"Ah!!" Once Bai Jin'er regained her footing, she hurriedly stepped back as though she had been shocked, her pretty face instantly turning so red it could have dripped blood.
"Children of the martial world don't sweat the small stuff!"
Chun Xiaobai, however, withdrew his hand without blushing or missing a heartbeat and casually waved it, as though he had just touched some burly, rough-hewn man rather than a delicate young woman.
Then, with his hands behind his back, he hummed a little tune and headed toward his room.
Bai Jin'er stood there, embarrassed and angry, pouting like a fish with an upturned mouth.
"Don't sweat the small stuff? Easy for you to say when you're not the one losing out!"
Then she muttered again.
"I'm such a gorgeous beauty, and after taking advantage of me, you don't even blush or miss a heartbeat? No reaction at all?"
"Or is it that my looks..."
She suddenly began to harbor a few doubts about her appearance.
Chun Xiaobai returned to the cultivation room, rubbed his hand, and muttered to himself.
"Who would've thought they were that big..."
Still, he quickly cast those distracting thoughts aside.
His goal was to establish himself first and start a family afterward.
Only by building a safe enough harbor could he keep any woman who followed him from suffering... right?
Once he cast aside those tangled emotions, he took everything out of the Storage Bag.
He discovered that all that remained were weapons that looked like scrap metal. The pills were all low-grade stuff whose names and effects he didn't know, and there wasn't a single spirit stone.
Early the next morning.
Chun Xiaobai, brimming with energy, called Fang Yuan over, along with Bai Jin'er, who had already fled back to her own Cave Abode only to be forcibly dragged out by him again.
His grand excuse was that she could help carry his bags.
Bai Jin'er rolled her eyes fiercely, regretting that she had blurted out the news about the genius ranking yesterday.
This fellow might not even have finished drawing qi into his body yet.
He fought entirely through brute strength. How could he possibly defeat those senior brothers and sisters on the genius ranking?
Still... letting him run into a wall and learn a lesson might be good.
It would keep him from spending all day oblivious to the heights of heaven and the depths of earth, truly believing himself invincible.
Chun Xiaobai keenly noticed her gloomy expression and said irritably.
"Third Chief, our stronghold doesn't tolerate you bending your elbow outward to favor outsiders! Your Great King is about to head into battle, but that look in your eyes makes it seem like you're mourning at a funeral. How unlucky!"
"Exactly, exactly!"
Fang Yuan hurriedly chimed in quietly beside him.
"Junior Sister Bai, you have to believe in our Great King! When the Great King marches out, not a blade of grass survives! Those so-called geniuses are nothing but clay chickens and pottery dogs before him!"
Bai Jin'er couldn't be bothered with this foolish fatty.
If you knew that this Great King of yours might not even have entered the Dao yet, I'd give you credit if you could still say that.
Soon, the three strolled leisurely into the Martial Arts Arena.
Looking up, they saw that the enormous Martial Arts Arena was already packed with dense crowds, their voices boiling into a roar.
The grounds were divided into dozens of areas where disciples fought in pairs, Sword Qi crisscrossing through the air as spells flew everywhere.
From time to time, a disciple was knocked to the ground and left covered in dust and disgrace, while others won and drew cheers and shouts from the surrounding spectators. The place was bustling.
Chun Xiaobai swept his gaze around before finally settling on the tallest, most conspicuous platform at the very center of the Martial Arts Arena, then asked casually.
"Is that the Genius Arena?"
"Yes, yes!" Fang Yuan nodded repeatedly, then pointed at an enormous stone tablet beside the raised platform.
"That's the genius ranking. Come on, Great King, let's go see whether the rankings have changed lately."
The three squeezed through the crowd and reached the edge of the Genius Arena.
Chun Xiaobai looked up at the stone tablet and searched for his name from bottom to top.
After searching for quite a while without finding it, he couldn't help asking in bewilderment.
"Isn't your Great King ranked eighty-fifth? Why isn't my name on here?"
Fang Yuan leaned over and explained quietly.
"Boss, the results of Cave Abode challenges on Green Bamboo Peak don't count. You can only get onto the genius ranking by registering here and winning in the Genius Arena."
As he spoke, Fang Yuan pointed toward an old man in elder's robes sitting beneath the raised platform some distance away.
"That's Elder Fu, the overseer of the Martial Arts Arena. Apart from supervising the arena and accepting disciples' challenge applications, he maintains the genius ranking."
"This genius ranking is one of our sect's major ways of motivating disciples!"
"After all, anyone who makes it onto the genius ranking generally won't amount to little in the future. Whether in treatment or status within the sect, disciples like that are far beyond ordinary disciples like us."
Chun Xiaobai nodded in realization.
No wonder not a single big shot on the ranking had come looking for him yesterday.
Apparently, his reputation had only spread through that small swordsmanship circle. The geniuses in other fields had no idea someone like him even existed.
"Then today is when I start making my name!"
His gaze locked onto the registration desk beneath the distant platform. A table stood there, with a drowsy old man seated behind it, watching the disciples' bouts below in utter boredom.
Chun Xiaobai hurried over and cupped his fist toward the old man.
"Elder Fu, this disciple wishes to challenge a senior brother on the genius ranking!"
At those words, Elder Fu lazily raised his head. His cloudy eyes sized Chun Xiaobai up, revealing a trace of puzzlement.
He knew every one of the hundred disciples on the genius ranking like the back of his hand.
He had even memorized the names of the top thousand.
Yet this fellow before him looked completely unfamiliar. He had never seen him before, and he wanted to challenge a disciple on the genius ranking right off the bat?
"Whom do you want to challenge?"
Chun Xiaobai pondered for a moment.
Since I'm going to grind my way up the ranking, I should obviously go one rank at a time. The more I grind, the more I earn.
He said directly, "I'll challenge number one hundred!"
Elder Fu leisurely moved over to the table and consulted the jade roster.
He knew this had to be a newly arrived disciple. Many disciples who possessed some cultivation before joining the sect thought that, vast as heaven and earth were, they themselves were the greatest.
Their egos swelled so much that they wanted to challenge a disciple on the genius ranking as soon as they entered the sect, just to show off.
So they picked the softest persimmon to squeeze and challenged number one hundred outright.
But even number one hundred was beyond what these greenhorns could handle.
This was just as well. It would teach him a lesson about there being heavens beyond heaven and people beyond people.
Without even raising his head, he replied, "Not in the sect."
"Ah!!"
Chun Xiaobai froze. "An unlucky start to the campaign."
He continued, "Then number ninety-nine!"
Elder Fu turned through the jade roster again, then said, "Absent."
"Number ninety-eight!"
Elder Fu finally glanced up at Chun Xiaobai, seeming somewhat impatient, but still turned a few more pages before speaking.
"Number ninety-five, Cheng Haoxuan, is in the sect. You may challenge him."
"I've already beaten him and emptied out everything he owns. What's the point of challenging him?"
Chun Xiaobai curled his lips and said bluntly, "That one's too weak. Elder, help me look a little higher up."
Elder Fu raised his head and stared at Chun Xiaobai with wide eyes.
This fellow's ego had swollen beyond all bounds.
He hadn't even tested himself against number one hundred, yet he dared to call number ninety-five too weak.
Before you continue