Purple Extreme Sect

North of the Great Chu Dynasty, by the banks of the Blackwater River, stood Yang Extremity Mountain. Upon the mountain sat the Purple Extreme Sect, one of the "one hall, two palaces, and five sects" of the Great Chu Dynasty.

Today happened to be the annual Outer Disciple Grand Competition of the Purple Extreme Sect. The entire Purple Extreme Sect was bustling with extraordinary liveliness, and all factions within the boundaries of the Great Chu Dynasty had sent representatives to watch the battle.

Ten combat rings were distributed across the wide plaza, and the outer disciples of the Purple Extreme Sect participating in the grand competition were fighting upon them. The pavilions surrounding the plaza were packed with guests who had come to watch.

"Number thirty-six, Ye Yun, ring number seven."

Hearing his name, Ye Yun stood up and walked toward ring number seven. As he walked up the steps and saw his opponent stepping up from the opposite side, a trace of a wry smile appeared at the corners of Ye Yun's mouth.

Tie Shan possessed the moniker "Iron Fist" and was one of the top ten outer disciples, ranked ninth, at High-Stage Body Tempering. Rumor had it that he had already opened one hundred and two acupoints.

The human body possessed myriad acupoints, and at the beginning of a martial artist's cultivation, they needed to open one hundred and eight acupoints in their body. Opening one to thirty-six was the Low Body-Tempering Stage, thirty-seven to seventy-two was the Body Tempering Intermediate Stage, and seventy-three to one hundred and eight was High-Stage Body Tempering. When one completely opened all one hundred and eight acupoints and guided the spiritual qi of heaven and earth into the body, that was the Qi Refining Realm.

"Senior Brother Tie Shan, please offer your guidance."

Ye Yun braced himself, walked onto the stage, and said to Tie Shan.

"Brat, you merely possess the cultivation of the Body Tempering Intermediate Stage; you'd better not waste time and quickly admit defeat."

Tie Shan looked at Ye Yun with contempt as he spoke.

A trace of unwillingness flashed through Ye Yun's heart. Ever since joining the Purple Extreme Sect in the previous year, through countless days and nights of bitter cultivation and countless times of sweating like rain, he had finally waited for the grand competition and wanted to fight hard to strive for a good result—who could have known he would run into Tie Shan.

Ye Yun looked toward the corner of the plaza on the left, at the old man with a full head of white hair and wrinkles all over his face who was watching him with a worried expression. Ye Yun hardened his heart, turned his head to look at Tie Shan, and spoke.

"I still ask Senior Brother Tie Shan to bestow guidance. This junior brother knows he is inferior to you, but he still wishes to experience Senior Brother's Iron Fist."

"Since you don't know what is good for you, don't blame me for striking too heavily," Tie Shan said.

With that, Ye Yun assumed the starting posture of the Fierce Tiger Fist, Tiger Descends the Mountain, and looked at Tie Shan on the opposite side with a vigilant expression.

In the blink of an eye, Tie Shan moved, lunging forward with a sudden stride toward Ye Yun. He swung a punch directly at Ye Yun's head. Because the speed was too fast, Ye Yun was unable to dodge in time and could only cross his arms to protect his head, blocking this punch with a bang, and Ye Yun retreated three steps in a row. Before he could steady his footing, Tie Shan's attack assaulted Ye Yun once more. Ye Yun employed the low-grade martial art Little Shift Body Technique to evade, dodging Tie Shan's attacks several times in succession.

A trace of surprise flashed in Tie Shan's eyes, not expecting that a disciple who had just entered the sect for a year had actually cultivated a low-grade martial art to the Minor Achievement Realm.

Within the boundaries of the Great Chu Dynasty, the grades of all martial arts were divided into four tiers: low, middle, high, and top-grade. Each martial art was further divided into four stages: entry, minor achievement, great achievement, and perfection. Cultivating martial arts paid attention to comprehension; someone with average comprehension might not be able to cultivate a martial art to perfection in several decades, while someone with high comprehension might cultivate it to perfection in a single year. Rumor had it that there was a kind of person born with a Spirit Body who possessed extraordinary talent in cultivation—a day of their cultivation equaled a hundred days of an ordinary person's, and a low-grade martial art could be cultivated to perfection in half a month. However, whether this was actually true remained unknown.

"Brat, I didn't expect you to cultivate your movement technique to minor achievement, but the next punch won't be so easy to take," Tie Shan looked at Ye Yun and said.

After speaking, Tie Shan was seen taking a bow stance, exerting force with his feet, and rushing toward Ye Yun. His speed was more than thirty percent faster than just now. Seeing this scene, Ye Yun's brows furrowed, and he thought in his heart, Oh no, I can't dodge this. What should I do?

"Brat, take this fist!" Tie Shan gripped his fist with his right hand, the fist radiating a jade-colored light as he swung it toward Ye Yun. This was Tie Shan's renowned martial art, the Jade-Shattering Fist, and Tie Shan had already cultivated the Jade-Shattering Fist to great achievement.

In the blink of an eye, Tie Shan's fist struck Ye Yun's chest. Ye Yun only felt a pain in his chest, his entire person flying backward as he heavily crashed onto the ring, the back of his head connecting with a small stone on the ring with a bang.

Plunging into darkness, Ye Yun's brain nearly fainted, and he could see nothing at all.

Tie Shan on the opposite side sneered as he looked at the motionless Ye Yun lying on the ground, then turned his head to look at the elder acting as the referee and said, "Elder, hurry up and pronounce the result."

The elder glanced at Ye Yun expressionlessly and said, "Ring number seven, Tie Shan wins."

Hearing the result, Tie Shan walked down the ring without looking back. The recovered Ye Yun slowly stood up and walked down the ring swaying unsteadily.

Enduring the pain, Ye Yun arrived before the old man in the corner of the plaza, lowered his head, and said softly, "Grandfather, I'm sorry for letting you down."

Hearing this, the old man looked at his grandson before him with heartache and said, "Child, you haven't let your grandfather down. Back when grandfather was your age, he wasn't even as good as you. Since you lost this time, you lost; just win it back next time. How can you become an expert without experiencing setbacks? Am I right?" Hearing his grandfather's words, Ye Yun raised his head, his eyes filled with grit as he said, "Grandfather, I know. Next year I will definitely enter the top ten."

The old man was named Ye Feng and was Ye Yun's grandfather. In his youth, he had also been a disciple of the Purple Extreme Sect, but due to poor talent, after ten years of cultivation he still failed to break through to the Qi Refining Realm. Yet he was unwilling to give up just like that, later remaining in the Purple Extreme Sect to work as a deacon, working and cultivating concurrently within the sect. This stint lasted twenty full years.

Once a person passed forty years of age without breaking through to the Qi Refining Realm, the functions of the human body would decline and their blood-qi would slip.

With no other choice, Ye Yun's grandfather also put aside thoughts of continuing his cultivation, withdrew from the sect, and settled down in a small village by the Blackwater River at the foot of the sect's mountain.

At the age of fifty, on his way into the mountains to hunt, Ye Yun's grandfather found an abandoned infant discarded by the roadside. Unable to bear it, he brought the infant back to his household to raise and bestowed upon the infant the name Ye Yun.

From a young age, Ye Yun listened to his grandfather tell stories of mighty experts, and within his heart he yearned to become a martial artist capable of pulling up mountains and lifting tripods, possessing a spirit that could swallow rivers. A year ago, the fifteen-year-old Ye Yun successfully passed the examination of the Purple Extreme Sect, becoming an outer disciple. After a year of bitter cultivation, shortly beforehand he had just opened thirty-seven acupoints, successfully breaking through to the Body Tempering Intermediate Stage, and had cultivated both low-grade martial arts obtained from the sect to minor achievement. He had hoped that this grand competition would allow him to display his skills, and he had even brought his grandfather from the village down the mountain to watch, hoping to make his grandfather happy. Unfortunately, his luck was bad, and right at the start he ran into Tie Shan, getting eliminated in the first round.

As time flowed on, the first round of matches finally concluded. Five hundred disciples would stand out from among the more than one thousand participating disciples to contest the second round of elimination matches tomorrow. The grand competition was held for a total of three days: the first two days were elimination matches, and the third day was for challenge matches. Through two rounds of elimination matches, fifty disciples would be decided. On the third day of challenge matches, ten ring masters would be chosen from among the fifty disciples across the ten rings, accepting challenges from the remaining forty disciples. As long as one successfully defended their ring five times, they would become part of the top ten, and the victorious ring masters would then fight to determine their rankings. The top three would receive exceptional promotion to become inner disciples and obtain a handsome reward.

However, all of this had nothing to do with Ye Yun anymore.

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(End of chapter)