and started to desperately search for the ring, to no avail.
Meanwhile, Wu Tai was relieved of the enormous amount of stress accumulated from the start of this journey, and was much more calm than his companion.
"I just erased that brat. What's wrong with that?"
Hearing her guardian's indifferent response to her exasperated question, Zhao Mei became more enraged.
"That brat... you didn't pull any punches, did you?"
"Hmm? Of course. I only used about a hundredth of my actual strength."
No matter how clouded his mind seemed, he actually thought rationally and decided to pull back his punches by a hundred times in concern for the city.
"That- that's not the point!"
Zhao Mei suddenly stood up from her previous kneeling posture. She was angry to the point that she started stuttering. How could she not be? This stupid guardian of hers... ah, forget it.
After this, her expression calmed down.
The crowd heard their entire exchange due to all of them being extremely silent.
While they were dazed that Zhao Mei was angry, what most surprised them was hearing that the cultivator actually pulled his punches... and by a hundred times, at that!
Brother, you're about to break through the heavens!
.....
The Silverstone Ring kept flying in the air for at least a hundred thousand li, until it eventually landed.
The ring crashed on the roof of a small straw cabin, among some other straw cabins.
The force of the ring accumulated too much that it went through the roof, landing on a sleeping young lady.
This marks the end of Volume One.