"So fast!"
Li Yun exclaimed silently as he saw Wang Min suddenly appear in front of him, catching him off guard. He only caught a blur of motion before a gust of wind washed over his face, and Wang Min was there, his fist moving toward him.
"Damn!"
He didn't even have time to assess the situation or observe Wang Min's attack. If he didn't react now, he'd be hit hard by that fist.
Li Yun immediately used the Thunderclap Dragon Sword at its 5th layer, thrusting his sword in a straight line toward Wang Min's incoming fist.
Their attacks collided, but it was Li Yun who slid back five steps, while Wang Min stood tall, unmoved like a boulder.
"I'm surprised you didn't get blown away by my attack," Wang Min remarked, touching his fist that had collided with Li Yun's sword, feeling a tingling pain.
"And your attack seems strong—enough to one-shot 2nd level Qi Training disciples."
Wang Min looked at Li Yun, and understanding dawned on him.
"So, your mastery of the Thunderclap Dragon Sword gives you the confidence to fight us?"
Li Yun smiled. "You could say that."
Wang Min nodded, his expression turning a little crazed.
"I won't lie, I was surprised by your comprehension earlier in the test, and now your strength surprises me even more. But I hate people like you the most."
He added with an ugly expression, "People like you, who can have such comprehension without a bone frame, make me feel uncomfortable and inferior. I've practiced so hard; I've learned all my martial techniques since I was 10, and I've been practicing them ever since, but I still haven't mastered them."
He pointed at Li Yun. "But you... You, on the other hand, mastered the most difficult martial technique in just the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, even though you don't have a single bone frame. It makes my years of effort seem like trash in comparison." His voice was laced with dissatisfaction and rage.
"It is what it is. Accepting it would be better than protesting against it," Li Yun shrugged.
In a way, he could understand Wang Min. After all, at one point, he too felt the same emotions of inferiority—feeling sad that everyone else had a better bone frame.
He had cried, cursing the gods, wondering why he alone didn't have a bone frame. But in the end, his complaints didn't matter to anyone, so he chose to accept the things he couldn't change and use them as fuel to drive him forward.
It happened when he first came to Mystic Cloud Sect and started cultivating. It was the darkest moment of his life—when his parents left him, and he had no one to lean on in the harsh world of cultivation, with no talents whatsoever.
But everything changed when he stopped caring about why his life was so unfair and focused on what he could do to make it better.
Perhaps it was because of that decision that he was able to survive until now.
"Accept it?"
But it seemed Wang Min couldn't do the same as Li Yun.
"Are you kidding me?" A crazed and sinister expression clouded Wang Min's face as he took his stance. "The moment I saw your comprehension in the previous test, I made up my mind to destroy you."
As he said that, he used his movement technique—Chasing Wind Step—and disappeared from his location.
However, Li Yun was prepared this time. His right eye glowed with purple light the moment Wang Min vanished.
'I can see him.'
Even if just for a second—even if only as a blur—Li Yun could see Wang Min's movements as he approached. But he feigned ignorance, looking around anxiously as if unsure where Wang Min would pop up.
"Boulder Crashing Punch!"
Wang Min's voice rang out from Li Yun's right side.
Since Li Yun was expecting the attack, he swiftly turned to his right and saw the fist coming toward him.
With his right eye still glowing with shades of purple, Li Yun saw through the entire technique—its method, its potential, its mastery, and everything.
"Thunderclap Dragon Sword."
Once Li Yun comprehended the weakness of Boulder Crashing Punch, he immediately used the 6th layer of Thunderclap Dragon Sword.
With a rumbling sound like thunder, his sword collided with Wang Min's fist, causing sparks to fly from their clash before both of them retreated five steps back.
Wang Min frowned when he saw that. He couldn't understand how Li Yun's reaction speed was so fast. He had used the full speed of Chasing Wind Step this time, yet Li Yun was still able to react to his attack.
What made him even more frustrated was that both of them retreated five steps back, suggesting their combat strength was almost equal. Yet the glaring aura of 1st level Qi Training emitting from Li Yun felt like a slap to his face.
On the other side, Li Yun was also surprised. He had thought he had seen through the weakness of Wang Min's Boulder Crashing Punch, but when his sword collided with the fist, he realized he hadn't fully comprehended it—only a part of it.
Moreover, the fact that his 6th layer Thunderclap Dragon Sword ended in a draw against Boulder Crashing Punch surprised him even more.
'It ought to be a middle-grade human-rank martial technique, but it seems he's barely reached the 2nd layer of Boulder Crashing Punch. Otherwise, with the two-level difference in cultivation, he would have surely outclassed me.'
Li Yun assessed the situation and concluded that his low-grade human-rank Thunderclap Dragon Sword at the 6th layer of mastery was at most comparable to the 3rd layer of Boulder Crashing Punch, which was a middle-grade human-rank martial technique.
But Wang Min was able to match him with his half-baked 2nd layer of Boulder Crashing Punch only because of Li Yun's low cultivation. If Li Yun had been at the 2nd level of Qi Training, the result would have been vastly different.