Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique

Chapter 210: Chapter 210: Thousand Ripple Piercing Lance

Chapter 210: Thousand Ripple Piercing Lance

"Phase Two, Ranking Duels begins now!"

Octavius swept his fierce gaze across the fifty youths.

"The rules for Phase Two are simple! The fifty of you will be matched in a single-elimination format! The twenty-five victors will immediately secure their positions and advance to fight for the higher ranks. As for the twenty-five losers... they will battle it out amongst themselves to compete for the remaining five spots in the Top Thirty!

For the Silver Badge disciples who had trained hard for an entire year to become a Gold Badge disciple, and the Gold Badge defenders desperate to maintain their exalted status, every single match was a matter of destiny.

Second round finally commenced, and the results were exactly as everyone had expected.

Silver Badge disciples who had secured their positions in the Top 50 were mercilessly crushed by the veteran Gold Badge elites.

The gap between the lower and upper echelons of the Inner Palace was staggering, and one by one, the weaker candidates were eliminated, their rankings frozen in place.

But the quality of combat had rose exponentially.

The millions watching from the projection arrays across Stormveil City roared with excitement at every clash.

Then came a match that drew the crowd’s full attention.

"Next match! Boran versus Jace!"

A ripple of murmurs swept through the plaza as the youngest figure among the fifty finalists stepped onto the central platform.

Jace.

At merely sixteen years of age, he had now reached third level of Spirit Manifestation Realm.

Yet, against his opponent whose was ranked 28th Gold Badge disciple, and also fifth level of Spirit Manifestation Realm, it seemed almost comically weak.

"That’s High Preceptor Octavius’s son," someone whispered from the stands.

"Sixteen years old and already fighting in the ranking duels? Isn’t he two full minor realms below his opponent?"

"This will be a slaughter. There’s no way a sixteen-year-old can win this."

"Begin!"

Boran drew a pair of serrated twin blades, "I won’t hold back just because you’re High Preceptor Octavius’s son,"

"I’d be insulted if you did," Jace replied, his sword blazing with searing starlight.

The moment the match started, Boran unleashed his full strength, intending to crush Jace quickly.

But Jace was fearless.

Since the life-and-death ordeal at Thunder Beast Ridge and witnessing Rhain’s unfathomable might, Jace’s youthful mind had been baptized by fire.

Astral Severing Strike!

The mastery of Jace’s swordsmanship at such a young was astonishing, clearly deserving of his prodigy status.

Despite being two minor realms below his opponent, Jace’s combat instincts allowed him to predict and counter Boran’s every move.

After a long minute of gruelling fight, Jace managed to find a flaw in Boran’s defense, and with a perfectly angled slash, he sent Boran skidding out of the ring.

"Winner: Jace! Advancing to the Top 25!"

The plaza shook with applause.

"Sixteen years old and he just defeated the 28th-ranked Gold Badge disciple!"

"What a monster! If he’s this strong now, what will he be like at twenty?"

Up on the grand stage, several of the dignitaries nodded approvingly.

Patriarch Thorian stroked his beard, muttering, "Octavius has raised a fine son. That boy will go far."

But everyone knew the true spectacle was yet to come.

"Next match! Gromak versus Rhain Voss!"

The moment Rhain’s name echoed across the arena, a wave of anticipation swept through the entire plaza.

After the way he had utterly humiliated Navarre, every single spectator, from the lowest mortal citizen watching the projections to the highest Domain Master on the stage, had noticed Rhain for different reasons.

All eyes locked onto the dark-robed youth as he leisurely stepped onto the arena floor.

His opponent, Gromak, ranked 20th Gold Badge disciple also stepped up.

Unlike the foolish Navarre, Gromak’s expression was deadly serious.

He already knew that this newcomer had even beaten ranked five Braxton.

If he even made the slightest of mistake, he would be defeated faster than he could imagine.

"I cannot let him use that speed,’ Gromak thought, ’I must overwhelm him with an area-of-effect attack. I will crush the entire space around him so there is nowhere to run!’

"Begin!" Octavius commanded.

Gromak’s essence erupted like an active volcano. He didn’t hold back a single ounce of his Level 6 Spirit Manifestation Realm strength.

With a flash of spatial light, a stunning silver lance materialized in Gromak’s hands.

"Thousand Ripple Piercing Lance!"

It was a renowned Epic-Grade martial art of the Battle Arts Division.

Gromak thrust his lance forward.

In the blink of an eye, the single thrust multiplied.

One lance became ten. Ten became a hundred.

A torrential wave of highly compressed, water-attribute lance shadows crashed toward Rhain, moving with the overwhelming, inescapable force of a tsunami.

Every single ripple carried enough penetrating power to pierce a mountain.

"A hundred lance shadows! Gromak actually achieved the small success stage of the Thousand Ripple Piercing Lance!" Krell exclaimed from the stage, his severe eyes widening in genuine appreciation. "For his age, to manifest a hundred ripples is an outstanding achievement!"

The ordinary crowd gasped in awe at the spectacular, overwhelming visual of a hundred lethal lance tips filling the sky.

This was a devastating, wide-area attack.

There was absolutely no way Rhain could use a movement art to simply dodge behind his opponent this time.

He had to face it head-on!

Under the watchful eyes of the entire Stormveil City, Rhain calmly raised his right hand.

Flash!

A brilliant streak of light illuminated the arena as an exquisite, heavy lance materialized in Rhain’s grasp—a top-tier Epic-Grade artifact.

It was one of the countless weapons he had obtained from his daily Sign-In rewards.

Up on the grand stage, Preceptor Krell’s face revealed a look of shock.

"Wait... he isn’t going to..."

Rhain also took a step forward, and thrust his lance.

From the tip of Rhain’s lance, a wave of essence erupted.

One lance became ten. Ten became a hundred.

A hundred became a thousand.

A full one thousand perfectly condensed, lethal lance shadows filled the entire space of the arena, rippling outward like a divine silver tsunami.

The hundred shadows created by Gromak looked like a pathetic puddle crashing against a raging ocean.

"What?" Gromak’s eyes bulged in terror.

There was no time to react.

The absolute limit of the Epic-Grade martial art, the legendary thousand ripples that no disciple had ever achieve crushed Gromak’s attack within a second.

BANG!

The thousand silver shadows crashed into Gromak’s defensive barrier, shattering it like thin glass.

The impact was so huge that Gromak was launched backward with the force of a cannonball.

He flew completely across the arena, hurtling past the boundary line before crashing heavily into the reinforced outer wall of the plaza.

This match had also ended in a single exchange.

With Navarre’s defeat, the technical perfection of the Gale Mirage Stride had been too profound, too fast for the common eye to fully comprehend.

But this?

This visual, and numerical data was glaringly obvious.

The uproar in the whole plaza erupted like a detonated volcano.

"A THOUSAND SHADOWS! HE CREATED A THOUSAND RIPPLES!"

"He used the exact same martial art! He used the exact same weapon!"

"Gromak spent five years mastering that lance art to produce a hundred shadows... he might have never thought that one day, he would be defeated by that very same martial art!"

"Monstrous! He is a complete monster!"

The millions of ordinary citizens watching the projections were screaming.

One hundred shadows versus One thousand shadows!

The difference in skill was displayed so clearly that it didn’t require an ounce of cultivation knowledge to understand.

But if the ordinary crowd was shocked, the true experts seated upon the grand stage were practically experiencing a heart attack.

To master an Epic-Grade martial art to perfection was the hallmark of a peerless genius.

But it was widely assumed that Rhain must have somehow found, and practiced the Gale Mirage Stride for years before coming to the Academy.

But now? He had just perfectly executed the Thousand Ripple Piercing Lance.

Two Epic-Grade martial arts. Completely different attributes. Completely different essence circulation paths.

Both executed to perfection.

"Impossible," High Preceptor Aldren whispered, "To perfect two Epic-Grade arts at such a young age... It cannot be possible even if he had begun practicing in his mother’s womb!"

Even the three great Patriarchs and Matriarch Seraphine had gone rigid.

"This cannot be achieved with mere talent," Patriarch Caelen murmured, "There has to be a different explanation..."

Myrielle sat frozen in her seat, utterly dumbfounded.

Her sapphire eyes stared blankly at the dark-robed youth standing in the arena.

"How..." Myrielle breathed. "How is this even possible?"

Even Carmilla, who knew that Rhain was not ordinary was visibly stunned.

She had drastically underestimated the boy.

Even Seraphine, recovering from her shock, turned toward her old friend with genuine astonishment written across her mature features.

"Carmilla, I must congratulate you, Seraphine chuckled, "I truly believed that securing a True Heavenly Physique was the absolute limit of your academy’s fortune for the next thousand years."

She returned her head to look at Rhain again, "But apparently I was wrong. There is another monstrous genuis hiding in your academy."