Chongming Xianzong

Chapter 399: Sect Competition (I)

On the sixth day of the winter month in the 449th year of the Qianfeng reign, the god of destiny was in charge. The day was auspicious but the night was inauspicious, and Jupiter was hidden.

Tomorrow is the day when Chongming Sect will hold the sect competition. Because of this matter, Jin Shilun helped the Jin County Lieutenant to clean up the evil cultivator who showed up. Without even having time to rest for a moment, he rushed back from outside.

It was already evening when he came back. Jin Shilun had no time to go to the Shangong Hall to hand in his work. He just had a quick chat with a few familiar fellow disciples. He didn't even have time to see Mo'er. He returned to the courtyard and concentrated on regulating his breathing and practicing.

This time, they only practiced until the next morning. When Jin Shilun went out, the sun had already risen. He looked at the sky and was afraid of missing the time, so he hurried all the way to the sect's training ground.

After arriving at the training ground, Jin Shilun unexpectedly saw Pei Yi, the martial arts master who had not been seen for a long time, standing on the stage and calling out names loudly.

Although the latter still looked sickly, he was full of energy, and his voice was like the sound of a huge bell, which made the ears of some disciples who were not very experienced and were nearby hurt.

Except for Pei Yi who rarely showed up, all other teachers of Chongming Sect were also present.

Jin Shilun even saw two figures, one tall and one short, standing on a high platform in the distance. One of them should be the master's uncle with black shoes, but as for the other one, he didn't know who he was.

When Jin Shilun arrived, Pei Yi had just started to call out the names, but he was unexpectedly scolded by the elders. He sneaked into the crowd without being seen, and soon he quickly stepped to the side of Ye Yaoling.

The latter smiled at his action, glanced at Pei Yi on the stage, and then said carefully: "Brother Jin, what are you doing? Our position of true disciple is really conspicuous. No matter how careful you are, the elders will not be able to see you."

Jin Shilun finally realized the truth after hearing what Ye Yaoling said. He turned around and saw that his master's eyes were fixed on him. He immediately sat upright and pretended to close his eyes and regulate his breathing.

"Don't worry, senior brother. Shilun has done a good job in Jin County. The Jin County Magistrate even wrote a letter to thank him a while ago. Don't be too harsh on him." Yuan Jin said with a smile, trying to smooth things over.

"Whom should I send from the Chongming Sect to help? How dare County Lieutenant Jin not write a letter of thanks?" Although Sect Leader Kang said so, he did not care about Jin Shilun's mistake of missing the deadline.

He glanced at the high platform in the distance and said, "It's rare that Mr. Shan agreed to my uncle's and my invitation to come out and relax. I just hope that this time, I won't let him see too much disappointment."

When Yuan Jin heard this, he also frowned.

Jiang Qing sighed softly, "As the saying goes, 'A sharp sword is sharpened by grinding, and the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold.' My eldest brother is reluctant to let his two or three disciples suffer, so they will never become useful people."

Jiang Qing's words made Kang Dabao quite dissatisfied, but he did not get angry. Because what Jiang Qing said was not wrong, the next generation of disciples was much worse than their generation.

Duan Anle is nearly forty years old, but he is still a long way from building a foundation; Jin Shilun is over forty years old, but he is still stuck at the seventh level of Qi training;
As for Mingzhe, Ye Yaoling and others, although they were all true disciples, they were much inferior to the previous two in both methods and character. Even if they reached the ninth level of Qi training in the next few years, it would take them a long time to reach the foundation building stage. They might not be able to reach the threshold of foundation building earlier than Jin Shilun.

It now seems that among the next generation of Chongming disciples, perhaps only Kang Rongquan can achieve the foundation before the age of forty, just like Jiang Qing.

But what were the conditions when Jiang Qing practiced, and what were the conditions when Duan Anle, a disciple of Chongming of this generation, practiced?
Thinking of this, Master Kang sighed again.

He only focused his attention on Kang Changyi's younger disciples. Judging from the latter's current state of practice, achieving foundation building should be a natural thing for them, just like Jiang Qing, so there was no need to worry.

However, it is still unknown what kind of Tao foundation one can achieve with only two spiritual roots, and whether he can compete for the false elixir path.

"How can a sect produce all the geniuses in such a short period of time?" Ye Zhengwen saw Kang Dabao's worries and said, "It has not even been half a century since you revived the sect. It is very rare to have such a situation.

Even families like the Ma family and the Shan family, which have been building foundations for many years, have a period of lack of successors. We only have 200 to 300 disciples, and among them there are one or two who can hope to build foundations. Compared with them, I don’t know how lucky we are!”

What Ye Zhengwen said does make sense, and Kang Dabao is also aware of this truth, but knowing it himself and persuading others are two different states of mind.

After thinking it through, Master Kang's gaze returned to the True Disciples. After looking at them for a while, he thought to himself:
"Yes, Anle and Shilun are only of the fourth spiritual root. It is rare for them to be able to cultivate to such a level at such a young age, even with the help of the sect's food supply. I am greedy and should not have expected too much."

He just figured it out, and Pei Yi had already called out the names. He stopped talking, and his eyes swept across the disciples on the training ground one by one, and a trace of sadness flashed in his eyes.

But the sadness in his eyes was so fleeting that even the sharp-sighted Master Kang could not see it.

Pei Yi let out a long sigh, a gleam of light appeared in his hand, and the jade slip on his palm suddenly spread out. Pieces of jade slips fell into the hands of Chongming disciples one by one in an orderly manner.

What followed was an irrepressible noise. The disciples were either sighing, celebrating, surprised, or terrified.
Pei Yi sat on the stage, taking in all the expressions and movements in the room. He did not speak for a long time. After a long while, he finally spoke:
"Enough of the talk, let's get started. This competition has no other rules except that you may not intentionally kill someone or seriously injure your opponent. I will first reiterate the prizes for this competition:
Anyone who wins one match in this competition will receive 20 good deeds.

The top 20 winners of this competition will receive 200 good deeds, a mid-term magic weapon, and two bottles of Jade Treasure Pills.

The top ten winners of the competition will receive 500 good deeds, a top-grade magic weapon, and two bottles of Huanglong Dan.

Those who win the top three in the competition can get 800 good deeds, a top-grade magic weapon, and two bottles of Bailu Dan.

The winner of the competition will receive 1,500 merits, a top-grade magic weapon, a pseudo-spiritual weapon, and a foundation-building spiritual item.
In addition, outer disciples who rank in the top 20 of the competition can be promoted to inner disciples at the discretion of the elders and the head of the sect; inner disciples who rank in the top three of the competition can be promoted to Chongming Zhenchuan at the discretion of the elders and the head of the sect. "

There was a reason why Jin Shilun rushed back so anxiously. With every sentence Pei Yi recited, heavy breathing sounds rose and fell in the field.

Not to mention how valuable the prizes are, the chance to be promoted to disciple status based on your ranking in the competition is incredible.

If the true disciples were all difficult to mess with, the inner disciples would have no idea of ​​competing for the top three positions.

But the outer disciples were different. Many of them had practiced for quite a long time, but they were already over 40 years old when they broke through to the middle stage of their cultivation. That’s why they could only bear the identity of outer disciples, which made them very depressed.

Long-time cultivators like Du Qing and Wei Gu entered the sect much earlier than many inner disciples, and their cultivation is not necessarily weaker than others.

In addition, they are older and have enough experience in battles. If they really fight with these rookies who have never seen much blood, they will have a 30% chance of winning as soon as they step onto the stage, and their chance of competing for the top 20 is not small.

Even if he only won one match, he would still have 20 merits. Under normal circumstances, even those inner disciples with little experience would probably need half a year to earn this amount.

As outer disciples with little skills, they had no idea how much time it would take. So how could they not be excited about this competition?

Of course, it is not only the outer disciples who are full of enthusiasm. Even the true disciples who are sitting in front of the stage and have good resources on weekdays are all eager to try and can't help themselves.

Compared with the previous small competitions, the grand competition organized by the teachers this time was much more grand.

After all, the prizes for the sect competitions held once a year in the past were at most one or two top-grade magical instruments, or elixirs of equivalent value.

People like Kang Rongquan and Duan Anle, who used to be considered as gap figures among the younger generation, would not deliberately put down their work or their progress in cultivation to compete if they were not free.

But this time, if they could win the first place, several teachers would be willing to give them spiritual objects such as Reed Flower Pills for foundation building. Compared with this, the originally tempting top three prizes were eclipsed and had little appeal. Kang and Duan keenly realized that there seemed to be an invisible barrier between them and their brothers who were originally very friendly.

The feeling was not uncomfortable, but just a little weird, which made them feel very uncomfortable.

When Yuan Jin, who was on the Dianjiang Building, saw this scene, his reaction differed from that of the younger generations below.

After his smile grew wider, he said, "Old Three's idea was brilliant. He set a high reward for the first place. The atmosphere of this competition can be heated up without us hiring anyone to promote it."

Jiang Qing, who was called, just nodded and said calmly: "Practitioners are meant to compete and fight. Since you are participating in the big competition, you should have the intention to win the first place. If you still act like the friendly and friendly person you were in the past few small competitions, without any fierceness, you will be even more useless in the future."

Although the head of the Kang family, whose name was not mentioned, was unhappy, he had to admit that what Jiang Qing did was indeed effective.

It was said that most of Xiaobi's magic weapons were taken out of Jiang Qing's storage bag and handed over to Yuan Jin and several Fei family weapon masters to repair them. Kang Dabao didn't even pay for it, so it was hard for him to be so stubborn.

Seeing Ye Zhengwen deliberately looking at him with a teasing expression, the head of Kangda sect felt a little embarrassed and immediately urged Pei Yi, "Junior brother Pei, it's almost time, let's get started."

The latter responded hurriedly, and within a few breaths, the magic spell in his hand changed several times.

After a loud rumbling sound, the formations on the five green jade platforms, each fifty feet high, beside the training ground were activated one after another. With a wave of Pei Yi's flag, Ye Zhengwen, Yuan Jin, Jiang Qing, Zhang Qingran, and Yuan Xiyue, five foundation-building masters, landed on a platform respectively.

This time, apart from the disciples who were still in Yulin Hall, the Chongming Sect still had 295 people signing up to participate in this competition.

This is not the total number of disciples. After all, there are always some cultivators who are not good at fighting and feel that they will only be humiliated if they go on the stage. It is better to just watch the fight from below. Maybe you can learn more than going up and being kicked off the stage in a few moves.

This time, there was no pre-selection for the Chongming Sect Competition, and the draw was just a matter of chance. But in the first two rounds of this competition, there was no matter for the true disciples like Jin Shilun.

This was not a special treatment, but the number of participants in the first two rounds was not small, and Pei Yi needed help to maintain order in the field. Besides, this should be a good thing for the other disciples in the field.

After Jin Shilun led the fellow apprentices assigned to him to the stage, it was impossible for him to just sit there and do nothing. Like them, he cast his gaze on the various stages that were bustling with activity.

The first batch of arena competitions were not very interesting. Either two rookies who were at the second or third level of Qi training and were not even old enough to dance with elephants were using low-level magic that they had just started to learn to attack randomly from a distance;
Or some inner disciples were lucky enough to be matched with weak outer disciples, who were not given too many opportunities to perform and ended the competition with great success.

Such a scene would hardly leave any impression on Jin Shilun.

But after the second group of disciples went up to the arena, he found two quite familiar figures in the same group.

"Hello, Senior Brother Mo!" Kang Changyi bowed and clasped his hands together. When he saluted, he was shining with a dazzling light, so dazzling that Mo Ku, who was sitting opposite him, could hardly open his eyes.

Mo Ku, who had not expected such bad luck, could only smile bitterly when he saw this scene.

However, he didn't know that he was extremely unlucky. Instead of meeting so many low-level disciples of the Chongming Sect, he met Kang Changyi, the only one who could be considered half a Chongming disciple.

Mo Ku didn't sigh in his heart for too long, he just clasped his fists in return and said respectfully: "Greetings, Junior Brother Kang!"

"Stop greetings and start quickly. There are many disciples waiting behind!" Jiang Qing, who was guarding the ring and acting as the referee, urged repeatedly. For a competition like this where the outcome was known before it even started, he didn't want both sides to waste time on the stage.

"Yes!" Two disciples, one old and one young, responded at the same time, each using their own methods.

Even though Mo Ku is almost seventy years old, his cultivation has only reached the fifth level of Qi training.

If it weren't for his seniority, as he had been a disciple for nearly thirty years, Kang Changyi, the eldest son of the sect leader, might not necessarily recognize him as such a great figure and respect him, an outer disciple, as "senior brother".

But Kang Changyi took out a top-grade magical trident and with a light swipe, three streams of green light easily overturned Mo Ku's mid-grade shield that he had saved up for who knows how many years to buy.

The latter didn't have time to react, he just felt a strong wind coming, hitting his eyes and hurting them, so painful that he subconsciously closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, he felt a chill down his spine again.

The three small branches on the trident were just half an inch in front of his eyes and eyebrows. If it was a life-and-death fight, his head would have been blown off and he would have died in just this one encounter.

"Kang Changyi wins!" Jiang Qing said indifferently with an expressionless face.

"Thank you, Senior Brother Mo!" Even after obtaining twenty good deeds, Kang Changyi did not show any joy on his face.

Mo Ku's smile became even more bitter, he cupped his hands and said in a hoarse voice: "Junior brother's profound skills are extraordinary, Mo Ku is ashamed that he is not as good as him."

"Brother, you are too kind. I..."

"I've told you to get off quickly!" Jiang Qing, with a stern face, pushed Kang Changyi, who was still making polite remarks, and Mo Ku, who was still smiling bitterly, off the stage, and called the next batch of competing disciples to come on stage.

After the two of them left the ring, Jin Shilun came to greet them, "Brother Mo, your luck is not good this time. If you had met Brother Yi later, you might have won a few more games with your accumulated wealth."

Mo Ku did not take Jin Shilun's words of consolation seriously. He just took out a first-level middle-low-grade talisman of varying quality and said, "Fortunately, Junior Brother Kang won quickly and did not let me have any illusions. Otherwise, Junior Brother, I would have wasted this talisman that I bought at a high price."

"It can't be wasted. The first round of the competition hasn't even ended yet. Brother, you can raise the price and sell it in the market. Who knows, you can make a profit."

Jin Shilun's years in Chongming Building were not in vain. His business experience was much better than that of Mo Ku, who was just an honest man who only knew how to bury his head in the fields. As soon as he finished speaking, Mo Ku's eyes lit up. After bowing and thanking him, he said goodbye to the two and squeezed into the crowd.

After Mo Ku left, Jin Shilun spoke to Kang Changyi:
"Senior Brother Mo's cultivation has not been going smoothly, and he has been distracted by the things related to his family. It seems that he thinks that he will not be able to break through to the seventh level of Qi training before he is eighty-five years old. If he did not really want to leave the sect, given his character, he would not have come to participate in this small competition."

The latter also sighed when he heard this. He didn't feel guilty because he won the competition. He just thought about it and said, "If that's the case, then I will help Senior Brother Mo to buy more spiritual fields, and then go to Qiaogong Fort to find Brother Xiu Mingshi to build a few mechanical puppets and send them over.

I heard that although Senior Brother Mo Ku has many concubines, he has never had a principal wife. I think he still wants to marry a female Taoist priest. There are many maids in my An Niang Courtyard who are over 40 years old and have become old women with fading looks. I can ask Senior Brother Mo about them."

Jin Shilun smiled when he heard this. His master's eldest son was really thoughtful and generous, unlike his father.
No, that's the wrong thing to say.

Although his master was diligent and frugal, he was always generous to his disciples. Otherwise, how could they, the disciples, practice so smoothly if they just relied on their own hard work?
Although Kang Changyi didn't break a sweat, he still had to prepare for the next round of competition to avoid a setback and having to suffer a lesson from Master Kang when he returned.

Jin Shilun had things to do himself, so he didn't talk much and went back into the crowd to maintain order.

Under the constant urging of the five elders who served as referees, the first round of competition ended quickly, and Kang Changyi soon faced his next opponent.

(End of this chapter)