Inside the Xuan Family Secret Realm, in a spacious valley, Chen Yuyang was sitting on a stone slab.
On the ground in front of him were neatly stacked jade tokens that shimmered faintly.
Those were all trial tokens.
His spiritual sense swept over them, and Chen Yuyang quickly finished counting.
He uttered a number: “Six hundred and seventy-three.”
Chen Yuyang nodded slightly, satisfied with this number.
Since he began sweeping through the area, nine days had passed.
In these nine days, the team had grown from its initial size to fifteen people.
Relying on their numbers and Chen Yuyang’s command, they had achieved great results, defeating over fifty cultivators.
Dividing these tokens equally, each person could get over forty, enough to secure a good ranking in this trial.
However, since they had formed a team, Chen Yuyang’s goal did not stop there.
The more people they eliminated, even if they had fewer tokens, their final ranking would not be low, and the rewards they could obtain would be greater.
In the last two days, Chen Yuyang’s target had also changed.
Those scattered cultivators no longer had much profit.
They carried few tokens, and surrounding them wasted time.
Chen Yuyang now specifically targeted other teams that had also banded together.
Those teams had more people and often more tokens, and their strength was not negligible.
Eliminating them early could reduce many risks.
After defeating others, Chen Yuyang would also ask them for various information.
Among this, what he heard most was about the Dongfang Family’s team hunting other cultivators everywhere.
It was said that the Dongfang Family’s team had over three Nascent Soul realm cultivators stationed, with great strength and extremely domineering behavior.
They attacked almost everyone they saw, and their methods were ruthless.
Though no deaths had occurred, many had been seriously injured.
Three Nascent Souls… Thinking about the Dongfang Family’s team, Chen Yuyang couldn’t help but consider.
Their strength meant they must have a considerable number of tokens.
Most importantly, as long as they remained, his ranking would be affected and threatened.
However, confronting them directly would inevitably cause losses.
The Dongfang Family’s three Nascent Soul cultivators, plus seven or eight Golden Core cultivators, all had formidable strength.
His side had fifteen people, but only Yan Luo had reached Nascent Soul.
If it came to a direct conflict, his team would likely be no match.
Of course, this was without considering his own combat power.
Chen Yuyang frowned slightly as he thought of countermeasures.
But just then, one of his communication jade tokens suddenly lit up, emitting waves of spiritual power.
A message.
Chen Yuyang picked up the token, and a slightly excited voice came from the other side: “Brother Chen, I caught a wounded guy here! He said he just encountered that lightning-attribute cultivator and got a lot of tokens taken!”
Hearing this, Chen Yuyang’s eyes lit up.
In these days, information about that lightning-attribute cultivator had been relatively scarce.
He had previously guessed that either the other party had earned enough tokens and hid away, or had been eliminated by another strong team, so he hadn’t paid much attention.
Unexpectedly, the other party was still active, and right nearby!
“In that case, we can’t let this go. Ask clearly when and where he met him!”
From what he had heard from the defeated, this lightning-attribute cultivator had already defeated at least twenty or thirty people.
The tokens in hand were definitely not a small number, conservatively estimated at one to two hundred.
For his team, this was undoubtedly a considerable gain.
Moreover, Chen Yuyang also felt a sense of curiosity.
Who exactly was this lightning-attribute cultivator?
Because lightning attribute was extremely rare in the Realm of Cultivation. Chen Yuyang, having gone through a hundred lifetimes of experience, had seen all kinds of geniuses, but among them, lightning-attribute cultivators were few and far between.
This special attribute cultivator was quite worthy of research.
Thinking this, Chen Yuyang had already formed a plan.
It had been three or four days since arriving here.
During these three or four days, Yunlian acted very discreetly, rarely showing herself.
She only struck to seize tokens after confirming her target.
Moreover, having learned from the lesson of being attacked by the three from the Dongfang Family, this time Yunlian no longer showed mercy as she did at the beginning.
Previously, as long as the other party obediently handed over their tokens, she would let them off.
But it was precisely this kindness that led to information about her being spread, attracting the attention of those Dongfang Family fellows, ultimately bringing trouble and loss to herself.
So this time, Yunlian was determined that any target she set her sights on would be eliminated without hesitation to avoid future trouble.
But despite such caution, not long ago, she still had a small accident.
Two hours ago, in a two-person squad she attacked, one of the guys, after his companion was injured by her, actually abandoned his teammate and ran away directly.
‘However, it’s just one person, so it should be fine…’
Yunlian felt uneasy, but on second thought, she wasn’t too worried.
At worst, after acting here for two more days, she would switch areas.
Shaking her head to cast aside this concern, Yunlian began to count her gains over the past few days.
This time, she didn’t dare to hide them somewhere but carried them all on her person.
Now, she had seventy-two tokens.
This number was already considerable.
Although far less than the stash she had accumulated before, the cultivators still remaining in the secret realm were mostly capable and resourceful, so the tokens they carried naturally wouldn’t be too few.
With seven or eight days left until the trial ended, as long as she continued to act carefully, it shouldn’t be difficult to earn two hundred tokens by then.
Just as she was thinking of resting a bit and then looking for the next target, Yunlian suddenly sensed an unusual fluctuation of spiritual power, coming from the woods not far ahead.
Yunlian’s heart tightened.
She immediately pulled a concealment talisman from her storage ring and stuck it on herself.
The talisman couldn’t make her invisible, but it could cover all her spiritual power fluctuations, aura, and even the noise she made.
Yunlian stopped flying in the air and quickly moved through the dense forest below toward the source of the spiritual power fluctuation.
After getting closer, Yunlian cautiously poked her head out and looked upward.
She saw that the area ahead had been cleared into an open space.
Around the open space were overturned trees and soil.
On the open ground, two people were locked in fierce combat.
One wore a fiery red robe, the other wore a blue-green attire.
Both had cultivation around the eighth or ninth level of Golden Core.
“Oh? Someone from the Xuan Family and someone from the Yan Family are fighting.”
Yunlian realized and continued watching.
In the sky, spiritual power clashed fiercely.
The remaining trees around were reduced to powder by the shockwaves of the attacks, and the ground was blasted with pits of varying depths.
Sensing the unique spiritual power aura of tokens from the two, Yunlian felt a surge of joy.
The Yan Family cultivator had twenty-five tokens, and the Xuan Family one had twenty-nine… adding up to fifty-four tokens.
This was a fat profit.
These two were clearly fighting over each other’s tokens.
‘Heaven is helping me!’
Yunlian’s lips curled into a smug smile.
As long as she patiently waited until they were both exhausted, she would strike like a mantis catching a cicada with a sparrow behind, delivering a thunderous blow to capture them all and easily pocket these fifty-four tokens.
This time, her luck had truly turned!
Thinking this, Yunlian held her breath, continuing to hide in the shadows, staring fixedly at the scene, waiting for the right moment to strike.
However, just then, the two who had been fighting fiercely suddenly stopped at the same time, as if by agreement.
Yunlian was momentarily stunned.
‘Why aren’t they fighting?’
They were just getting to the exciting part, far from mutual defeat.
As she wondered, a sense of foreboding surged in her heart.
Soon, Yunlian knew the answer to why they stopped fighting.
Because the next moment, she clearly felt over a dozen auras appear, rapidly converging on her hiding spot.
“Damn, it’s a trap!”
Yunlian suddenly realized.
Those two were simply bait put on a show for her!
Yunlian cursed herself for being careless, but it was too late.
Now she was surrounded by a group of cultivators, with no escape.
She looked up at the figures slowly emerging around her.
The Xuan Family, and the Yan Family… The two families had actually joined forces!
Yunlian was shocked and angry.
She quickly drew several lightning talismans.
She was ready to fight to the death.
“You want my tokens? Not so easy!”
She cursed and prepared to activate the talismans to make them pay.
“Wait.”
But just then, a girl’s voice rang out.
“Don’t attack yet. Her voice sounds familiar.”
As the voice spoke, the encirclement of cultivators parted, and a young girl in a fiery red dress with a cute face walked in from outside.
It was Yan Luo.
Yan Luo looked with interest at the masked “lightning-attribute cultivator” in the middle, a hint of confusion in her eyes.
Then another slender woman appeared, Xuan Ke from the Xuan Family.
Xuan Ke also pondered, “It does sound like… Yuyang’s junior sister?”
At the outermost edge of the encirclement, Chen Yuyang also walked up.
The boy’s gaze fell on Yunlian.
Through the mask, cloak, and the concealment talisman, even Chen Yuyang himself couldn’t immediately identify her true identity.
After all, it was his own talisman.
“It’s not just similar. It is her.”
Chen Yuyang said, looking at her with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.
“Senior Brother? It’s you!”
Hearing the familiar voice and seeing the familiar face, Yunlian trembled.
She quickly tore off her mask.
Her anger and annoyance dissipated in an instant, replaced by ecstasy.
But then, remembering something, Yunlian threw herself at him with a pitiful expression.
“Senior Brother, you have to help me get revenge!”
“My tokens! My two hundred-plus tokens!”