In the Blood Yuan Territory lived a variety of unusual beasts, birds, countless treasures but the risk factor was high as well. Even Xiantian level experts had lost their lives there.
Every time the dimension opened, Yi Yuan School's elders and the experts of Zhang family together ventured into this place. However, disciples had never been dispatched in the past because the time interval between its closing and reopening was too long, about an entire decade! Also, the strength of the disciples had been relatively poor so their safety couldn't be guaranteed.
"Blood Yuan Territory!" Ye Kongming frowned and said, "It will open up this year exactly at the same time when 'Blood Yuan Fruit' matures. Zhang family has proposed to organize this year's core disciples' competition together and the top three rankers will each receive 'Blood Yuan Fruit' as a reward."
'Blood Yuan Fruit' was a spiritual fruit and was also the specialty of Blood Yuan Territory. The tree it grew on was located deep in the territory and this spirit fruit was the reason why this dimension was named Blood Yuan Territory.
After consuming this spiritual fruit, one could reach the next stage of their cultivation; not even Xiantian level experts were an exception to this. Of course, this spiritual fruit was very scarce and it only matured once in a hundred years, which meant that they could obtain this fruit only once after opening the Blood Yuan Territory for ten times. Moreover, the quantity of this spiritual fruit was also scarce because there were only six of them.
"The winning side will receive four of the remaining six Blood Yuan Fruits, while the losing side will receive just two." Ye Ming said. In the past, they had such a competition and the winning party got more rewards, while the losing party got less.
"I have heard that in recent years, Zhang family has produced three very powerful geniuses. They are very young but have already acquired the strength of Houtian ninth stage." Xia Chunxue suddenly mentioned this.
"You are right, Zhang family clearly wants to monopolize the top three ranks." Ye Kongming sneered, "But things won't go as they want. Our Feng'er is undergoing closed-door training and when he comes out, he will have already reached Houtian ninth stage. Then he can compete for the Blood Yuan Fruit. It is hard to say who will win in the end."
Ye Xiwen knew that this time Zhang family had evil intentions, but apparently, Yi Yuan school's elders also had their own plans, so he was not very worried.
"I am not worried about Blood Yuan Fruit but that Blood Yuan Territory is too dangerous. What if you come across a terrifying demon beast over there?" Said Xia Chunxue with a few points of concern on her face, "Don't let Ye Feng and Ye Ruxue participate this time. Feng'er has already acquired the peak of Houtian eighth stage. He is only one step away from breaking through to the ninth stage.Then he would be able to join the 'Main Sect' of Yi Yuan School. Is that not good enough?"
"Feng'er is an outstanding leader of Yi Yuan School's core disciples, so he will have to participate. And as long as they join forces and carefully fight with the demon beasts, nothing will happen!" Ye Kongming said with confidence, "Young Ye child, you should quickly go back and take rest, your physical state should be adjusted to its utmost condition in order to give your best in the inner disciples' competition."
"Yes, father!" Ye Xiwen said.
Ye Xiwen returned to his small courtyard but he did not take rest as suggested by his father. He took out that book he picked up from Ma Yan's body. This was the secret book that Ma Yan used to blackmail many people. Ye Xiwen looked at its title 'Celestial step' and realized that it was a Xiantian level power technique. However, it was incomplete with only half of the content still intact. Of course, he couldn't practice it to the peak level, but its power was also no less than a common high-level power technique. As for Ye Xiwen, it was like a prolonged drought to meet the sweet dew. He lacked a good agility type martial technique. Although both 'Rushing thunder hand' and 'Cold moon beheader' contained agility skill but these were undoubtedly inferior to 'celestial step' as agility was its specialty.
Ye Xiwen initially thought that after the competition was over, he would go over to the library to get an agility type technique but now he didn't need to bother about that. 'Celestial step' was indeed an incomplete technique but for the current Ye Xiwen, it was perfectly adequate. If he ever got a chance in the future, he would completely perfect this technique.
According to the above description, 'Celestial step' was excellent for small ranged manoeuvres. When organizing manoeuvres in a small scope, it came in extremely handy. Ye Xiwen put down the idea of first practicing 'Missing moon beheader' because his 'New moon beheader' was more than sufficient to participate in the School Inner Weighing. It was rare for the disciples to perfectly master even a primary level power technique; an intermediate level power technique was simply out of question.
Now first, practicing the 'Celestial step' was important.
Ye Xiwen closed his eyes, entered the mysterious space and started practicing as described in the secret book of 'Celestial step'. It began to burn up a lot of spirit stones and the newly formed spiritual Qi seeped into his body, causing his understanding of the technique to enhance dramatically.
Ye Xiwen continued to practice manoeuvring skills inside the mysterious space. His moving shadow initially looked slow and rusty, but it quickly became proficient and skilled. Time passed, two days went by in a flash.
In his small courtyard, with his hands behind his back, he took a step forward but instead he trotted several steps instantly. His figure appeared in the corner far away from the spot where he started.
A smile appeared on his face. In just two days, he managed to reach the third level (Xiao Cheng level) of 'Celestial step'. The technique was divided into 'the first glimpse into the channel', 'entering the inner chamber', 'Xiao Cheng' and 'Da Cheng'. Although there were only four levels, there was a huge difference between each of the levels and it should have taken a long time to reach the third level, not to mention this was an advanced martial technique. But for Ye Xiwen, it was not the same as he had the mysterious space to help him increase the pace of practice, where practicing for one day was equivalent to a hundred days worth of practice for others or even more. Of course, the price that had to be paid to achieve that was crazy consumption of spirit stones. In just two days, in order to master the third level of 'Celestial step', 1500 low-grade spirit stones had already been consumed out of the stock of 2000 low-grade spirit Stones he originally had. The remaining five hundred were simply not enough to reach the final level of 'Celestial step' which would require at least 1000 low-grade spirit stones. However, there was no time to practice the final level of 'Celestial step' because School Inner Weighing had finally begun.
The sunlight broke through the clouds to dazzle the ground. The Qingfeng mountain welcomed a new day. There was a beaming picture spread everyone on the mountain.
On Qingfeng mountain, Yi Yuan school had more than ten thousand people waiting for the competition to begin where only a thousand people would actually participate in the competition because not everyone was eligible to participate. Some people lacked the strength so participating could be fatal. Only those interested in seizing a certain rank or to test their own level would participate.
This competition was not mandatory, so only interested disciples were participating.
Among them, about 800 outer sect disciples registered in the competition as opposed to only 400 inner sect disciples. However, these numbers were more than what used to be in the past because this time's competition was particularly fierce and the reason was quite simple. In the past, only the top 50 rankers received the reward whereas this time, top 100 rankers would receive the rewards. This was done just to attract more inner and outer sect disciples to participate.