Ye Fan and Chen Yuyan stayed hidden in the tree tops.
Soon they saw a team of 6 candidates from their side walking past them.
Chen Yuyan appeared to gasp but Ye Fan put his hand on her mouth as he shook his head as though he was saying to her: Let them go first. We can wait.
After a while, there were screams from all over the forest.
But Ye Fan continued to wait.
Chen Yuyan was worried because the dying screams would only mean that the points from the badges were fast diminishingly.
All of a sudden, 3 candidates from their main team were panicky emerging from the forest and they appeared to be fleeing.
One was a silver badge candidate while the other two were bronze badge candidates.
They appeared to be injured and running away hastily.
Behind them, 8 apparitions had appeared; 1 was a gold badge, 3 were silver badge and 5 were bronze badges.
Chen Yuyan was startled and she had moved a little as though she wanted to go down to help the 3 candidates from their own team.
But Ye Fan held her shoulder tightly and gently shook his head.
The 8 apparitions chased after the 3 candidates from their side and there were screams from further in the forest.
Due to the trial conditions, they could not hear the apparitions even if they were screaming so the screams had to be from their own main team.
Ye Fan was clenching his fists tightly but he was expressionless; he had actually wanted to help the 3 candidates from his own side but this was a trial and a ruthless one that was set by the Witch Xuan Xueqi.
The whole trial was to teach the future cultivators that in the future, there would be more ruthless fighting among the cultivators and this was only the very beginning.
If they wanted to defy the heavens to become a cultivator then they must first become as emotionless as they heavens first.
Although he was not ruthless but the Witch Xuan Xueqi had steeled his heart to be a ruthless cultivator. If he wanted a chance to kill the Witch Xuan Xueqi in the future then he had to be ruthless from this day onward.
Soon 4 apparitions were running back and they appeared to be injured; they were 1 silver badge and 3 bronze badges among them.
Ye Fan quickly signaled for Chen Yuyan to attack them by pointing at her sword and the direction of the 4 apparitions.
Then all of a sudden, Ye Fan had flashed down onto the 4 apparitions and he was aiming for the silver badge apparition.
With a quick stroke of his sword, he had given him a quick and painless death.
A marking appeared on Ye Fan's badge immediately, indicating that he got 5 Points from his kill.
His attack caught the other 3 bronze badge candidates by surprise and before they could even recover from their surprise, Ye Fan and Chen Yuyan had killed another two.
As for the remaining bronze badge, the apparition of this unknown candidate had attempted to flee but Ye Fan had thrown his sword to injure his leg while saying to Chen Yuyan, "Go take him."
Chen Yuyan immediately flashed to him to give him five strokes of her sword before the apparition was killed and her badge received a mark of +2 Points.
After she had killed the apparition, she was smiling with great delight to Ye Fan. "Brother Ye Fan, I've got 2 kills and 4 Points…"
Then she caught hold of his arm to smile, "And Brother Ye Fan got 7 Points from the 2 kills too."
Ye Fan smiled awkwardly when he saw that she was holding onto his arm coquettishly.
He quickly said, "Let's go back to the tree top first."
Chen Yuyan nodded and just as she was about to leave, she saw that Ye Fan was pulling the bodies of the apparitions into the bushes.
"This is…"
Ye Fan explained, "If we leave these bodies in the open, the others will know that this is an ambush point. You go and hide yourself first."
He was done quickly.
After hiding the bodies of the apparitions, he joined Chen Yuyan immediately.
Soon, they saw an injured gold badge and an injured bronze badge moving in their direction; they had gone to their main camp and it seemed that they had met with some heavy resistances and now they appeared to be taking another route back to their main camp to get more reinforcements.
Ji Yuan signaled to Chen Yuyan again that they would attack these two apparitions once they were near and she would need to wait for his signal to attack.
When the gold badge and the bronze badge apparitions were near enough, Ye Fan had suddenly jumped down to aim for the gold badge apparition.
To his surprise, the gold badge apparition was skillful enough to raise his sword to block off an attack from Ye Fan!
As for the bronze apparition, the instant that Ye Fan had attacked and did not kill his target, he was on alert and Chen Yuyan had also failed to ambush him successful.
These two apparitions were not any ordinary fighters and they looked more skillful than the rest; Ye Fan guessed that they may even be his own protégés from the same celestial sect.
He displayed with all his profound strength on several quick but highly precise strikes at the gold badge apparition.
On his 10th stroke, the strength of the gold badge apparition began to falter due to existing injuries that were sustained before this fight and Ye Fan killed the apparition.
There was a mark on his badge as he got a +10 Points, giving him a total of 17 Points.
As for Chen Yuyan, she had sustained a stab to her shoulder and she was faltering against the bronze badge apparition.
But just as the bronze badge apparition was about to deliver a fatal stoke to Chen Yuyan, Ye Fan had appeared to send a stroke on his back.
This gave Chen Yuyan a chance to kill this apparition and she got another +2 Points for a total of 6 Points.
Chen Yuyan looked a little demoralized as she looked at Ye Fan, "Brother Ye Fan, I've got only 6 Points while you got 17 Points. The bronze badges are really too cheap."
Ye Fan actually did not know what to say to her when she was suddenly smiling, "Brother Ye Fan, don't take my complains to heart. I didn't mean anything. I am just not skillful enough to take on a gold or silver badge. In fact, even an injured bronze badge is enough to kill me. I must actually thank Brother Ye Fan for saving my life instead and having this strategy."
An awkward Ye Fan nodded before he said, "Let's hide the bodies again and hide ourselves again."
His strategy was simple.
He would play a cat and mouse game with the other candidates.
He was not the strongest candidates and even if he was, he could not fight so many without any injuries and in the end, this may be fatal to him.
That was why he had decided on this course of a plan.