Today was the fifth day of the Daoist entry assessment at the gate.
In the previous four days, Ye Qingxuan's assessments had been very easy. It should have been easy indeed, as she was ranked sixth on the Geniuses Ranking, and among her five hundred peers, only five were worth her attention. Yet in these four days, she did not encounter any of the top five geniuses, not even any other genius.
But this morning, as soon as Ye Qingxuan woke up from her meditation, she felt something was wrong.
This feeling was not a bad premonition from her sixth sense, but the kind of alert that her body gave when there were some minor problems. Maybe it was dizziness, or her body feeling cold, very much like when she was very little, before she started cultivating, when the wind invaded her body.
But she was a cultivator now, unaffected by heat and cold... She examined her body carefully again, but did not find any issues.
So although she felt something was off, Ye Qingxuan had no choice but to ignore it.
"Could it be that I will encounter a rival from the Geniuses Ranking today?" She looked at her identity token, which showed the number 11, "Now there are only 32 people left, so it's likely to meet one."
"Unfortunately, at this stage, everyone consciously hides their identity number, so it's very difficult to know the opponent's number in advance."
"Huh..." She let out a soft sigh, pulled herself together, "Even if it's a rival from the Geniuses Ranking, I'm not scared at all!"
After settling her mood, Ye Qingxuan left her cultivation residence and flew towards Master Peak with a technique.
But as soon as she flew up, she saw senior sister Yao Qingke from Qi Peak flying out of her residence. Ye Qingxuan noticed that Yao Qingke's face looked a little off.
"Senior sister Yao!" She greeted from afar.
Yao Qingke glanced at her with the corner of her eye, just nodded slightly, which counted as a greeting, but did not speak, and flew straight away.
This arrogant attitude made Ye Qingxuan frown. Although Yao Qingke was usually like this, liked to bully people, and always looked down on others, she was too much today! Even to her.
After all, she was also ranked sixth on the Geniuses Ranking.
"However..." Ye Qingxuan thought to herself, "Yao Qingke seems to be in a bad mood, I wonder what happened."
She didn't know why, but this reminded her of the strange feeling from before.
"Could it be that Yao Qingke has the same feeling?" She laughed to herself.
Ye Qingxuan quickly arrived at the main discussion stage on Master Peak and watched other disciples' assessments below the stage. But the faint monitoring gaze never left her body.
From waking up this morning until now, she felt something was wrong everywhere.
"Strange..." she thought.
As she walked slowly, she came to Discussion Stage Three and looked up. She saw Yao Qingke was among the disciples being assessed, so she stopped subconsciously.
Yao Qingke’s opponent this round was not strong at all, just a disciple from Sword Peak who practiced sword techniques. Ye Qingxuan also knew him and was aware of his strength.
And it was because she knew the strength of Yao Qingke’s opponent that she couldn’t understand the situation on the stage...
Yao Qingke was actually evenly matched with that disciple!!
"Something is wrong..." Ye Qingxuan shook her head again and again.
With Yao Qingke's domineering personality, if everything was normal, she should have shattered the opponent's defenses like a storm. But the current situation on stage... Something must be wrong with Yao Qingke.
After fighting for hundreds of rounds on stage, Yao Qingke barely won.
Ye Qingxuan's heart felt heavy as she walked towards Discussion Stage Two where her assessment would be today. As she took two steps, she suddenly saw the Ghostly Ice Tiger from Dan Peak.
The huge Ghostly Ice Tiger was very conspicuous. Ye Qingxuan noticed that he was also watching the assessment under Yao Qingke's stage earlier. Now he was heading towards Discussion Stage Two with the crowd.
Looking at the mighty and domineering white tiger, she felt something was wrong again.
Ye Qingxuan went straight up Discussion Stage Two. Soon her opponent today, outer sect disciple Lin Yi, also came up.
Lin Yi was quite famous in the outer sect. It was said that he was a playboy who had seduced many female cultivators. Ye Qingxuan knew him and his cultivation level and strength. He was probably at the Golden Core Realm, with mixed techniques, and his strength was not strong.
She felt a little relieved, knowing that she would bully the weak again today.
However, when the two started fighting, Ye Qingxuan realized something was wrong.
First, she didn't know why, but her magic power operation was a little unsmooth and a bit stagnant.
Fortunately, it wasn't a big problem.
Second, she didn't know why, but Lin Yi today was stronger than the rumors.
However, this strength seemed very superficial. It felt like Lin Yi had taken some pills? Ye Qingxuan had a feeling that he had taken more than one type of pill... She also wondered where he got those pills from.
After great effort, Ye Qingxuan barely defeated Lin Yi. She even suffered some minor injuries.
"...Something is very wrong!" Ye Qingxuan felt very uneasy. From waking up until now, everything was weird, nothing went smoothly.
She looked up at the audience and saw the big white tiger from Dan Peak wagging his tail and leaving. The snow-white tiger was very strange with two black ring-shaped markings on its otherwise white tail.
Ye Qingxuan shook her head and got off the stage. She looked around at the battles on other stages, but kept feeling restless in her heart. So she turned around and flew back to Qi Peak.
Watching Ye Qingxuan's back as she flew away, Long Qiqi raised her hand and patted Chasing The Wind's thigh, smiling sinisterly, "Stupid tiger, well done."
"Aren't we being too sinister, going too far with this?" Chasing The Wind asked.
"Hmph, they are ruthless, so we won't be righteous! Xiao Yin is fighting against Ye Qingxuan tomorrow, give Ye Qingxuan an extra dose tonight."
"Extra dose? Didn't you say you wanted to be covert to avoid detection..."
"Oh you silly!" Long Qiqi said, "I mean add a few more types - give her some of my Body Tempering Pill, Great Restoration Pill, Spirit Gathering Pill too, just don't give her too much of each to arouse her suspicion. And set up some illusion arrays at the entrance of her residence cave..."
"Why doesn't she notice even though she's been poisoned?" Chasing The Wind still didn't quite understand this.
"It's called physiological limit," Long Qiqi explained. "If I punch you, for you to feel pain, I need to use considerable force. But if I punch you with extremely little force, so little that not only you won't feel any pain, you won't even know I punched you."
Chasing The Wind thought about it and realized this was getting tricked without noticing at all. He shuddered, "How sinister..."
"Hehe..." Long Qiqi rolled her eyes at him, "Where do you think I learned it from?"
The old Long Qiqi only believed in using brute force. She thought poison must be extremely fierce and potent to be good. But now, under the coaching of a certain mysterious Dan Peak chief, this venomous snake had become even more venomous...