Have you ever wondered why some people always become extremely angry when they lose to the protagonist but when they lose to someone else in a tournament, they aren’t as angry? It’s because the protagonist is acting like the MC of an Xianxia, which is a grave mistake. Xianxia MC’s are underdogs that manage to beat the rest of the competition which causes hate. Losing to someone you know is better than you doesn’t make you feel bad but losing to someone who’s worse than you makes you feel depressed and frustrated which causes anger.

Another reason why an underdog winning makes them angry is because most of these antagonists plan beforehand on how to beat every single threat they have so when a nobody out of nowhere with no background comes in and ruins their perfectly thought out plan, how could they not be extremely angry? People might like surprises but they do not like wildcards and unexpected factors in their plan because that can cause unexpected results.

Since Ye Meng revealed his sword intent and finished the 2nd requirement at an extremely fast speed, people made sure to mark him as dangerous. Only fools would pay no attention to someone who has comprehended sword intent! Li Xiaoyu basically did the same thing, she revealed her strength and talent in the 2nd requirement so people would mark her as dangerous. The one day wait between the actual tournament and the 2nd requirement gave everyone some time to change some parts of their plan.

For instance, just to defeat Ye Meng, people used heavy weapons such as hammers and clubs because they are one of the best counters to Ye Meng. If Ye Meng gets hit once, then he’ll end up losing because his cultivation is lower than most of the peak Divine Sea stage geniuses so his defense would be weaker. Also, sword intent is meant for piercing and cutting, it’s not meant for sheer force. If they swing their clubs or hammers in a circle, how could Ye Meng defend against such a powerful attack with something that’s meant to pierce or cut?

This all applies to everyone beside Ouyang Guodi of course, he was always pampered and praised for being a genius so his arrogance reached unimaginable heights. All of the other geniuses have tasted defeat in the hands of other geniuses or the Crown Prince so they were rather humble when it came to defeats from stronger geniuses. But defeat wasn’t in Ouyang Guodi’s dictionary so why would he care about his other competition? Everyone knew he had two major trump cards, he had reached Control of a Dao in lightning and he trained in a powerful body refining technique. Normal peak Divine Sea stage geniuses were simply not his match!

Every single action, beside humiliating the burly man, was part of Ye Meng’s plan. Speaking of Ye Meng, he was currently in Hua Tong’er’s room giving her orders. Her cultivation had increased from early Marrow Cleansing to peak Marrow Cleansing in the span of a year and several months because of the Saint ranked cultivation technique coupled with Ye Meng’s resources.

“After Li Xiaoyu and I enter the Divine Sky Academy, your job is to cultivate with my two other slaves while expending as much of my resources as you need. In a decade, you should be able to reach the early Golden Elixir stage and the assassin duo should be at the early Divine Sense stage. At that point, you should start making all the important figures of weaker sects your slaves and work up from there. Be sure to make them happy and remember to keep cultivating.”

Hua Tong’er nodded and asked, “Won’t people become suspicious if we’re buying resources worth hundreds of thousands of low grade spirit stones? Also, how can we make the higher ups in the sects happy?”

Ye Meng stroked his chin and thought about it for a while. “I’ll ask Old Man Bai to buy it for us while we just give him the money. As for the higher ups, everyone likes power so I’ll write down a long list of amazing techniques and give them to you.” Hua Tong’er asked Ye Meng about a bunch of small details and he replied back with the answers.

Once you reach Ye Qian’s level, you can pay a large sum to descend to the Mortal Realm you ascended from. Ye Meng wanted to create a sect because he wanted to hold dominance over the entire world and the best way to do that is to create a sect. By having a sect that controlled the world, he could enjoy the best of everything as the founder of the sect. Ye Meng also wanted to scout some youths with special bodies and a sect is also the best way to scout for budding talents.

He quickly left the room after it was done and headed for his room. He wanted to sleep as soon as possible because he felt like he had gained some insights into the sword after fighting and he wanted to digest the insights. Ye Meng’s perception was already extremely high, but it reached unprecedented heights since he awakened his soul so he could gain insights much faster than anyone else. It wouldn’t be strange if he managed to reach One with the Sword in a century.

When he entered the room, he saw Li Xiaoyu sleeping on his bed while trying to comprehend the Dao of Yin. He changed into more suitable clothes and cuddled up next to Li Xiaoyu. He fell asleep and entered a dream immediately. In that dream, an imaginary Ye Meng was holding a classic sword and fighting off against multiple sword masters. The sword masters used complicated attacks while Ye Meng just fended them off with basic sword techniques. A couple of hours passed and the imaginary Ye Meng’s attacks were the same, but they had gotten a tiny bit stronger.

“So that’s how it is huh?” thought Ye Meng as he woke himself up, “I know my path to reaching One with the Sword. I need to comprehend the essence of my sword techniques and then reach such a state of perfection with my sword techniques that I forget all of the moves.”

Ye Meng felt overwhelmed because comprehending sword intent was nothing compared to this! He walked out of his room and went to a courtyard to practice his sword techniques. “It seems like the basic sword techniques is how I understood what path to take.” muttered Ye Meng with an ironic smile. The sword techniques that everyone knows are the key to reaching legendary One with the Sword state. Swish! Swish! Ye Meng practiced his sword techniques for hours until Li Xiaoyu woke up.

After that, they headed to the arena for the entrance tournament to compete. The announcer walked up on stage and yelled out, “Welcome! Today is the 3rd day of the Divine Sky Academy entrance tournament! By the end of the day, only 20 of the 150 contestants will be remaining! The contestants are divided into 10 groups with 8 people in each group. Each group will battle it out amongst itself and the 6 with the lowest amount of victories will be expelled from the tournament! The groups and matchups are visible on your jade tickets. Let the tournament begin!”

Ye Meng looked at his jade slip and he saw one of the geniuses he mentally marked in his group. Ye Ying seemed on par with Xiao Mei so unless he had a card up their sleeves, then Ye Meng would win. Although one of them would drop out from the tournament, there were another way to get in. That was to challenge someone who was ranked at least 10 spots higher than you and beat them. Li Xiaoyu had some talented people in her group but no real geniuses that could compare to Xiao Mei.

The first match was boring so Ye Meng just waited until he got called up. Victory. Victory. Victory. Victory. Ye Meng spent time sparring and learning when he was up against sword or saber users but against heavy weapon users he rushed for a victory. Some people with no major background instantly surrendered when they met Li Xiaoyu or Ye Meng as they didn’t care about face.

“Ye Meng and Ye Ying in arena 7!”

Ye Meng walked down to the stage and saw the handsome Ye Ying that radiated an aura of serenity. They greeted each other and Ye Meng pulled out a sword while Ye Ying pulled out a saber. As soon as the saber was drawn, the atmosphere around Ye Ying became bloodthirsty. Ye Meng knew that this was Ye Ying’s special body refining technique called the Immortal Fiend Body. You gain a massive amount of strength when you do a certain action but you became a crazed and bloodthirsty demon. Many experts have died from offending a powerful figure while in the frenzied state so the technique is marked off as forbidden but Ye Ying has a special type of body that makes him calm no matter what situation so he’s the only person to properly cultivate the Immortal Fiend Body.

Ye Ying dashed towards Ye Meng his saber. Clank! Clang! Ye Meng’s arms shook with every single blow due to the massive strength of Ye Ying. “I can’t fight guy head on. I guess it’s time to use what the Profound Laws of Water have told me.”

This time when the saber came at him, Ye Meng didn’t block it. Instead, he hit the saber on the side with the tip of his sword to disjoint the attack. Ting! The saber was disjointed and the same cycle continued on for a dozen moves until Ye Ying’s saber became engulfed in an evil frost and headed straight for Ye Meng. The saber would make a mortal die and make lower leveled cultivators scared. Even some Golden Elixir stage cultivators felt a chill down their spines. Ye Meng responded with imbuing his sword with sword intent and finding the weak spot of the attack. After a couple hundred moves, Ye Ying was sweating intensely but Ye Meng only had a bit of sweat on his body because Ye Ying was using moves unlike Ye Meng who was simply using basic sword techniques.

“Brother Ye, your perception is extraordinary! I was saving this for the Crown Prince but I guess I have to reveal it earlier.” said Ye Ying while panting.

Suddenly, the atmosphere around Ye Ying had grown even more bloodthirsty and Ye Ying came crashing down at Ye Meng. Ye Meng tried to use the point of his sword to deflect it but the saber was around 200,000 jins stronger than before! When some of the audience saw this, they were all shocked.

“Ye Ying reached the 8th stage of the Immortal Fiend Body!?”

“Amazing! This match is getting more interesting!”

“Does Ye Meng have any other cards? If not, he’s gonna lose!”

Instead of disjointing the attack, Ye Meng actually made the saber tilt so that it was on it’s flat side when heading towards him. The tilted saber hit Ye Meng’s chest and Ye Meng quickly bit his tongue, which healed immediately after, to cough out a mouthful of blood. He had to fake an injury or it would awfully suspicious on how he came out of that exchange without an injury.

Ye Meng gritted his teeth and imbued his sword with a bit of the Profound Laws of Water he had comprehended. The saber came towards him again but this time, Ye Meng’s sword was like water. It never actually touched the saber for more than a millisecond and in a dozen moves, Ye Ying had small scratches all of his body. The audience saw that his swordplay was like water and looked at Ye Meng with amazed gazes.

“His strength increased by so much since he infused the Dao of Water onto his sword! His level of insights must be unfathomable!”

“Maybe with his perception he could comprehend Control of a Dao in around 10 years!”

Ye Ying imbued his sword with his chosen Dao which was the Dao of Yin. Although Li Xiaoyu and Ye Ying both had comprehended the Dao of Yin, they had chosen two different pathways. Li Xiaoyu had picked the cold part of Yin while Ye Ying had chosen the evil part of Yin. They exchanged moves and they were both evenly matched so Ye Meng decided to imbue his sword with more of the Profound Laws of Water.

Ye Ying’s face instantly turned dark when he saw that Ye Meng hadn’t shown all of his insights yet. He was at a disadvantage and he had no special cards left. Daos were usually last resorts because they used a large amount of your mental strength to control unlike Laws which didn’t. Mental strength needed rest until it could be restored unlike Qi which just required pills or cross legged meditation. Daos were usually used to for extremely important battles. He exchanged a couple more blows with Ye Meng and saw that he couldn’t do anything without being severely injured. “I can take 2nd place in this group, Ye Meng is too much of a monster. I won't offend him in the future.” thought Ye Ying as he admitted defeat.

Ye Meng retreated to his booth and watch the other matches. Sometimes when he felt like the Crown Prince’s gaze was on him, he would kiss Hua Tong’er and act like a pair of lovers just to spite him. Li Xiaoyu won all of her matches with little effort due to her easy matchups. Speaking of Li Xiaoyu, she was glaring daggers at Ye Meng’s back because he had Hua Tong’er on his lap and he was stroking her hair. Bai Chen was giggling at her friend’s misfortune and she whispered into Li Xiaoyu’s ear, “Sister Li, you’re glaring at Brother Ye but you’re not doing anything to fight for him! Cmon sister! You’re so much better than Hua Tong’er! Just confess!”

Li Xiaoyu blushed when she talked about confessing and angrily said, “No! That bastard is a pervert and womanizer! I’m not gonna confess to him unless he straightens up his ways.”

Bai Chen rolled her eyes and reminded her friend, “If you just ask him to stop fooling around with Hua Tong’er, then he would!”

Li Xiaoyu shook her head and said, “No he wouldn’t! You don’t know his vile ways. He would make me be the substitute for her and he’d take advantage of me like that. Hmph! I'm not an easy slut like Hua Tong'er!”

Two of the endlessly conversed with each other and eventually the 3rd day of the tournament had ended. Ye Meng went home with the two girls and practiced his sword techniques.

Meanwhile at the Royal Palace, Ouyang Guodi was cultivating in his room when suddenly his aura exploded! Qi accumulated in his dantian till it burst and he broke through. “Hahahahah! First place is mine!” laughed the Crown Prince as he threw a punch at a strength tester.

There was a 1,800,000 in blue on the strength tester which was incredibly high for an early Golden Elixir culivator. The average strength of an early Golden Elixir cultivator was 1,350,000 jins of strength while the average strength of a mid Golden Elixir cultivator was 1,750,000 jins of strength! The last day would surely be interesting with this breakthrough.