Chapter 473: Chapter 460: This Good-for-nothing Is Called Shen Lang
Profound Dao Sect, Heaven-Reaching Peak.
The scorching sun hung high in the sky, and the air was thick with a restless, agitating energy.
On the Martial Arts Arena of Heaven-Reaching Peak, a sea of people had gathered—no fewer than three thousand, it seemed.
Among these thousands, the majority were from the Profound Dao Sect.
A small portion, however, were from other Sects.
The members of the Profound Dao Sect were filled with a mixture of shame and fury, their expressions unsightly.
Meanwhile, the people from the other Sects wore looks of pure schadenfreude, clearly delighted to see the Profound Dao Sect in such an awkward predicament.
In the center of the Martial Arts Arena stood nine colossal, sky-supporting pillars.
These nine pillars were immense, so wide that three people couldn’t encircle them with their arms, and they stood ten zhang tall.
Some pillars were carved with countless flowers, birds, insects, and fish, all rendered with lifelike detail;
others depicted a Stellar Ocean, with stars that seemed to twinkle and a vast, majestic sea.
At the base of the pillars stood nine young men in rich attire. High-spirited and full of themselves, they looked around at the members of the Profound Dao Sect with unconcealed arrogance.
Ordinarily, there were no such colossal pillars on the Martial Arts Arena of Heaven-Reaching Peak.
These were the nine pillars that made many Sects turn pale at their very mention.
Usually, when these nine pillars appeared at a Sect, it meant that Sect was in for some serious trouble.
They were the Spirit Pattern Pillars, the Treasure of the Sect belonging to the Artifact Origin Sect—the most powerful Artifact Refining Sect in the Snow Domain!
As the most formidable Spirit Copper Level Influence in the Holy Origin Country, the Artifact Origin Sect’s strength didn’t lie in the Martial Arts Cultivation of its experts. Instead, it lay in the fact that every single disciple of the Sect was a master of Artifact Refining!
It was said that for other Sects, the emergence of even one or two Artifact Refining Masters was a matter of great renown.
But in the Artifact Origin Sect, Artifact Refining Masters were a dime a dozen; you could throw a brick and be more likely than not to hit a famous one!
And these nine colossal Spirit Pattern Pillars were said to be the very things that initiated these Artifact Refining Masters into their craft!
If someone could communicate with even one of the Spirit Pattern Pillars, they could instantly gain the vast and precious experience left within them by past masters, as well as the top-tier Spirit Array Maps carved inside.
There were even rumors that these nine Spirit Pattern Pillars were also powerful Secret Artifacts. Once activated, they could suppress peerless experts in an instant and reduce a powerful Sect to ashes in the blink of an eye!
The Artifact Origin Sect didn’t actually want to destroy the Profound Dao Sect.
The two Sects had no long-standing grudges or recent enmity.
Besides, a few Xuanwu Realm Martial Artists leading a handful of Spirit Martial Realm Martial Artists weren’t enough to annihilate a Sect anyway.
However, the Artifact Origin Sect loved to take these nine Spirit Pattern Pillars around to "spar" with the major Sects.
The subject of these "spars," of course, was the Artifact Refining Dao.
They thoroughly enjoyed both the process and the outcome, wishing the entire world would recognize them as the number one Sect for Artifact Refining.
To most people, this was an incredibly shameless act.
Your Artifact Origin Sect has piles upon piles of Artifact Refining Masters, and everyone respects you for it. So why do you keep running around challenging others to Artifact Refining competitions? Is it really necessary?
It was like a master carpenter... so you’re good at carpentry, big deal. But then you go challenge a chef to a carpentry contest today, a blacksmith tomorrow, and after that, you’re even challenging the girls at Yihong Courtyard to a carpentry competition. Have you no shame?
But these were things that could only be thought, not said aloud.
Regardless, Artifact Refiners truly did have the right to be arrogant.
What’s more, the Artifact Origin Sect was a Spirit Copper Level Influence.
Those two facts alone were enough to silence most people.
In any so-called "spar"—be it in Martial Arts or anything else—one would naturally use their greatest strengths, their best skills. It was unthinkable that someone would choose to compete using their weakest area.
The shameless carpenter might challenge others in carpentry, but those others would be too embarrassed to suggest they compete in cooking instead.
If the Profound Dao Sect were a bit more thick-skinned, they could easily have their Alchemists challenge the Artifact Origin Sect.
But in the end, the one to be ridiculed would surely be the Profound Dao Sect.
The problem was, they were thin-skinned, while the Artifact Origin Sect was shameless.
The Artifact Origin Sect was a grand Spirit Copper Level Influence with Artifact Refining Masters by the handful. It was shameless enough for them to challenge other Spirit Copper Level Influences in Artifact Refining, but instead, they constantly swaggered over to Profound Iron Level Influences to "show off"!
This time, as luck would have it, the Profound Dao Sect was the chosen one.
The reason was simple. After the Profound Dao Sect formed an alliance with several other Sects, Shen Lang had gathered all their Artifact Refiners, tossed them some Spirit Array Maps and Artifact Refining Diagrams, and had them practice Artifact Refining at the Profound Dao Sect.
For some time now, this alliance of Artifact Refiners, acting under the Profound Dao Sect’s name, had been voraciously gathering raw materials from the Treasure Pavilion and selling Magical Treasure Secret Artifacts.
Although they had tried to keep a low profile, people still noticed something unusual... The Profound Dao Sect was actually that skilled at Artifact Refining? Capable of producing so many High Grade Spiritual Artifacts and Profound Artifacts?
When news of this reached the Artifact Origin Sect, they crossed millions of li, brought the Spirit Pattern Pillars, and came right to the Profound Dao Sect’s doorstep to "spar" a little...
At that moment, beside the Spirit Pattern Pillars, the nine richly-dressed young men stood with their hands clasped behind their backs.
Each one of them had an inborn pride in their eyes, a disdain for the world, as if nothing was worthy of their notice!
Although there were only a few of them, their imposing presence was in no way inferior to that of the thousands gathered.
Over at the edge of the Martial Arts Arena, a few elderly men with wizened faces sat in chairs, sipping tea and gloatingly sizing up the surrounding members of the Profound Dao Sect.
It would have been difficult to find anyone on the Martial Arts Arena looking more pleased than they were.
On the surrounding viewing platforms, the Peak Masters of the Profound Dao Sect’s Nine-Nine Eighty-One Peaks were gathered. Like the thousands of Profound Dao Sect disciples, their faces were all terrifyingly grim.
There was nothing more suffocatingly frustrating than this.
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