章 39: Start of the Backwater City Tournament

Li Bai himself was oblivious to what was happening in the surroundings, since he had his eyes closed, a requirement for this breathing technique.

However, his sister, Li Bao, could see everything clearly, since she was not doing anything at the moment.

The energy in the surroundings circulated fiercely on top of her brother's motionless body like a storm.

"This is... one of the long lost Circulation Techniques?" Li Bao stared at her brother in amazement as she recalled what she read on a book.

Indeed, Breathing Techniques were long gone from this country, and they have been renamed as Circulation Techniques appropriately.

These Circulation Techniques were said to be the hardest to comprehend out of all of the kinds of cultivation techniques, but it was also hailed to be the most effective way.

However, less and less people comprehended these techniques and eventually, they all disappeared from the continent.

Seeing her brother using one in front of her... Li Bao was startled. How much did her brother know? Why did he have knowledge of long lost techniques?

Could it be... that he has a Time-traveling Technique? No, that couldn't possibly be it!

As Li Bao thought more, she progressively got more and more confused. Finally, she decided to just ask her little brother, as it was the easiest and most simple solution.

Of course, she could not do that now... It was said that one should not disturb the cultivating of a person, or else they would suffer severe internal injuries.

Li Bao didn't wish for this to happen to her brother, so she just lied back down on the floor of the massive space.

Li Bai, on the other hand, was finding it harder and harder to maintain breathing like this.

'Why is it like this? This is supposed to make breathing easier, not suffocate me!'

He decided to stop the breathing technique as he found it utterly useless. In the end, however, he felt greatly revitalized as he tried to stand up.

"So it did have an effect..."

Li Bao saw her brother moving and quickly tried to stand, but her body felt too heavy for her to lift herself up.

Instead, Li Bai was the one who walked over as he saw his sister struggling to stand in his peripheral view.

"Sis, let's get out of here... the Earth energy is gone."

"Yeah, let's go."

.....

The tournament was drawing near. Only a day was left before the tournament would start.

Li Bai was excited as he felt like this was a chance to raise his popularity within the city. A ten-year-old like him couldn't possibly attain the Fifth Level Mark unless he had been blessed with extraordinary talent! This was his plan to amaze everyone within this city, so as to make them desire to be his disciple.

Many commoners were also going to be participating in the tournament, in the hopes of getting a spot in travelling to the capital city, the Red Dragon City.

As such, on the actual day of the tournament, the number of participants was expected to be enormous!

The Liu clan had managed to reestablish their relationship with the other major clans, albeit said relationships being fragile. The other clans didn't trust the clan's head, Liu Gong, that much anymore.

This distrust towards Liu Gong was the result of his rampage in the meeting about the tournament, in which he just ran off after declaring that his clan would have nothing to do with anyone else ever again.

In the Li clan, things were back to normal, except for the fact that there was no concrete clan head. This old high elder was just assuming the position temporarily, until Li Bao was ready to take the position.

There was also the fact that they now had in possession an enormous amount of wealth that came from the young master, Li Bai. The source was unknown to everyone except the elders who witnessed him getting the gold from his ring.

Thus, not only did the elders perceive Li Bai in a different light, but they were also a bit scared of him now, considering that his cultivation level was higher than all of them except for the high elder who was at the Second Level Heavenly Mark 10-gems.

.....

Li Bai was walking leisurely around the Li clan's territory. Everyone still sneered at him, but he was planning to make them swallow their words by surprising them with his strength!

After all, in the entire Li clan, he was now the strongest, so he had no time to be petty and ignored all of the insults and remarks that he heard.

He continued walking around, accepting every snarky remark and insult that came at him as natural.

The insults were a lot harsher now that there was no one backing Li Bai up since his father passed away.

They thought that Li Bai should be gotten rid of, leeching off from the clan's resources because of his former position.

In the eyes of the public, Li Bai was ignoring all of them because they thought that he was too scared that they would fight back should he return an insult.

They thought that he was too weak to fight against anyone inside the Li clan, so he would naturally become a coward. No one would dare make enemies with someone who is stronger than them.

Eventually, Li Bai ended up outside of the territory, but didn't mind it and continued walking. After a while, he noticed a long line forming leading into somewhere inside the Zhou clan's territory.

Out of all of the clans in Backwater City, the Zhou clan possessed the second most land, only losing to the newly formed Jin clan by a hair's breadth.

The area of which one clan possessed was what determined their ranking, so the Zhou clan was at the top ever since it first climbed the rankings.

No one expected that all the minor clans would merge. All of the members had to change their surname to Jin just to remain at the prosperous clan.

What's weirder, was their new clan head. It was not the clan head of any of the minor clans. Instead, his face was foreign. Everyone inside the clan referred to him as Master Jin, so no one knew his full name.

As Li Bai contemplated these things, he noticed that the line got drastically longer while he was in a daze. He was curious as to what this very long line led to.

He walked up to one of the people on the line and pulled his sleeves to make the person notice him.

"Excuse me, but where does this line lead to?"

The person turned his head to look at Li and heard a statement coming from him. He almost laughed but he averted it by covering his mouth with his palm almost immediately.

"Don't worry, trash. It doesn't concern you."

Hearing this man's answer, Li Bai didn't mind it as he heard this a thousand times already just on his way here! Instead, he pulled another man's sleeves, repeating the same question he asked the previous one.

"Huh? You don't know? This is the line for the tournament!"

This fellow was clearly excited for the tournament as he answered Li Bai's question gleefully.

"I have confidence in my talents, so I'm sure I'm going to take the attention of one of the sects..."

As he talked, the man's confidence was decreasing slowly. It was obvious that he knew he was no match for some of the people on this line, not to mention the young buds of the major clans.

"Well... I hope I can snatch at least one of the spots."

This tournament's participants numbered in the thousands, but many of the applications were rejected. As such, out of a thousand, only ten would get in.

The fellow sighed as he stopped talking.

Li Bai saw this man's pitiful face and spoke.

"Thank you."

He walked towards the end of the line and saw that it was still extending! He had to rush to get in.

Li Bai used a movement technique called [Snake Steps] Technique to avoid the people who were running towards the end of the line like him. This technique also boosted his speed and so, he managed to get in line quickly.

After a while, Li Bai heard a scuffle happening in front of him.

"What do you mean you're first? I am obviously in front of you!"

"The heck? I got here first! You took advantage of the confusion!"

"No one cared if I took advantage of the confusion, I'm in front of you!"

Suddenly, the person punched the other party in the face, causing him to fall over. He retaliated by punching his ankles, which made him fall over as well.

These two bumped into the one in front of both of them, a menacing man with a huge build. He looked behind him with creased eyebrows.

"Hey! Who bumped into me!?"

The person originally behind the two idiots was startled. He didn't want to get involved into this fight, so he pointed downwards, looking in the process, only for the two idiots not to be there.

The menacing man looked downwards as well, and his eyebrows creased more and more.

"Huh? The ground bumped into me? You taking me for an idiot or something?"

The person that pointed downward was muttering curses directed at the two bozos that bailed once they bumped into this big guy.

"No. The ground did not bump into you. Two idiots did, but they bailed while you were having a pleasant conversation with me."

A sarcastic tone could be found in this man's voice. The menacing one naturally found this insulting and threw a punch at the other party.

He got launched several meters back, pushing the ones behind him backward, including Li Bai.

This guy's strong! Li Bai thought to himself.

Many people trying to get in line saw the commotion happening and took advantage of it by sneaking in the empty space made by the punch of the menacing man.

"Damn it!"

.....

Li Bai had been waiting for half a day as of now. Several fights broke out in front of him during the process, and the ones behind him sneaked in. This resulted in Li Bai ending up at the end of the line.

Finally, Li Bai was the last one that wanted to apply for the tournament. It was already sunset, and the elder managing the applications was tired.

The elder was from the Zhou clan, so small matters like Li Bai's reputation hadn't reached his ears. He was also constantly ignoring all rumors, and this was the reason why he was chosen to be the one managing the station.

However, the elder saw Li Bai's small stature and instantly rejected him, not giving Li Bai a chance to even say his name.

"No elder, please..."

After a while, Elder Zhou Xuan reluctantly accepted Li Bai's application due to his constant pestering for the last hour! He even felt a bit of admiration for this little fellow's determination.

Nonetheless, he expected Li Bai to become the laughingstock of the tournament. This fellow was still very young. The thought of him winning even just one battle was ridiculous!

"Thank you, elder!"

As Li Bai walked away, Zhou Xuan felt pity for this child, and also confusion. He, of all people, should be aware of his own capabilities, so why did he sound so confident?

The elder sighed as he spoke.

"Kids these days, so reckless and prideful."

Oblivious to the elder's thoughts, Li Bai proceeded to go back to the Li clan. He didn't need any more prior arrangements for the tournament and felt confident that winning was just a small matter.

Ultimately, he thought that he would just be facing off against, at most, Third Level Mark cultivators, while being at the Fifth Level Mark himself. A massive difference of two levels was enough to defeat the former without even taking a breath's time.