The Attack of the Wastrel

There were four levels in the Alchemy Tower. At the entrance of the first level stood a Stone Tablet displaying the top ten Yellow-Level Alchemists.

The first name on the Stone Tablet was the student they were discussing, Feng An.  However, it was the name right at the bottom that caught Gu Lingzhi’s attention. The name was Xin Yi.

If she remembered correctly, Xin Yi was placed first on the Stone Tablet of the Training Tower. It meant that Xin Yi was strong in Martial Skills and was also decently good at Alchemy. It was so rare that someone as outstanding as him did not belong to any of the four major clans.

A few days passed by quickly.

Qin Xinran stayed true to what she said and followed Gu Lingzhi like a tail whenever she had time. Whenever she heard anyone say anything bad about Gu Lingzhi, she would not hesitate to give them a beating, resulting in her frequently having to go to the Teacher’s office the next day to be penalised on her points.

The frequency at which she went to the Teacher’s office made Gu Lingzhi wonder how many points she had left. She would certainly go down in history, if she was expelled at the end of the year for fighting too much.

According to Ye Fei, no one has ever been expelled from having too many points penalised from fighting.

As Qin Xinran was not bothering her today, Gu Lingzhi took the opportunity to go to the Student Union.

On her last trip to the Student Union with Qin Xinran, Gu Lingzhi noticed an ingredient on the List of Items that could be attained by completing quests. The ingredient could be used to create a Spirit Moulding Pill with five attributes – it was known as the Five-Petal Lotus.

Although the Five-Petal Lotus was not something that was extremely rare, it was expensive. If she could do several quests in exchange for one of it, it would certainly save her several spirit stones.

After looking through the tasks available on the board, Gu Lingzhi chose one that involved picking Spirit Herbs.

The Three-Petal Flower got its name from only having three petals on the entire flower and it could be found near the entrance of the Red Leaf Hill. The only difficulty was that it was distributed over a large area which made it troublesome to pick, resulting in only a few people attempting this quest.

After choosing her mission, Gu Lingzhi prepared herself to explore the place as she stepped into the Red Leaf Hill for the second time.

Due to the traumatic experience Gu Lingzhi had with Qin Xinran in the Red Leaf Hill, she was slightly fearful of the forest. She was worried that she would bump into beasts and lose her life.

However, the Red Leaf Hill was actually a very safe place if nobody plotted against her.

The journey to where the herb grew was an uneventful one and after a short rest, Gu Lingzhi began scouting the area to collect whatever herbs she could find.

Due to the dispersed nature of the herb, by the time Gu Lingzhi collected enough herbs, the sky had already turned dark.

Just as Gu Lingzhi prepared to return to school upon collected all her Three-Petal Flowers, a familiar shadow suddenly appeared in front of her.

“What a coincidence, are you here to collect the Three-Petal Flower too?” Fan Xiang looked at Gu Lingzhi maliciously, “It is a coincidence that I am also doing this task. How about you give me those Three-Petal Flowers that you collected. There are still so many around here, you can slowly collect them again.”

Ever since Gu Lingzhi defeated her the previous time, Fan Xiang had always bore a grudge against her. She had silently followed Gu Lingzhi from the time she saw Gu Lingzhi accepting the task to collect the Three-Petal Flowers at the Student Union. She waited until Gu Lingzhi had picked all the herbs required for the task before showing herself. Her sole motive was to make things difficult for Gu Lingzhi.

Looking at the narrowed and slanted eyes of the girl in front of her, Gu Lingzhi started to recall who she was—wasn’t she the girl that Gu Lingzhi first accepted the challenge from?

“I was the one who picked these Three-Petal Flowers, why should I give them to you?” Gu Lingzhi said blandly knowing what Fan Xiang was trying to do.

“Because I am stronger than you!” Fan Xiang emanated her Level Seven Martial Student spiritual energy towards Gu Lingzhi as she said this. She wanted to make Gu Lingzhi back down by intimidating her with her stronger cultivation.

Although Gu Lingzhi was prepared, but the sudden burst of spiritual energy from Fan Xiang forced Gu Lingzhi to take a few steps backwards. With a darkened face, she exclaimed, “Maybe not!”

Without waiting for Fan Xiang to react, Gu Lingzhi suddenly shot towards Fan Xiang with her Sparrow Wings movement technique. She retrieved the Fenglin sword from her Storage Ring and striked at Fan Xiang.

Fan Xiang was stunned -- not only did Gu Lingzhi not back off after experiencing the force of her spiritual energy, she had also made the first move.

“You don’t know your place!” Fan Xiang immediately took out her Long Whip.

The difference between this and when they were fighting at the Battle Arena was that Fan Xiang was now using all of her Level Seven Martial Student abilities.

“Do you really think you are so powerful just because you won the previous time? I will show you today that it doesn’t matter if you have good technique, without strength you will be useless!”

The dark red whip whistled in the air as it flew towards Gu Lingzhi. Sensing the power from the whip, Gu Lingzhi knew Fan Xiang was not planning on holding back.

In that case…

Gu Lingzhi’s eyes suddenly flashed. She did not need to hold back as well. Utilising the full potential of her Heaven-Level techniques, she simultaneously allowed her Level Five Martial Student spiritual energy to flow over her whole body. She wanted to attack Fan Xiang without holding back any of her cultivation.

“Eh? How is this possible?” The sinister smile on Fan Xiang’s face had yet to fade as she felt Gu Lingzhi’s aura change. It suddenly made her feel like she would not win easily.

The sense she had was not wrong, as Fan Xiang realised to her horror that under her concentrated blows, Gu Lingzhi did not give off any signs of defeat. She could even counter-attack in the midst of defending herself.

“You are just counting on having better technique than me.” Fan Xiang grumbled, “If I had techniques like yours, my name would have long been among the top ten on the Stone Tablet!”

As she said this, the whip in her hand started to glow with more vigour. To increase the power of her attacks, she directed the fire-based spiritual energy from her body out onto her whip causing the dark red whip to instantly be covered in a layer of red flames. As the whip danced, it carried with it waves of heat.

Seeing this, Gu Lingzhi’s mouth turned up in a cold smile. At the standard of a Martial Student, the amount of spiritual energy in each student’s body is very little. As such, it was rare for students to direct their spiritual energy out of their body as if they did not win before whatever minimal amount of spiritual energy left in their bodies was used up, they would be in serious trouble.

Gu Lingzhi was unsure whether Fan Xiang thought too highly of herself or that she realised the threat Gu Lingzhi was and actually used such an intense measure that could not last long in battle.

Unfortunately, it was without a doubt that something like this was completely useless and stupid against someone like Gu Lingzhi who possessed the Sparrow Wings movement technique.