——(POV Li Huang a.k.a Larry the slap king)——
I had a pleasant night's sleep with no weird dreams. Hopefully today we would be having a nice series of fights and nothing unexpected will happen.
Something that I didn't have time to do is to find some good potentials in the disciples who are not from the seven holy lands or in other words are from the smaller powers. Who knows, there might be some hidden gems there and I can help them and make them indebted to myself.
As a 'young master' the fact that I don't have any lackeys is a dark point but what I want is to find useful 'retainers' for myself that are not as brain dead as Dai Bao's lackeys. The amount of times that an MC would fight a family because of the actions of a lackey is uncountable, I don't want to be an addition to that list, to say the least.
I put my robes back on and went outside of my room to start the new day and the last day for the selection process of the seven holy lands.
On the way, I could see all of our sect disciples getting out of their rooms. Regardless of whether they are in the final selection or not, they didn't want to miss the chance of gaining some insights into the higher levels of swordsmanship.
The walk back to the stage of our heavenly sword sect was peaceful and I only had some small talks with Hu Anjing and others.
Ye Ling was still as socially awkward as she was two days ago. After I gave her a nod with a smile as she was looking at my face for a few second, she could only stiffly nod back like a robot. Well, you can argue that at least she tried to interact so that's a plus.
As we got to the stage, we broke into three groups. One group went toward the sect's audience seats to see the fights as they were not in the finals, another group went to one side of the stage to line up for challenges. The last group consisted of me and nine other disciples who were occupying a throne each, we went and sat on our designated place waiting for the start of the selection.
Getting some snacks out of my storage ring, I handed some to Hu Anjing and also handed some to Ye Ling because she kept on looking at me, and to be honest I'm one of those people who can't eat when someone's gaze is fixated on their face so sharing was the best course of action here.
As I predicted her attention was redirected at the snacks and I could feel the weight of her gaze lifting from me.
——(POV third person)——
One of the elders went on stage and reminded the audience and the participants about the rules and after that, the challenges started.
The layout of the seats was like the starting players in a sport and one could see that this is almost the best that sect has so it wasn't easy for anyone to get any position now. So the challengers decided to fight for the special thrones so that maybe they can tire them out and win eventually.
At first two disciples decided to try their luck by challenging Hu Anjing for the leader's throne. There is no doubt about how it played out; they were simply overpowered with a single move and needed medical attention so that they can continue the selection as a challenger.
After that, the other challengers know that there is no way to win against someone at the twelfth stage of the Meridian formation even if they challenge her constantly. So they decided to change the target of their attacks to someone else, and that someone else was Ye Ling.
The reason that they didn't go for Li Huang was that they were afraid that he might retaliate as he not only has a big influence in the sect but he is also the number one genius of the younger generation in the Li family so if he were to use his backing, they would be having a hard time.
There was no communication between the challengers, but almost all of them made a judgment call to target Ye Ling.
Ye Ling who just started to understand the wonders of nuts and dried fruits was munching them like a squirrel. For the first time ever, if anyone looked at her face as Li Huang was doing with wide eyes, they could see that she was having a blissful expression on her face without knowing it.
Just as she was starting to enjoy herself, the next disciple announced the target of his challenge.
"I want to challenge senior sister Ye." He said.
The blissful expression on Ye Ling's face turned into a frown fast as she heard the challenger's voice. With a frown on her face, she put the rest of the snacks in her storage ring and went to the fighting ring on the stage.
In less than ten moves, you could see the challenger was on the floor and unconscious. Hu Anjing finished the fight fast and in one move but Ye Ling didn't and the way she used her sword was as if she was playing her opponent.
Although if one thinks about it, this is scarier than what Hu Anjing did, the other challengers saw this as a clear provocation from Ye Ling and wanted to show her that she won't be able to win against all of them.
After that, Ye Ling was happily going back to her throne to continue eating but regrettably, she would be the target of the next couple of challenges and wouldn't have time to relax and eat.
The sect would provide recovery potions and pills if anyone would request them so there was no problem with a high number of fights except the mental fatigue. With this option available, the only chance of getting this throne was that the mental fatigue would take a toll on Ye Ling.
Nine more fights went on like this until someone decided to break the sequence of fighting Ye Ling and fought for one of the seven ordinary thrones and surprisingly won. This made the next 20 fights pass like this but only two more changes happened on the thrones so the plan to tire someone out resurfaced in the minds of the challengers.
But there was a problem, now that Ye Ling has rested, they can hardly make any impact on her and would have to waste 10 more challenges on her.
If you count the five participants who are from the battle royale, there are 23 challenges left on this round and not many would be willing to gamble with their second and third chances so they have to gain results in this round.
Hu Anjing was too strong so she was out of the equation, Ye Ling was also rested so the chance of victory was close to none and someone might decide that it is not worth it and break the momentum again.
The only option was Li Huang and winning against him would bring the highest prestige so they thought this was the option and was worth giving a shot.
Li Huang wasn't oblivious to their internal thoughts and from yesterday he was expecting this kind of development so it wasn't shocking to him that he was the next target for challenging.
"I want to challenge senior brother Li." A disciple said with cupped fists.
As Li Huang know that he is going to get challenged at least a couple of times, he didn't want to waste time and directly jumped down to the stage. Dusting off his robes, he started to speak.
"As this will be a long day for everyone, I will be using the same technique as I did yesterday so that the fights don't take too much time…" He opened his arms.
The crowd hardly controlled their laughter. What technique? He slapped his last challenger out of his shoes. Li Huang clearly was playing with words.
The disciple who challenged Li Huang paled as he remembered what happened to Peng Chun but shook his head to clear his thoughts.
He started his moves and… within the next second lost consciousness because of Li Huang's slap.
The crowd was silent and soon cheered.
Everyone expected that Li Huang would go back to his throne but he stood there in the fighting ring.
Even the referee was confused a little and looked at Li Huang waiting for an explanation.
"Elder, as I will be the one who is going to be challenged again, it would waste time and energy if I go back and forth constantly. Please continue." He cupped his fists to the referee.
This move was logical but humiliating to the other challengers who wanted to benefit from his accumulated mental fatigue to win against him.
With that said the fights continued and for 15 more fights, Li Huang won against each and everyone with only one slap. Some didn't lose consciousness but lost the fight nonetheless. In total, he won 16 fights.
With only 7 challenges remaining in the first round, the position of leader and two vice-leaders was looking untouchable.