Melt You-No Negotiation!

Silence!

A deathly silence!

Across the vast martial arts arena, the gazes of thousands seemed frozen in place, staring in utter disbelief at the Potential Stone in the center, which emitted... an exceedingly dim gray glow! And at the young man's hand still pressed against the stone tablet, looking somewhat "at a loss"!

Gray?!

The potential-testing stone had actually lit up with gray light—the color representing... the lowest, worst, practically nonexistent potential?!

Th-this... how was that possible?!

Where was that monstrous genius who had broken through one layer in three days during the cultivation test, with a foundation terrifyingly solid?

Where was that ruthless fellow who had severely injured Lin Bao, a Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer Peak cultivator, with one punch?

Where was that "miracle youth" who had thrilled the family head, earned the elders' praise, and inspired awe in every peer?!

How had the potential test turned out... like this?!

This enormous contrast! This incomprehensible result! It was even more shocking than when Lin Chen had displayed his astonishing strength before! Even more... impossible to understand!

After a brief dead silence came an even fiercer, more chaotic uproar!

"Gr-gray?! Am I seeing things?! The Potential Stone is actually gray?!" "Wh-what is going on?! Could Lin Chen's... potential be incredibly low?!" "Impossible, right?! He cultivates so quickly! His foundation is so steady! How could his potential be this terrible?!" "Could the Potential Stone be broken? Or... was there something wrong with the true qi he injected just now?" "If you ask me, he's all show and no substance! His cultivation must have risen through some crooked, evil method or by overdrawing his potential! Now that his potential has been tested, he's immediately revealed his true colors!" "Exactly! That has to be it! I knew no one could be that monstrous! So he's just a silver spearhead with a wax shaft!" "Tsk, tsk. What a pity. He has cultivation but no potential. His future achievements will ultimately be limited..."

At that moment, the wind seemed to have subtly shifted!

The awe and shock Lin Chen had inspired with his astonishing strength were swiftly replaced by disappointment and contempt brought about by his "low potential"!

After all, in this world where martial strength reigned supreme, potential was often more important than one's current cultivation! It determined how far a person could go in the future! Even if someone with poor potential led for a time in cultivation, they would ultimately amount to nothing and be cast far behind by those with true potential!

Lin Chen's result of "gray potential" had undoubtedly dumped a basin of icy water over the "genius" halo that had only just begun to shine around him! It could even be called a blow to the head!

Among the crowd, Lin Bao froze at first. Then an almost crazed smile of extreme delight spread across his face!

"Hahahaha! Gray! It's actually gray! Trash! You really are trash!!" He pointed at Lin Chen on the platform and burst into loud laughter, rocking back and forth. The laughter even tugged at the injury in his chest, bringing on a violent fit of coughing, but he did not care in the slightest. His eyes brimmed with the thrill of vengeance and endless mockery. "I knew it! How could you have suddenly become so powerful? So you used some evil art that overdrew your potential! Hahaha! Heaven is helping me! Trash like you, with your potential exhausted—even if your cultivation is higher than mine now, so what? In the future, you are destined to be trampled beneath my feet! You will never rise again!!"

The lackeys around him immediately joined in the jeering:

"So he's an embroidered pillow—pretty to look at, useless in a fight!" "His potential is garbage! Even if he's a little impressive now, he'll still be trash later!" "Brother Leopard is right! Someone like him isn't even worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as you!"

On the high platform, the elders' expressions became extraordinarily vivid.

Most of the gloom and killing intent on Great Elder Lin Zhenhong's face vanished in an instant, replaced with barely suppressed delight and gloating! Gray potential! Hahaha! It truly was the will of heaven! This little bastard had indeed only bloomed like an epiphyllum for a single night! With potential this poor, so what if he had some strength now? He was not worth fearing at all! He even regretted having considered killing Lin Chen immediately. Now, it seemed utterly unnecessary! Trash with exhausted potential was not worth wasting another thought on! A little suppression was all it would take, and Lin Chen would slowly sink on his own!

The excitement and gratification on Family Head Lin Xiaotian's face instantly froze! His eyes filled with incredulous disappointment and... a deep trace of regret. Gray potential? How could it be gray potential?! He had clearly sensed enormous energy hidden within Lin Chen's body! His foundation was incomparably solid as well! How could his potential be so poor?! Could it be... just as Lin Bao said, that he had used some secret method to overdraft his potential? If that was true... had the Lin Family merely rejoiced in vain?! A crushing sense of loss sent Lin Xiaotian's mood plunging to the bottom.

The appreciation and admiration on Third Elder Lin Zhenyue's face also disappeared, replaced by dense confusion and incomprehension. He frowned deeply, staring fixedly at the dim gray glow on the Potential Stone, unable to make heads or tails of it. With such a stable foundation and such rapid cultivation progress, how could his potential be this low? It completely defied reason! Could it be... that the Potential Stone had truly malfunctioned? Or... did this Lin Chen still hide an even deeper secret?!

Meanwhile, in a certain corner, Elder Qiu, who had been silently observing all along, had a flash of understanding and... even deeper interest pass through his cloudy old eyes. "Interesting... truly interesting... Even the Potential Stone cannot test his true foundation? This little fellow has more secrets than this old man imagined..."

Under the complex gazes of the entire audience—gazes that could even be called a complete reversal—Lin Chen, the instigator of it all, displayed exactly the right expression of... bewilderment, loss, and disbelief.

He stared blankly at the Potential Stone beneath his palm, where gray light shone. It was as though he had suffered an enormous blow; his eyes were hollow, and he looked utterly devastated.

"Gr-gray? How... how could it be gray?" he muttered, his voice filled with "despair" and "unwillingness." "Impossible... this is impossible..."

He even tried injecting true qi into it again, hoping to change the result. Yet the Potential Stone remained half-dead as ever, emitting that despairing gray light.

This exquisite performance convinced everyone once again beyond any doubt—Lin Chen truly had low potential! His previous stunning performance had very likely been nothing more than a flash in the pan, or had come at an enormous cost!

The deacon in charge of recording looked at Lin Chen with sympathy and regret. He shook his head and announced loudly, "Lin Chen, potential... lowest of the low. Next!"

This assessment of "lowest of the low" was like the final straw that completely "crushed" Lin Chen!

He withdrew his hand in a daze, staggered down from the high platform like a walking corpse, and returned to the corner of the crowd. With his head lowered and shoulders trembling faintly, as if silently weeping, he portrayed a youth whose "genius dream had shattered and whose future was bleak" with perfect vividness!

This performance of "genuine emotion" dispelled the final trace of doubt in everyone's hearts!

Laughter, scorn, and gloating rose again, even more unrestrained than before!

"Hahaha! I told you! Trash will always be trash!" "What use is brute strength alone? If your potential is no good, you're still garbage!" "What a waste of that cultivation! What a pity, what a pity!" "Look at how devastated he is. How pitiful! But he deserves it!"

Lin Bao was even more pleased with himself! He felt as though more than half the injury in his chest had healed! He walked near Lin Chen and looked down at him with the posture of a victor, mocking him to the utmost.

"Trash! Do you see now? This is reality! So what if you stepped in dog shit and got lucky enough to raise your cultivation a little? Your potential has doomed you to be trash for the rest of your life! And I, Lin Bao—even if I've suffered a little injury—am destined to become an eagle soaring through the nine heavens! You are only fit to look up at me from the ground! Hahaha!"

Lin Chen kept his head lowered, his body trembling faintly as though Lin Bao's words had deeply wounded him. He did not dare refute him.

Yet where no one could see, deep in his lowered eyes, there flickered an icy, bone-piercing glint and... a sly smile!

Low potential? Gray light?

This was exactly the result he wanted!

Or rather, it was the result the Myriad Dao Furnace had "taken the initiative" to choose for him!

Just moments ago, the instant he injected true qi into the Potential Stone, the Myriad Dao Furnace within his dantian had suddenly produced a strange fluctuation! This fluctuation was neither an attack nor a defense, but a kind of... isolation! A kind of concealment!

It was as though an invisible, unseeable barrier had instantly enveloped his entire body! It perfectly cut off his true potential—now unfathomable after fusing with the Nine-Orifice Dao Foundation—from the Potential Stone's detection!

The furnace had even "deliberately" released an extremely faint aura similar to "waste energy," interfering with the Potential Stone's judgment and ultimately producing this gray light that represented "lowest of the low"!

All of this had happened with extreme secrecy and speed! Even Lin Chen himself was a little surprised!

Clearly, the Myriad Dao Furnace seemed to possess some kind of "independent consciousness" or "instinct." It did not want its existence, or its connection to its host, to be noticed by outsiders! It was actively helping Lin Chen disguise and conceal himself!

This discovery left Lin Chen both startled and delighted!

He was startled because this furnace seemed even more mysterious than he had imagined, and even more... opinionated?

He was delighted because with the furnace's "active cooperation," his grand plan of "playing the pig" had grown wings like a tiger! It was flawless!

This result of "gray potential" was simply a divine stroke!

Not only did it perfectly explain his earlier "unreasonable" surge in cultivation—by attributing it to overdrawing his potential—it also knocked him down from the highly watched position of a "genius with limitless potential" and back into the safer identity of "trash with low potential"!

It would make Family Head Lin Xiaotian continue to value him, but his expectations would surely be greatly lowered, and he would no longer pay excessive attention to or interfere with him.

It would make Great Elder Lin Zhenhong lower his guard and stop treating him as the greatest threat, buying Lin Chen more time to develop in obscurity!

It would also make self-righteous idiots like Lin Bao completely look down on him, providing perfect cover for his coming "hunt"!

It was simply killing three birds with one stone! Perfect!

Lin Chen was blooming with joy inside, yet his face remained as devastated and lifeless as ever. He brought an "actor's" professional cultivation to its utmost limit!

The potential-testing stage ended amid this dramatic reversal.

Although Lin Chen's "gray potential" had become the greatest "joke" and topic of discussion, the tests still had to continue.

"Alright! The potential test is over!" Third Elder Lin Zhenyue cleared his throat and drew everyone's attention back. However, when he looked at Lin Chen, there was still a trace of undisguised confusion and scrutiny in his gaze. "Next comes the final and most important event: the practical combat ranking battles!"

"Anyone at the Body Tempering Realm Triple Layer or above is qualified to participate! The rules are simple! Two opponents face each other; the victor advances, and the loser is eliminated! Challenges are allowed! Surrender is allowed! But killing blows are forbidden! Stop when the point is made!"

He deliberately emphasized "killing blows are forbidden" and "stop when the point is made," clearly taking into consideration the nearly irreconcilable conflict between Lin Chen and Lin Bao, as well as the "ruthless" methods Lin Chen had displayed earlier.

"The match list will use the drawing results from the preliminary test! Anyone with objections may issue a challenge!"

The drawing results from the preliminary test would be used?!

At those words, a sharp gleam flashed through Lin Chen's eyes, which had seemed somewhat "disheartened" just moments ago!

Meanwhile, the smile on Lin Bao's smug face stiffened slightly!

The preliminary test's drawing results meant...

"First match, Lin Yan versus Lin..." The deacon began reading the list.

Match after match swiftly began!

Lin Yan and Lin Xue still crushed their opponents without suspense, advancing easily amid wave after wave of cheers.

The other matches also produced victories and defeats of their own, each one exciting in its own way.

Very soon, it was once again time for the match that made everyone tense!

"Thirty-second match, Lin Bao versus Lin Chen!"

When those two names were called again, every gaze in the arena focused on them in unison!

Only this time, everyone's mindset had subtly changed!

Before, almost everyone had believed that Lin Chen would certainly lose, perhaps even die horribly.

But now...

Although Lin Chen's potential was low, he had still displayed the strength to severely wound Lin Bao with one punch! Lin Bao's realm was higher, but he was injured, and his strength seemed to have declined...

The suspense of this battle seemed to have returned?

Quite a few people even vaguely felt that Lin Chen, despite his low potential, might... truly create another miracle? After all, his earlier performance had been far too strange!

Lin Bao's face turned exceptionally ugly! He sensed the strange looks around him! He sensed their doubts, no longer absolute certainty that he would win! It made him feel utterly humiliated!

"Trash! Even if your potential is garbage, today I'll make you understand! The gap between realms is an abyss you can never cross!" Lin Bao snarled through gritted teeth, forcibly suppressing the unease in his heart as he stepped onto the fighting platform again! He would use a sweeping, satisfying victory to wash away every humiliation! He would prove that he was still that high and mighty Favored Child of Heaven!

As for Lin Chen, he still looked "devastated," as though he "had not yet recovered from the blow of the potential test." With "unsteady" steps, he made his way onto the fighting platform.

Yet deep in his lowered eyes, the icy killing intent and unwavering conviction of victory burned more fiercely than ever before!

Low potential? Perfect!

Let every one of you believe my future is bleak! Let every one of you lower your guard!

That way, in the darkness, I can temper my claws and fangs even better!

Then, when you least expect it, I will give you... the most fatal blow!

"The match begins!"

At the referee's command!

A confrontation destined to shock the entire arena once again officially began!

This time, Lin Chen no longer needed to deliberately hide his strength!

He would use a "hard-fought" victory to cement his image as someone with "insufficient potential but passable strength"!

At the same time, he would collect a little more... interest from Lin Bao!

For example: completely crippling the right hand that used Frenzied Leopard Claw?!

A cruel, icy curve formed at the corner of Lin Chen's lips.

Melt you—no negotiation!