The matter of Li Yan's first battle passed quickly. After Lu Qiutong returned, he denied being hit by a Divine Sense poison, which caused many to lose interest. After all, there were too many who played with poison in the Malevolent Spirit Sect, and new poisons appeared frequently. Learning that Lu Qiutong had only carelessly inhaled the toxin, many thought little of it. Furthermore, Lu Qiutong deliberately omitted the bizarre nature of the poison he was afflicted with. He didn't want to provide others with a means to deal with Li Yan; it was enough that he alone knew. There was another point: what did it matter if others knew how Li Yan administered his poison? He didn't believe that Li Yan had only one method of poisoning. Anyone who fell for it would be just as helpless as he was. At least for now, he still didn't know what antidote to use if he were to be hit by that poison again.
The Qi Condensation competition continued. Since each person had to fight at least three matches in a round to determine if they would advance to the next, it would take a considerable amount of time for one hundred and eight winners to emerge from the four hundred and twenty participants. To speed up the competition, the sect adopted a different approach from the Foundation Establishment tournament. First, they increased the number of battle stages. Second, the fierce battles continued day and night without interruption.
Li Yan watched the large crystal screen, silently memorizing the characteristics of different opponents. So far, he had fought four matches, with two losses and two wins. The next match would be extremely important. The two matches he lost were against two masters at the perfected tenth-layer of Qi Condensation. He fought bitterly for a long time but was still defeated. However, what his opponents found strange was that the poisons they used ultimately did not have a critical effect on Li Yan. Often, Li Yan would only be dazed for a moment or his movements would become sluggish, but this still gave the two of them time to strike him. But Li Yan's water-element techniques and his somewhat elusive deadly poisons also gave his next three opponents a huge headache. The two perfected tenth-layer Qi Condensation masters' evaluation of Li Yan was that if not for their much higher realm and Li Yan's failing magical power towards the end, it would have been extremely difficult to win. As for another opponent at the late-stage of the ninth layer of Qi Condensation, Li Yan managed to defeat him by relying on a continuous barrage of "Branches of the Same Breath" until the opponent finally succumbed.
Li Yan estimated the time for his next turn on stage. Night had already fallen, and the massive moon of the Desolate Moon Continent had risen into the sky. Coupled with the light of the formations shrouding each battle stage, the battles within could be seen very clearly.
At this moment, on one of the battle stages, two lines of characters slowly condensed from the flowing blue light: "Thirty-three" versus "Twenty." A voice echoed in Li Yan's ear, "Lots drawn. Ninth battle stage. Thirty-three versus twenty." Li Yan took a deep breath, released his spirit artifact, and soared into the air. Wei Chituo, Gong Chenying, and the others said nothing, just gave him an encouraging look. Even Yun Chunqu shifted his gaze to the crystal screen of the ninth battle stage. Li Yan's past few battles had also piqued his interest.
Under the moonlight, a slight smile appeared on Zhao Min's face, which was like white silk. She looked up at the moonlight. She liked talking with the young man under the moonlight. At this moment, it was as if the young man were sitting beside her, gazing at the distant horizon, talking about the Great Green Mountains.
After entering the blue formation light shield, Li Yan flew directly to the center of the battle stage. He looked up and saw that his opponent had not yet appeared. It seemed he was a bit early this time.
He retrieved his spirit artifact and stood quietly in the center of the battle stage. After a short while, a streak of brilliant light shot over from the other direction. The light dissipated, and a young cultivator appeared a few hundred meters away. He was small and slender, with a delicate face. However, on the left side of his delicate face was a deep scar that ran diagonally from his cheek to his temple. Even though a long time had passed, the flesh was still rolled back, the granulation tissue like a small, gaping mouth. It looked as if it had been cut by a sharp weapon, quite alarming. It felt as if the scar had been just a fraction deeper, it would have pierced his temple.
Seeing this person, Li Yan's pupils shrank. He recognized him. This person was a Spirit Insect Peak cultivator, at the mid-stage of the tenth layer of Qi Condensation. He should also have a companion mid-stage, first-tier spirit beast, the Ghost-Faced Horse. Li Yan had previously watched this person fight a disciple from Never-Parting Peak. That disciple was already at the late-stage of the tenth layer of Qi Condensation and had gained the upper hand by releasing a large area of Gu-insects. But this person had laid out a large patch of trees, and the scent emitted by the trees had confused the large cloud of insects. No matter how the Never-Parting Peak disciple commanded them, the insect cloud still circled among the trees, unwilling to leave. In the end, he was defeated by this person and his spirit beast, the Ghost-Faced Horse, working together. Because Li Yan had a deep memory of that Ghost-Faced Horse, he had even asked Wei Chituo for information about this person at the time, so he recognized him at a glance. This person's name was Zhou Guan'er, ranked within the top twenty of Spirit Insect Peak. This wasn't to say that the peaks didn't have accurate rankings, but that everyone's progress was different, so they could only make a rough estimate based on previous rankings. In addition, for Spirit Insect Peak and Never-Parting Peak, half of their strength relied on their companion spirit insects and spirit beasts. The strength of these spirit insects and beasts varied as they grew. Perhaps they were very strong in the early stages but lacked stamina later on, or perhaps the spirit insect was in a weak period at a certain time, which would all affect the master's attack power.
After Zhou Guan'er stood still, he looked at Li Yan for a while, then suddenly revealed a set of snow-white teeth and smiled at him. The worm-like scar on his face looked even more ferocious under the moonlight. "You are Li Yan from Little Bamboo Peak. I should call you Martial Uncle, right? But Martial Uncle Wang Tian told me to beat you so hard you can't get up, so you don't have to participate in the matches later. How about that?"
Hearing this, Li Yan frowned. He didn't expect the opponent's first words upon meeting to be like this. It was clear that Wang Tian had not forgotten the battle between his Fifth Senior Brother and Zuo Shengyan. He was going to take revenge on him. It seemed that Wang Tian was truly a narrow-minded person, taking revenge on anyone, even those around his target.
"Oh, then come on," Li Yan said faintly after hearing this, not wanting to say more. This made Zhou Guan'er pause, not expecting this person opposite him to be even more arrogant than himself.
"Alright, I imagine beating up a so-called martial uncle should be more satisfying. It's your fault for having a lower realm than your martial nephew, hehe," Zhou Guan'er let out a strange cackle in the night. With a wave of his hand, a huge black creature appeared out of thin air. It was a horse that was entirely black with specks of extremely bright red spots. But the horse's face was bizarre. Its eyes were droopy, and its nostrils took up half of its entire face. Its mouth, however, was like a woman's, a small cherry mouth. It sent a chill down one's spine to look at it.
"My dear, let's go!" Zhou Guan'er formed a seal in front of his chest. Li Yan felt his whole body tighten, and a sense of danger rose from the bottom of his heart. He quickly soared into the air. Although a Qi Condensation cultivator could not yet fly, gliding a hundred or so meters was no problem. The moment he took to the air, he felt a piercing scream in his ears, like the shrill cry of a woman, which made him dizzy and disoriented. His figure faltered in mid-air. Then, his vision blurred, and several streaks of green light rushed toward him. He of course knew what this was; he had seen it before. They were several green, twisted skulls, spewing nether flames at his face. If he were hit by that nether flame, the turquoise flames would spread all over his body in an instant.
And the Ghost-Faced Horse's other attack that gave enemies a headache was that its small cherry mouth would continuously emit a woman-like, shrill, and mournful cry, which would cause an unbearable headache and extreme annoyance. At this time, while the Ghost-Faced Horse was screaming shrilly, its pair of huge nostrils continued to spew out small, twisted skulls, which grew in the wind, instantly expanding to the size of an adult's head and pouncing on Li Yan.
Li Yan endured the ear-piercing screams, protecting his heart meridian with his Divine Sense. Just as he was about to block the attacking nether flame skulls, he felt a tightness around his ankle. He didn't know when, but several long, slender, snake-like strips had already drilled out from the ground below and had entangled one of his ankles while his mind was disturbed. The next moment, Li Yan felt a sharp pain in his right ankle, and then a wave of nausea rose in his stomach. He was greatly alarmed. This was caused by the poison from a plant's sharp thorn seeping into his body.
He quickly waved his right hand forward, and a screen of rain first blocked the incoming nether flame green skulls in front of him. At the same time, he joined his left fingers like a knife and slashed down at his foot. A green wind blade shot out, cutting the two thin vines at his ankle. But those thin vines were like crazed grass, and even more of them drilled out from underground, shooting toward Li Yan's legs.
Before these thin vines could catch up, Li Yan pointed his left hand down again. The ground was instantly covered in a layer of small grass that broke through the stone surface. The roots of these small grass seemed to be connected into a dense net, firmly holding back the thin vines that were reaching for the sky with bared fangs. And this patch of grass on the ground was constantly undulating. Below, there were more thin vines desperately trying to break through the net, but they were held down tightly by these small grass. Li Yan took the opportunity to flash away and reappeared several dozen meters away, but his movements were clearly much slower, due to being afflicted by those thin vines.
After dodging the attack, Li Yan once again infused spiritual power into his hands to control the rain screen and that patch of small grass. In the distance, the Ghost-Faced Horse, seeing its attack being blocked, stopped spewing out the nether flame green skulls. After a louder, more mournful cry, the red spots on its body flashed ominously and then left its body, rapidly shooting into the previous nether flame green skulls. The nether flame green skulls immediately flared with a bright green light, and red smoke emerged from within the green light. Their forward speed increased by a few points, and they struck the rain screen, sending up clouds of smoke. The area of the rain screen was thinning bit by bit. The "Maggot on the Bone" in Li Yan's original rain screen, which had extremely strong adhesive properties, was showing signs of being unstoppable.
Zhou Guan'er then pointed his finger at the ground again. The undulation of the grass became more and more violent, and it looked as if it could no longer be suppressed.
"So your other element spirit root is also wood-element. I didn't see you use it before. Were you planning to save it for this final match? But it's a pity that it's an auxiliary spirit root. What's more, how can your little bit of spiritual power suppress me and my dear? Let me show you the difference in our realms." After saying that, he fiercely infused his spiritual power again. Instantly, with a "crackling" sound, countless thin vines had already broken through the fine net woven by the small grass and rushed toward Li Yan, who was a dozen or so meters away. A flush rose on Li Yan's face, and then a trickle of blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth. It was clear that his magical power was far inferior to Zhou Guan'er's. He also had to divert a portion of his spiritual power to resist that mid-stage, first-tier spirit beast, the Ghost-Faced Horse, which was equivalent to a cultivator at the sixth or seventh layer of Qi Condensation, almost the same as Li Yan's current realm.
It was fortunate that the magical power condensed by the True Scripture of the Nether Water was much deeper than that of a cultivator of the same rank. He was now at the late stage of the seventh layer of Qi Condensation, which was almost equivalent to the late stage of the ninth layer of Qi Condensation. As the True Scripture of the Nether Water continued to improve, the improvement in the later stages became greater. At its peak, his spiritual power could be about five times higher than that of a cultivator of the same rank.
In Zhou Guan'er's attack just now, he had only felt a great force strike him. After all, Zhou Guan'er was a mid-stage tenth-layer cultivator. Even if the True Scripture of the Nether Water was a powerful ancient cultivation immortal art, Li Yan had only cultivated it for a few years. If not for the simultaneous attack of that Ghost-Faced Horse, with the powerful resilience of the True Scripture of the Nether Water, Li Yan could have lasted for a while if he had gone all out. He had not dared to fight head-on against the two perfected Qi Condensation cultivators before. Now, facing a mid-stage tenth-layer cultivator, he had some thoughts of giving it a try, but the result was still that he could not directly contend with him.
Under Zhou Guan'er's fierce attack, the spiritual power Li Yan was using to control that patch of grass immediately collapsed, and he was no longer able to stop the thin vines from breaking through the ground.
Seeing this, Zhou Guan'er let out a low laugh. "A low realm is a low realm. I haven't even used my full strength yet. This is just because Martial Uncle Wang Tian told me to make you suffer enough before seriously injuring you. Otherwise, I would have crippled you directly." Although he said this, his attacks did not stop. But he carefully avoided that patch of grass with his feet. He didn't want to follow in the footsteps of Lu Qiutong and the others. Although those small grass had gradually disappeared after losing their spiritual power support, he was still extra careful.
The attacks of the drilled-out thin vines became even more frantic. Many of them had already followed the nether flame green skulls and plunged into the rain screen in front of Li Yan, causing the rain screen to shake violently. Seeing this, Zhou Guan'er slapped his Storage Pouch with his other hand. With a flash of light, a green flying dagger appeared in the air. He let out a soft cry, "Go!" The flying dagger shot toward Li Yan with a trail of green light.
However, at this time, Zhou Guan'er was not as relaxed as he sounded. He was inwardly surprised. 'The poison in this person's rain screen is truly strange. It's even more difficult to deal with than a protective spiritual light. No wonder Lu Qiutong and the others couldn't break through it. I really don't know what method he used to refine what kind of deadly poison. And how is this person's spiritual power so profound?' He then released his Divine Sense again and scanned Li Yan several times. It was still undoubtedly the mid-stage of the sixth layer of Qi Condensation. This left him at a loss for a moment.
Seeing another flying dagger shooting toward him, Li Yan knew it was a spirit artifact of no low grade. Whether it was a spirit artifact or a magical treasure, the most difficult to guard against were small flying needles, flying daggers, and the like. These types of spirit artifacts and magical treasures often had additional attack effects. Li Yan had no choice but to mobilize his spiritual power and go all out, turning the rain screen in front of him into a round shield, firmly protecting himself in the center, and at the same time releasing his protective spiritual light. But in this way, his spiritual power consumption would be greatly increased.
Among the people watching this battle below the stage, some couldn't help but sigh. "That Little Martial Uncle from Little Bamboo Peak is going to lose. His realm is a fatal flaw. Although that strange rain screen of his can protect him for a while, it can't last too long. Even if it's just a slow consumption of spiritual power, he can't compare to Junior Brother Zhou. What's more, he's using both his protective spiritual light and the rain screen at the same time."
Another disciple said in a strange tone, "With such an aptitude, he can still be our martial uncle? What a joke. Apart from that strange water-element poison, I haven't seen anything impressive about him."
"I heard this person hasn't been cultivating for long. To be able to reach this stage in just a few short years, could you have done it?" a beautiful female disciple said unconvinced.
"If I had a Golden Core master, do you think I would be inferior to him?" that person retorted.
"Then why didn't any elder or Peak Master take you as a disciple?" another fat cultivator beside him chimed in to help the beautiful female disciple.
"Fatty Pi, do you want to get even fatter or not..."
...
Zhao Min stared at the crystal screen, a trace of worry on her face. "It seems the Fragmented Poison Body is not invincible against those of the same realm. At least, after crossing three or four realms, this gap cannot be bridged. It seems Junior Brother Li is going to lose."
Li Changting, standing beside her, saw her expression and couldn't help but smile inwardly. She put her arm around her shoulder. Zhao Min glanced at her and then turned back, thinking, 'I just think it's a pity that the Fragmented Poison Body is so powerful in legend, but he's losing because the realm difference is too great. And you have that kind of expression.' But she was naturally indifferent and didn't want to explain.
In another area, Lin Daqiao, seeing Li Yan could only shrink behind the rain screen and hold on bitterly, couldn't help but sigh with his fists clenched.
Wei Chituo was also watching the crystal screen with some worry. "This battle is difficult for Little Junior Brother." Because he could see that Li Yan's expression at this time was not an act. He was really struggling to hold on, and his face was starting to turn pale, a precursor to spiritual power exhaustion.
Yun Chunqu was actually watching this time. Seeing Li Yan like this, he unexpectedly said a sentence, "He needs more feeding of moves."
Gong Chenying also saw that something was wrong with Li Yan. And seeing that Zhou Guan'er was probing his surroundings with extreme caution before every attack, she sighed in her heart. 'The Fragmented Poison Body can only help for a while. Once the opponent is on guard, it's difficult for it to be effective.'