Chapter 284: The Sword Mountain
One might remember that although Tracy was strong, her strength lay in her talent and blood, rather than in her diligence.
As far as knowledge and experience was concerned, she was nowhere close enough to the saints and elders of Cloud Sect, or even Rocher and Patrick. So naturally, the reasons for their surprise were quite different.
Patrick was surprised because he understood what had happened inside the combat ring.
Tracy's shock did not arise from the fact that she had understood something, but because her Blue Phoenix's blood was tingling inside her body. Even though not knowing what had actually happened, the tingling phoenix blood inside instinctively sent a feeling of fear all across her body, as if some sort of natural defense mechanism. The tingle was enough to tell her that something extraordinary had happened around her. The Blue Phoenix was a legendary bird and was capable of extremely strong perception skills. It could sense things. If there was any danger in the surrounding environment, the blood of the Blue Phoenix would tingle, warning the owner of the danger.
This was why Tracy was shocked and had almost screamed out.
Patrick didn't have the blood of the Blue Phoenix and therefore, could not sense something unusual. However, he had already noticed that the skills utilized in the fight between Zen and Rocher had been far beyond their cultivation levels. This also meant that whatever had happened was also not some common phenomenon.
“If my eyes don't deceive me, then their swordsmanship has just reached the most perfect level there can be. Both Zen and Rocher have taken inspiration from the fight and both reached the consummation level of the sword intent.” Patrick muttered under his breath. An expectant expression, almost ecstatic secretly flashed on his face because he thought that he had finally found his match.
Until now, there was only one disciple in the entire Cloud Sect who ranked stronger than Patrick did among the hundreds of thousands of disciples being trained every day. Evan was the strongest disciple of the Cloud Sect and of course, above Patrick. His identity was somewhat special. Strictly speaking, he shouldn't have been counted as a disciple of the Cloud Sect, and Patrick should be the Number One disciple in the sect.
For that reason, Patrick had paid little attention to the All Peaks Competition at first.
With his strength, and Evan not participating, no one would have been Patrick's match. It didn't matter whether he faced the top disciples of the thirty-three Peaks or personal disciples of the saints and elders of Cloud Sect. The final result of this All Peaks Competition did not make him curious or expectant since no one could have inspired his fighting will.
But as the competition progressed and Zen and Rocher gradually showed their strengths in the round robin competition, Patrick found that the All Peaks Competition had become more and more interesting.
He had been deeply impressed by Zen's victory over Tracy and Jacques and Rocher's unique Heavenly Sword. The competition had become more fascinating than ever.
Finally, he had found someone who could have matched him in this competition.
Both Zen and Rocher had the ability to fight him and could, perhaps, even defeat him in some stroke of luck. He should become serious now.
However, he completely disagreed with Rocher's claim that he had a fifty percent chance of defeating him.
It was not that Patrick despised Rocher. On the contrary, he deeply admired the contestant and was impressed by the fact that he could master the four swords of the Heavenly Sword just at the consummation of nature level. When he himself had been at the consummation of nature level, he had been much weaker than Rocher was right now.
After Patrick's practice of the Buddhist cultivation method, his personality and mentality had become very relaxed, and he was very open-minded when looking at the problems in his life.
In his eyes, the highest possibility Rocher could have had of defeating him was not fifty percent, but thirty percent.
To be honest, that was a very high evaluation indeed. After all, Patrick was a strong master at the Illuminating Soul Realm while Rocher was at the consummation of the nature level. The gap between their cultivation level was vast.
But things were different now. Patrick hadn't expected that Rocher would be able to comprehend the consummation of the sword intent. He realized that his assessment of Rocher's ability had indeed been lower than he deserved.
Patrick deemed that Zen was slightly stronger than Rocher. Although he hadn't been as remarkable as Rocher, he had used a lot of skills one by one during the fight, which had stunned the audience. In view of such an opponent, Patrick, who had always been calm, had become a little restless. The important part of being a warrior was to not let your enemy get into your head and Zen had managed that.
And who knew if Zen was hiding more skills up his sleeve? This unfathomable feeling made Patrick realize that of all the contestants in this year's competition, Zen was perhaps the most deserving to fight with him.
Patrick thought to himself, 'However, it is difficult for him to defeat me. It is highly probable that he will be restricted by his low cultivation level. What gets me is that at his current strength, it is weird to see him only at second-grade of nature level.'
What was more unexpected was that Rocher and Zen had reached the consummation of the sword intent at the same time in battle.
The sword intent was an artistic conception which was extremely difficult to comprehend and equally difficult to master.
Why was there no sound when the two swords clashed? The audience was shocked because when Zen's Streamer Sword and Rocher's Blood-corroding Sword, two first-class weapons had collided so hard, no sound was heard. It was as if they were made of paper.
The reason for this lack of bang with the flash was that as soon as they realized the consummation of their sword intent, they had entered a perfect state of epiphany, and it had suppressed the sound completely in an instant.
It wasn't that they were not powerful enough. Rather, all their life vitality and bodily strength had disappeared at once when they had reached the consummation of the sword intent. At that moment, the only thing for them to possess was the sword intent. Everything else would have gone blank to make way for it and therefore, there was no sound.
Patrick looked at Zen and Rocher, then closed his eyes. He hadn't had a psychological fluctuation in his brain for a long time, but today there was a slight perturbation in there. He wanted to make it go away, since this was a great taboo in practicing Buddhist cultivation method.
“No fluctuation is calm, no change is constant. Sooner or later, I will have to fight the two. And I will defeat them. Calm down, calm down!” Patrick murmured to himself.
“Did they both just realize the consummation of the sword intent at the same time?” wondered Kenneth. He couldn't help rubbing his rough hands together with an expression of ecstasy on his face.
There were not many people in the world who would be able to comprehend the sword intent. One who could cultivate the sword intent was considered genius and was sure to become a successful practitioner in the Eastern Region. As for those who could realize the consummation of the sword intent, they were often listed among the top ranks of the Cloud Sect! All the saints and elders wanted such top disciples listed under them as personal disciples.
Rocher was a man of ordinary origins. After he was admitted to Cloud Sect, numerous elders had wanted to take him under themselves as their own disciple because of his excellent performance. But Rocher felt a strong sense of belonging to Skytop Peak and was not willing to be a personal disciple. Therefore, he had been staying at the Skytop Peak until now.
Zen had cultivated swordsmanship only for a short time, and his skills of Sword Steps had been learned from Rocher stealthily. Until this competition had taken place, most people in Cloud Sect didn't even know his name. So no elder had been keen on recruiting him to be his own disciple.
The Cloud Sect attached great importance to the disciples who had got the great achievement on the sword intent, so did Kenneth, the head of Cloud Sect. Because these disciples had unfathomable future potential, and Kenneth would recommend them to the Cloud Hall.
After this round of the competition, Kenneth was satisfied that he had found two disciples who had realized the consummation of the sword intent at the same time in battle. To the best of his knowledge, such a thing had never happened before.
It could have been called a once in a lifetime experience.
And to be honest, such a thing happening in the middle of the fight was even beyond the swordsmen's expectations, let alone Kenneth's.
The superior abilities of the two guys were enviable. Some people were thinking that sometimes, life really was unfair.
When someone had realized the consummation of the sword intent, they would enter a special state. This state had the power to shake both time and space and even bend reality itself.
Not much was known about it. All Patrick knew was that sound and life vitality would dissipate when a cultivator realized the consummation of the sword intent, but he didn't understand the principle.
As leader of Cloud Sect, Kenneth had broad and profound knowledge, so he knew the reason.
The two swordsmen were so powerful that they had both entered into a special state of epiphany that accompanied the consummation of sword intent, especially when it happened at the same time. This state would cause a slight dislocation of space around them.
Elder Xu cast a meaningful look at Kenneth and saw him in an ecstatic state. Kenneth laughed on his curious glance and told him, “I've found treasures.”
It seemed certain that Zen and Rocher would pass the exam of Cloud Road, since they had reached the consummation of sword intent at the same time. There was enough in that to make Cloud Hall attach importance to them. And Kenneth was confident that Zen and Rocher would both perform excellently on Cloud Road anyway.
To be accurate, Kenneth's evaluation of them was not 'excellent' but 'good'. After all, the Cloud Road was not easy to pass through. He had to keep a margin in his evaluation.
Right now, Zen and Rocher were on the ground, blissfully unaware of everything around them in a state of epiphany.
Right now, the most important thing for them to do was to explore the sword intent and the mysteries that lay deep within it.
There was no need to worry about winning the competition at the moment. Consolidating what they had just comprehended was the first task right now.
However, not everyone was as knowledgeable as Patrick or Kenneth and therefore, most of the disciples couldn't understand what was going on.
“What are they doing?” “This is competition time. Are they really going to cultivate right now?”
“Boo! This is so boring! They didn't fight much yet. There was just some sloppy fencing, and since then, they have been sitting on the ground motionless.”
“Is the competition over? Who won?” “They are wasting our time. Are they going to fight or not?”
Just as the crowd's complaints were getting loud, Elder Xu flew over them and snapped in a low voice, “Shut up you all! Zen and Rocher are cultivating in a state of epiphany. Don't disturb them! If anyone makes the least amount of noise after this warning, he is going to be expelled from Cloud Sect immediately!” he warned.
Hearing the warning from Elder Xu, the disciples became instantly quiet and didn't even dare to breathe abnormally.
Cloud Sect attached great importance to training talents and did not tolerate anyone disturbing those talents. They focused especially on the geniuses which stood out from the disciples.
It could be said that the value of several geniuses, such as Zen, Rocher, Patrick and Tracy, were almost equal to the value of hundreds of thousands of ordinary disciples combined.
Being a genius meant that one could stand out from the hundreds of thousands of disciples, while mediocrity would only remain unknown. Cloud Sect was very tolerant. Every disciple would get a variety of benefits and welfare as soon as they entered Cloud Sect. But Cloud Sect was cruel too. The resources it showered on the gifted were far apart from those it allowed the ordinary people to have. That was the system.
Zen felt that he was in a strange state. It was supposed to be dark and he should not have been able to see anything since his eyes were closed. But right now, he could see a mountain standing erectly in front of him.
It was a mountain with swords struck on it everywhere, protruding like rocks here and there.