The freckled young man stepped onto the stage and gave a bow to the gray-clothed young man who had already stood up, saying, "Su Family’s Su Mingchi, please enlighten me, Taoist Friend Zhou."
"Zhou Family’s Zhou Xinyi, I shall witness your impressive moves, Taoist Friend Su."
The gray-clothed young man returned the gesture and immediately got ready for battle.
"Let the competition begin."
Soon, with a command from the Zhou Family Elder, Zhou Jiarui, who acted as the judge, a transparent protective barrier radiating white light enveloped the stage.
On the stage, the battle between Su Mingchi and Zhou Xinyi erupted quickly.
Only to see Su Mingchi’s hands swiftly form seals and, with a thrust of his palm, a white-hot lightning bolt burst forth, striking towards Zhou Xinyi across from him.
"Oh, it seems to be a rare Thunder Attribute Spirit Root Cultivator."
On the spectator stand, Zhou Chun expressed his surprise, taking another glance at the freckled young man.
The might of thunder spells is said to be the greatest among all spells, and as a cultivator with a Silver Lightning Python as his spirit pet, Zhou Chun very much agreed with this assertion.
When he saw how quickly the freckled young man could use the "Lightning Technique" to attack, he knew in his heart that Zhou Xinyi was likely to lose this fight.
After all, the Zhou Family’s internal martial contests had already given him a clear understanding of the capabilities and strengths of these thirty Zhou Family members.
If Zhou Xinyi had not been hiding any other trump cards until now, it would be very difficult for him to defeat a Thunder Root Spirit Cultivator of the same cultivation level, even with the assistance of a first-rank superior Demon Beast, the Silver-Backed Black Bear.
Indeed, Zhou Chun’s view was quickly validated.
Zhou Xinyi managed to block Su Mingchi’s first "Lightning Technique" with relative ease, but as soon as Su Mingchi used a first-rank superior magic artifact to enhance the power of his spells, Zhou Xinyi was clearly outmatched.
As a Su Family scion like Su Mingchi would certainly not lack superior defensive artifacts, it would be difficult for Zhou Xinyi, even with the help of the Silver-Backed Black Bear, to break his defenses in a short amount of time.
Su Mingchi’s attacks, however, were more formidable than those of an ordinary Late-Phase Qi Refinement Cultivator, and his extremely fast lightning spells were not something the Silver-Backed Black Bear could intercept.
After only a few exchanges, Su Mingchi deployed a powerful "Chain Lightning Technique" that shattered Zhou Xinyi’s defenses.
Had it not been for Zhou Jiarui’s timely intervention to protect him, Zhou Xinyi would not have died, but he would have been severely injured.
"Taoist Friend Zhou, I acknowledge your concession," said Su Mingchi on the stage after seeing Zhou Jiarui step in to save Zhou Xinyi. He immediately retracted his magic artifact and, with a triumphant expression, gave a bow to Zhou Xinyi.
Looking at Su Mingchi’s smug expression, Zhou Xinyi bit his lip tightly but said nothing.
As the first Zhou Family cultivator to defend the stage, he had not been unprepared for defeat, and in fact, he was certain to fail many times.
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However, to be defeated by an opponent of the same cultivation level in the first match was undoubtedly a huge blow to him.
"Alright, Xinyi, you can step down now."
It wasn’t until Zhou Jiarui spoke that Zhou Xinyi, still gritting his teeth on the stage, reluctantly descended from the platform.
After that, Su Mingchi took a Rejuvenation Pill and rested for about a quarter of an hour before he continued to challenge the next Zhou Family cultivator.
According to the challenge rules, an attacking cultivator must consecutively defeat three Zhou Family Cultivators to get a rest time of two hours. Otherwise, after winning a match, only a quarter of an hour break was allowed to recover.
Similarly, for every three Zhou Family cultivators defeated, the challenging family’s record could be "saved" at that point, allowing subsequent challengers to continue from that saved record.
Of course, if a cultivator felt strong enough and wished to achieve the feat of challenging all thirty Zhou Family members alone, they could also start from the first Zhou Family cultivator.
Thus, after consecutively defeating two Zhou Family cultivators, Su Mingchi eventually fell at the hands of the third Zhou Family cultivator.
Not achieving three consecutive victories meant no saving, and the next Su Family cultivator would have to start over from Zhou Xinyi.
Under such a mechanism, an attacking family aiming for good results definitely needed a sufficient number of participants.
This is why there were as many as two to three hundred cultivators gathered at the Zhou Family’s event today.
Time passed bit by bit, and soon more than half a day had elapsed.
After a fierce half-day of challenges, the Su Family’s seventeen cultivators had already taken the stage thirteen times, amassing a total of seventeen points.
"The Su Family is truly deserving of its reputation as a Golden Core lineage; with only thirteen of their members having fought, they’ve already defeated seventeen Zhou Family cultivators. It seems their final score is bound to comfortably exceed twenty points!"
In a certain area beneath the arena, a middle-aged man watching the battle couldn’t help but express his admiration for the performance of the Su Family cultivators.
He considered his own strength exceptional, coming to participate in the joint spell and martial arts competition, certainly able to achieve a commendable result for his clan.
But after witnessing the strength displayed by the seventeen Zhou Family cultivators, he felt a significant blow to his confidence.
In his view, if he were to take the stage himself, even without considering the mana and physical strength expended in the previous battles, it would be difficult to overcome the Zhou Family cultivators who fought after the fifteenth.
Yet, his prowess was considered to be within the top three among the cultivators his family had sent this time.
"The young ones brought by Brother Su must not be the best ones from the Su Family’s younger generation, right?"
On the spectator stands, Zhou Chun withdrew his gaze from the two younger members engaged in combat and asked Su Yudong in a low voice.
Although he was married into the Su Family, he did not know the ins and outs of the clan very well.
However, from his past experience residing with the Su Family, he expected that the younger generation should have capabilities above what he had seen.
At that moment, faced with his question, Su Yudong chuckled and replied, "Hehe, you could say that. These youngsters might not be the cream of the crop in our Su Family, but they’re certainly among the more outstanding ones."
Upon hearing this, not only Zhou Chun and the several Zhou Family elders present fell silent, but also the clan leaders and elders of other families.
The gap between a Golden Core lineage and a great cultivation clan was not merely about whether or not there was a Golden Core stage cultivator at its helm.
The contribution of a Golden Core stage cultivator to a clan was not just about providing a Rank Four combatant—it was much more than that. Discover exclusive tales on freewebnovel
Take the simplest example; when explaining the cultivation and release of spells to Qi Refinement Realm cultivators, the teachings of a Golden Core stage cultivator were like using a microscope, allowing every detail to be seen clearly.
The explanations from Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators were more like providing a magnifying glass—although clearer than without, they lacked the revelatory power of a microscope.
Therefore, as long as a clan produced a single Golden Core stage cultivator and did not encounter any serious disaster, the overall strength of the clan would see a tremendous improvement over a hundred years.
Several more hours passed, and the last Su Family cultivator finally stepped onto the stage.
"Su Mingfu of the Su Family requests guidance from the Zhou cultivator!"
A middle-aged man from the Su Family leaped onto the stage and announced his name in a deep voice.
The cultivator he faced was the twenty-second Zhou Family defender, a man in blue with a Qi Refinement Realm level of the eleventh layer.
"Zhou Zhengqing of the Zhou Family, I look forward to encountering Su Taoist Friend’s brilliant techniques!"
As the words of Zhou Zhengqing in blue fell, Zhou Jiarui, acting as the referee, quickly gave the instruction to start the match.
At that moment, as soon as Zhou Jiarui’s words ended, Su Mingfu acted first, immediately propelling a pair of gold and silver swords at Zhou Zhengqing.
He appeared to have cultivated some sort of sword technique secret art; under his control, the golden and silver flying swords swirled around Zhou Zhengqing like two Flood Dragons, piercing and entwining him, leaving him no chance to counterattack.
By the time Zhou Zhengqing finally found an opportunity to release his Contract Demon Beast, the Ink Scale Python, Su Mingfu had already formed a spell seal, initiating his finishing move.
The golden and silver swords danced crossed paths mid-air, releasing two sharp Sword Qi beams in an "X" shape, slashing fiercely towards Zhou Zhengqing.
Their might was no less impressive than the Xinjin Sword Qi Zhou Chun had cultivated in the past.
Seeing this, Zhou Zhengqing’s expression changed drastically, and he immediately had the Ink Scale Python coil around him, fully driving his defensive dharma artifact in an attempt to block the incoming attack.
However, after two booming explosions, he felt no impact at all.
It turned out Zhou Jiarui, seeing the imminent danger, had directly mobilized the power of the formation to block those two sword Qi attacks.
Such a situation indicated that, in Zhou Jiarui’s opinion, Zhou Zhengqing had no chance of withstanding the two sword Qi strikes just now.
"Enough, it’s just a competition, no need to be so ruthless. Zhengqing, you may step down and rest!"
Zhou Jiarui waved his hand, disregarding Zhou Zhengqing’s dejected expression, and directly ordered him to step down.