Clean and Swift

Chen Xuan did not hurry over. He controlled the Cloud Sword and struck a few more times.

Only after confirming that the Black Iron Bear was dead did Chen Xuan approach to examine its corpse.

After looking over the Black Iron Bear's mangled body, Chen Xuan put it into his Storage Bag.

Everything obtained inside the secret realm, including slain monsters, could be taken away by the sect disciples.

This was also a perk for the disciples participating in the trial.

But to claim this perk, they needed enough strength.

"Flowing Cloud Myriad Forms really lives up to its reputation as a top-tier Dao Technique. This thing is so useful!"

Chen Xuan could not help sighing to himself.

After putting away the Black Iron Bear's corpse,

he did not dawdle. He used Flowing Cloud Moon-Stepping to leave and went looking for tokens.

The sect plaza.

The three elders watched the light screens across the plaza. There were three thousand of them, but with the strength of their spiritual senses, the elders could still observe all three thousand disciples at once.

"This little fellow... He clearly doesn't have a Spirit Body, yet he's already at the third layer of Qi Gathering. He's also mastered two Dao Techniques quite well. Which peak is he from?"

One of the three elders, an old man with white hair, looked curiously at the other two and asked.

The middle-aged elder shook his head. He did not know.

The other elder, a woman, shook her head too.

"Look into it. Find out which peak that little fellow belongs to."

The middle-aged elder called over a disciple from the Deacon Hall.

"Yes, Elder."

The Deacon Hall disciple immediately went to look up information on this year's new disciples.

Soon, the Deacon Hall found out Chen Xuan's identity.

The disciple returned to the three elders and reported, "Elders, this person is called Chen Xuan. He showed excellent character during the entrance assessment, but his talent ranked near the bottom among the new disciples, so he was assigned to Hundred Herb Valley."

"Hundred Herb Valley? He reached the third layer of Qi Gathering in three months there!?"

The female elder exclaimed in surprise.

"Ordinary talent, yet his cultivation is no small thing... Looks like this kid has had some opportunities of his own."

The middle-aged elder said with a smile.

The white-haired elder looked at the other two and said, "Hundred Herb Valley belongs to the Pill Hall, and the Pill Hall belongs to my Danxiao Peak. After the trial ends, this little fellow will join my Danxiao Peak. What do you think, Junior Brother Zhang and Junior Sister Song?"

"Then we'll do as you say, Senior Brother."

Elder Zhang shook his head. He had no intention of competing with the other elder for the disciple.

Chen Xuan had indeed performed well, but they were Purple Mansion elders. Chen Xuan was not worth fighting over.

Inside the secret realm.

Chen Xuan had no idea what was happening outside. At that moment, he was searching high and low for tokens.

After searching for a long while, he realized that this wasn't going to work.

How long would it take to find them all? The tokens were tiny, and they had been scattered at random.

It was far too inefficient.

Chen Xuan thought it over and decided to stop looking for tokens. He would go find people instead.

Finding people would be much easier.

Robbing them was still faster than doing the work himself.

The moment the thought crossed his mind, he felt as if the whole world had opened up before him!

Chen Xuan began searching for fellow disciples.

After some time, he found one.

Looking at the other disciple, Chen Xuan quickly came up with a plan.

A direct fight was out of the question. He planned to launch a sneak attack.

Even though he was stronger, if he fought head-on, the other disciple would still have a chance to tear his Teleportation Talisman. The other disciple's tokens would still be split in half, with half going to Chen Xuan, but half... wasn't what he wanted. He wanted all of them!

A sneak attack was different. It was much more reliable.

Chen Xuan hid in a tree and concealed his aura. When the other disciple came close, he immediately used Flowing Cloud Myriad Forms.

The cloud qi turned into an extraordinarily long silk scarf and shot toward the other disciple. One end bound him up in an instant, while the other covered his eyes.

"Hey..."

The other disciple cried out in alarm. Before he could shout, the scarf bound his mouth too.

Chen Xuan dropped from the tree, making almost no sound.

But the other disciple still sensed someone approaching.

By then, though, the Cloud Qi Silk Scarf had trapped him like a mummy, and he could only squirm in panic on the ground.

"Mmm... Mmm..."

Chen Xuan did not waste time. He quickly found the other disciple's Storage Bag.

He soon erased the mark on the Storage Bag, then took out everything inside.

There were not many tokens, only a few.

Chen Xuan took the tokens, returned the Storage Bag to the other disciple, and ran off.

After he had run far away, Chen Xuan's cloud qi dissipated on its own.

The other disciple was still a little dazed.

He saw the Storage Bag beside him and hurriedly picked it up to check.

Nothing else was missing. Only the few tokens he had struggled so hard to find were gone.

"Beast... You beast!"

The grown man was so angry that he burst into tears.

Being robbed was bad enough, but he had been ambushed.

Being ambushed was bad enough, but he did not even know who had robbed him.

The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt.

They were all fellow disciples. Who did things like that? Chen Xuan had treated him like some demonic cultivator!

The plaza.

The three elders were stunned when they saw what Chen Xuan had done.

"Was this kid a bandit before he joined the sect?"

Elder Zhang spoke up.

"But you have to admit, he was quick and nimble. He had the man wrapped up like a dumpling in the blink of an eye, and he's truly mastered Flowing Cloud Myriad Forms.

"He handled things carefully too. He got all the other disciple's tokens in one go, and even remembered to cover the man's eyes."

Elder Xie of Danxiao Peak said with a chuckle.

At this point, he was seeing Chen Xuan through rose-colored glasses.

Chen Xuan was about to become a disciple of Danxiao Peak, so everything about him looked good to Elder Xie.

"Senior Brother Xie, oh, Senior Brother Xie."

Elder Zhang and Elder Song both smiled at his words but said nothing more.

Over the next three days,

the number of disciples in the Floating Cloud Secret Realm continued to dwindle. Several hundred had already been eliminated or had chosen to leave the secret realm.

Still, that was fewer than in previous years.

Chen Xuan had played a part in that.

Quite a few disciples had planned to give up after finding some tokens.

But some of them were unlucky enough to run into Chen Xuan, who robbed them of their tokens.

Naturally, they were unwilling to accept having their tokens stolen. Since they had no tokens left anyway, how much worse could things get?

So quite a few of them stayed in the secret realm because of that.

It was good that they stayed.

To Chen Xuan, they were all leeks ripe for harvesting.

Over those three days, he encountered quite a few disciples.

But they were all at the first or second layer of Qi Gathering.

Most were at the first layer, and those at the second were rare.

Robbing those disciples was almost too easy.

And these disciples were not to be underestimated. Finding tokens sometimes came down to luck.

After three days, he had already collected more than three hundred tokens.

At the same time, he had made a bit of a name for himself.

Word spread among the victims, and quite a few people learned that this year there was a shady little sneak.

All he did was ambush fellow disciples.

His reputation had soared. But whether it was good or bad, it had soared all the same.

It was unprecedented for someone to become famous over something like this.

The Floating Cloud Trial had been held for many years, and there had been people who chose to ambush fellow disciples for their tokens.

But they were different from Chen Xuan. They had not mastered Flowing Cloud Myriad Forms well enough, so their ambushes only eliminated their targets.

In that case, the eliminated disciples could still keep half their tokens.

Chen Xuan was different. He would not hurt them in the slightest. He only took their tokens.

That left people aching over their lost tokens while feeling relieved they had not been eliminated.