章 73: Cloudy Weather

Ever since her talk with Xiao Yue, Shin Sumi had decided that Yan Yan was not going to join the ranking tournament of the Cloud-Formation Pavilion.

Hence, she had less pressure resting on her shoulders as she arrived at the training area of the Formation Branch of the sect.

Contrarily to the Star-Sword Pavilion, the Cloud-Formation Pavilion only rarely housed their training and cultivation processes inside the main building. Instead, the three stories tall building constructed above a giant formation shining with multicolored light overlooked the meeting place, the platform.

This day, the large platform where newcomers had been tested before entering the Pavilion was full of disciples. Each slab of light grey stone had at least two disciples on them, which made Shin Sumi's progression a bit difficult without shoving people aside.

"What is going on here? Has there been an announcement?"

Yan Yan was talking to herself out loud as she navigated the crowd randomly. There were too many people present to successfully use her divine sense to track down the person she was looking for. Shinsoo fluctuations were all over the place, especially since at the very sides of the platforms, a few applicants were still trying to pass the trial of entry to the Pavilion.

"Oh, Sis-Sister Yan! Didn't you hear? The doors to the main building will open soon! Master Cloud has decided to organize the ranking tournament himself."

Shin Sumi turned around to see the disciple who had answered her. It was a girl that should have been around her age, sixteen or so. She had long black hair that she was toying with between her fingers.

Shin Sumi ignored the girl's fluttering eyelashes and pink cheeks. She had become used to Yan Yan's many, many infatuated followers. Be them boys or girls, Yan Yan attracted a lot of people, which was good when she was selling plants in the market of the lower valley. Now, Shin Sumi tended to ignore them.

She was a bit more sympathetic to the women who mustered up the courage to talk to Yan Yan, mostly because they were not as pressuring and full of lust as the men.

"He is organizing the tournament himself? How is it going to happen? And why is everybody piled up here?"

"Didn't you receive the information on a jade slip in front of your door this morning?" inquired the girl.

Shin Sumi was at a loss. Because of her place in the Ghost Pavilion, Shin Sumi didn't really officially have any room to her name in the upper valley. And that also implied the same for Bai Fulong and Yan Yan, her two other personalities.

"That doesn't really matter. Can you tell me what the plan is?"

"Well... As soon as the doors open everyone is free to join one of the thirty two smaller arenas inside the building. Only the best two will get to move to the next round at the end of the day, so it is crucial to choose well."

The girl looked at Yan Yan with intent, "if you want... you can stay next to me, together I'm sure we can find a good arena!"

With a smile that was almost sad, Shin Sumi politely refused the proposition. Continuing to walk through the crowd, she tried again to find friends of hers.

"That is not good. If Master Cloud has gone to the trouble of organizing it, then there is no way he will let me slip away from the tournament."

Despite not being as flashy as she was in the Sword Branch, Shin Sumi was still normally among the most talented disciples of the Cloud-Formation Pavilion. According to her recent encounters with other disciples, Yan Yan should be at the fifteenth spot or so.

"We all know it's only to give the impression of fairness. The way things are going to happen, everybody has a chance as long as they have enough victories among one of the thirty two groups. But each group has to have at least twenty people in them. If this phase of the selection ends tonight, then there is no way everybody will battle everybody, which means there should be some Seniors watching over the area and deciding who passes and who fails the selection."

Shin Sumi was pretty sure that was how things were going to work. In fact the idea was so obvious that everyone should have come to that conclusion as well. Excepted that all of the less-talented disciples were blinded by their envy of placing high in the rankings, purposefully ignoring the true nature of the 'fairness' of the trial.

"Sister Yan, over here!"

Shin Sumi quickly made her way to her friend before sighing loudly.

"Thank the Gods you found me Sister Fu. What a commotion, right?"

"Yes, I heard some people have been waiting for hours, just for a chance to not be in the same arena as..." Fu Xue paused before finishing in a very low voice "as us."

"How will that even work? I'm pretty sure Master Cloud has already arranged the order for the top most sixty four disciples. What if we are all in only two arenas?"

"Hey, don't ask me too many questions now. I don't know anything, same as you! We have to be a little bit more patient."

Looking at Fu Xue with her head to the side, Shin Sumi smiled.

"You look really excited, Sister Fu. Could it be about the fighting, or... Is it something else? Do you have a boy in mind maybe?"

Fu Xue turned sharply towards Yan Yan. Her stare was like a corpse's and her face looked colder than ice.

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course it's about the fighting. My sword hand has been itching for days. I'm gonna use this opportunity to wipe the floor with as many people as I can."

Shin Sumi couldn't help but involuntarily step back. Fu Xue was really terrifying. Nevermind the time where she had battled Bai Fulong in the Shinsoo Gathering Realm, in a very tight match that ended up with Shin Sumi's lucky victory.

Shin Sumi knew that Fu Xue had been making progress so fast that it was astonishing. Even she wasn't aware of how far she had gone on the path of cultivation yet.

"Have you mastered a new technique? You sound really confident... What if you're facing Chu Erlong or Yi Haje?"

Shin Sumi knew she hit the mark when Fu Xue's eyes opened wide and her lips turned into a grin.

"Don't tell anyone but... I may have successfully used the Cloud Arts Third Form once or twice."

Now it was Shin Sumi's eyes' turn to open wider than normal.

"Th-Third form?! Are you kidding me? Don't tell me you're aiming straight for Jun Qian!"

Fu Xue was about to answer, sadly cut by a deafening boom. The large doors of the Cloud-Formation Pavilion's main building were opening.

Instantly the rustling of the hundreds of disciples died, a strange moment of serenity imposed by the small figure behind the open doors.

Master Cloud overlooked the plaza with eyes obscured by shadows. His long grey robe was undulating with a non-existent wind, the vivid light patterns ever-changing. A soft fabric woven between light and dark, exactly like a cloud.

"Come in."

A simple instruction, and then Master Cloud vanished. Shin Sumi had heard that he was a man of few words, but she was still at a loss when the expected rallying speech never came.

"Uh, usually somebody would come to encourage us to fight and everything, right?" Fu Xue had read Shin Sumi's mind, "Anyway, let's go! One last advice though, don't get on the same platform as me eheh"

And with a smile and a wink, Fu Xue was gone too, leaving Shin Sumi standing in the middle of the rushing mass of disciples.

"I should enter too or else I'll get stepped on! Let's find the best arena to lay low and not move onto the qualifications."

But how could that coincide with Master Cloud's plan? As soon as she set foot inside the grand hall covered in mosaic patterns depicting storms and cloudy skies, a strange thing happened.

One of the most attractive features of the Cloud-Formation Pavilion main building was a giant sphere of sort, rotating slowly in the air close to the arched ceiling. It was a massive cloud, its tendrils waving in the air. The sphere was illuminated from the inside by what could only be hidden thunder.

The artefact was blinding to anyone setting foot inside the hall, except for Shin Sumi whose Copper Bell discretely rang.

As soon as the gentle ring appeared in her head, Shin Sumi's eyes lost their focus on the white lightning, instead turning to one of the tendrils, moving faster than human eyes could follow.

Shin Sumi too would have missed it, had it not plunged directly under her one foot, still suspended in the air before touching the hall's tiles.

Before she could even react and with her momentum helping, Shin Sumi stepped on the lightest cloud there was, at the end of the tendril.

No matter where she launched her feet, a new invisible cloud platform would appear, taking her someplace else. Shin Sumi realized that from the beginning she had no choice as to where she was going.

Looking around, she also interestingly discovered that the other disciples didn't seem to be affected at all by the phenomenon.

"This is Master Cloud's doing" she was certain of it when she saw Cho Nuei, another high ranked disciple staring at his feet in confusion as he walked to a nearby arena.

"And now only two higher ranked disciples per arena, as predicted... How am I going to escape this?!"

It was too late to walk back. She even wondered if the giant cloud artefact would have picked her up from any other place in the upper valley to bring her here as Master Cloud wanted.

When the invisible cloud platforms finally let Shin Sumi's feet touch the ground instead of hovering a finger's width above it, she found herself next to one of the most remote arenas of the grand hall.

All thirty two arenas were grey slabs of rock protruding from the ground, about five meters on each side and waist high. All together they covered the entire floor of the building which strangely seemed larger on the inside than on the outside.

"After all this is the main building of the spirit formation branch. My mind is spinning when I try to think about how many formations must have been used on this single part of the sect."

Much like the twenty or so other disciples next to her, Shin Sumi was astonished at the efforts that must have been done in preparation for this small tournament.

Before long, the drone noise of the hundreds of attendees died down once again, this time with the appearance of thirty two Inner Sect disciples.

Just like for the Pavilions entry selections, the Inner Sect disciples were in charge of judging their junior.

Simply feeling the pressure that emanated naturally from them, it was easy to tell that all these late-Liquid Realm cultivators had trained for a long time and they were leagues above the new disciples.

After all, one technically entered the Inner Sect only after reaching at least the best part of the mid Liquid Realm, which was the third step. But as long as an individual was chosen by a master, an elder of the sect, they would have a place secured as an Inner Sect disciple.

As for a disciple reaching the third step of the Liquid Realm but not having any master, well that had simply never happened in the history of the Dark Sky Starry Sect.

With her rather low cultivation level approaching the second step, Shin Sumi couldn't tell exactly what level the examiner of her arena was but the third to fourth step was a good guess.

"You two, give me your name and get ready to begin."

The young man pointed at two disciples in front of him before stepping down from the platform to let them get on.

He recorded their name and when they had entered the Cloud-Formation Pavilion on a piece of jade with his divine sense.

The fights were started at the same time on all the different arenas of the grand hall, resulting in a deafening commotion and a multicolored array of glowing lights all around. Everybody was unleashing magical techniques one after the other, more often than not relying on the Cloud Arts.

Despite being stronger than most other techniques, the Cloud Arts were shared by all the Cloud-Formation Pavilion disciples, which made them a bit predictable, especially with all the disciples present rarely capable of using more than its first form.

Only other techniques were really effective in surprising the opponent, which gave the cultivators coming from various cultivation clans a large advantage.

"This is nothing like fairness but in the Immortal World, strength prevails above all things."

After three or four rounds of fights, Shin Sumi was pointed by the Inner Sect disciple's finger. With a slight grimace she discovered that when her turn came, the seemingly disinterested examiner perked his head upwards, suddenly more attentive.

"Heh. You're expecting me to win easily because I'm one of the two that will advance to the finals. Let's see what you do when I show my horrible fighting aptitude then."

It was the only solution Shin Sumi had come up with to avoid being selected as a top sixty-four contender for the formation branch.

Because she was already almost certain to be selected as a fighter for the Star-Sword Pavilion, Shin Sumi was trying her best to lay low in the Cloud-Formation Pavilion.

"If I lose my fights here, there is no way I'll move on to the next phase, right?"

Yan Yan stepped up on the platform, facing a nineteen years old man who had joined the pavilion a year before her.

"Good, he can probably use the Cloud Arts second form, I can use that to lose easily!"

The fight started almost immediately, not wasting any time due to the large number of fighters who still had to go after them.

Yan Yan's opponent immediately concentrated Shinsoo in his fist, forming a gray orb that wrapped around his fingers.

Facing him, Shin Sumi did the exact same thing, except with much less Shinsoo. The technique was the very common Cloud Arts first form, Cold Smoke.

After completing the incantation, linking the right Shinsoo apertures to the spell caster's hand, the balls of smoke simultaneously unleashed a dozen of snake-like cloud columns that jumped out of the hands towards their adversaries.

Because of her half-assed attempt at the spell, Yan Yan didn't produce enough snake clouds to counteract all of her opponent's.

The grey smoke columns were hitting each other in mid-air, mingling harshly until only a dissipated mist remained. Only the last three of the man's attack managed to get to Yan Yan.

The bite of Cold Smoke was like a short burn that completely paralyzed the flow of Shinsoo in the opponent's body. Yan Yan grimaced, holding her left thigh and her left arm. Both of her members had been hit.

Already Shin Sumi was at a disadvantage, the Inner Sect referee furrowing his brows wondering if Master Cloud had made a mistake when he had handed him the names.

"Tch. You're pretty fast. Let's see what you do about the next one!"

Yan Yan's opponent who had never even heard her name before was completely duped as to what her prowess was worth. He was even a bit vexed to see that younger girl block his first attack almost perfectly.

"Hao Clan secret technique, Icicle Ring!"

Clapping his hands once in front of him, the man then extended his arms wide. Ice cold tendrils of Shinsoo from the tip of his fingers condensed in the air.

As the name implied, the Hao Clan technique created a circular array of terrifying looking icicles, all pointing towards Yan Yan. The air that was already cold after two simultaneous Cloud Arts Cold Smoke lost another few degrees in front of the six majestic icicles.

The sudden display of power surprised Shin Sumi, who found herself on high alert at the last moment. Going by reflexes right as the icicles were released towards her, she knew she had underestimated her opponent.

Unless she wanted to give up the tournament so bad she was willing to suffer grave injuries, she had to act.

The Shinsoo Sea inside of her bubbled, sending frenzied energy through to her right foot, her left leg still frozen by the previous attack.

The six icicles were at the point of reaching her when the sole of her foot hit the ground loudly, sending all the accumulated Shinsoo out in a blast.

"Light of Fire, Dharma Pillar!"

A red hot pillar of flames exploded upwards from her foot. The burst of heat engulfed everything coming at her from the front, in the form of a three meter tall flaming shield barely large enough to hide Yan Yan from her adversary's eyes.

A mushroom of steam soon replaced the pillar and the icicles, as if the opposites had annihilated each other and had completely died.

The Dharma Pillar, from the Light of Fire arcane, was a low level technique she had found in the upper valley market. Before Nuan's refining the pillar would have been good enough for maybe one killer icicle, the enhanced version having completely obliterated all six.

The Hao clansman in front of her was surprised and enraged at the same time. Who was this nobody that had turned his sure-kill secret technique into a cloud of steam?! But it didn't matter to him. With Yan Yan's apparent exhaustion and the impressive fire pillar she had just conjured, there was no way she had enough Shinsoo left to use a second trick like that.

What was more, the man could tell that her entire left side was still affected by the Cold Smoke magical frostbite.

"Time to end this farce, Cloud Arts second form!"