Perhaps rage had doubled the Senior Sister’s combat power, for as the fight went on, Hua Jian actually felt like she was losing.
Moreover, during the battle, Hua Jian clearly felt that this Senior Sister was intentionally or unintentionally guarding against hidden weapons, likely warned by the Wanling Sect cultivator from yesterday.
This Senior Sister’s strength was similar to the Senior Brother from yesterday—both were geniuses just half a step away from the Spirit King Realm, and each was no weaker than Linglong.
The completely different combat style prevented Hua Jian from using yesterday’s experience against her. Meanwhile, the opponent had information on her, making the fight feel quite unpleasant.
In the end, Hua Jian was forced to blow a puff of mist directly at the Senior Sister.
Not expecting Hua Jian to have such a move, the Senior Sister inadvertently inhaled some of it.
This caused her soul to daze for a brief moment, but Hua Jian did not take the opportunity to follow up.
Instead, she put all her strength into her evasion technique and quickly fled.
The mist was powerful, but the Senior Sister had only inhaled a tiny bit.
Immediately, the aura of an activated Spirit Tool appeared on her body, meaning she must possess a Spirit Tool that protected her soul.
Under these circumstances, Hua Jian’s mist could only achieve a brief control effect. If she wanted to win completely, she would have to use the Dream Flower Mist to pull the Senior Sister directly into her Godsoul Space for a lesson.
However, there was currently some distance between them. Hua Jian needed time for the flower mist to diffuse.
She didn’t want to gamble on whether the Jade Pool Senior Sister could wake up and react before the mist reached her.
Hua Jian could not sustain the mist’s diffusion for long.
With the mist present, the best it could do was prevent the opponent from engaging in close combat.
If she wanted to escape, she had to rely on speed.
Since that was the case, why not just run? There was no rule saying she had to defeat these Saint Sect disciples.
If such a rule truly existed, Hua Jian could only curse the rule-maker’s parents. What kind of person would come up with such a deadly rule?
“Goodbye, Senior Sister! I can’t beat you, so I’m leaving!”
With a loud poof, Hua Jian transformed into flying petals and quickly fled.
The Jade Pool girl, who had just come to her senses, looked with complex eyes at the trail of petals left in the air and took a deep breath.
“The Flying Flower Evasion! And you still say you’re not from Wanhuagu! Stop right there!”
A person using Wanhuagu’s secret evasion technique, using a Wanhuagu Ling Sword, and fighting in a style very much like Wanhuagu… what exactly was this person’s identity?
Could she really be expected to believe that Hua Jian, whose entire body was covered in suspicious points, was actually an innocent girl with no connection to Wanhuagu?
Not even a fool would believe that!
No matter what Hua Jian’s purpose for sneaking into the Ascension Gathering was, she would not allow Hua Jian to do whatever she wanted in the Secret Realm.
The Jade Pool girl immediately flew after her, only to discover a tragic fact: she didn’t have an evasion technique and couldn’t catch up to the distant Hua Jian.
For a cultivator, an evasion technique was like a vehicle. Hua Jian’s Flying Flower Evasion was considered excellent among thousands of such techniques.
One sprinkle of petals and she was gone. Unless someone had an evasion technique with a massive speed advantage, catching her was impossible.
And this Jade Pool Senior Sister hadn’t even learned an evasion technique. Trying to catch the fleeing Hua Jian was simply a pipe dream.
“Dammit, she got away… No, I have to tell the others.”
After chasing for a while and realizing she couldn’t even see Hua Jian’s back, she could only stomp her foot in frustration and fly toward the sky.
Since she couldn’t catch Hua Jian, she would issue a wanted notice, telling everyone in the Secret Realm that someone from Wanhuagu had infiltrated.
She would order everyone to mobilize immediately to capture this Wanhuagu troublemaker and execute her on the spot!
……
Hua Jian had no idea that her actions had made her a wanted criminal in the Secret Realm.
While everything was still unclear, she had actually become the first person identified as a Magic Path cultivator.
After shaking off the Jade Pool girl, she flew toward the meeting point without stopping.
Along the way, she encountered some other cultivators who were also in a great hurry.
By now, she had retracted the Magic Mist to save her Spiritual Power. When she encountered cultivators traveling in the same direction, she tried to ask why they were rushing so much.
“This is the territory of that Justice Revenge Alliance. I’m on Fairy Caiyue’s side. If I don’t leave quickly and get caught by them, I’ll be finished.”
The answers provided by these cultivators were quite realistic.
Ji Caiyue and that Justice Revenge Alliance now divided the Secret Realm into three parts along with various other small forces.
After two days of preparation, they had almost finished assembling their armies.
At such a time, shouldn’t cultivators still in enemy territory hurry up and run? If they were caught and labeled as spies, it would be all over.
Speaking of which, the naming ability of Justice Swordsman and Ji Caiyue’s fiancé was truly hard to evaluate.
To think of a name with such a mismatched feel as “Justice Revenge Alliance”—Hua Jian felt that most likely, the two leaders had refused to yield to each other, so they took two words from each of their titles and mashed them together.
One was the Justice Swordsman, and the other was the Revenge Hero. Put them together, and you get the Justice Revenge Alliance.
“I see. Well, good luck to you. I’m off!” Hua Jian cupped her hands in thanks to the cultivator, then resumed her evasion technique, instantly overtaking him.
During the remainder of the day, Hua Jian skimmed the edge of a Shielding Zone and stole a distant glance at it.
In this generally cold environment, the area near that Shielding Zone actually made one feel a wave of parching heat.
The interior was filled with rivers of molten lava, making it obvious that a powerful enemy resided within.
As expected, these Shielding Zones were the true exam questions. To get a better score, one had to enter them and defeat the powerful enemies inside.
Hua Jian roughly guessed the general process of the Secret Realm test.
For ordinary cultivators, this Secret Realm was much like any other, but for the geniuses, the difficulty of the Secret Realm would increase exponentially.
Not only were there no rewards for “fishing in low-level waters,” but they would also be targeted by “divine justice.”
If they defeated the Punishers from the sky, they still had to go to the Shielding Zones to fight the bosses to get high scores.
Even the Punishers, who appeared once a day, were Spirit Master experts only a step away from being Spirit Kings.
What kind of strength would the cultivators acting as bosses in the Shielding Zones have?
Surely they wouldn’t be lower than the Spirit King Realm.
‘Could it be… this is also a way of encouraging everyone to cooperate?’ Hua Jian pondered, thinking of a deeper question.
One or two Spirit Masters certainly couldn’t defeat a Spirit King in a Shielding Zone. To win, they had to cooperate!
The Saint Sect’s goal was definitely not to turn these future disciples into “civil war experts” who only knew how to fight each other.
Cooperation to defeat strong enemies was likely what the Saint Sect teachers wanted to see.
One could imagine that collaborating with others to defeat a powerful boss in a Shielding Zone would definitely be an event that gave the participants a massive score boost.
With this hypothesis, Hua Jian reached the meeting point as the sun was sinking in the west.
She then discovered that quite a few cultivators had gathered there—about ten or so in total, divided into several small groups.
It seemed they were all cultivators who didn’t want to join the large factions and had chosen to group up with a few trusted friends instead.
A flurry of petals fell from the sky and transformed into a charming and cute young girl.
This scene undoubtedly attracted everyone’s attention.
Even if those sitting here weren’t strong, their vision wasn’t poor; they could see that what Hua Jian used was definitely an evasion technique.
A cultivator who could learn an evasion technique while still in the Spirit Master Realm was definitely not simple.
A trace of wariness flashed in most people’s eyes, but it was only wariness; they weren’t so scared as to flee into the night.
The reasoning was simple: they had no grudge against Hua Jian.
If she were to suddenly attack them, there were so many of them resisting together that no matter how strong she was, she couldn’t defeat them all.
“Hua Jian! You finally made it!”
Just then, a surprised voice came from the crowd. Shiqi squeezed her way out and called out loudly to Hua Jian.
Seeing that Hua Jian had also come here to reunite with teammates, everyone felt even more at ease.
Everyone’s thoughts were the same, so it was fine.
Seeing Hua Jian still looking around for signs of Xia Hui, Shiqi helplessly told her there was no need to look.
Xia Hui’s starting point was very close to here, and she had arrived at the end of the first day, being among the first to arrive.
Since then, Shiqi had been waiting here for two days until she finally saw Hua Jian today.
“Xia Hui’s starting point was probably even further away than ours. And since she’s not very strong, it will probably take her quite a while to get here.”
“True. This makes things a bit difficult.” With the three-person squad missing one member, Hua Jian didn’t have a solution for the moment.
They couldn’t just do nothing and sit here waiting for death simply because Xia Hui wasn’t around, could they?
Slacking off wouldn’t lead to a good result. The Ascension Gathering was where they showcased their strength.
They had to perform well for the Saint Sect to give them a high evaluation.
Hua Jian was fine, as she had already been guaranteed a spot in the Inner Sect, but Shiqi was different; the girl’s position wasn’t stable yet.
“We’ll explore the nearby area tomorrow and wait for Xia Hui for one day. If she still hasn’t arrived, we’ll leave her for now,” Hua Jian quickly decided.
“Explore the nearby area? What do you want to do? I’ve already checked; there are no Spirit Items to scavenge in this Secret Realm.”
“That Shielding Zone nearby. I took a look on my way here. We’ll go there tomorrow to gather some information.”
Hearing Hua Jian’s words, Shiqi’s eyes widened. According to Hua Jian, was their target the things inside that Shielding Zone?
She had also been there once. Even standing outside, she could feel the terrifying pressure within.
The opponents inside were likely not ones they could defeat.
“Little sister, you plan to go to that Forbidden Land? Careful you don’t come back alive.”
Hua Jian hadn’t lowered her voice, so the nearby cultivators overheard her and found it somewhat amusing.
They could roughly guess what she meant by Shielding Zone—it likely referred to those black areas on the Map.
Their name for those places was simpler and easier to understand: Forbidden Lands.
Those places were filled with danger, and even more terrifying beings resided within them. The risk of entering was extreme.
“But the rewards for defeating enemies in the Forbidden Lands will surely be no less than fighting our fellow cultivators.”
Hua Jian shook her head, indicating that things weren’t as simple as they thought.
“You might not know this, but if you only attack other cultivators participating in the Ascension Gathering, you will soon be punished.”
Pointing toward the sky, Hua Jian revealed the hidden punishment rule.
If you defeated too many cultivators the previous day, talented disciples from the Saint Sect would come down to deal with you.
When she said this, the cultivators present all showed looks of confusion and doubt.
“How do you know that?” one cultivator asked boldly. “Did you see someone else being hunted by Saint Sect disciples?”
Hua Jian burst out laughing and pointed at her own face.
“As luck would have it, I am the one who was hunted. I took out dozens of people on the first day, and on the second day, a half-step Spirit King from the Wanling Sect came for me. After I drove him away, the one who came on the third day was a half-step Spirit King from the Jade Pool.”
Those words caused everyone present to show looks of disbelief. They weren’t fools; how could they believe such nonsense?
Your strength looks only slightly higher than ours. How could you possibly defeat a half-step Spirit King from the Saint Sect?
Could you be boasting and trying to deceive us?
“Don’t be so skeptical. Look at this girl. Does anyone recognize her?” Hua Jian scratched her head, realizing that she indeed didn’t have much of a reputation among these cultivators from the Outer City, so she pulled Shiqi forward to act as her billboard.
“Her, Shiqi. Surely you must recognize her?”
Shiqi was indeed much more famous than Hua Jian. Especially when she pulled out that pitch-black long sword, the crowd let out whispers of realization.
So, a genius famous on the Genius List had been sitting among them all along!
“She listens to me, so you should know how strong I am now, right?”
Hua Jian pointed to herself again, indicating that if she could make even Shiqi follow her, she must be even more formidable than Shiqi.
Surely they couldn’t doubt her now.
Everyone looked at Shiqi, waiting for her to speak.
Without proof, Hua Jian’s words were truly hard to believe; they needed a convincing endorsement.
“She is stronger than me. Even if I fought her alongside all of you, we wouldn’t be able to beat her.”
Shiqi nodded, indicating that there was nothing wrong with what Hua Jian said.
She was even being modest; if Hua Jian really wanted to act, not a single cultivator present would be able to escape.
Other geniuses might have to worry about being overwhelmed by numbers, but Hua Jian wasn’t afraid at all.
Once the Array of Bewilderment opened, no matter how many came, they would fall if their strength was insufficient.
That was the charm of a true area-of-effect attack.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not interested in you. Eliminating more small fry doesn’t help someone of my strength.”
Noticing the stunned looks from the crowd, Hua Jian felt quite pleased with herself.
With her mood improved, her words naturally became less polite.
“The only thing that will give me points is defeating the powerful enemies in the Forbidden Lands. Everyone, would you like to join forces with me and conquer those powerful enemies together?”