Chapter 231: A Small Test of Blades

“……”

A series of emotions ran through Chen Huanghua’s face as he watched Bai Yunfei walk shoulder to shoulder with Tang Xinyun. These emotions continued to fluctuate over his face for several seconds before finally, he exclaimed, “Senior Bai, one moment!”

His outburst caused Bai Yunfei’s foot to stop mid-stride. Turning his head back, Bai Yunfei asked, “Is there a problem, junior Chen?”

Though Chen Huanghua hesitated to reply to him right away, he managed to cup his hands in salute. “I’ve learned a lot since your guidance last time. Now that I’ve become stronger now, I wish to compare notes with senior Bai again!”

“Ahhh? You still want to fight?” Bai Yunfei cried out in exasperation. It really befuddled Bai Yunfei why there was a need, so he decided to refuse the request. “The assembly’s about to start, so forget about it for now.”

“It’ll just be a quick comparison of notes; nothing too long.” Chen Huanghua persisted. “Since senior Tang is here, it’ll be a fair and impartial match.

“What’s wrong, are you afraid of losing now that I’ve become a Soul Ancestor, senior Bai?”

“Oh? You’ve become a Soul ancestor?” This bit of information was new to Bai Yunfei, but he was mainly confused why Chen Huanghua would suddenly bring Tang Xinyun into this conversation.

Turning his eyes to meet Tang Xinyun’s helpless eyes, Bai Yunfei turned back just in time to see the hostile and jealous eyes of Chen Huanghua.

Ah. Now he understood what was going on.

Chen Huanghua was a hopeful suitor of Tang Xinyun, and Bai Yunfei was an obstacle in his way, was that it?

“What’s wrong, are you unwilling now, senior Bai?”

It was in Chen Huanghua’s expectations that Bai Yunfei would back down from the challenge after hearing that he was a Soul Ancestor, but instead, Bai Yunfei looked as if he was raring to go now.

Chen Huanghua didn’t want to provoke Bai Yunfei too much in all honesty. After his first loss at the hands of Bai Yunfei, the shame of losing had delivered a massive blow to his emotions. As soon as he got back to his room, Chen Huanghua had shut himself off to dedicate himself to his training for two whole months.

Somehow, he managed to break the bottleneck and become a Soul Ancestor. With this increase in strength, he was fully confident that he could win against Bai Yunfei now, should they fight again.

Thus began the same cycle where he looked down on Bai Yunfei. With jealousy being thrown into the mix, Chen Huanghua’s mind was far too intent on trying to deliver the winning blow to Bai Yunfei and win back the face he had lost two months prior.

It took him several days to consolidate his strength after becoming a Soul Ancestor. In fact, he had only just come out from his seclusion yesterday and so news of what Bai Yunfei did to the cliffs or his increase in strength didn’t reach him yet.

“Alright then, let’s fight.” Bai Yunfei shrugged helplessly. “Tough luck for you.” He thought. “First I used you to show my strength, and now I’ll be using you to test my strength. You won’t be getting any mercy from me.”

It was at that moment another person’s voice suddenly called out as well.

“Bai Yunfei! We finally meet again! Fight me, I want to prove to our junior that I’m stronger than you!”

Whirling his head around again, Bai Yunfei saw yet another person that he hadn’t seen for some time come towards him.

It was Fei Nian.

He frowned but didn’t bother to say anything more. “You want to fight me too? Well then, line up!”

“What?” Fei Nian hadn’t expected that response. Before he could even say anything though, Mo Xiaoxuan ran up to him and quickly explained the situation.

“Oh? They’re going to fight?” Fei Nian remarked. Regarding the two figures in front of him, the male thought to himself with a calculative glare, “That’s one of the disciples from the Western Point, Chen Huanghua. I heard that he became a Soul Ancestor a few days ago. It might’ve been an accident, but he’s become quite popular amongst the inner school now.

“Good, I’ll let him be the first to see how strong Bai Yunfei is.”

Fei Nian knew that Bai Yunfei was a Soul Ancestor, but the only reason he challenged him was because he too was a Soul Ancestor now!

His situation was different than to Chen Huanghua. Breaking through wasn’t even a challenge for him since he had been lingering on the edge of both realms for the longest of times.

It wasn’t because he couldn’t, it was because he didn’t want to.

There was a reason for that; his soulbound armament. Every disciple of the school knew that whenever their strengths increased, there would be a valuable chance of having their soul compatibility with their soulbound armament increase. It was something that required plenty of time to prepare so that the greatest amount of improvement could be had.

Reasons like this were why soul cultivators were different than to the students of the Crafting School. Any soul cultivator would be anxious to breakthrough as quickly as they can. But the students of the Crafting School would deliberately stall the advancement and wait for the best time to do so. A proper preparation was the key to success.

Only the Crafting School would abide by this though.

Because of his advancement, Fei Nian’s strength had more than doubled. His soulbound armament was nowhere as weak as it was before, and he was now more confident of his strength. Even if he was surprised by Bai Yunfei’s past achievements, Fei Nian was sure that his own experiences would allow for him to defeat Bai Yunfei.

This was what confidence meant to a disciple like him.

There was a problem, however. He didn’t know that Bai Yunfei had managed to craft a lifebound armament.

……

And so now, Bai Yunfei and Chen Huanghua stood ten meters apart from one another on the boundary between the Western Point and the main mountain point. Whilst Chen Huanghua looked extremely focused on his enemy, Bai Yunfei looked rather carefree and completely devoid of battle spirit as if waiting for his opponent to make the first move.

Chen Huanghua carefully judged the situation in front of him. While he had confidence in himself, being careless wasn’t something he was planning on being. The last time he was ‘careless’ was when Bai Yunfei’s flaming diggers and doppelgangers defeated him in one fell stroke.

He wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.

The Rock Slicer was called out with a faint ringing of the blade at the same time Chen Huanghua revealed his strength as a Soul Ancestor. Under the overwhelming soulforce, all the other students watching the scene took several unconscious steps backward as if in fear of him.

Since he was confronting Bai Yunfei, Chen Huanghua was quick to realize that the unrealistically long red spear of Bai Yunfei wasn’t even out.

Taking this to be a sign of his enemy underestimating him, Chen Huanghua snorted. Now he was even more confident that his plan of ‘attacking first for the upper hand’ would be the best idea in mind.

Leaping at Bai Yunfei, his long sword was immediately swung down in a vertical chop!

It was the same opening move as his first fight, but the Rock Slicer this time was faster and stronger than before.

But even though it was a powerful stroke, Bai Yunfei wasn’t even resisting!!

Several of the students watching the fight couldn’t help but scream out in fear at the sight of the sword coming closer to Bai Yunfei. Even Chen Huanghua himself was starting to wonder if he should pull back his sword when Bai Yunfei’s right hand shook once.

In a flash of dazzling orange light, an object appeared right above Bai Yunfei’s head; and in the next second, a bright orange barrier suddenly covered Bai Yunfei’s body.

“Clank!!”

Resonating upon impact, Chen Huanghua’s Rock Slicer was stopped immediately by the Cataclysmic Seal. It wouldn’t even budge!

The blowback had been severe for him, however.

Such was the recoil that Chen Huanghua’s body was actually thrown to the ground in shock.

“What the fuck!!”

Roaring aloud, Chen Huanghua leaped up with his Rock Slicer ready to strike again!

“Clank!”

Though the barrier rippled from where the sword struck it, it remained standing while the Rock Slicer was rebounded backward.

“Clank clank clank!”

Chen Huanghua swung his sword thrice in quick succession, but to no avail!!

He swung again for another dozen attempts, but none of them had been able to overcome the Cataclysmic Seal’s defenses!

Still standing completely at ease, Bai Yunfei raised a hand up to look at the Cataclysmic Seal protecting him from above with a pleased expression.

A smirk started to grow on his lips as he watched Chen Huanghua be thrown back several meters. Speaking aloud, Bai Yunfei stated, “Junior Chen, it’s my turn to attack. Careful now!”

Though he spoke about wanting to attack, his body gave no indication of moving. Instead, his right hand lifted upwards as if conducting something. In accordance with his movement, the Cataclysmic Seal shook once as the barrier was dispelled. The elemental earth that had been covering the brick was engulfed by elemental fire at his command and shot off towards Chen Huanghua when Bai Yunfei pointed his finger.

Chen Huanghua was startled by this action, but he moved swiftly to bring his sword up to block the Cataclysmic Seal.

It was expected for the two armaments to clash against one another.

But what really happened was that right before contact, Bai Yunfei’s finger twitched slightly, as if operating an invisible string connecting to the Cataclysmic Seal. In response to the twitches of his finger, the Cataclysmic Seal shifted in its trajectory and streaked past the Rock Slicer!

Startled as he was still, Chen Huanghua managed to pull up his sword so that the hilt clashed with the Cataclysmic Seal instead of his body.

“Pow!”

When hilt met brick, the brick was repelled backward several meters while Chen Huanghua himself was sent back three steps.

“What strength!”

It went without saying that Chen Huanghua was surprised by the power behind the brick, but what he didn’t know was that Bai Yunfei was afraid of harming him so he had purposely weakened the strength behind it.

No sooner did he manage to stabilize his footing did he realize that the red light of a soul armament was already encircled around him. Already was the light reaching behind him in an attempt to strike at his back!

Turning his blade so that it’d protect his back, Chen Huanghua managed to hear the successful sound of a clash before he was flung forward two steps.

“Clang! Clang! Clang….”

In bouts of twos and threes, Bai Yunfei attacked Chen Huanghua while Chen Huanghua did his best to defend.

Compared to the first fight he had with Bai Yunfei, Chen Huanghua was in a drastically worse shape this time. The Cataclysmic Seal floated around in the air like a butterfly while expertly weaving in and out to attack at the holes in his defenses.

Each time, Chen Huanghua would manage to block the brick, but he was in a bad shape and was in no way capable of retaliating.

“Clang!”

Swinging down again, Chen Huanghua managed to stop the Cataclysmic Seal from hitting him again.

But just moments after the two armaments separated from one another, the Cataclysmic Seal suddenly let loose an eye-dazzling amount of light before a rope made of fire immediately wrapped itself around his arm before then the rest of his entire body!

Seeing that Chen Huanghua was caught, Bai Yunfei’s eyes lit up with excitement.

+10 Additional Effect of the Cataclysmic Seal, Flame Twister!

“Whoosh!!”

Chen Huanghua hadn’t even the time to properly react to the fire around him before the Cataclysmic Seal swooped down again like a speeding fireball onto his body!

Shifting his feet, Chen Huanghua tried his best to dodge, only to realize that his body wasn’t reacting to his thoughts! Both of his feet dug into the ground as he wanted, but the speed in which he was doing so was just slightly slower than usual!

Raising his giant sword, Chen Huanghua managed to successfully block the brick. There was a difference to the collision this time, however; the strength behind the brick was far stronger than before. This meant that Chen Huanghua wasn’t able to maintain his ground and was instead flung off his feet.

“Whoosh!”

The Rock Slicer was embedded into the ground so that Chen Huanghua would have a chance to chain himself to the ground. But even before he could pull out his sword and get back onto his feet, his entire body suddenly went rigid as if afraid of making any sudden movements.

A single greenish glow from the sheen of a blade was resting upon the left side of his neck with an incredibly chilling aura.

The Crescent Moon Blades!!

Ten meters away, Bai Yunfei stood there with an identical looking blade in his right hand. The Cataclysmic Seal was right above his head, and Bai Yunfei himself was smiling at Chen Huanghua.