Having cultivated myself into an immortal, all I want to do is raise female disciples.

That fear, branded deep in his soul and rooted in his heart, would probably require Jiang Yuetian to defeat his elder brother to truly eradicate it.

He slowly stepped forward, came to Jiang Yuetian's side, and put his left hand on Jiang Yuetian's right shoulder.

Those unique, lifeless eyes were filled with a hopeful light.

"Keep up the good work, Xiao Jiang—don't forget the drinks we had that night."

"..."

Jiang Yuetian recalled the wine she drank that night, that bitter and painful wine that ultimately brought her great pleasure... and suddenly fell into deep thought.

Yunping smiled slightly. He didn't need to say anything more. All the words he needed to say and the emotions he wanted to convey were expressed that night. He believed that Jiang Yuetian would understand his meaning. Saying anything more would just be superfluous nagging and meaningless.

The others, except for Jiang Yuetian, all looked completely bewildered, not understanding what Yunping was saying at all.

After saying this sentence that left Ye Yuchan and the others bewildered, Yun Ping stretched and yawned as he looked out the window at the setting sun and the moon slowly rising over the edge of the bustling city in the distance.

The young man in white turned his back to his disciples.

"Alright—Xiao Jiang will make his own decision about this. I know you all care about Bajie, but right now, I hope you can focus your attention on the battle between the myriad sects."

Bajie was referring to Jiang Yuetian—everyone knew this, so they didn't react with much surprise.

Yunping's expression suddenly turned serious, indicating that what he was about to say was an important matter that would attract everyone's attention.

"The second round of the Ten Thousand Schools Competition is decisively different from the first round, and it is much more difficult. Once you break through the second round of the Ten Thousand Schools Competition, it means that you will definitely be able to step onto the Lin Ranking or Lan Ranking. At that time, your names will be recorded in history along with those two stone tablets."

"Ah, speaking of which..." Yuan'er raised her hand high, a puzzled look on her small, innocent face, "What are we going to do in the second round? Yuan'er doesn't know how to advance next, are we going to fight again?"

"Fighting is fine too."

Yunping's words stunned everyone.

Ye Yuchan frowned, not quite believing Yunping's words: "No fighting? Could it be a battle of wits? That's impossible, this is a contest of ten thousand schools."

Yun Ping shook his head, clucking his tongue and saying in a tone that didn't deserve a beating: "No, no, guess again."

"Then... it's neither a literary contest nor a physical one? We can't all just get together and play Dou Dizhu, can we?"

"Oh! I've played that before~"

Jiang Yuetian's eyes lit up when he heard the words "Dou Dizhu" (a popular Chinese card game). "My teacher gave me a deck of cards before, and the rules of the game 'Dou Dizhu' were printed on it."

Ye Yuchan looked at Yun Ping in utter astonishment, "You actually gave Senior Brother Jiang something like this?!"

Faced with Ye Yuchan's astonished gaze, Yun Ping simply said indifferently, "Your Senior Brother Jiang is a gambler. That thing can help him alleviate his gambling desires. Otherwise, I would have given him all the gold coins every month to gamble."

Jiang Yuetian's face darkened, somewhat embarrassed, "Teacher... I usually keep one-tenth..."

Yunping smirked: "You have the nerve to say that..."

Jiang Yuetian: "..."

Fan Luokui and Lin Yuan exchanged a glance. Having no idea what "Dou Dizhu" was, they felt as if they had been inexplicably excluded.

A slight displeasure rose in Xiao Yuan'er's heart. The little girl pouted and quickly changed the subject to something she could get involved in.

"So, so, teacher, what is this thing you're talking about that's neither fighting nor intellectual? It's not really that... that kind of Dou Dizhu that Yuan'er doesn't understand, is it?"

"How could that be? That means the capital city itself is organizing gambling..."

"Wait a minute."

Ye Yuchan seemed to suddenly realize something, and stared at Yun Ping with suspicion and vigilance, "You old rogue, how did you know about the second round of the Ten Thousand Schools Competition? As a participant, I didn't receive any news."

“I haven’t received any news either,” Fan Luokui chimed in. “And I’m also curious how the teacher knows. If I remember correctly, every time the Ten Thousand Schools Competition is held, the second round and the rankings are all different, except for the first round which is the same. So we can’t use the last Ten Thousand Schools Competition as a reference.”

In response to their questions, Yunping simply spread his hands calmly.

"I really have no way of knowing, but that girl Chu Xin knows."

"Chu Xin? The Imperial Princess?!" Ye Yuchan exclaimed in surprise, "You went directly to ask her?!"

“Yes.” Yunping replied quite calmly, “I asked, and she just told me.”

Jiang Yuetian blinked and gave a wry smile: "The content of the second round should be considered confidential, right? Telling the teacher so many days in advance should actually not be allowed."

Knowing the details in advance will definitely give you an advantage over other sects, allowing you more preparation time.

Chu Xin told Yun Ping without even thinking, probably because she resolutely chose to "leak secrets" over "refusing her senior"...

Yunping just laughed heartlessly, a laugh that was utterly shameless.

"In short, I am aware of the second round of this competition among all factions."

Fan Luokui gasped, then asked, "So what exactly is that?"

"What's it called... A comprehensive test to select elite cultivators in secret realms, assessing their combat abilities."

Ye Yuchan: "Please speak like a human being."

Yunping grinned and then uttered four words.

"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds"

116. You must attack a minion with Taunt first.

Of the two thousand cultivators, only two hundred can be selected.

One in ten will make it onto the list, while the remaining nine out of ten will be eliminated as losers.

The losers are unknown, the winners are honored.

Even the last-ranked person on the list is still talked about by many cultivators, because even the bottom-ranked person was someone who once stepped onto the list. In other words, they were the pinnacle of the near-level cultivators.

How many cultivators are at the pre-level in the Desolate Heaven Domain? No one knows, but their number is absolutely terrifying, at least tens of millions, and possibly hundreds of millions.

To stand out among so many cultivators demonstrates that his talent is exceptional and beyond that of ordinary people.

On the other hand, what about those who fought hard in the first round of the battle of the myriad factions but failed in the second round?

No one will know their names, and no one will know their efforts.

The loser goes unnoticed; that's what it means.

……

Five days later.

Two thousand cultivators gathered in front of the Imperial Palace in the capital. They stood in the center of the Desolate Heaven Domain, in front of the heart of the vast overlord, the Lantian Empire, and stood tall and proud as extraordinary cultivators selected from the fierce competition among the myriad sects.

However, a hint of doubt involuntarily crept into their eyes.

Because before them appeared two enormous rings that resembled both architecture and magical artifacts.

The hollow ring, with a radius of about fifty meters, was terrifyingly wide and seemed to be made of various rare meteorite iron. Countless runic characters were engraved on it. Only a few cultivators who had studied history or those who specialized in runic arts could recognize that most of these characters were from the ancient times and the era of the Hundred Saints.

What's even more puzzling is that there are massive, operating magic arrays beneath both of these rings. Their complexity indicates that the arrays are definitely no lower than the seventh rank, yet they don't seem to be offensive magic weapons.

What are we supposed to do?

Inside the arena, the vast majority of cultivators harbored unresolved doubts, while only a very few wore confident yet faint smiles.

—They were all monks who learned about this matter through various channels.

This included the students from Yuntian Academy.

"Is this it... the so-called passage connecting to the secret realm?" Ye Yuchan yawned, looking completely uninterested. "This looks weird to me. Is this some kind of magical artifact?"

Yunping tapped the girl on the head to cheer her up a bit: "It's at least a King-grade magic artifact. The craftsmanship of forging this thing is quite high, and it's exquisite in every aspect—by the way, did you not sleep last night?"

"I was studying martial arts techniques last night. Seeing everyone working so hard, I felt bad about sleeping soundly by myself."

Zhang Ruoxue, whose injuries had fully healed, rolled her eyes at Ye Yuchan, then couldn't help but expose her: "Still researching martial arts? Who was it that came over to drink and chat with me last night?"

Ye Yuchan gasped, staring at Zhang Ruoxue in astonishment. "Can that be considered drinking? I'm looking for inspiration, you know? Can you call something a cultivator talking nonsense?"

Yun Ping ignored Ye Yuchan's attempt to argue, glanced at Zhang Ruoxue, and asked, "So you drank with her?"

"She drank a little, but not too much. After a few drinks, she got a bit drunk, so I carried her home."

"Yeah, if she's drinking with you, then you're definitely the one carrying her."

Yunping was quite impressed with Zhang Ruoxue's drinking capacity, estimating that it had reached his own previous level.

Zhang Ruoxue glanced at Ye Yuchan discreetly and smiled, "Yuchan got drunk pretty quickly. After she got drunk, she kept pulling me to talk about relationship issues, and even said that she actually quite likes..."

Before she could finish speaking, Zhang Ruoxue's mouth was covered by a woman surnamed Ye.

She covered Zhang Ruoxue's mouth with sweat dripping down her face, her face full of awkward laughter, "Hehehe... Ruoxue, what are you saying? I'm drunk and can't talk at all."

As soon as she finished speaking, Ye Yuchan released Zhang Ruoxue's mouth, grabbed her, and pulled her aside.

Zhang Ruoxue narrowed her eyes, about to say something, when she saw Ye Yuchan silently raise two fingers.

The meaning is simple—two bottles of Imperial Red Jade!

She raised an eyebrow, pondered for half a second, and then shook her head at Ye Yuchan with a sinister smile.

Then he spread his five fingers and waved them twice in front of Yu Chan.

—You're so dark-skinned!

Imperial Red Jade Wine is a specialty of the capital city and can't be bought anywhere else. It's worth at least 150,000 gold coins a bottle, and Zhang Ruoxue asked for five bottles right off the bat.

This is deadly!

But I can't refuse to give it to them. Who told me to be so reckless as to blurt out those words?

Choosing friends is a terrible mistake!

The maid gritted her teeth, stamped her foot, and suddenly nodded.

The two hit it off immediately. Zhang Ruoxue and Ye Yuchan turned around with their arms around each other's shoulders. Zhang Ruoxue coughed twice and then said, "Okay, I seem to have remembered wrong. The one I was discussing relationship issues with wasn't Yuchan. She was a friend from the Thunder Feather Sect. I just got their dates wrong."

Faced with Zhang Ruoxue's obviously lying words, Yun Ping and the others silently put on dead fish eyes, looking at Zhang Ruoxue as if she were an idiot.

Couldn't this girl come up with a more plausible lie?

And Yu Chan, your methods of bribing Ruo Xue are too obvious!

Just as Ye Yuchan was awkwardly smiling, a rhythmic, thunderous sound, like a thousand horses galloping, suddenly reached everyone's ears.

hum!hum!hum!

The air was roaring.