Qian Renxue: I Fought and Lost Again and Again
"Xiao Qingyi?"
Having returned to the judges' seats, Hun Tiandi couldn't help looking at Xiao Ding beside him when he heard the name.
"That girl is from the Xiao Clan?"
Xiao Ding explained, "She's a member of the Xiao Clan, but she doesn't have its bloodline."
"My second brother found her in a small village in what used to be the Luo Yan Empire a few years ago. Her village had been attacked by magical beasts, and she was the only one left alive."
"So he brought her back to the Xiao Clan. Unexpectedly, the girl turned out to have an exceptional talent for cultivation. She entered Jia Nan Academy only a few years ago, but she's already advanced to Dou Zong. Quite a few elders from the Soul Domain here have taken a liking to her and are vying to take her as a disciple."
After hearing Xiao Ding's explanation, Hun Tiandi couldn't help taking an interest in Xiao Qingyi.
With talent like that, even in the Central Plains, she could have kept pace with the foremost geniuses of her generation.
He took a closer look at her, and a look of realization appeared on his face.
"This girl's affinity with the energy of heaven and earth is actually so high."
"Leaving someone with such talent here would be a bit of a waste of heaven's gifts. I'll ask her what she wants later and see if she'd like to cultivate under Xiao Yan."
"Little Yanzi? That would work."
Xiao Ding had been worrying about where the girl would go from here.
Because the Xiao Clan had saved her, the girl had always been grateful to the clan and unwilling to join any other faction.
Yet after turning the matter over and over in his mind, he had somehow forgotten Little Yanzi.
Besides, once she was learning from Xiao Yan, how could Hun Tiandi, as her grandmaster, not teach her?
The girl was truly blessed with good fortune!
At that moment, in the arena, the battle was about to erupt.
Xiao Qingyi didn't look down on Qian Renxue in the slightest just because her cultivation was lower.
Right from the start, she used her strongest secret art, and her presence surged straight to that of a Nine-Star Dou Zong.
Qian Renxue: ...
The moment she circulated her Dou Qi, Xiao Qingyi appeared before her and struck her chest with a palm.
"Crack!"
The protective Dou Qi Qian Renxue had gathered shattered at the sound, and she flew backward.
Xiao Qingyi looked at her own hands in disbelief.
This was the Domain Lord's disciple?
Why was she so weak?
She had thought Qian Renxue would possess a foundation far beyond her current realm, so she had gone all out from the start.
She hadn't expected this to happen.
At that thought, she couldn't help looking up at Hun Tiandi in the judges' seats.
Hun Tiandi noticed her gaze and sent her a voice transmission. "It's fine. Fight as you normally would."
With Hun Tiandi's assurance, Xiao Qingyi's heart settled.
Meanwhile, Qian Renxue's blood and Qi churned from the palm strike.
She had expected a gap between herself and Miss Xiao, but she hadn't imagined it would be this vast.
After experiencing her first reincarnation, Qian Renxue had gained not only her cultivation as the Angel God, but also her combat experience from that lifetime.
Even so, when faced with Xiao Qingyi's attacks, she could only defend herself.
Once Xiao Qingyi stopped holding back entirely, Qian Renxue found it even harder to cope.
With the Samsara Scripture's powerful boost, her Dou Qi was actually far stronger than that of an ordinary One-Star Dou Zong.
Even if she couldn't defeat Xiao Qingyi, she shouldn't have been unable to fight back at all.
Qian Renxue simply couldn't bring her strength to bear. Her opponent's attacks rolled on like ocean tides, and in less than a minute, she was knocked straight out of the arena.
That result also took the spectators below the stage by surprise.
In their view, Qian Renxue would most likely lose to Xiao Qingyi.
After all, there was a full six-star gap between them, and after Xiao Qingyi used her secret art, the gap in their cultivation had jumped straight to eight stars.
But as the Domain Lord's disciple, Qian Renxue surely shouldn't have been unable to fight back at all.
She had been on the receiving end the entire time.
For a moment, the scene fell silent.
Hun Tiandi, however, wasn't surprised in the slightest.
People on the Douluo Continent fought mainly by relying on the Soul Skills granted by their Soul Rings, as well as physical techniques.
But Soul Skills were like prefabricated techniques: one only needed to expend the corresponding amount of Soul Power to unleash them.
And their so-called talent for combat amounted to little more than whose Soul Skills were stronger and who chose a better moment to unleash them.
That way of fighting was bound to have trouble adapting to the Dou Qi Continent.
On top of the hard gap in cultivation, it was only natural that Qian Renxue had been completely suppressed.
Qian Renxue's face was flushed after the beating, and she returned to the arena looking somewhat disheveled.
After seeing how easily Qian Renxue had been defeated, the earlier challengers began stepping up one after another.
A minute later, another person happily left the stage with cultivation insights personally bestowed by Hun Tiandi.
And so the atmosphere around the arena gradually grew lively.
Poor Xiao Qian, though, kept taking beatings.
And the Samsara Scripture's extraordinary recovery ability meant that after each beating, she only needed to rest a little before she could get back on stage and take another.
Later on, even some Dou Emperors plucked up the courage to challenge Qian Renxue.
But after an intense succession of battles, Qian Renxue gradually found her feel for combat.
So when those Dou Emperors came up, they were the ones who took a beating.
By the end of the day, Qian Renxue had fought everyone in the top hundred of the Strong Ranking.
Setting aside the Dou Emperors who had come to make up the numbers, she had only managed to scrape out victories against a few one-star and two-star Dou Zong toward the end.
That night, Qian Renxue went to a high spot. After a full day of fighting, she was feeling utterly dejected.
Suddenly, Hun Tiandi's voice sounded beside her ear. "Being suppressed in every way didn't feel good, did it?"
Qian Renxue looked toward the voice. Hun Tiandi had appeared beside her at some point, a faint smile in his eyes.
"Master, am I especially useless...?"
Qian Renxue pouted, her voice a little downcast.
"Is your first reaction to defeat to doubt yourself?"
Hun Tiandi put away his smile, his tone unusually serious.
Qian Renxue opened her mouth, then pondered for a moment. "I just feel that fighting so poorly has let down the effort you've put into teaching me, Master."
"That is where the real gap between you and those geniuses of Jia Nan Academy lies right now."
"Those Inner Academy students spend every day cultivating and fighting."
"Do you think they never lose?"
"If they sat around wallowing in self-pity after losing, how could they grow stronger?"
Qian Renxue was left speechless. She could only lower her head silently and look at her toes, which she couldn't see at all.
Seeing her like this, Hun Tiandi couldn't help sighing inwardly.
Today's blow after blow seemed to have left the girl feeling inferior.
This wouldn't do.
Then he changed the subject. "Actually, I wasn't disappointed by your results today."
At that, Qian Renxue raised her head again, some of the dejection fading from her eyes.
"After all, you've only recently come into contact with this world's cultivation system, and you lack experience fighting here."
"It's only natural that you couldn't defeat them."
"For now, fight more of your peers on the Strong Ranking and gain experience fighting strong opponents. In time, you'll win."
Qian Renxue knew her master was comforting her, and she had also taken his earlier words to heart.
Indeed, she shouldn't sit around wallowing in self-pity just because she had lost some fights.
She had only lost a few dozen fights. It was no big deal.
She would grow stronger.
Then she looked at Hun Tiandi and answered softly, "Mm."
"I'll win."