Sikong Lan sent a message.
With the friendly battle royale scheduled for tomorrow, she ordered Song Yin to return and give Zhan Zhaozhao some special training.
Returning to the Qunxian Sect’s inn, Song Yin opened her pear blossom umbrella and asked, “Dear Master, what am I supposed to teach him?”
Zhan Zhaozhao and Jiang Zuilan were busy peeling sugar-fried chestnuts. The table was covered in an array of snacks: honey-crusted peanuts, candied hawthorn balls, fried pine nuts, and crispy walnuts.
Zhuque Prefecture’s specialties were various fried goods and dried fruits. While shopping, He Lan Tan had bought many kinds of snacks and roasted goods—several bags of each—which Song Yin had brought back for her sect siblings.
He Lan Tan had even bought a cat toy made of feathers, which their First Senior Brother was currently batting at with his front paws.
It could be described as a subtle attempt at bribery, taking care of everyone from the First Senior Brother down to the youngest junior brother. However, Song Yin didn’t realize the quiet thoughtfulness behind these gestures; she simply felt that spending someone else’s money was incredibly satisfying.
“It’s too late to learn new skills from scratch at this point. Even if I taught him the most basic array, his brain probably wouldn’t be able to process it, right?”
Song Yin grabbed a handful of walnut kernels from the table. “He’d be better off eating some walnuts to supplement his brainpower.”
Zhan Zhaozhao cooperated fully, opening his mouth wide so his Second Senior Sister could toss the walnut kernels in like he was a puppy.
“Focus the training primarily on dodging,” Sikong Lan said calmly. “Just make sure he stays alive.”
To each their own.
Silly Da Zhao, you are different from the others. While others strive for first place, you only need to survive.
The sky was clear and bright. Because Zhuque Prefecture was situated on high ground, the sky on a sunny day appeared as a boundless, pure, and crystal-clear blue. The clouds were like ethereal silk veils floating around their heads, resembling the intentional blank spaces in a painting.
Today was the exhibition match.
In the center of the judge’s stand, which was draped in red cloth, sat a black square box. A highly respected noble of Zhuque Prefecture would randomly draw lots, and the two chosen contestants would engage in a round of exhibition combat on the arena stage.
Of course, the draw wasn’t entirely random. Otherwise, if a sword cultivator was drawn against a medicine cultivator, or a painter against an alchemist, the fight would be too one-sided, unfair, and boring to watch.
Therefore, the box contained only the names of “combat-ready” professions, ensuring the exhibition matches were high-level and spectacular.
Unfortunately, by the rules of Zhuque Prefecture, an “Artifact Refiner” was considered a combat-ready profession.
“It won’t be that coincidental. They might not even draw me,” Zhan Zhaozhao said with optimistic confidence.
Two rounds of the exhibition had already concluded. The first saw the 7th-ranked sword cultivator face off against the 2nd-ranked array cultivator, resulting in a draw. In the second, the 3rd-ranked sword cultivator defeated the 2nd-ranked body cultivator.
The noble drew the lots unhurriedly, reaching into the box to stir them before slowly pulling one out.
“Artifact Refiner, rank seventy-six: Zhan Zhaozhao.”
The gazes of everyone from the Qunxian Sect pierced through Zhan Zhaozhao, their eyes screaming: Stop raising death flags!
Zhan Zhaozhao scratched his head and reaffirmed his confidence: “Master, don’t worry about me. I might not necessarily lose!”
The opponent’s name was then drawn. The noble straightened his arm, squinted his eyes, and read it out in a loud, vigorous voice: “Path of Heartlessness, rank one: Xuan Yuan Chang.”
Congratulations to this lucky fellow for being drawn to fight the number one cultivator of the Path of Heartlessness.
The dead-last Artifact Refiner against the undisputed champion of the Heartlessness Path.
Now, it wasn’t just the Qunxian Sect; the eyes of every contestant on the field turned toward Zhan Zhaozhao with blatant pity: He’s doomed.
Zhan Zhaozhao licked his lips, beginning to feel nervous from the atmosphere. “Is the Path of Heartlessness really that powerful?”
The Qunxian Sect gathered experts in sword arts, arrays, body cultivation, medicine, alchemy, and charms, but they truly had never dealt with the Path of Heartlessness.
Song Yin looked at him with eyes full of sympathy and pity as she introduced the situation:
“Junior Brother, you may not know this, but when our Master first founded a sect for demon cultivators, there was a lot of opposition. Countless sects denounced and attacked her. Of course, most of them were just insignificant nobodies; Master could make them vanish with a flick of her sleeve without so much as a ripple.
“However, among the few who could actually hold their own against her were those from the Path of Heartlessness.
“Even now, we still have some rivals who can’t see which way the wind is blowing. Those villains have pinned all their hopes on the Path of Heartlessness, expecting a Heartlessness cultivator to eventually surpass their level and defeat Master.”
Hearing that they could go toe-to-toe with Sikong Lan, Zhan Zhaozhao finally grew anxious and licked his lips nervously.
Jiang Zuilan, who was competitive and loved to win, hoped to bait out some secret techniques from the Heartlessness Path. She pumped her fist to encourage him: “Good Junior Brother, you must endure. No matter how hard he hits you, do not admit defeat until you force him to use his ultimate move.”
Zhan Zhaozhao looked up with difficulty. “Will I even live long enough to see his ultimate move?”
Even if one loses the fight, one mustn’t lose one’s spirit. No matter how much doubt he felt, Zhan Zhaozhao still took the stage. The Qunxian Sect could have losers, but it could not have cowards who were afraid to step into the ring.
The first half of this exhibition match could only be described as a frantic scramble for safety; it was a one-sided slaughter directed at Zhan Zhaozhao.
The Heartlessness cultivator’s sword light followed the gale. A cold, pure, pale white brilliance carrying the chill of a thousand miles of ice pressed down on Zhan Zhaozhao, making his teeth chatter and his bones creak.
Though Zhan Zhaozhao’s artifact refining was weak, his moves were fast, allowing him to deploy thirty-two protective barriers in a single second. However, it was useless; the Heartlessness cultivator broke through all techniques with a single sword strike.
Protective artifacts exploded one after another, the shards clattering in a rapid, fractured rhythm. The irregular fragments, combined with the ice shards from the Heartlessness Path, caused secondary damage, pinning down his sleeves and piercing his clothes as they chased Zhan Zhaozhao to the edge of the arena.
As Zhan Zhaozhao rolled along the edge of the stage to save his life, tears streamed down his face. He thought to himself: Even if I try a war of attrition, I can’t outlast this guy.
The good news was that he didn’t have to wait long before the opponent unleashed his ultimate move. After all, this was an exhibition match, and everyone wanted to take the opportunity to show off.
The Heartlessness cultivator took a deep breath, holding his frost-covered blade vertically before his chest. He held his breath, bit the tip of his finger, and smeared blood from the base of the sword all the way to the tip. This was the ultimate move of the Path of Heartlessness: “Severing Desires, One Sword of Absolute Obsession,” an evolution of the “slaying one’s wife to prove the path” technique.
The Heartlessness sword was unleashed! The frosty blade lunged forward as swiftly as a dragon!
Zhan Zhaozhao finally saw his chance. At the moment the sword light was about to strike him, he pulled a talisman from his robes, closed his eyes, and held it high: “Go!”
The talisman struck swiftly, glowing with immense light. The vermilion seal characters on the bright yellow paper suddenly enlarged, projecting a massive phantom in the sky that shot toward the sword light like an arrow that could blot out the heavens.
The seal characters then bypassed the blue light of the blade, shattering the Heartlessness sword light as if it were a physical object. It crumbled into dust and melted before even hitting the ground. The seal characters then struck the opponent directly like a lightning bolt.
It shattered the Path of Heartlessness in a single blow. It was earth-shattering.
The Heartlessness cultivator on the opposite side slumped, falling onto the stage as if his bones had been snapped, coughing up a pool of blood.
He clutched his chest, his face pale; he felt as though his Taoist heart had been damaged and his cultivation level was about to regress by several years.
In the spectator stands, countless people were secretly watching, trying to gauge the Qunxian Sect’s strength from the details of the match. They even tried to infer Sikong Lan’s hidden power from Zhan Zhaozhao’s moves to devise a counter-strategy.
However, everything that happened in that instant shattered the delusions of those scheming villains.
Even the worst fourth disciple of the Qunxian Sect could easily break the Path of Heartlessness!
Everyone had seen his previous matches in the Artifact Refiner category; his strength was terrible—dead last!
Could it be that they were all faking it just to hide their true strength?
For a moment, the entire spectator stand fell silent. Countless sect elders were shocked, their minds filled with suspicion.
“Terrible… the Qunxian Sect has invented something specifically designed to counter the Path of Heartlessness!”
“Curse them! The Qunxian Sect actually has such schemes, letting this young disciple act like a fool and intentionally take last place in artifact refining just to hide their strength and deceive others. What a poisonous tactic!”
“What exactly was that talisman? To be able to break a Heartlessness cultivator at the peak of their strength? It’s terrifying, absolutely terrifying!”
“It’s over, all over. Even the Path of Heartlessness can’t stop the Qunxian Sect. Is the strength of demon cultivators truly superior to that of human cultivators?”
Out of kindness, Zhan Zhaozhao tried to help his opponent up. After all, the arena was covered in broken bluestone from the intense duel, and kneeling on it would hurt one’s knees. He had tripped several times himself while rolling around for his life.
However, the opponent propped himself up with his sword, kneeling on the stage and staring blankly at the ground, his Taoist heart clearly shattered.
Zhan Zhaozhao rubbed his head, thinking that these geniuses of the Heartlessness Path had such sensitive tempers. If he went to help the man up, he might wound the man’s pride; worse, he might be accused of insulting his opponent or ruining his dramatic pose.
Thus, after scratching his head, Zhan Zhaozhao decisively jumped off the stage on his own.
“Master, I didn’t embarrass you!” Zhan Zhaozhao said gleefully.
Sikong Lan glanced at him and gave a cool, “Mm.”
The Fourth had actually won.
There were too many gazes coming from all directions. Sikong Lan lightly flicked her sleeve, the pale gold embroidered patterns on her green robes shimmering in the bright wind.
She held her high-profile pose for a moment in the eyes of the crowd, ensuring she had established a sense of awe for the Qunxian Sect, and then left without looking back.
Ling Yi maintained her usual smiling face as she dealt with the flattery of the nobles and gave “knife-hidden-in-a-smile” responses to the probes of rival sects.
Meanwhile, she took a moment out of her busy schedule to update the Spiritual Network forum. The top trending topic was: 【Truly Deserved: Qunxian Sect Takes the Crown!】.
It wasn’t until they returned to the inn that Zhan Zhaozhao whispered to his Second Senior Sister, “What was that talisman you gave me?”
Sikong Lan knew that if they fought fairly, the Fourth had a high probability of losing. She had no choice but to use her “top student” mindset to predict the potential questions on the “exam.”
She bet that the opponent would be from the Path of Heartlessness, and then focused specifically on that scenario. She had Song Yin assist her in creating the talisman and made sure Zhan Zhaozhao knew how to use it.
The good news was that her prediction was correct, and the Fourth didn’t lose face.
Yesterday, time was tight and the task was heavy. Zhan Zhaozhao had only focused on training how to summon and time the talisman; he hadn’t dared to ask much else. Now, holding this “highlight” talisman, he humbly asked his Second Senior Sister for clarification.
Song Yin replied, “That talisman is a secret manual Master taught me. It’s the specific nemesis of the Path of Heartlessness.”
Zhan Zhaozhao said, “That’s amazing. Does this talisman have a name?”
“Jinjiang.”
“What a strange name. Just ‘Jinjiang’?”
“Yes. Jinjiang exclusively counters the Path of Heartlessness.”
Master said that one cannot graduate from the Path of Heartlessness in Jinjiang. Inspired by this, she refined the talisman and named it so.
As for the underlying principles, Song Yin didn’t care. As long as Master said it, they would do it. As long as they could win, that was all that mattered.
Zhan Zhaozhao had been pummeled like a sandbag and sustained quite a few injuries.
In the inn, Jiang Zuilan prepared an ointment to apply to his wounds and soothe his muscles.
“Hiss—” Zhan Zhaozhao grimaced. “Third Senior Sister, this medicine hurts more when applied than the actual beating did.”
Jiang Zuilan ignored him, continuing to rub his shoulder with great force.
This was her newly developed “Body Strengthening & Muscle Nourishing Ointment.” The ointment had a smooth, soft texture and was originally a white paste. However, the moment it touched the wounds on his shoulder, it reacted to the body’s warmth and turned red, giving off a burning sensation like fire.
Zhan Zhaozhao looked at his red-stained body: “Well, I guess it works to hide the bruises.”
“Mm.” Jiang Zuilan always conducted clinical trials on Zhan Zhaozhao while developing new medicines, gathering data by observing his reactions.
She saw that the therapeutic effect was good. The ointment turning red served as an effective warning sign, and it wouldn’t easily be washed off by water during a bath.
She casually placed the medicine into a jar with a label written in “chicken scratch” handwriting and tucked another portion into Song Yin’s rabbit bag.