Cultivation: But Not a Game-Chapter 73 - 35: Sweeping All Before Him, 100 Taels of Gold (Part 2)
A series of crisp, metallic clangs blocked four streams of Sword Qi, while the remaining twenty-six streams penetrated through the giant halberd and struck the half-human, half-dragon, instantly causing a spray of blood.
-815
-816
"After removing the Flying Sword +3’s armor penetration, his physique should be around sixteen hundred."
After deducting for defense, this burst surprisingly only caused just over twenty thousand damage, much lower than his expectations.
As the round of attacks ended, he controlled the Flying Sword to frantically attack around Lan Yiyi, but Lan Yiyi’s reaction speed was unexpectedly fast. Waving the halberd, blocking from left and right, sparks flew, forcibly blocking most of the Flying Swords outside.
"Is the Body Refining Stream really this strong?"
Su Yu raised his hand, emitting Purple Essence Qi Strength to form a giant Qi hand, knocking Lan Yiyi backwards, allowing the Flying Sword to seize the opportunity to slash away fiercely.
Lan Yiyi regained her senses with a light cry, densely packed dragon scales glowing on her body, with mysterious runes circulating above. Her defense instantly skyrocketed, making it impossible to break through.
With a leap, she soared over a hundred meters into the sky, her body erupting with lightning, flashing across two to three hundred meters in an instant. With a few more flickers, she reached Su Yu.
Su Yu immediately took to the air, but Lan Yiyi moved faster, appearing behind him in a flash. The lightning-wrapped halberd struck down.
"Bang!"
The halberd smashed into the top of Su Yu’s head, causing his protective qi shield to dent, the immense force knocking him flying, reducing his defense by over four thousand instantly.
Before he could stabilize himself, Lan Yiyi took advantage of her momentum and pursued, a series of smooth combos sending him reeling.
Su Yu decisively summoned the Light Fixing Mirror and took a look:
"Freeze!"
Turning around, he grasped at the air with both hands, and two streams of Sword Qi flew out, entwining Lan Yiyi in front and twisting back and forth. The returning Sun Concealing Flying Sword, wrapped in Sun True Fire, encircled Lan Yiyi’s neck like a spirit snake.
-250
-1212
-1211
The Sword Qi combined with the Flying Sword, fourteen damage numbers popped up simultaneously, yet the total output barely reached over eight thousand.
The Light Fixing Mirror only held for two seconds, allowing for two bursts, resulting in around seventeen thousand damage, plus the previous twenty thousand, still less than half her health.
Breaking free from the Light Fixing Mirror, Lan Yiyi counterattacked with Gui Water Divine Thunder, bursting out from the lightning for another indomitable round of beating.
No matter how he dodged and flashed, he couldn’t escape, getting battered repeatedly, his protective qi shield quickly shattered, and the Black Water Profound Pearl Shield broke after just two punches until the Magical Robe activated.
Fortunately, he wasn’t just taking hits, two streams of Sword Qi and a Flying Sword encircled his own body, crazily slicing towards the frenzied Lan Yiyi.
At this moment, Lan Yiyi’s Secret Skill had dissipated, her defense returned to normal, the Flying Sword now dealing around 1200 damage, and the Sword Qi about 2300 damage.
Activating both Sword Qi streams consumed 100 mana per second, plus the sixth-grade Flying Sword and mana repairing the Magic Robe Shield, the mana consumption reached as high as 180 per second.
Switching to someone of Zhuang Zhuo’s cultivation, they couldn’t sustain it for ten seconds, but Su Yu had a plenty robust mana supply, reaching up to 5400 mana, definitely the highest in the field, even Ding Lingyu might not be higher than him.
At this point, neither side had a retreat option, engaging in a frenzied exchange.
One side’s health was rapidly depleting, the other’s Magical Robe defense also nearing its breaking point.
"Bang!"
The lightning-wrapped halberd finally tore through the Magical Robe defense, the residual force striking Su Yu, resulting in a -1160 damage.
Lan Yiyi’s face lit up with joy, raising her hand for another strike.
But at that moment, Su Yu countered with a reverse-handed palm strike, a massive purple hand suddenly appearing in front of her face, erupting a terrifying -8300 damage, sending Lan Yiyi flying.
As he was about to deliver the final blow, he discovered an invisible force binding him. Seeing his own health, he immediately understood that he had been defeated.
Somewhat unwillingly, he exhaled a long breath, lowering his weapon:
"I lost."
Su Yu also exhaled, cupping his fists:
"Lucky!"
It was truly luck, almost losing.
Returning to his seat, several companions all wore expressions of having narrowly escaped disaster. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦
"That was so damn thrilling, almost lost everything."
Gu Zhiqiu regained his composure and asked in a low voice:
"Are you going again later?"
Su Yu shook his head:
"No more, it was already so thrilling fighting Lan Yiyi, Ding Lingyu even beats Lan Yiyi, I can’t win."
"Indeed."
"But shouldn’t you try to test his actual strength?"
Su Yu pointed to the arena where Ding Lingyu was pounding Lan Yiyi and asked:
"Do I need to test it?"
"Do you not?"
"Alright, indeed there’s no need to test."
On the arena, two rare Body Refining Stream cultivators demonstrated a visceral brawl; the Lan Yiyi who almost defeated Su Yu had no power to fight back against Ding Lingyu, being completely suppressed in health, physique, strength, and speed.
In less than half a minute, she was beaten into submission with blow after blow, plain and straightforward.
"What exactly is his avatar of a Marshal?"
"A Divine Technique, bestowed by a Magical Treasure, or a Body Refining Skill?"
At first, Su Yu thought it was a mysterious treasure similar to the Sea-Suppressing Pearl, but later it didn’t seem that way, it rather appeared as a Divine Technique formed like his Nine Heavens Bone Forging Skill from the Nameless Daoist Scripture.
But regardless, at this stage, he really couldn’t match Ding Lingyu.
After losing to Su Yu, Lan Yiyi faced Wei Xia once more.
Wei Xia had defeated Lan Yiyi last time in the small exam, but this time Lan Yiyi emerged triumphant.
Her formidable physique withstood wave after wave of lightning, charging towards Wei Xia and violently beating him as she did with Su Yu, forcibly breaking through all his defensive means and vanquishing him.
Wei Xia’s Thunder Hammer, although powerful, lacked single explosive force, his big moves consisted of multiple damage segments, each lightning strike on Lan Yiyi dealing just over a hundred damage, barely breaking her defense.
"Now we invite contestant number eight, Su Yu, to challenge contestant number one, Ding Lingyu!"
With a slight distortion in space, the two were teleported to the arena.
Ding Lingyu, hands clasped behind his back, had a smile on his face.
Confident, composed.
Su Yu took a glance at him, then turned to look at the many excited spectators in the stands, chuckled, and waved:
"I concede!"
Ding Lingyu was taken aback, then laughed.
Before the countdown ended, they were teleported off again, confusing the audience who was expecting an epic clash, until the host explained the situation, triggering their outrage.
"Can you even do that?"
"Is this a joke? The final showdown isn’t happening?"
"Damn, were they bought off?"
"Su Yu, I C#￥%@"
Su Yu couldn’t hear the curses outside, and wouldn’t care even if he did. He wasn’t foolish enough to seek a fight knowing he couldn’t compete.
There was no need to test Ding Lingyu’s strength; after two small exams and the previous trip to the secret realm, their abilities were already quite clear to each other.
With the small exam concluded, Wei Xia lost three times in a row, placing fourth.
Lan Yiyi, with one win and two losses, placed third.
Su Yu, having defeated Wei Xia and Lan Yiyi with two wins and one loss, placed second.
Ding Lingyu, undefeated in three matches, claimed first place.
Second Place: A reward of 30 taels of gold, 500 guild contribution points, and 4 opportunities to listen to the guild offerings.
So, he would have a total of 4121 guild contribution points and 5 opportunities to listen to guild offerings, not yet having used the one from the last small exam reward.
"No need to save it anymore, find an opportunity to use it."
Unlike the first small exam, after the awards ceremony, the big shots encouraged them briefly and then left without meeting each one, let alone recruiting anyone.
After the big shots departed, Gu Zhiqiu, Zhuang Zhuo, and others happily surrounded him to collect the rewards.
Soon after, the group emerged from the Thousand Feather Tower, all smiles.
"Come, let’s trade."
Gu Zhiqiu waved his hand and traded a total of 84 taels of gold, including the stakes and odds.
Along with the newly awarded 30 taels of gold, a total of 114 taels of gold.
"Finally got some money!"
Although not a huge sum, it was enough for now.
"How much did you make?"
Zhuang Zhuo chuckled, holding up two fingers:
"Made 22 gold."
Gu Zhiqiu held up three fingers:
"36 gold."
Asking Shi Ning and Meng Chen, they also earned 21 and 24 gold respectively.
"Everyone, don’t spend recklessly lately, keep some capital for the next small exam to make another round of earnings."
"That’ll be tough, we still need to refine more Golden-winged Flying Centipedes!"
Shi Ning puffed up her cheeks and said:
"Zhiqiu, with just forty-five Golden-winged Flying Centipedes, made it into the top sixteen. Before the next small exam, let’s gather fifty or sixty and try to place too."
"Hmm, alright then."
