Upon hearing these words, Chen Yuyang raised his hand and knocked on Cloud Lian’s forehead.
It wasn’t hard, but it still stung a little.
“Stop fooling around, Shimei. Keep watching the matches. Watching more will benefit you and let you gain experience.”
Cloud Lian rubbed her forehead, pouted, and obediently said, “Oh,” before turning her gaze back to the battle stage.
Time passed as duel after duel unfolded.
By the end of the day, this round of elimination matches had finally concluded.
Both Chen Yuyang and Cloud Lian advanced smoothly, making it into the top two hundred.
The next round of matches would take place the following day.
Based on everyone’s numbers and the tournament’s scheduling rules, Chen Yuyang made a quick calculation and deduced Cloud Lian’s opponent for the next round.
It was a cultivator at the sixth layer of the Core Formation realm, which posed no significant threat to Cloud Lian in her current state.
The two returned to the inn where they were staying.
As soon as they entered, Cloud Lian instinctively made a beeline for Chen Yuyang’s room, claiming she wanted to cultivate together to consolidate their cultivation.
Then…
Then Chen Yuyang kicked her out of the room and shut the door in her face.
Closing the door, he waited a moment to confirm his junior sister wouldn’t come back in, then his expression grew slightly serious.
He quickly set up several seals and restrictions around the room, ensuring no one could spy on or disturb him.
…..
Circulating his spiritual power, streaks of golden patterns began to appear and flow across the young man’s body.
[Divine Ability—Earth Shrinking to an Inch!]
The next moment, Chen Yuyang’s figure flickered as space around him folded and twisted.
When he reappeared, he had already crossed ten thousand miles, arriving north of Heng City, in a region barren of human habitation for hundreds of miles in all directions.
This place was filled with rolling mountain ranges, towering ancient trees, and a rich abundance of spiritual energy in the air.
After a brief survey of his surroundings, Chen Yuyang found a secluded valley where spiritual energy gathered naturally.
The young man raised his hand, and eight pitch-black ancient banners inscribed with no array patterns appeared above his palm.
As he infused them with spiritual power, the banners swelled in size, instantly transforming into eight giant pillars dozens of zhang tall.
They firmly planted themselves into the ground, arranged in the eight trigrams formation, covering a vast area around them.
Then Chen Yuyang took out a pure-white jade brush from his storage pouch, its tip glowing with a warm luster and dipped in gold ink.
With a light tap of his toes, he rose into the air and slowly approached the first black banner.
Focusing his mind, Chen Yuyang began drawing rapidly on the banner’s surface and pole.
Wherever the brush tip passed, golden patterns that resonated with the laws of heaven and earth were left behind.
The golden patterns moved like living things, flowing across the pitch-black banner, intertwining, weaving, and distorting the surrounding spiritual power and space.
Over these past days, Chen Yuyang had poured almost all his spare time and energy into researching and adjusting this set of formations.
This formation had no name; it was entirely his own creation, derived from his understanding of formations, deduced and invented using the principle of reverse eight trigrams.
Now that his deductions were nearly complete, he wanted to test the power of his work firsthand.
….
Chen Yuyang moved quickly.
Once he finished drawing on one banner, he immediately went to the next.
Midway, due to excessive spiritual power consumption, he had to stop several times.
However, relying on his pills, he quickly recovered his spiritual power without wasting too much time.
Night fell, the moon hung high in the sky, and the cold air was biting.
Four hours later, Chen Yuyang finally finished drawing.
The eight originally pitch-black banners were now covered densely with intricate, profound golden patterns, reflecting a majestic and imposing luster under the pale moonlight.
Chen Yuyang landed back on the ground.
His face was pale, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat.
Although this was only a test of the formation, with a scale much smaller than his true complete version, just drawing the array patterns had already greatly drained his mental energy and spiritual power.
Taking a deep breath, he quickly regulated his breathing.
Then, with a flip of his palm, an emerald-green jade pagoda the size of a palm appeared in his hand.
Chen Yuyang tossed the jade pagoda toward the center of the formation and let out a low shout: “Rise!”
The jade pagoda hovered in the air, its size expanding, transforming into a towering pagoda dozens of zhang tall.
It stood in the very center of the eight banners, which was also the heart of the formation.
Following that, Chen Yuyang activated his spirit sense and drove the jade pagoda to operate.
Brilliant light burst from the jade pagoda, the countless intricate patterns engraved on its body lit up, and a layer of pale blue light spread rapidly, enveloping the entire jade pagoda.
This was a defensive array inherent to the jade pagoda, quite formidable in defense.
With all this done, Chen Yuyang narrowed his pupils, formed hand seals, connected his spiritual sense to the banners, and muttered a single word.
“Activate!”
As his voice fell, dazzling golden light erupted from the eight banners.
The golden patterns on the banners began to circulate naturally, forming a cycle.
In an instant, the sky and earth changed color.
Within the formation’s coverage, the originally stable spiritual energy of heaven and earth became wildly chaotic, surging and colliding like boiling water.
The ground shook, cracks spread rapidly, and a mountain peak within the formation collapsed under the tremors, creating an astonishing scene.
Next, guided by the formation, the chaotic, violent spiritual energy was compressed, condensed, and gradually formed a massive golden spiritual energy sphere, suspended above the jade pagoda at the formation’s center.
The golden sphere flickered with light, simultaneously emitting a terrifying aura of destruction.
“Explode!”
A glint flashed in Chen Yuyang’s eyes as he shouted in a low voice.
Boom!…
A deafening blast resounded.
The golden spiritual energy sphere exploded violently.
The shockwave surged outward from the jade pagoda like waves, sweeping through everything in its path.
Wherever it passed, trees were uprooted and flattened, boulders shattered, the entire ground was scraped away, and the mountain peak that had been there was now reduced to countless pieces of rubble on the ground.
At the center of the formation, the defensive array on the seventh-grade treasure artifact jade pagoda held for less than a breath before shattering like glass.
The violent force struck the jade pagoda’s body, shaking space itself.
Cracks densely covered the pagoda’s surface, threatening to collapse at any moment.
…..
Amidst the billowing dust and rampant spiritual energy, Chen Yuyang stood with his hands behind his back, treading in the void.
When the formation finally calmed, he looked at the half-destroyed jade pagoda, and a satisfied smile appeared on his pale face.
The power was decent, meeting his expectations.
‘Forcibly reversing one’s own cultivation technique and burning spiritual power—the higher the cultivation and the richer the spiritual power, the greater the backlash and damage from the formation.’
Chen Yuyang squinted, muttering to himself.
‘This formation cannot kill, but it can heavily injure all cultivators below the Mahayana realm within its coverage, draining their spiritual power and the spiritual power of the entire region, leaving them combat-incapable in the short term.’
‘Additionally, the gathered natural spiritual energy, detonated from below, has a range sufficient to encompass the Qiankun Sect’s mountain gate and the dozen or so surrounding mountains rich in spiritual ore. It’s enough to blast half the Qiankun Sect apart and thoroughly disperse the spiritual origin of the Qiankun Sect’s area, turning it into a barren land unsuitable for cultivation.’
In this way, the casualties of the Qiankun Sect would be controlled to a very limited extent.
But the Qiankun Sect’s foundation would be severely affected, possibly forcing them to relocate their mountain gate.
At that time, countless disciples would need to heal, make arrangements, rebuild, or relocate—all consuming vast amounts of time and effort.
‘Thus, in the short term, their threat to Shizun and the Hehuan Sect will be minimized.’
And this was one of the purposes behind his painstaking research of this formation.
Of course, from Chen Yuyang’s perspective, even this was just a warning to the Qiankun Sect.
If it weren’t for his reluctance to harm innocent disciples who knew nothing, Chen Yuyang could have done far more extreme and ruthless things.
‘But since I still need to investigate the Qiankun Sect’s situation, I won’t rush the plan to destroy their mountain gate. After I find some leads and learn more truths, I can slowly set it up later… On the other hand, how to deploy this formation under the Qiankun Sect’s nose also needs careful study.’
Though Chen Yuyang could pre-draw formation flags or corresponding talismans to deploy them quickly when needed, even so, the preparation would still take a lot of time.
However, he wasn’t in a hurry.
Even if this year-long training journey was spent entirely on this matter, it would be worth it.
With the experiment concluded, Chen Yuyang didn’t linger.
He collected the banners and jade pagoda, moved his body, and once again used his divine ability of Earth Shrinking to an Inch, vanishing from the spot.
By the time he returned to his room, the sky outside the window was turning pale with dawn.
There was about one and a half hours until the next elimination match officially began.
Chen Yuyang took a pill, sat cross-legged on the bed, and began to meditate and recover.
An hour later, when he had mostly recovered and some color returned to his face, Cloud Lian knocked on his door.
“Wooden Shixiong, time to go.”
In those simple words seemed to hide the resentment of being ruthlessly kicked out of the room.
….
The second round was nothing noteworthy.
When Chen Yuyang’s opponent saw his face, he hesitated for a moment, then finally sheathed his long blade and cupped his hands in surrender to Chen Yuyang.
Another victory without a fight.
Cloud Lian’s match followed shortly after, but there were no surprises.
Her opponent’s cultivation was inferior to hers, and his combat skills were far lacking.
Within less than ten exchanges, Cloud Lian’s sword tip was already at the opponent’s throat, defeating him.
What was slightly worth noting was the third match tomorrow.
In that match, Cloud Lian was very lucky—her opponent wasn’t very strong.
But Chen Yuyang’s opponent was somewhat special.
His opponent was…
Xuan Ke of the Xuan Clan!
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