For a brief second, Xuan Zi froze, his eyes tracking the twisting air, space, and scene right above Han Xuhan's head. But his surprise did not last long. With swift steps forward, he pointed at the dozens of disciples near Xuhan and made a familiar tugging motion with his hands, as if he was fishing.
They had seen him make the same gesture once before, during the apprenticeship ceremony.
"Woah-!"
"Ow!"
"What the-!"
"Aaaaagghhh!"
The disciples were caught off guard, as was Luo Yi herself. But Xuan Zi continued to propel away his disciples in the air like cannonballs, clearing the area around Xuhan as fast as possible. To placate the surprised disciples, he gestured upward at the sky where a row of words made up of red smoke had appeared at some point during his movements.
'Disciple Han Xuhan has had an enlightenment! Keep silent!'
As soon as his words registered, the disciples themselves rushed away from Xuhan as if avoiding a plague. One of the biggest taboos in the world of cultivation was the interruption of one's enlightenment. None of them dared to be in the vicinity of a peer experiencing enlightenment, as long as their enmity with him didn't run to the highest possible level. It was the most important rule of a righteous cultivator's ethics.
Luo Yi did not stay still either. Her spirit beast moved with surprising fluidity without making any noise, leaping dozens of meters high while she produced a blue, liquid-like substance from her palms that connected her to the beast. A few seconds later, the beast disappeared into thin air, leaving behind the trail of liquid that fell from above like raindrops all around Xuhan. Everywhere the liquid landed, it created crystalline blue barriers that seemed to absorb both sound, perceptions, and light, blocking the onlookers' vision of Han Xuhan.
The cultivator from the Abyss Guild backpedaled extremely fast, his hands constantly punching at the air around him. Wherever the punches landed, cracking sounds in empty air could be heard, as well as a low, deep hum that sounded like giant waves crashing into a barrier.
The elders all spread around the area, herding the disciples with their movements and casting spells one after one. Elder Kong Ye in particular was naturally the most active. He even threw out multiple scrolls around Xuhan containing complex-looking formations, and a few small gadgets that he seemed to have been carrying for occasions just like this.
As everyone's movements came to a halt, Xuan Zi made another shushing gesture and vigilantly observed the barriers surrounding Xuhan.
All the disciples held their breath. Even Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou, who experienced enlightenments as regularly as an ordinary cultivator experienced breakthroughs, watched the scene attentively.
The spatial deformation above Han Xuhan's head continued to grow in volume. The disciples who weren't familiar with the process stepped back every few seconds while the experienced elders held their ground with bated breath.
The sound of a zither came from inside. A single, unnaturally bright ray of sunlight fell on the barrier Xuhan was within for a brief second. A floral scent spread across the mountains. Far above in the sky where nothing but white clouds were visible, a single white strip of lightning cackled like an airborne dragon.
The array of phenomena started receding as swiftly as it had appeared. The spatial deformation at the center of the crowd warped back to normal. The faint hum of zither died down. The floral scent was carried away by the high sea breeze.
"....Fuck! Where am I? Hello?" Han Xuhan's confused, tense voice rang out from within the barriers.
Xuan Zi looked relieved, his cloudy expression clearing up. Luo Yi waved a hand at the barriers quickly and the crystalline substance reverted back to its liquid state, flowing back to her as if gravity did not exist anywhere other than the inside of her palms.
Han Xuhan reappeared under the scrutiny of hundreds of his peers with a dazed expression on his face. After one brief moment of facing the numerous silent stares, he turned for help toward Xuan Zi. The sect master seemed eager to explain what had transpired just then. But Luo Yi emphatically waved her hand at him to let her speak, which seemed to convince him to keep his mouth shut.
"That was called an 'enlightenment', which I'm sure most of you are familiar with," Luo Yi began speaking without wasting any more time.
"What disciple Han Xuhan here experienced just now is a common phenomenon in this place due to its specialty. For those who aren't aware or may have overlooked the information, we are now standing in the middle of the Titanfall Archipelago!"
Han Xuhan slowly slithered back to his martial siblings' side while listening to her attentively. Xiao Wu gave him a scandalized look, which he decided to ignore temporarily. Mu Ran's reaction consisted of an appreciative chuckle, the sort an elderly would show to an energetic newborn. Yuen Zhou, unsurprisingly, maintained her cool poker face.
"Why would something as precious and rare as enlightenments be common here? What's the so-called specialty of this place, if I may ask?" Enquired one of the nine geniuses of the sect.
"Watch closely," Luo Yi answered with a grin. Pointing one of her hands at the sky, she loudly shouted, "MEATBALL!"
All the disciples looked up, eager not to miss a single detail.
Barely had Han Xuhan realized that the beast wasn't where he had last seen it when he noticed a strange scene. The air around that place Luo Yi was pointing at twisted as if he was looking at a transparent cloth being folded roughly. A faint popping sound followed the warp, and the familiar spirit beast appeared once more right in front of the warped space, falling from the thirty-meter-high origin point.
One word rang in Han Xuhan's mind.
Teleportation!
"It's not teleportation!" Luo Yi announced as Meatball dropped with the weight of several tons on the ground, sending out tremors all around.
"what it is...is a secret you'll have to unearth yourselves. If you manage to come up with a close enough answer, I, your counselor, would be obliged to reveal the actual details to you. This achievement would provide your sect with an extra merit point that can boost your ranking in the first round by a great margin. The same rules apply to all sects!
"This Titanfall Archipelago is a rather unstable region. But due to that very factor, we have chosen it to be where the preliminary round of the tournament takes place. The elements and phenomenons you've seen so far shall play a vital role here. Obviously, there are many more details about this region that I'm not permitted to inform you of, mostly because they are crucial to your victory in the tournament. You'll have to discover those information yourselves!"
At this moment, another disciple from the genius gang raised his hand. Luo Yi nodded at him with a smile, permitting him to speak.
"Senior Yi, you said something about enlightenments being a common phenomenon here in the Titanfall Archipelago. I'm pretty sure everybody here is more interested in that sentence compared to the tournament's news."
A buzz rose among the disciples, supporting his statement. Luo Yi shook her head thoughtfully, gesturing at them to quiet down.
"That is correct. Usually, this information comes up much later, not during the introductory phase of the new sects here. But disciple Xuhan over there seems to have been at the edge of an enlightenment long before he had arrived here. So the specialty of the archipelago only acted as a catalyst to smoothen the process up. As for what the specialty it is....that too is a piece of information you'll have to discover yourselves. 'The Champion Of The Planet' tournament aims to be as realistic as possible without being boring and mundane. So nobody is going to guide you to gaining knowledge and experiencing enlightenments, not even your masters. Your success and achievements in the tournament shall depend solely on you. The only help you'll receive from the elders of your sect is advice, safety in case of fatal accidents, and the regular teaching that you were supposed to receive back in your sect anyway. None of those things will directly help you achieve anything if you don't put in the effort yourself."
The disciples meekly nodded in agreement with her. Luo Yi returned to her original introductory speech.
"I can see that the Crimson Snow Sect has had a bountiful harvest of talented new blood in this generation. The amount of the lowest-level domains on your island is quite small! I'm not going to waste any more time on information you can ask me for later. As you have heard from fellow cultivator Tang, there are other sects waiting in line for the arrival of their counselors. This year, the number of sects qualifying for the preliminary round of the tournament has been unprecedentedly high. So we are in a shortage of counselors right now. The backlog will be remedied soon enough. Until then, all of you can dedicate yourselves to the first task of the preliminary round— the remodeling of your sect!"
"Remodeling?"
"What's wrong with the current layout?"
"I thought only the third-level domains were susceptible to control, right? If the elders aren't supposed to help us, only the domains controlled by the nine geniuses will be left. That's not a very large amount, is it?"
"I doubt it can be called a remodeling of the sect. More accurate a description would be building sand castles at one corner of the sect."
Hundreds of disciples broke out into discussions, their voices loud enough to reach Luo Yi. Han Xuhan threw a confused glance at his martial siblings and found out all three of them looked unnaturally excited. Even the stone-faced Yuen Zhou seemed to be radiating boundless energy and eagerness.
Meanwhile, Luo Yi did not look remotely surprised. Instead, a strange smirk made its way into her face. Standing behind her, the senior Tang from the Abyss Guild had the exact same reaction to their discussions.
"True, true," Luo Yi answered loudly to the questions directed at her, recapturing the attention of the audience.
"Only the third level domain is malleable enough for a remodeling. And even if all of you become expert builders, you cannot make any substantial changes to your homes as easily as the geniuses of your sect who wield control over the third-level domains."
Interrupting her speech, Mu Ran shouted out in annoyance, his tone impatient.
"Oh, I get it. Tournaments are obviously aimed to fish out the true dragons in this pond full of fish! From the beginning, we all knew that only the geniuses had an actual chance to qualify for the competition. The rest of the rabble are just here to act as a peanut gallery!
So this is where the true elimination begins! The-"
"No, not really."
"True genius- wait, what?" Mu Ran's blood-boiling declaration came to a confused halt as Luo Yi's remark hit him.
"The third level domains will surely help you with the remodeling. But to gain victory in this round, it will play a minor role. The true key to winning this tournament lies in how many of you survive the oncoming disasters!" Luo Yi laughed, spreading her hands wide in a grandiose fashion.
"That's all I'm allowed to say!"
Disasters....surely not....oh, no no no!
Alarm bells went off in Han Xuhan's mind. He had just been rejoicing upon hearing that only the nine geniuses might be competing for real while he could enjoy from the sidelines.
"Yes, that's right! Disasters just like the flood you experienced the moment you arrived here in the Titanfall Archipelago. Flood, earthquake, thunderstorm, demon beast invasion, acid rain, food and resource, robbery, thievery, betrayal, battle royale, cultivation deviation, and so much more! Ahahaha...how many of those are you going to face with that measly bit of third-level domains?"
For the first time, Luo Yi's cheerful persona slipped a bit, revealing a somewhat maniacal hysteria hidden inside.
Stunned into silence, the disciples stared at her for a long time. Mu Ran looked heartbroken, his eyes winded in disbelief. Finally, Yuen Zhou was the one to speak once more.
"Uhm...what was that bit about food and resources among all those disasters? Surely, we can return to the sect for those whenever necessary, right?"
"Yeah, about that...." Luo Yi's ear-to-ear grin did not indicate a positive answer to her question.
For a brief second, Xuan Zi froze, his eyes tracking the twisting air, space, and scene right above Han Xuhan's head. But his surprise did not last long. With swift steps forward, he pointed at the dozens of disciples near Xuhan and made a familiar tugging motion with his hands, as if he was fishing.
They had seen him make the same gesture once before, during the apprenticeship ceremony.
"Woah-!"
"Ow!"
"What the-!"
"Aaaaagghhh!"
The disciples were caught off guard, as was Luo Yi herself. But Xuan Zi continued to propel away his disciples in the air like cannonballs, clearing the area around Xuhan as fast as possible. To placate the surprised disciples, he gestured upward at the sky where a row of words made up of red smoke had appeared at some point during his movements.
'Disciple Han Xuhan has had an enlightenment! Keep silent!'
As soon as his words registered, the disciples themselves rushed away from Xuhan as if avoiding a plague. One of the biggest taboos in the world of cultivation was the interruption of one's enlightenment. None of them dared to be in the vicinity of a peer experiencing enlightenment, as long as their enmity with him didn't run to the highest possible level. It was the most important rule of a righteous cultivator's ethics.
Luo Yi did not stay still either. Her spirit beast moved with surprising fluidity without making any noise, leaping dozens of meters high while she produced a blue, liquid-like substance from her palms that connected her to the beast. A few seconds later, the beast disappeared into thin air, leaving behind the trail of liquid that fell from above like raindrops all around Xuhan. Everywhere the liquid landed, it created crystalline blue barriers that seemed to absorb both sound, perceptions, and light, blocking the onlookers' vision of Han Xuhan.
The cultivator from the Abyss Guild backpedaled extremely fast, his hands constantly punching at the air around him. Wherever the punches landed, cracking sounds in empty air could be heard, as well as a low, deep hum that sounded like giant waves crashing into a barrier.
The elders all spread around the area, herding the disciples with their movements and casting spells one after one. Elder Kong Ye in particular was naturally the most active. He even threw out multiple scrolls around Xuhan containing complex-looking formations, and a few small gadgets that he seemed to have been carrying for occasions just like this.
As everyone's movements came to a halt, Xuan Zi made another shushing gesture and vigilantly observed the barriers surrounding Xuhan.
All the disciples held their breath. Even Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou, who experienced enlightenments as regularly as an ordinary cultivator experienced breakthroughs, watched the scene attentively.
The spatial deformation above Han Xuhan's head continued to grow in volume. The disciples who weren't familiar with the process stepped back every few seconds while the experienced elders held their ground with bated breath.
The sound of a zither came from inside. A single, unnaturally bright ray of sunlight fell on the barrier Xuhan was within for a brief second. A floral scent spread across the mountains. Far above in the sky where nothing but white clouds were visible, a single white strip of lightning cackled like an airborne dragon.
The array of phenomena started receding as swiftly as it had appeared. The spatial deformation at the center of the crowd warped back to normal. The faint hum of zither died down. The floral scent was carried away by the high sea breeze.
"....Fuck! Where am I? Hello?" Han Xuhan's confused, tense voice rang out from within the barriers.
Xuan Zi looked relieved, his cloudy expression clearing up. Luo Yi waved a hand at the barriers quickly and the crystalline substance reverted back to its liquid state, flowing back to her as if gravity did not exist anywhere other than the inside of her palms.
Han Xuhan reappeared under the scrutiny of hundreds of his peers with a dazed expression on his face. After one brief moment of facing the numerous silent stares, he turned for help toward Xuan Zi. The sect master seemed eager to explain what had transpired just then. But Luo Yi emphatically waved her hand at him to let her speak, which seemed to convince him to keep his mouth shut.
"That was called an 'enlightenment', which I'm sure most of you are familiar with," Luo Yi began speaking without wasting any more time.
"What disciple Han Xuhan here experienced just now is a common phenomenon in this place due to its specialty. For those who aren't aware or may have overlooked the information, we are now standing in the middle of the Titanfall Archipelago!"
Han Xuhan slowly slithered back to his martial siblings' side while listening to her attentively. Xiao Wu gave him a scandalized look, which he decided to ignore temporarily. Mu Ran's reaction consisted of an appreciative chuckle, the sort an elderly would show to an energetic newborn. Yuen Zhou, unsurprisingly, maintained her cool poker face.
"Why would something as precious and rare as enlightenments be common here? What's the so-called specialty of this place, if I may ask?" Enquired one of the nine geniuses of the sect.
"Watch closely," Luo Yi answered with a grin. Pointing one of her hands at the sky, she loudly shouted, "MEATBALL!"
All the disciples looked up, eager not to miss a single detail.
Barely had Han Xuhan realized that the beast wasn't where he had last seen it when he noticed a strange scene. The air around that place Luo Yi was pointing at twisted as if he was looking at a transparent cloth being folded roughly. A faint popping sound followed the warp, and the familiar spirit beast appeared once more right in front of the warped space, falling from the thirty-meter-high origin point.
One word rang in Han Xuhan's mind.
Teleportation!
"It's not teleportation!" Luo Yi announced as Meatball dropped with the weight of several tons on the ground, sending out tremors all around.
"what it is...is a secret you'll have to unearth yourselves. If you manage to come up with a close enough answer, I, your counselor, would be obliged to reveal the actual details to you. This achievement would provide your sect with an extra merit point that can boost your ranking in the first round by a great margin. The same rules apply to all sects!
"This Titanfall Archipelago is a rather unstable region. But due to that very factor, we have chosen it to be where the preliminary round of the tournament takes place. The elements and phenomenons you've seen so far shall play a vital role here. Obviously, there are many more details about this region that I'm not permitted to inform you of, mostly because they are crucial to your victory in the tournament. You'll have to discover those information yourselves!"
At this moment, another disciple from the genius gang raised his hand. Luo Yi nodded at him with a smile, permitting him to speak.
"Senior Yi, you said something about enlightenments being a common phenomenon here in the Titanfall Archipelago. I'm pretty sure everybody here is more interested in that sentence compared to the tournament's news."
A buzz rose among the disciples, supporting his statement. Luo Yi shook her head thoughtfully, gesturing at them to quiet down.
"That is correct. Usually, this information comes up much later, not during the introductory phase of the new sects here. But disciple Xuhan over there seems to have been at the edge of an enlightenment long before he had arrived here. So the specialty of the archipelago only acted as a catalyst to smoothen the process up. As for what the specialty it is....that too is a piece of information you'll have to discover yourselves. 'The Champion Of The Planet' tournament aims to be as realistic as possible without being boring and mundane. So nobody is going to guide you to gaining knowledge and experiencing enlightenments, not even your masters. Your success and achievements in the tournament shall depend solely on you. The only help you'll receive from the elders of your sect is advice, safety in case of fatal accidents, and the regular teaching that you were supposed to receive back in your sect anyway. None of those things will directly help you achieve anything if you don't put in the effort yourself."
The disciples meekly nodded in agreement with her. Luo Yi returned to her original introductory speech.
"I can see that the Crimson Snow Sect has had a bountiful harvest of talented new blood in this generation. The amount of the lowest-level domains on your island is quite small! I'm not going to waste any more time on information you can ask me for later. As you have heard from fellow cultivator Tang, there are other sects waiting in line for the arrival of their counselors. This year, the number of sects qualifying for the preliminary round of the tournament has been unprecedentedly high. So we are in a shortage of counselors right now. The backlog will be remedied soon enough. Until then, all of you can dedicate yourselves to the first task of the preliminary round— the remodeling of your sect!"
"Remodeling?"
"What's wrong with the current layout?"
"I thought only the third-level domains were susceptible to control, right? If the elders aren't supposed to help us, only the domains controlled by the nine geniuses will be left. That's not a very large amount, is it?"
"I doubt it can be called a remodeling of the sect. More accurate a description would be building sand castles at one corner of the sect."
Hundreds of disciples broke out into discussions, their voices loud enough to reach Luo Yi. Han Xuhan threw a confused glance at his martial siblings and found out all three of them looked unnaturally excited. Even the stone-faced Yuen Zhou seemed to be radiating boundless energy and eagerness.
Meanwhile, Luo Yi did not look remotely surprised. Instead, a strange smirk made its way into her face. Standing behind her, the senior Tang from the Abyss Guild had the exact same reaction to their discussions.
"True, true," Luo Yi answered loudly to the questions directed at her, recapturing the attention of the audience.
"Only the third level domain is malleable enough for a remodeling. And even if all of you become expert builders, you cannot make any substantial changes to your homes as easily as the geniuses of your sect who wield control over the third-level domains."
Interrupting her speech, Mu Ran shouted out in annoyance, his tone impatient.
"Oh, I get it. Tournaments are obviously aimed to fish out the true dragons in this pond full of fish! From the beginning, we all knew that only the geniuses had an actual chance to qualify for the competition. The rest of the rabble are just here to act as a peanut gallery!
So this is where the true elimination begins! The-"
"No, not really."
"True genius- wait, what?" Mu Ran's blood-boiling declaration came to a confused halt as Luo Yi's remark hit him.
"The third level domains will surely help you with the remodeling. But to gain victory in this round, it will play a minor role. The true key to winning this tournament lies in how many of you survive the oncoming disasters!" Luo Yi laughed, spreading her hands wide in a grandiose fashion.
"That's all I'm allowed to say!"
Disasters....surely not....oh, no no no!
Alarm bells went off in Han Xuhan's mind. He had just been rejoicing upon hearing that only the nine geniuses might be competing for real while he could enjoy from the sidelines.
"Yes, that's right! Disasters just like the flood you experienced the moment you arrived here in the Titanfall Archipelago. Flood, earthquake, thunderstorm, demon beast invasion, acid rain, food and resource, robbery, thievery, betrayal, battle royale, cultivation deviation, and so much more! Ahahaha...how many of those are you going to face with that measly bit of third-level domains?"
For the first time, Luo Yi's cheerful persona slipped a bit, revealing a somewhat maniacal hysteria hidden inside.
Stunned into silence, the disciples stared at her for a long time. Mu Ran looked heartbroken, his eyes winded in disbelief. Finally, Yuen Zhou was the one to speak once more.
"Uhm...what was that bit about food and resources among all those disasters? Surely, we can return to the sect for those whenever necessary, right?"
"Yeah, about that...." Luo Yi's ear-to-ear grin did not indicate a positive answer to her question.
