Chapter 215 - Precursor
“You? You think you deserve to fight a lister? It amuses me how shamelessly ignorant one can be!” Zhou Kuang said coldly as he disdainfully glared at Ye Wei.
It seemed to Zhou Kuang that not only was Ye Wei not interested in contending with him, but that Ye Wei had somehow learn his failure to enter the list despite three years of best efforts. The more he engrossed himself in his own thoughts, the more twisted his face became..
“That’s a no? May I ask how I can fight one of them?” Ye Wei had no desire to pose a threat, as he just didn’t see the point in it. To him, it would be excessively inefficient if he had to fight all twenty-nine thousand weaker cultivators before he gets to learn from the thousand elites.
“I have been here for three years, and I must say it’s my first time meeting a person as arrogant as you are. You want to fight a cultivator on the black dragon list? Fine, if you ever manage to beat me, I will personally arrange the fight for you!” Zhou Kuang’s face turned ashen, his knuckles cracked and rattled, and his urge to kill the person stood in front of him grew.
Zhou Kuang did not consider the chances of himself losing; he believed wholeheartedly in the hard work he put in the three years he had been in the palace. That the sweat and blood had made him undeniably stronger than any newbie he could think of.
“You have a strange way of answering questions.” Ye Wei nodded, ignoring the aggressive urge he could feel in Zhou Kuang’s Qi presence, and seemed to be in his own world.
“If that’s the case, let’s fight. Your inefficiency in communicating has cost us a lot of time already.” Ye Wei slowly lifted his head, looking at Zhou Kuang dead in the eye.
The young Runemaster’s calmness and indifference had angered and intimidated Zhou Kuang even further.
“Fine, very fine. I am interested to see the strength that fuels your pitiful arrogance. It can’t be much if you have to compensate it with this little show you are putting on!” Zhou Kuang gritted his teeth, his words sounding harsher and colder as he spoke.
“Bang!”
Zhou Kuang clenched his fist and channeled his Qi, the golden ball of energy in his dantian glowing brightly. His meridians stretched and all three purple fissures on the ball widened as a rush of his Qi squeezed through.
‘Low-level Earth stance, Shadowless Finger Strike!’ He flipped over his palm, and his hands were suddenly bathing in an intertwining sequence of runes. He then flicked his fingers, shooting three invisible and silent bolts of Qi at three of Ye Wei’s most vulnerable parts.
“Humph!” Ye Wei coldly grunted. All three invisible bolts were immediately picked up by his sharp Soul Sensitivity. His muscles and bones made a clattering sound as his energy pervaded every part of him. He made a fist and converged his strength into his right arm.
His arm quickly shook, bending backwards to a bizarre angle. He swung his fist back and forth three times, and his punches soared like cannons.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Three dull explosions echoed in the square, but none could see the source.
The force of Ye Wei’s punches and Zhou Kuang’s bolts were undetectable before the clash, the explosion of energy expanding in waves. The solid blocks of rock that made up the square’s ground began to crack under the immense pressure. The tiles over them quickly turned into dust.
‘Low-level Earth stance, Blood Shock Claws!’ Zhou Kuang was surprised that Ye Wei could detect his invisible strikes with great accuracy, but he did not flinch. He made a series of changing hand seals, in which a blood colored claw appeared and came flying towards Ye Wei’s neck.
In the ring, Ye Wei narrowed his eyes at the sharp claws. With a quick stomp, a river of runes condensed under his feet. Melted into a star-like lightbeam, his figure became unpredictable, swaying unstably.
“Swoosh!”
He shook three times in quick succession, narrowly avoiding the viscid, Qi-empowered claw.
“Such ruthless strikes.” Ye Wei quickly dropped his feet onto the belt of runes, letting the stream of energy carry his body back and forwards out of harm’s way. He stared at Zhou Kuang’s evil smile and his face turned stern.
Behind a screen of debris, Ye Wei’s gaze turned cold, quickly identifying his opponent's whereabouts, and quietly pushed his body through the small dust storm. His fist carried a few gusts of wind, flying directly for Zhou Kuang’s head.
The young Runemaster struck with a silent lethality as a reciprocation to Zhou Kuang’s vicious intent.
“How naive. Bring it on then, boy! Now I don’t even have to make an effort to catch you!” Zhou Kuang screamed, provoked by Ye Wei’s reaction. He did not plan to evade, but rather match Ye Wei’s intensity.
Hiding behind waves after waves of fierce claw strikes, Zhou Kuang rushed into the cloud of debris. Both of his hands carried the strength to take out returned prime Warriors.
“Bang! Bang!”
The two fighters’ figures crossed in the sky, claws and fists clashed, and a muffled rumble sounded.
Within the matter of a few breaths’ of time, the fighters had exchanged hundreds of blows. Zhou Kuang’s claws were as sharp as razors; Ye Wei’s fists were sturdy and heavy like a mallet. Neither of them could gain an advantage. The initiates watched in fear as the screen of debris turn into a storm.
‘They are dead even! How is this possible!?’ Baili Hengtian could just make sense out of the blurred shroud of dust. Expecting a one-sided battle, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘How can a newbie fight like this – is he related to the royal families!?’
“It’s only been a few months since we fought, but he’s become so powerful. He almost fights like a different person, and now he is twice as strong and fast…” Jian Chen murmured, his eyes shining with admiration as his Qi expanded in excitement.
Watching the fight closely, the initiates were reflecting upon their own selves. The pride and the arrogance in their hearts slowly started to sap away at their backbone. Regarded as their respective region’s best, all of them were handpicked by the Helian agents. Although they were siding with Ye Wei as opposed to the veterans, they were inevitably threatened by and envied the young Runemaster’s superior talent.
The girls within the group of initiates were naturally attracted to Ye Wei. They found themselves blushing. Their fine, crystal-clear eyes glued onto the young Runemaster, impressed by the masculinity in his stand against, supposedly, a senior.
Growing up treated as princesses, they were as picky as they were strong. None of them could help themselves from having a crush on the powerful rebellious figure.
“Boom!”
Affected by the storm of Qi produced by the fight, the wild primal energy in the air inflated and exploded in mid-air in the ring, each wave potent enough to knock an initiate unconscious.
Even fully defending himself with a layer of Qi armor, and perfectly dodging the waves, Baili Hengtian’s face turned pale. He flew backwards next to the square’s entrance as he realized he could actually die if he was hit.
The caretaker was sweating, startled by the strength and mastery displayed by Ye Wei, glad that his greed drove him to accept the bribe from Ye Wei, to establish connection with potentially the strongest initiate that Million Star palace had ever seen.
“Boom!”
The two figures crashed into each other again, another thundering sound filling the square momentarily as a visibly rippling force wave swept the dusty ground. They both flew backwards for over three hundred feet after the exchange before either of them could regain their balance, stirring up several shrilling gusts in the process
Zhou Kuang’s chest rose and flattened in a few quick cycles. After adjusting his breathing, he glared across the settling dust at Ye Wei. His daze shone through his dark pupils, evidently surprised.
He was stupefied by the fractions of their combative exchange that just flashed back in his mind.
‘Were we even this whole time…’
Zhou Kuang was confident about his own cultivation. Although he was not as prominent as the gifted who squeezed themselves into the black dragon list, though still not far from being strong enough to challenge the top thousand, he was a top three-star returned prime Warrior throughout the entire dynasty who just needed to polish a few bad habits in order to translate his power into combative context.
Meanwhile, Ye Wei was utilizing the little pause to analyze his opponent, calculating his next move. He was evidently impressed by Zhou Kuang’s capabilities.
“I came to the right place to refine my techniques!” Ye Wei mumbled and drew a refreshing, shuddering breath.
‘I was almost starting to believe the Eternal Star stance would make me undefeatable amongst three-star returned prime Warriors.’ The Runemaster thought to himself. ‘Now I am truly looking forward to fighting the ones capable of entering the black dragon list at three star level! They must have some tricks I can mimic then customize.
‘I just put an end to this fight!’ Ye Wei’s eyes glimmered with excitement.
“If this is all you can do, we can stop fighting now.” The young Runemaster said calmly, his posture contrasting Zhou Kuang’s restlessness.
“Hahaha, just because you can match me for a few exchanges doesn’t not mean you bluff your way through? You should be ashamed of yourself!” Zhou Kuang interpreted what he heard as another insult, his stress and frustration quickly rendered into fury. His hands whizzed, eagerly became different hand seals as his envy turned sour.