Read Reincarnated as an Energy with a System Chapter 161 - Rules online for free - AllNovelFull
The participants were a little confused at the explanation for the foundation establishment beasts.
A few of them raised their hands to ask and the host picked one. "I am a little confused, say I kill a 2nd foundation establishment realm beast, how many points do we get? 55 or 60?" he asked.
The host smiled and answered, "as I said, the foundation establishment realm starts at 50, so the 1st foundation establishment realm beast will give you 50 points. 2nd will give you 55, 3rd will give you 60, all the way up to 9th realm which will give you 90 points, but you guys don't have to worry about them, since those don't exist in there."
The participants made a small noise of understanding.
"Now, let's move on to how the competition itself will take place. Once you enter the portal to the secret realm, you will all be teleported to a different place at random. No one can tell where you will end up."
"You will then begin to look for points with the talisman on your chest. Remember, you will not get points if the talisman is not on your chest."
"Every day, at exactly noon, you will once again be teleported randomly to another location in the secret realm, while the traversable land will be cut in half."
"So in 4 days, the land will be one-eighth of what you started with."
"To win in this competition, you will need to be in the top 128 people with the most number of points by the end of the 4 days."
"Now, moving onto rewards," the host said.
Suddenly, all the participants' bodies got straighter as they got more attentive at the rewards part.
"The reward for this competition is… you get to keep part of the corpses and ingredients you acquire in the secret realm," the host said.
'Huh?' was the sound that unanimously rang through the entire group. Ning was a little confused too. ' We will get to keep what we acquire?' he didn't expect the competition holders to be so… benevolent.
"Let me explain," the host said as he quieted down the crowd.
"Not everyone will get a reward, only those who do well will succeed in getting better rewards too."
"The talisman you all hold will record two types of points. One is the total points you acquire or lose through either killing or dying at the hands of either the monsters or the other participants. This is what will choose the rank you are on."
"The other points will be purely the ingredients and corpses you acquire by yourself."
"Depending on the percentile of the rank you are on, you will be forced to hand over a minimum of 50% of all everything you collect."
"If you are on the 1st percentile, you will have to give 50% of everything you get, and if you happen to end up on the 100th percentile, you will have to hand over 100% of everything you collect."
"What you will have to hand over will be based on points of the items. However, there is also a variety between those that come in the top 128 and those that don't."
"Only those that come in the top 128 can choose what they want to keep and what they want to give. Everyone else will have to hand over their ingredients for use to chose. I hope you guys understood that," the host said.
The people started murmuring. Most of them understood and were quite surprised at the shamelessness of the tournament holder. Others that didn't understand asked their friends.
Ning thought for a bit and quickly understood what was happening.
'So no matter what I have to get onto the top 128 right?' he thought.
Soon, staff of the tournament holders started walking out and handed every single one of them a few storage bags and a single talisman that they forcefully stuck onto their chests.
Ning got pasted one on himself too.
He looked at the talisman and was mesmerized by the intricate runes on it.
Once everyone got their hands of the storage bags and talismans, the host spoke once more.
"Alright, listen up. There are a few rules that you will have to follow if you want to stay in the tournament."
"First of all, the storage bags are linked to the talisman you have. So if you don't keep the ingredients and corpses in the storage bags, you will flop."
"Secondly, you are not allowed to steal other people's storage bags. If you are found to have stolen it, you will face direct disqualification, and all of the materials you got will be confiscated."
"Even if every one of you is sent out, the secret realm won't close until all of the 4 days are over. So do try to survive until then."
"Teaming up, stealing what others got before they could store it, backstabbing, or whatever other things you can think of that doesn't break the rules is fully allowed."
The host then looked at the sun in the sky and realized that it was time.
"We will now start the tournament. I will call out your island's names. 15 people from that island please walk forward and enter the portal."
"Yellow Bush Island"
A group of people walked out of the thousands and walked towards the portal. The moment they reached the portal, a suction of sort suddenly pulled them in and they all disappeared.
"High Sky island"
Another group walked in and disappeared.
"Hero Island"
People wearing mostly orange clothes walked up and entered the portal in front of everyone. Ning recognized one of the people in there and smiled.
A bunch of other names was called before their name came up.
"Deepskull island"
Ning and the 14 other people walked out of the crowd and went onto the stage. Even as he walked forward Ning couldn't feel anything until he reached near the portal.
Then, suddenly one of the people at the front disappeared. Followed by another, and another and another.. Until finally, he too was sucked into the portal and disappeared.
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Ning suddenly fell onto the ground, but he quickly rolled and got up. He looked around the place and couldn't help but ask himself, "Is this the secret realm?"
From what he was told, he assumed it was a jungle most of the time, but where he had appeared was actually grassland. As for the trees, he was told, they seemed to be a bit further in the distance.
"Huh, so it's not all forests huh? Well, I'm glad there are some scenic changes from time to time. I don't think I would like it if it were all just forests," he thought.
He then started walking through the grasses. Along the way, he tried spreading out his divine sense to see if something was on the way. Although it was about 15 meters in radius, that was plenty for him.
He happened to see a little squirrel-like beast run past him, hidden in the grass. If not for his divine sense, he would've likely missed it.
"You're quite sneaky, aren't you?" he said and immediately stopped it. They made the squirrel float into the air and out of the grasses.
"Ugh, what's with those teeth? You must be Bucktoothed Squirrel. Your bites are quite nasty if I remember correctly," he said when he saw that the squirrel had 2 abnormally long front teeth.
"Hmm… let me guess, 2nd realm of Qi Condensation?" he asked himself and then analyzed the beast's cultivation base.
"Haha, I'm finally starting to get it right." Ning was quite happy to learn that he no longer needed the skill to check cultivation bases. He was starting to be able to do so himself.
The squirrel struggled in the air, trying to move, but Ning's telekinesis was too strong. "Ah, right. I need to kill you to get points," Ning said and simply flicked its forehead to give it a quick death.
He put the corpse of the beast into the special storage bag and checked the talisman on his chest. As he had hoped, it noted down that he had 2 points now.
"Alright let's try to get more. There must be quite a few materials and beasts in the forest," he thought and walked towards the forest in the distance.
The grassland unfortunately didn't hold many beasts or plants that could be used as ingredients.
"Thankfully I at least know what the ingredients look like. That might be hard for most of the people taking part in the competition," Ning thought.
While he didn't know where he could find many of the ingredients or even the least amount of knowledge about their origin, thanks to the medical knowledge he had bought, he had a perfect idea about their appearance.
"Well, all I can hope is that the competition holders know those ingredients as well, otherwise half of what I get might be considered useless to those people," Ning said. He did after all have more knowledge regarding these things than nearly everyone on the planet.
Soon he arrived at the front of the jungle. By now, he had managed to kill a few more beasts, with the strongest one being only at the 4th stage of Qi Condensation.
While it was okay by comparison to the forest in Starsight city, when compared to his strength, they were very weak.
He had also managed to find a few ingredients along the way. He could've probably found some more if he had searched for a little longer, but he decided not to.
He looked at the talisman and saw that he had 52 points until now. He hadn't kept track of the points after the first 2 beasts, so he wondered how he got so much.
"The storage bag only has 8 beasts and 6 ingredients. Meaning, one or more of the ingredients must have really high points" he thought.
He quickly let go of all his thoughts and walked into the forest.
Out in the Arena, there were thousands of people including both inside and outside who were watching the screens that came up high in the air.
Gion, Yelca, and the rest were looking at the hundreds of screens that were floating side by side. There were no sounds and the image seemed to be tied to the location so one couldn't follow a disciple around.
Thankfully, the images were from hotspots in the Secret Realm where most great stuff was at, so one could find different participants on the screen all the time.
"Hey, can you guys see any of our disciples?" Gion asked.
"Sect Master, disciple Kael is right there on that screen. 23 down, 16 to the right," an elder said.
"Oh, oh, I see. What is he doing? Fighting a beast?" Gion tried to look but the disciple was at the edge of the screen and he couldn't see what was beyond it.
"There is another one on that screen on the lower left. Seems to be one of sect leader Yelca's disciples," another elder said.
"Hoo, let me see. Ah yes, Gumi. I have quite great aspirations for him," the sect leader said. He then thought of something and asked, "Have anyone of you seen doctor Ning yet?"
Everyone turned their attention to the screen but none could find him. Even with hundreds of screens, the competition holders couldn't see the entire secret realm at all.
"Sigh, he is the strongest participant we have. He even broke through to the Foundation Establishment realm a few months ago. I would love to see him in action," Yelca said.
Everyone nodded with their sentiment.
Suddenly, the Secret realm's portal started fluctuating and before anyone could react, someone was thrown out.
"Eh? It's only been an hour, and someone is already disqualified. Poor guy didn't even get last a day," Gion said.
The participant who was just thrown out happened to be from the group in front of Gion and Yelca, so when he returned to the group, they happened to hear what he said.
"I'm sorry Elders, but the beast was too strong for me."
Hearing an 8th Qi Condensation Realm participant saying this, the two sect leaders got a bad premonition about the future.
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Ning looked at the deer-like beast in front of him and got very nervous. He wasn't nervous because it might attack him, but because it might run away at the slightest disturbance.
The deer was very much heavier than him so he couldn't use Telekinesis on it to try and stop it.
The deer was around the 8th realm of Qi Condensation, and while he could easily kill it, he didn't want to run through the jungle following it.
So, he trod slowly, making sure to not step on anything dry or could make sounds. As soon as he got close enough, he turned his palm into a fist and punched the air.
Suddenly, blue energy appeared from his arm that took the shape of a fist and rushed towards the deer. Before the deer could even do anything, Ning managed to incapacitate it.
Seeing the deer down, he immediately ran towards it and killed it with a normal punch. He then put the corpse inside the storage bag and sighed in relief.
The first few beasts he came across in the jungle that was weaker than him but heavier, usually just ran away because of his aura. He killed every single one of them after running after them for a bit, but that was starting to get annoying.
"I need to learn how to contain my aura," he thought. His cultivation base was too strong now and he needed to be able to contain it in.
It wasn't only for the sake of these beasts or the competition, he needed to be able to do this so that he could mix in with the mortals or lower level cultivators if he ever wanted to have a slow life, or if he ever wanted to act like a pig to eat the tiger.
"Can I do it?" Ning wondered. From what he knew, the aura on one's body appeared when the Qi continuously circulated throughout the body and some of it escaped from it.
"So, if I want to hide my aura I either need to have the Qi not escape my meridian or… not have the Qi in the meridian at all," he thought.
Previously, he wouldn't think this was possible. If the Qi the always stayed in the meridians were to be thrown away, he would have to cultivate overnight to gain the Qi back.
However, now that he was a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, he could store the Qi in the Sea of Qi. That was where all of the Qi in his meridians originated from, to begin with.
So what he needed to do now was cut off the supply.
He sent his divine sense into his Sea Of Qi and started controlling the Qi flowing out of it. The Qi was his, so he could control it.
But the Sea of Qi had its own plan it seemed. As Ning tried to control the Qi, the Sea of Qi kept trying to force some more Qi through.
Ning tried for a while but couldn't entirely stop the flow of Qi. In the end, he gave up and got satisfied with what he had.
While the aura was still there, thanks to the lack of Qi, it felt more like he was around the 5th realm of Qi Condensation at best.
"I can work with this," he thought. He used part of his attention to keeping the Qi at bay and walked forward.
Now that his aura wasn't as terrifying as before, beasts were more attracted towards him thinking he was their prey.
Ning cracked a smile every time one of them tried to sneak attack him.
"You can't sneak when I have my divine sense, you fools," he thought to himself and immediately turned around to kill whatever was behind him. Taken by surprise, they were usually stunned like a deer in the headlights.
" This is getting too easy," Ning thought as he looked at the corpse of the hyena-like creature in front of him. He quickly put it into his storage bag and walked on.
He found a few more ingredients along the way and killed some beasts as well.
He was walking forward when he suddenly noticed an opening that didn't have any trees. "Am I out of the forest?" he thought and walked forward.
When he reached the open area, he realized that it was actually just a small place in the middle of the forest that didn't have any trees.
That was probably because of what was in the middle of the open area. "Holy Sh*t," Ning couldn't help but curse when he saw the gigantic tree in front of him.
The tree was around 4 meters in diameter and nearly 50 meters high. The trunk separated into dozens of think branches that separated into more. All in all, the tree had about 30 meters in radius at the maximum span of its horizontal length.
That wasn't the only thing great about the tree in front of him. There were multiple snakes wrapped around the branches of the trees, each at least 5th realm of Qi Condensation in cultivation.
"Hmm… can I fight them all without getting overwhelmed? They probably— no, most likely have venom too," Ning thought.
He started looking through the snakes and quickly started recognizing them.
"Geez, 90% of them are venomous, and those are just the ones I can see from here," he thought.
He looked near every single snake and could see a green fruit hanging near it. He paid closer attention and suddenly his eyes went wide. " Emerald Mango!" he shouted.
That was the name of one of the most hard-to-find ingredients of all. It had many usages in healing pastes and other forms of medicine but was very rare, so no one used it.
Now, here it was and he could get a lot of it as well. However, he would have to fight through the hoards to snakes to get to it.
"Whatever," he thought and was about to move forward when suddenly, he heard footsteps nearby.
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"People?" Ning said in surprise. It had been nearly 3 hours since he entered the secret realm. While he knew that the secret realm was large, he hadn't expected it to not find a single participant at all the entire time.
However, finally, he was hearing some footsteps that definitely belonged to humans.
Ning looked to his left and saw a person walking out of the forest. It was an 8th Qi Condensation realm man wearing a blue robe, slightly darker in color than the one Ning was wearing.
"Eh, I finally got to see someone," the man said. He looked at Ning up and down and frowned.
"Why are you so weak brother? What are your elders thinking, sending such a weak disciple to the secret realm?" the man complained.
Ning was a little amused at the man assuming that he was weak due to his aura. 'Well, at least it's working,' Ning thought.
"Brother, you might want to leave the secret realm soon, it's dangerous," the man said.
Ning smiled and said, "Thank you for the concerns, but the secret realm will eject me automatically if I were to come across some mortal threat."
"Sigh, that's true, but you should leave when you have enough points to satisfy your elders," the man said.
Suddenly, Ning ran forward with a fist targeted at the man.
"Wha— What?" the man was surprised at the sudden attack and quickly took out his sword and attacked Ning.
Ning casually parried the sword with the side of his left arm and punched near the man's skull.
"Ahh," the man screamed and closed his eyes at the punch. Suddenly, fresh blood started flowing from the side of his skull.
The man slowly opened his eyes to see the blood flowing down his left arm, but there was no pain at all.
"You should be more careful. It's better if you leave this place," Ning said and walked away from the man. The man slowly turned his head to the left and just managed to see Ning put a large snake corpse into his storage bag.
"I can see that you were concerned for me and I appreciate that. But," Ning said while pointing at the tree, "You should be more concerned for yourself."
The man looked at the tree he had been ignoring this whole time and saw giant snakes wrapped around the tree who were starting to make their way down to the ground after seeing their own kind die.
The man's soul nearly left his body when he saw that.
"Oi, leave," Ning shouted at him and the man came back to himself. He hurriedly turned around and started to run away and stopped.
"Brother, why aren't you running?" he asked when he saw that Ning was still there.
"Hah, Why would I run when there are so many delicious points slithering in front of me."
Ning watched the man run away and focused on the battle that was going to start. "Ugh, I wanted to use the spear at least once, but I can't use that against so many enemies. I guess it's the sword again," he thought and took out the Low-Grade Sword Artifact.
He got into his stance and waited for the closest snake to come nearer. When it was, he started.
He immediately disappeared from his spot and appeared behind the snake. A thin line of blood appeared on the snake's neck as its head slid off its body and it died.
That was 1.
He immediately kicked his movement technique into action and disappeared once more and arrived in front of another snake.
Before the snake could even react, he sliced it through the head and the snake separated into two parts halfway through its body.
That was 2.
His divine sense was in full gear, so he saw a snake sneak behind him and lunge at him. The snake was smaller than him, so Ning didn't even look behind when the snake was stuck in midair.
He simply turned around and gave it a good kick, blasting its head into hundreds of pieces.
That was 3.
There were hundreds of snakes, and Ning couldn't possibly keep count of how many he was going to kill. He was currently focused on two different things.
The first was making sure he didn't get sneak attacked as that could be bad.
The second was trying to find the most venomous ones first so that he could kill them and be in less danger.
Just as he was thinking that he saw a sapphire skinned snake about 10 meters in length with two tiny horn-like protrusions coming out of its skin.
"A Cerulean Hornsnake," Ning said in surprise. That was one of the most venomous snakes he knew of. A single bite of those snakes had enough venom to kill 20,000 mortals at once.
"That's the one I need to kill first," he thought. He continued killing the ones that came up to him but didn't really care much in the ways of danger.
But the Cerulean Hornsnake was slithering towards him and then Ning realized that he was in much greater danger than he thought he was in.
The snake was in the 1st realm of Foundation Establishment.
'F*ck, it's clearly one of the rare beasts the host told us about,' Ning thought. He tried to run further away from the snake while continuously killing more and more snakes.
But it was getting harder. He now needed to split his attention into 3 parts and that was getting troublesome. He was starting to make mistakes.
BITE
"Ow," suddenly, he looked down and saw a snake bite his leg. His leg muscle was very strong, but this snake's bite was also strong enough to puncher it just enough to send the venoms into his bloodstream.
Ning quickly remembered what the snake was a killed it with a single swipe of his sword. But within seconds, the numbness from the venom started spreading in the leg, and he could no longer use his left leg.
More dangerously, the venom was moving up and up to his body, and would slowly reach his waist area.. At that point, he would be in serious danger.
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"That was a lemon viper."
"Its venom travels from the origin of the bite until all the body is numb."
"My heart and other organs will stop way before my whole body goes numb."
"With the venom's travel speed, I have approximately 2 minutes before the venom reached my heart."
"The antidote requires ingredients that I don't have, unfortunately."
"Fortunately," Ning looked towards the tree and said, "there is something much better."
Ning was grateful to his past self for having the forethought of learning a new movement technique. If he had kept on using what he had, the Twin step movement technique would've failed right now thanks to his unmoving foot.
Ning's sword turned black suddenly, and he unleashed an attack that cut all the snakes in the current vicinity. Suddenly, he flew.
All the snakes were down on the ground, so it was the perfect time to fly. He propelled himself into the air and flew to one of the fruits up in the air and grabbed it.
He quickly started bringing out the rest of the ingredients and started preparing the medicine. He didn't have time to properly make the medicine, so he started chomping down on the ingredients.
He took out all the ingredients and bit into it but didn't swallow it. Once his mouth was full with the ingredients then finally did he started to chew them all.
The snakes had already made their way up to him, and surprisingly, some of the higher ones even knew how to fly.
'This is going to be annoying,' he thought. He wasn't used to flying, let alone fighting while doing so, and he couldn't fight properly on the ground until his leg was cured.
So he could only grumble and do what he could to stay alive. Qi attacks started flying everywhere injuring a lot of the snakes. But the remaining ones were more intelligent and thus knew when to dodge it.
'Sh*t. They let the dumber ones come first to check the waters, and now that they've seen that I am a free target, they are ganging up on me,' Ning thought.
Ning needed to do better. He chewed the ingredients as fast as he could to mix them, but it was still going to take some time.
He propelled himself forward once more and went towards some of the weaker snakes and cut them up. He then turned to the side and used a Qi slash to catch a snake off guard. The snake didn't expect him to attack so fast and died.
A black snake jumped onto his right leg. Ning tried to rush forward but couldn't do it in time as he hesitated due to the Cerulean Hornsnake being right where he was about to go.
The snake wrapped around his leg and bit it. Ning was scared that he was going to have to give up on another leg, but thankfully, he didn't.
The snake's fangs broke into two when it tried to bite him. This snake wasn't as strong as the last one and couldn't pierce his leg.
Ning accurately slid his sword between his leg and the snake and swung it outward, cutting the snake into multiple pieces along the way.
Ning didn't lose his focus. He immediately looked around the battlefield. A lot of snakes were already dead, but the strong ones were still there.
Especially the Cerulean Hornsnake. It seemed to be waiting for him to get tired or injured before it could swiftly take care of him.
Ning wasn't going to let that happen. He took a deep gulp and swallowed the medicine that had formed in his mouth by now.
A cool sense washed down his esophagus as it reached his stomach. Once there, he could sense the medicine being sent to each and every corner of his body.
Even as the snakes moved towards him, the sense on his left leg was starting to come back and he was starting to get his feeling back into his leg.
"That's much better," he thought as he finally used the Twin Step Movement technique to dash forward and cut a snake with his sword.
The snake however survived but with a deep gash on its body. "I guess you guys aren't going to be so easy to hurt now, are you?"
In an abrupt fashion, Ning stored his sword back into his storage bag. "Now that there aren't that many of you, I can finally use it," he said as he took out a spear with a silver blade and a blue body.
The spear had a much deeper blue than Ning's clothes or the Cerulean Hornsnake. Ning swung it around a few and got used to its weight.
"Wow, this really is an amazing spear," he thought and start spinning it around from left to right. As he spun more and more, the power in his spear started increasing as well.
He made a simple slash and the snake which just had a long gash in its body got cut into two.
"Damn, it feels good to have a spear with a long blade. Cutting is so much easier with this," he said. "Is the blade itself better than the other sword?" he wondered.
He saw a snake sneak around his back and try to lunge at him. Without even turning towards it, he immediately swung behind him and cut the snake in half.
The snake was weaker than the other one, but he wasn't sure he could completely cut it in half in a single blow without any techniques with the sword.
Ning continued swinging his spear around and made his way across the entire battlefield, killing one snake after another. Thanks to their low amount, he could keep on revolving the spear around, stacking more and more power on the spear.
Finally, he cut the last of the snakes on the battlefield as its body split in two. Then, he turned towards the Cerulean Hornsnake.
It was time for the two of them to fight.
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Ning was bloody, but none of it were his own blood. Thanks to his higher cultivation base, he had been able to successfully kill off the rest of the snakes, while the one that was truly strong stayed behind in caution.
'It would've been bad if it really did decide to join them,' Ning thought.
He kept on swinging the spear around, steadily increasing the power in it. The Cerulean Hornsnake slid across the body of its former friends as it prepared to attack Ning.
Ning suddenly pushed himself off of the ground and dashed towards the snake. Seeing that he was finally coming after it, the snake also lunged towards him.
At the last moment, Ning slid below the jumping snake and pierced its stomach as he went forward. However, all he could do was create sparks when the spear hit the snake's scales.
'Damn, I knew it was tough, but I didn't expect it to be so much,' he thought.
He slowly started moving his legs around, doing different maneuvers that made it look like he was dancing. The snake immediately turned around to attack, but it got a little slow all of a sudden.
Ning thought he got the snake and jumped forward, but as soon as he stopped his hypnotizing dance, the snake was back to its normal self and attacked him as well.
The fangs managed to block the spear without showing the slightest hint of breaking or even chipping. 'Damn this snake is so strong, and it keeps making me stop using the Revolution Spear technique. I need to either stay away from it for a while or change my approach,' he thought.
So he decided to go a different route. 'Can I even get bit? This body will die if that ever happens. Although, maybe I will be sent out.'
'But I wasn't when that other snake bit me. Did that not count as fatal damage?' Ning thought. He didn't know the criteria for getting sent out of the secret realm, so he had to be careful.
Suddenly, Ning punched with his left hand, sending out fist-shaped energy towards the snake. While that was happening, he immediately went behind the snake and use the One True Spear strike.
He launched forward with his spear and sneak attacked it. But the snake suddenly twisted its tail to slap him mid-flight and threw him towards the jungle.
"Ow, what the hell? How did it know I was— Ah f*ck. I should have known," Ning wanted to slap himself for not thinking it through but the snake's slap had done enough damage.
Thankfully, the snake also took a little damage from the fist as it didn't have any other way to dodge and attack him at the same time.
'Damn, it weighed its choices and decided that hitting me was a better choice than dodging. What a terrifying intelligence,' Ning thought.
He once again rushed forward for a direct fight. The snake also slid forward and started fighting the spear of its tail.
TANG TANG TANG TANG
Multiple sounds rang throughout the forests as their spear and tail hit each other. The snake was strong but it didn't realize that by fighting directly, it was allowing Ning to gather power onto his spear.
Ning took the chance to continuously gather more and more power as finally in one of the clashes, he managed to pierce the skin and cut deep into the snake's body.
'Oh, it's only the skin that is strong, not the muscles or bones,' Ning thought. He had previously already checked the snake's abilities but had seen nothing worthy of worry.
The only thing he needed to care about in this fight was the strong cultivation base and the beyond terrifying venom of the snake.
The snake pulled back its tail and instead tried to bite Ning. Ning immediately used his spear to pierce the snake's head but the fangs were too strong to hurt and so they clashed together and got into a power struggle.
Ning was thinking of pulling back his spear and continuing to keep his spear's energy it had gathered due to spinning, but suddenly, something he hadn't prepared for happened.
The snake, instead of continuing the power struggle, just opened its mouth further wide until its fangs were pointed towards Ning and sprayed its Venom at him.
Ning was scared out of his mind for a split second, but immediately gained control of his mind and did what the snake absolutely was not expecting him to.
He stopped the venom mid-air. The snake was a little surprised seeing the Greenish yellow venom in mid-air and even a little afraid.
Ning didn't want to keep the venom in the air for long as the fumes from the venom might end up being dangerous as well. That was when he noticed the snake acting a little different than usual.
'Could it be?' he thought and immediately sent venom flying back towards it. The snake tried to dodge it, and it did, but the venom once again stopped midair and changed its direction to fall onto the back of the snake.
The snake started struggling amongst the other snake's bodies to get rid of the venom, but it was too late. As soon as the venom had touched its skin, the part of that skin was shed off.
The muscles however didn't have much damage to them. While the snake was resistant to its own venom on the inside, it seemed the venom was bad for it on the outside.
Once the skin was gone and the muscles were visible, Ning knew the snake was as good as dead now. He immediately took out his sword and started controlling it with his Qi and telekinesis to fight the snake, while he started looking for ways to attack the snake.
The snake tried to dodge and run away, but Ning would always be there to attack. After fighting for a few minutes, Ning finally got his chance.
Just as the snake was distracted thanks to his sword, He launched the One True spear strike and pierced directed into the snake's body, and struck its heart.
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The snake hissed for a moment and fell to the ground dead. Ning pulled out the spear and blood gushed out of the wound.
"Damn, that took way more out of me than I would've expected," he thought. He had never expected that fighting a 1st Foundation Establishment realm monster would be that difficult to win against.
"I need better techniques. The ones I currently have don't suit my cultivation base," he thought. While the One True Sword Strike and the Revolving Spear art were good techniques, they had a lot of things holding them back.
Ning had gotten them for very cheap, whether it be with Energy or with Gold Cons. So now that he was at a level that he was, he couldn't afford to fight with these cheap techniques.
"Sigh, I guess I have to wait until the system comes back. When exactly is it coming back? I've lost count of the days," he thought.
He started putting all the snakes into his storage bag. There were over a hundred of them and it took him some time.
He then proceeded to pick up all the fruits from the tree. The Emerald Mangoes should be able to earn him a lot of points.
Once he was done with it all, he checked the talisman for the points and he smiled.
"I… I have no words."
"Truly Magnificent. That— That's a strong participant for sure."
"Did you see how he used both a sword and a spear at the end?"
"Damn, I wish I knew how strong those snakes were. At least 5th Qi condensation realm right?"
"A few of them should be very weak. 1st or 2nd realm actually. Did you see how easily he kicked and they died?"
"Well some of them could fly, so they must be around 6th realm in general."
"I think the blue one was in the 8th realm at the very least, If not the 9th realm."
"What island is that disciple from? They must be truly proud of him."
Due to the fact that there were so many snakes in a single spot, the audience seemed to have gotten the wrong impression that the reason it was a hotspot was the quantity of the beasts and not the quality of them.
Dion, Yelca, and the rest of them were watching the screen in the air with massively wide eyes. They knew how strong Ning was, so when they saw him struggling, they knew that the beasts were strong.
"Woah, Doctor Ning should have stopped being a doctor and just joined a sect as a normal disciple. He would've been a direct disciple by now," Dion said.
"I wonder why he decided to become a doctor when he had so much talent," Yelca wondered.
"Well, either way, he is great. Although… where is he now? He is gone from the screen," Gion said.
The group looked back at the screen but Ning was gone and they couldn't find him anymore. So they focused their attention back on the screen at a different person whose current state interested the rest of the group.
Ning walked out of the forest and into a small grassland that lead to another forest. However, this grassland had really tall grasses and giant rocks in the middle as well as a few trees scattered everywhere.
The sun was down and the visibility was low, but as a cultivator of both Body and Qi, Ning had no need to worry about vision.
He walked into the grassland with a few different things on his mind.
For one, he was confused as to how there was a sun in a realm that was supposed to just be a separate dimension. That did not make sense to him unless to him.
Also, he couldn't figure out why no matter how much he walked, he didn't see the edge of this secret realm.
"Is this really a secret realm that is just a small hidden dimension? Would it not make sense that it's just a different land on Kumia just connected through the portal?"Ning wondered.
"No, but that is wrong as well. The sun is exactly where it should be on the Hub island. If it were anywhere else the angle and direction would be different, as well as the placement. So we should be exactly where we were in the arena, but yet somehow… not?" Ning couldn't understand what was going on.
He thought for a bit more, but his knowledge of secret realms and dimensions and universes was very minute, so he decided to give up on making sense of his situation.
Instead, he just focused on finding the beasts and ingredients as per usual.
Ning saw a flower next to the giant rock using his divine sense. He could also see a bunch of 2nd Qi condensation realm worms hidden on the ground.
He knew exactly what type of worms they were so he stepped onto their ground without hesitation. The worms immediately walked out of the dirt thinking he was prey due to his low cultivation aura.
As such, they fell into his trap. Ning didn't need any weapons for these lowly worms and easily finished them off by just stomping on them.
He kept their corpse in his storage bag and picked up the flower as well. Once he was done there, he decided to move again.
"Oh," he thought as he turned around his head. Out in the distance, he could see two people, a boy, and a girl, both wearing different colored robes following a wild horse with a bloody back.
The horse was in fear and desperation as well as blind rage due to being injured. It suddenly saw Ning and ran towards him.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Ning still had his aura hidden for the most part so the Horse might have seen him as an easy target.
However, before the horse could even reach him, Ning took out his sword swiftly and sent out a small slash at the horse's head and it immediately died, while its body, still with its momentum, slid on the grass until it came near Ning's feed and stopped.
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Ning kicked the horse while keeping away the sword and checked if the horse was really dead. It was beyond a shadow of a doubt, dead.
He checked the horse and realized that it was a Nether Spirit horse. These horses were known for their strong body and affinity to cold and dark places.
It must've remained in the cold forest all the time, but the two people must've found it and attacked it until it was here.
"Well, not like it could've survived that much longer with its 5th Qi Condensation realm cultivation base," Ning thought.
The two people reached Ning and stopped in front of him. The boy and girl were both older than Ning in age but their cultivation base was nowhere close.
"I'm sorry I killed your beast; it was trying to attack me and I couldn't see any other way out of it. You may take its body if you want to," Ning said.
The lady suddenly snickered while the man started laughing out loudly. "You don't have to lie brother. We saw the horse fall to the ground on its own. It died due to the wounds we inflicted on it. You don't have to try and take advantage of the situation to make yourself sound better," the man said.
'What?' Ning got a little confused. 'Did they not see me attack the horse?' he thought. Now that he thought about it, the horse did block their vision. So they didn't see him take out a sword and keep it back in.
"Yes, young man. Are you trying to impress me right now? You should at least make sure that you are strong if you want to lie like that," the girl said.
Ning was done with them. "Whatever, just take your horse and leave. I don't want to deal with you two anymore," he said and started to leave.
"Ah, so rude," the girl said.
"Hey, you wait. Apologize to us," the man decided.
Ning stopped in his tracks and looked back, "Do what?"
"Apologize to us. You were rude right there," the woman demanded.
Ning felt the situation a little amusing. These people who were barely in the 7th realm of Qi Condensation wanted him to apologize.
"Very well. I am sorry," Ning apologized with a bow.
"That's more like it. Now you may leave," the man said.
"Sure, but before that. It seems that you don't want to horse so let me take it," Ning said and swiftly stored the horse before either of them could even react. He immediately turned around and started leaving.
"What the hell? Where do you think you're going?" The woman shouted prompting the man to react.
"You dare!" the man couldn't believe what had just happened and shouted. He took out a sword and slashed at Ning.
Ning had his divine sense active, so he just stepped to the side and caught the blade from the top before it even reached the ground.
He pulled it out of the man's hand and without hesitation swung back. Before the sword could even reach the man, however, the talisman on his chest lit up and blocked the attack. However, at the same time, the man disappeared as well.
"Oh, so that's what happens when you are about to receive fatal damage, huh," Ning spoke out loud.
The lady dropped to the ground seeing the man get taken care of so easily. Ning finally stopped stifling his Qi flow and his cultivation aura came back to normal.
As the lady sensed the aura increase, she knew she was in deep trouble. She and the man had accidentally found trouble with one of the strongest people in the competition.
"P-p-please forgive me. I— I didn't know you were…" she tried to speak but the fear and despair wouldn't let her.
"Sure, I'll forgive you. I killed the man, but you are a lady, so you can go," Ning said with a gentle smile. The lady smiled and started thanking him, but then Ning's face changed.
"Wait a second. Isn't that a little sexist of me? Attacking a man, but letting a woman go. If it were anywhere else, it would even be considered rude, wouldn't it?"
" And you just showed how much you disliked it when people were rude," Ning said as his smile came back on his face, except this time it didn't give hope to the lady. Instead, it gave horror.
"Besides, you might think I'm trying to impress you by letting you go. You don't like that either right?" Ning's smile was ever so big.
The woman started shaking and immediately stood up to run away. Ning just watched her leave. He looked at the sword in his hand while shaking his head and grabbed the sword like a javelin.
He then aimed directly at the lady and threw the sword at her with the full strength of his body cultivation. The sword flew through the air just like an arrow let go from a bow.
It accurately landed on the woman's running back, but before it could even touch her, a protected barrier appeared from her talisman and she disappeared.
Ning thought about the current situation and just shook his head.
He wanted to go pick up the sword but it wasn't worth it. The sword wasn't even a spirit artifact, so he just left it there.
He looked at the sky, It was already past evening, and was night now. So, he decided to stop hunting and searching for the ingredients for now.
After fighting all day, his Qi reserve was low. He was also close to a breakthrough so, he wanted to get there as soon as possible.
So, he took out a spirit stone and sat on top of the giant rock next to him in a mediating position. He slowly breathed and started sucking in the Qi from the spirit stones and condensed it into his Sea of Qi.
He was a few days away from breaking through and thus cultivated throughout the night.
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Sun rose up in the sky and Ning opened his eyes as well. At some point through the Ning, the spirit stone had been emptied and he had to take out a second one to cultivate with.
However, by the morning even that was gone. Thanks to cultivating all night, he was as fresh as ever and ready to go.
He stood up from the rock, full of energy, and walked towards the other forest. Along the way, he found many monsters and found quite a few ingredients as well.
"I wonder if the people outside left the arena at night or stayed throughout the night," Ning wondered. Ning could understand the cultivators staying, but the mortals that came to watch stuff must've definitely left at night.
He continued walking and soon reached the forest. The forest wasn't any different from the other one and Ning continued to exploit his hidden aura for more points.
Beasts continued to target him for his weak aura, and he continued killing them. As such, quite a few hours passed.
Ning was in the middle of the jungle and another beast with an aura that said it was in the 6th Qi Condensation realm tried to sneak attack him.
It was a monkey with four arms and it sneakily climbed through the trees, slowly coming behind him to attack. As soon as it reached close to him.
It punched his back as hard as it could. Ning swiftly turned around to catch its incoming arm. But even as he did, the talisman on his chest started glowing and soon a barrier appeared around him.
"Huh? No, it's not fatal. What are you doing?" Ning shouted but he couldn't do anything to stop it. "Noooo….." Even as he shouted, he disappeared.
When he finally reappeared, he looked around where he was, expecting to see a hoard of people looking at him near the portal on the stage.
But instead, he found himself near a stream of water, in the middle of a grassland.
"What?" he asked himself in confusion. "Wasn't I disqualified?" he thought as he looked around and then up.
The sun was in the sky, directly on top of him.
"Oh, it's noon. F*ck. Can't they make the effect of teleportation and leaving the secret realm different? F*cking scared me for nothing," he thought and stood up.
He looked around to see the best route to take now when he noticed something. Far away in the sky, he could see a slightly purple layer of barrier spanning everywhere he could see.
'Is that… what they are using to stop us from moving any further?' Ning wondered. He turned around looking at the other sides and realized that the barrier on that side was at the same distance from him.
It was very far away, but he could tell the distance. He turned to the two remaining sides and realized that he had been teleported to the middle of the secret realm.
"Damn, where was I before? This is clearly the middle portion. I hope there aren't any strong monsters out there," Ning thought.
All of a sudden, something entered the range of his divine sense. Ning looked at it and saw that it was a crocodile beast.
It was a 7th Qi Condensation realm beast and was slowly swimming through the water, trying to stay hidden as it closed in on Ning.
Ning didn't even bother trying to wait for the crocodile to reach him and just jumped at it. The crocodile was surprised and opened its mouth to bite at Ning, but Ning just stepped on the lower mouth and grabbed the upper mouth with his hand.
He then pulled it away and ripped the crocodile in half. He stored the corpse and walked out of the water.
Just as he did, 3 different people walked out of the jungle at the same time. However, they weren't together and came out of different sides of the jungle.
"Holy… so many people. I guess since the land is halved, you idiots would start popping up soon," a man as he walked out.
He was wearing a green robe, in contrast to the other two who were wearing a red robe and a light blue robe.
"Hoh, an idiot calling someone else an idiot? That's rare to see," the man with the light blue robe said.
Ning looked at the three and saw that they all had the 8th Qi Condensation realm. That was an incredibly rare occurrence. In contrast, Ning currently looked like he had 6th Qi Condensation realm.
The third guy in red wasn't speaking at all and kept looking at the other two with caution. Ning was no threat to him so he didn't even bother looking at him.
Ning was slightly surprised at the third guy's appearance but thought it was just a coincidence and focused on the two loud ones.
"You guys must've gathered quite a few points right? Why don't you give half of it to me?" the guy in green said.
"Sure, why don't you give some to me as well? I would appreciate it a lot," the guy in light blue said.
They both looked to their side towards the third person, but he wasn't speaking at all. So they stopped bothering with him but kept a cautious eye on him.
"Why don't I get rid of this guy and we can continue this afterward?" the guy in green said pointing to Ning.
"And get half his points? Keep dreaming. I will be the one killing him." The guy in light blue didn't wait for any more words and directly jumped towards Ning.
The guy in green also jumped towards Ning to deliver the final blow as that would be what gave the people their points.
Ning took out his spear and put it up horizontally to stop the swords. One hit the blade and another the hilt, yet even when together, neither of them could budge the spear.
"You guys talk really big, but do you have the ability to back it up?" Ning said as he looked towards both of them and a malicious smile appeared on his face.
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Ning's smile brought small traces of doubt and fear in the two men's eyes.
They immediately backed up and looked at each other before looking back towards Ning. They got cautious. "You are quite crafty aren't you? Hiding your ability to strike at the right time," the man with the green robe said.
"It seems like he is quite strong. why don't we work together to defeat him first before we fight amongst ourselves," the man in the light blue robe asked?
"Sure," the man in green said. He then turned to the third guy to ask, "What about y— What the?" he was surprised when he saw the man in red on the ground.
'Was he attacked somehow? How did he get there?' he was just thinking that when he heard a voice right next to him.
"Are you sure you can ignore me?" Ning said right next to the man's face. At some point, he had appeared right next to the man in green.
The man in blue suddenly swung his sword and set out a slash made up of water towards Ning. The slash was very sharp and it accurately hit Ning.
"Oh, I could feel that one. Nice job," he said as wiped away the water from his face. The man in blue was stunned. One of the best-known attacks of his sect was useless against the man.
'He is strong,' he thought. He immediately turned around decided to run. There was no way he was winning this fight and decided to use the man in green as a sacrifice to save himself.
"Nope, you don't get to go anywhere," Ning suddenly stopped the man with telekinesis. He was just a bit lighter when compared to Ning, so he was able to stop him.
If it had not worked, Ning would've used his Qi, but that was the last resort. It usually took a lot more Qi and focus when trying to someone or thing with its own will.
Thankfully, the Telekinesis only needed his mental energy, which he had plenty by now. He pulled the man back towards him with his Telekinesis and simply pointed his spear towards him.
The man's mobility was fully stopped by Ning. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn't move at all. Even as he reached Ning, he was barely able to turn his head, only to see a sharp blade of a spear pointed right at his face.
Before the blade could touch him, however, yellow energy appeared out of his talisman and he disappeared.
"That's one," Ning said.
He turned to look at the man in green who was was terrified out of his mind. "Sigh, you guys can't even put up a brave front. Why do you act like hot stuff and then suddenly can't even put up a fight at the next moment? Come on, attack me," Ning said.
The man couldn't believe what was happening. He couldn't even lift his sword out of fear.
Ning saw that and didn't want to have anything more to do with him. He showed him mercy and directly sent him back outside of the secret realm.
He then turned back to the last person, the man with the red robes. From the very start, this man had shown no aggression.
When the fight had started, however, he had fallen to the ground, with no movement.
"What's wrong with you? Why do you have your head down?" Ning asked.
The man didn't move or do anything. Instead, he simply asked a simple question.
"Is your name Ning?"
Ning was a little surprised. He looked at the man's red robe and could guarantee that it was not part of the Red Tiger sect. The colors just didn't match.
'Could it be that the sect leaders made a secret agreement with another island for better chances in the tournament?' Ning wondered.
"Yes, that is me," Ning said. "Who are you?"
The man finally looked up at Ning with a face of awe. "My name is Hijaka. I am the son of Usalini," the man said to Ning.
Ning was confused for a second, but hearing the names, a strange feeling appeared in his mind that he wanted to believe but didn't want to be disappointed.
"The nephew of the chief and the grandson of the former chief, Hyesi. It is an honor to meet you Inikaka," Hijaka immediately got into a kneeling position once more and started bowing to him.
Ning was shocked. Even though at some level he had expected this after seeing the man's incredibly dark skin for the first time, he was still very shocked.
"You— You are a Klavian? You are Hyesi's grandson?" Ning asked in surprise.
"Yes, Inikaka," Hijaka said
"Haha…" Ning had a blank look but a smile appeared as his face attained a proud look. "That kid got married huh? Feels like yesterday that he was bullied for being so weak, and look at him now… what did you say? Former chief? He became a chief too huh?"
Hijaka looked at Ning with both reverence and awe.
Ning's face suddenly lost all happiness and got solemn all of a sudden.
"Tell me, and be honest. Is he… still alive?" Ning asked. He closed his eyes not able to listen to the possible answer that might come out of the mouth of the person in front of him.
"He is alive and well, Inikaka. He is back in our ancestral lands and is living his life without any worry," Hijaka said.
"Ha… haha… hahaha, so he is alive huh. He is alive. Who else is alive? Tell me," Ning asked.
"Umm… nearly everyone is. Thanks to the cultivation techniques and knowledge you left behind, aside from the elderly who couldn't cultivate long enough to gain increased life span, everyone else has managed to successfully live till now," Hijaka said.
Ning grew silent, and out of nowhere a single tear fell down his left cheek.
"Inikaka?" Hijaka got worried.
"Thank god. Thank god they're alive and well.. Thank god I will get to meet them again," Ning screamed to the sky as he started fully crying with tears streaming down his face like a broken dam.
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