Battle Through the Heavens Prequel – The Legend of Yao Lao c5

Chapter 5 - The Tournament

Luo Shu was ecstatic after the fight and after helping himself to some meat and wine, started babbling about how he was going to slim down and strengthen himself before finally talking talking about the Demon clan’s little princess.

“I’m really friends with her yet you all don’t believe me. Do you know why i don’t want to slim down? It’s because if i slim down, i’m afraid she won’t be able to recognise me….urgh...”

Luo Shu collapsed drunkenly without even realising that Yao Chen had not taken even a single sip of the wine.

Yao Chen smiled faintly as he was well acquainted with Luo Shu’s behavior when drunk. Luo Shu had his own troubles as well; He was born lazy and though he wanted to change, it was his inborn nature after all, how could it be changed that easily? To put it bluntly, it could be said that a leopard never changes its spots.

After settling Luo Shu who was dead drunk, Yao Chen arrived at the pill refining room at the backyard.At this moment, Yao Qing was inside the room staring dazedly at the items in the room with her hair tied up with a jade green hairpin.

“Mom, Luo Shu’s drunk.”

“Hah..”

Yao Qing nodded her head, tenderness flas.h.i.+ng across her eyes though she soon composed herself.

“Let’s begin”

“Alright, mother.”

Yao Chen nodded his head, closed the door and turned around after taking a deep breath.

Yao Qing lightly pressed a shelf and with a dou qi ripple, a loud click was heard as a mechanism activated and the floor split open, revealing a large hole. This was the family’s room for closed cultivation.

“Enter.”

With Yao Qing in front and Yao Chen following behind, both mother and son walked into the hole and saw a room for cultivation after descending.The room contained an exquisite refining cauldron and a shelf for various medicinal ingredients, though it was currently empty.

There was another small door on the eastern wall of the room and past this door was yet another room for closed cultivation. This room contained a stone table, stone bed and a stone chair, with various foodstuffs that could be kept for prolonged periods of time in a corner and in another corner was a water tank that drew on underground springs.

Right in the middle of the room was a water filled drum that was being heated by geothermally with violet fog spilling out of the drum onto the ground.

Yao Chen swallowed his saliva as his body twitched unconsciously.The water in the drum was called Cleansing Dew and after being heated geothermally for seven days in addition to having a special medicinal powder added to it, would produce a medicated bath that would cleanse a person’s marrow and wash their bones. Soaking in this bath would be immensely beneficial for a person’s const.i.tution, their dou qi and their spiritual perception.

However, soaking in this bath causes intense itchiness that cannot be scratched as scratching would intensify the itchiness and cause blisters that take a long time to fade.

Yao Qing poured two types of medicinal powder into the drum and soon enough, the water in the drum begin frothing and bubbling vigorously producing violet fog, indicating that the Cleansing Dew had reacted with the powder.

“Go in, this time you have to endure for 4 hours.”

“Yes”

Yao Chen nodded his head.Last time, Yao Chen had endured for 5 hours and had almost ended up scratching himself due to the intense itchiness though he had reaped great rewards in the end.Although his power has been suppressed to the 9 star martial pract.i.tioner level for the past two years, in reality his body’s const.i.tution has already reached the stage where it can withstand the power of a martial grandmaster ! This was due mainly to him persistently using the medicated bath.

Yao Chen took a deep breath, bit his lips and entered the bath.He felt the heat from the water open up his pores and the medicine enter his body through the opened pores starting from his muscles,his blood vessels, then his organs and viscera before finally entering his bone marrow.

The comfortable feeling of the medicine entering his body lasted for a few short breaths before a wave of heat surged up from the bottom of the drum and in a flash, a slight itchiness began to come from his waist before spreading out and covering his body, intensifying the itchiness.

Yao Chen’s face was unchanged as he had long become accustomed to this itchiness,and the truly terrifying bit was yet to come.After a while, a wave of dou qi fluctuated from his marrow indicating the medicine had permeated his dou qi and in an instant his limbs started itching intensely.This was an unbearable and indescribable feeling akin to millions of vicious insects covering his skin, burrowing into his body.

“Urghhh...”

Yao Chen’s facial features contorted as he silently endured, after all itchiness was better than pain and shouting out would not ease his suffering but would instead only make it worse.He could only endure it till the end!

On that night two years ago, Yao Chen’s sorrow and thirst for strength allowed him to forcibly rise from a six starred martial pract.i.tioner to a nine starred pract.i.tioner in a state of demonic possession. However in the process of doing so, over half his potential was burnt away and if his mother had not intervened and sealed his dou qi and had let him advance to a martial master, he would forever be stuck at the level of a martial master in his life.

Since his potential was overdrawn, it had to be paid back and apart from strengthening his body, the medicinal bath’s purpose was to restore the potential that was burnt away two years ago.

The night pa.s.sed silently and the next day, Yao Chen was awakened by Luo Shu’s shouting. The four hour bath he had last night had exhausted him physically and mentally beyond his expectations.

“Stop sleeping, today’s the selection for the medicine tournament”

Although anyone below the age of twenty four could partic.i.p.ate in the tournament in reality, to separate the wheat from the chaff and to make things easier for the elders in charge of testing, there were several rounds of selections before the official tournament to ensure that only the most outstanding youths would appear on the tournament stage.

If Yao Chen wanted to stand out from the crowd, apart from making various preparations, he also had to pa.s.s numerous obstacles.

The first obstacle was the school selection! Students from the main branch had a special privilege as they were carefully nurtured and their levels were something that were known by everyone, therefore they did not need to partic.i.p.ate in the school selection in order to gain the right to partic.i.p.ate in the tournament.

However, students from the various branches were different as they were extremely numerous and the outstanding students were mixed with those who were abysmal and as such, every time the tournament drew near, the school would test the them to see if the qualified for the tournament.

Yao Chen and Luo Shu arrived at the school’s testing grounds in a rush. The testing ground was filled to the brim with students as it wasn’t only their batch of students who could partic.i.p.ate in the tournament as students from the batch before and after them also were able to partic.i.p.ate.

Yao Chen’s position in the school rankings is situated near the bottom and he was one of those who did not have much attention paid to them.

Luo Shu was extremely nervous, though naturally he wasn’t worrying about himself but Yao Chen.Although the medicine tournament was extremely prestigious, he did not think much of it because he had always concentrated on his dou qi cultivation instead of medicine although as a member of the medicine clan he too had some rudimentary knowledge of pill refining and was able to refine the blood stopping pill and qi recovering pill. Luo Shu’s way of thinking was simple as he planned on working hard on his cultivation and once he reached the level of martial master, he would be able to join his elder brother Luo Shan as a clan guardian and make a simple living following him.Furthermore, whenever he was bored and had nothing to do, he could simply get Yao Chen to refine a few pills and go out to the outside world and trade them for interesting stuff as everyone knew that the medicine clan’s pills were in high demand.

At the moment, Luo Shu was worried about Yao Chen because the school’s tests were extremely strict and though Yao Chen came prepared, he was only a nine starred martial pract.i.tioner while the outstanding people in the school were all one or two starred martial masters.

Martial pract.i.tioners and martial masters were only separated by one level, but in reality the difference between them was akin to the difference between heaven and earth and there was no way they could be compared together.

While spiritual perception is of utmost importance to a receptarier, dou qi power also plays an important part as the power determines the quality of the flame produced and a weak flame affects the both the success rate and speed of refining. As such, numerous high grade pills are impossible to refine without a certain level of flame.

In the medicine clan, ninety nine percent of the clansmen’s dou qi are of the flame attribute. Two years ago, Yao Chen did not listen to his father telling him to choose the best cultivation method and instead choose the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method which was one of the three great public cultivation methods available in the clan, and was also the worst of the bunch with almost no one choosing to use this method in their cultivation.The vast majority of the clan members would choose either the Flame Congealing method or the Blazing Prairie Fire Method with the Blazing Prairie Fire Method being the most outstanding of the bunch and the three strongest members of the school Yao Tong, Li Xin Xin and Zhuo Hong Le using it as their cultivation method.

Both the Flame Congealing method and the Blazing Prairie Fire method were able to easily produce a strong flame for refining unlike the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method where every step of cultivation was arduous, there were even cases of people being stuck for years without any improvements. There was once an elder who recommended that the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method be removed from the three great cultivation methods of the clan though the suggestion was rejected in the end. A long time ago, for reasons unknown, an ill.u.s.trious elder of great might wrote in the clan records that the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method was to be one of the clan’s public methods and that this would never be changed.

However, though cultivation with this method was arduous, it was not without its benefits.With both the Flame Congealing and the Blazing Prairie Fire methods, large amount of cultivation resources were required for every level for cultivation while the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method on the other hand did not. Naturally, it would be best if there were cultivation resources available, however even if there weren’t, it would not matter.

There were however, legends of the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method’s power surpa.s.sing that of the Flame Congealing and Blazing Prairie Fire method once it was cultivated to the later stages though this was only a legend and no one was going to believe an unsubstantiated legend like this.Furthermore, since they were only yellow grade cultivation methods for foundation building, as long as the foundation was stable enough, the cultivation method would not matter at all and choosing the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating would only cause a person’s time spent on building his foundation to be several times greater than that of his peers.

Cultivation was a battle against heaven, a struggle against the earth and a fight against time. As such, regardless of how strong the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method’s later stages are, no one would ever choose this method.

Yao Chen chose the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method because he had no other choice.Though the Blazing Prairie Fire method was publicly available, it required large amounts of cultivation resources to build his foundation and since his father had pa.s.sed away, Yao Chen could only choose the Tri Flower Flame Concentrating method which had a slow cultivation speed but did not require resources for building his foundation.

Luo Shu knew clearly that although Yao Chen worked tirelessly on his cultivation, because of his cultivation method, his flame controlling abilities were inferior to outstanding students like Yao Ji,Yao Ying and others, much less those of the three great experts of the school Yao Tong, Li Xin Xin and Zhuo Hong Le.

Little fatty Luo could not help but think of matters two years past…..

Were it not for Yao Chen dismantling his body and burning away his potential, all the so called experts of the school, Yao Tong, Li Xin Xin and Zhuo Hong Le would all be inferior to Yao Chen.

Suddenly, sounds of laughter and mockery came from the side, it was the group who slandered Yao Chen the previous night.

“Yo, you’ve finally dared to showed yourself , we thought you wouldn’t dare come .Trash.”’

“Hah, well said. The word trash was specially tailored for him”

“That’s right that’s right, well said indeed.Last night we beat him up in front of his house yet he didn’t even retaliate and in the end he was even rescued by his mother hahahaha…..”

Luo Shu’s face turned ugly and he was able to charge over when Yao Chen put his hand on his arm to restrain him.

“There’s no need to bother ourselves with maggots, if we’re bitten by them we just have to crush them with our feet, there’s no need to bite them back.”

“Hah, well said. Maggots!”

Luo Shu calmed down and glared back at them with what he thought was a fierce expression and turned around, not intending to bother himself with that bunch of sc.u.m any longer.

The selection that was taking place at the moment was also the school compet.i.tion that took place quarterly and anyone who got into a fight with their schoolmates would be locked up, naturally their chances of partic.i.p.ating would also be gone.Luo Shu held himself back, after all even if he did not think of himself he had to think of Yao Chen and though he did not think Yao Chen could win, it would be great if he was able to get a good result as the school’s resources were allocated on the basis of a person’s ranking in the compet.i.tion.

“Che, coward, trash,p.u.s.s.y.”

Words that sounded worse came one after another yet they just fell on Yao Chen’s deaf ears.

This time round, he had to place in the top eight of the compet.i.tion to qualify for the tournament.

There was only eight places however, based on the school’s past rankings, Yao Chen was placed forty and below. In the school, if a person was not noticed his chances and opportunities would decrease because in the school,if a person wished to improve then just depending on his abilities alone would not be enough as the apportionment of pills, and specially training would only be given to those who ranked highly or to those with a special background.

The age of the school’s students will not exceed seventeen and of the three batches who could partic.i.p.ate in the tournament, those would could refine grade 2 pills numbered close to a hundred while those that could refine grade 3 pills numbered less than ten.

The qualifications for the tournament this time round could be said to be a training as well. Though the places available were said to be prepared for the school compet.i.tion, in reality, the room available for manipulation were large and as such, if Yao Chen wanted to get a place he would have to refine a grade 3 pill in order to stand a chance.

That’s why Yao Chen had to give it all he had and try his very best!

Previously, Yao Chen’s best result was the grade 2 Azure Flame pill which could temporarily increase the power of flame attribute skills.However the Azure Flame pill was considered a low ranked grade 2 pill and though there would be people fighting bitterly for it outside the clan, it could barely be considered enough for the school compet.i.tion.

Yao Chen was not as nervous as Luo Shu and his eyes were filled with antic.i.p.ation.Soon enough, the elders of the school came out in a file with solemn faces,all of them wearing brand new robes and it was clear that they viewed the school compet.i.tion with great importance.

The medicine tournament was a glorious event for the medicine clan and all events a.s.sociated with the tournament be it a selection or a compet.i.tion could all be considered as part of the tournament and no one in the clan, even if they were elders would take it lightly and slacken off.

“The compet.i.tion is starting, all compet.i.tors to their respective places.”

Everyone complied and began their preparations, while off to the side, attendants stood by the cauldrons ready to start the compet.i.tion.

“The compet.i.tion~~~~ starts now!!!”

Once the elder gave the signal to start, the students took their a.s.signed places according to the school rankings and Yao Chen also found his designated spot. His working area had an ordinary refining cauldron as well as a standard set of ingredients.

In the compet.i.tion, students were not allowed to use their personal cauldrons because it was the student’s grasp of the foundations that were being tested and students that were unexceptional would have their refining success rate greatly reduced when using an unfamiliar cauldron. Ordinary students would not dare to attempt grade 2 high ranked pills that could be easily produced though naturally, the strong students would not care as they would be unaffected.

The ingredients that were provided for the compet.i.tion were all ordinary ingredients that were commonly seen though they were enough to refine most pills under grade 4.The compet.i.tion was more formal than it was in the past, but it was still essentially the same and Yao Chen was accustomed to the atmosphere and the method of testing, and after a few breaths had entered into a trancelike state where he focused his spiritual sense onto the ingredients by the side, carefully making his selection.

Onstage, numerous elders swept their gaze across the ten students in the front row; The ten of them were the top rankers in the previous school compet.i.tion and were the cream of the crop when it came to skill in pill refining or the strength of their dou qi, and were all carefully nurtured by the elders in addition to having partic.i.p.ated in numerous training missions in the clan, gaining much from their experiences.

“In this compet.i.tion, any one of these ten would be able to win one of the eight spots.”

“Haha, there’s no need to guess who will be in the top 3, it is bound to be Yao Tong, Li Xin Xin and Zhuo Hong Le. Their abilities are exceptional and can even be compared to those of the main branch.”

“Indeed. However, the fourth to tenth places are hard to determine because the abilities of the rest of the students in the top ten do not differ by much, and it’s hard to say which two will be eliminated this time.”

The numerous elders kept sweeping their gazes across the ten, observing their movements while voicing their opinions.

*BOOM*

Suddenly, a large sound rang out and a stream of black smoke could be seen from the last row, indicating someone blew their cauldron up.

“Yao Xiao, disqualified”

Once the elders verified what had happened, they immediately made their decision and removed the student who had blown his cauldron up from the group so as to not affect the rest of the partic.i.p.ants.

Everyone knew that in this compet.i.tion, the qualifications for the tournament were at stake; The students in the back row were unconcerned with winning the qualifications for the tournament and had only partic.i.p.ated to challenge their limits, they would make a name for themselves if they succeeded and would not suffer any great losses even if they failed.As such, they were also the first to fail, and they failed quite quickly….After the first failure, successive failures popped up one after another with everyone simply trying their luck at refining, in addition to using cauldrons that they were unfamiliar with, it would be a miracle if they atcually succeeded in refining.

With all the people behind him failing, it was inevitable that Luo Shu would be affected.With his average skill in refining, he lost control of the flame when his hand shook and a stream of black smoke could be seen rising from his cauldron.Although he did not blow his cauldron up, the ingredients in it were jumbled up and could no longer take shape, and the pill he was refining was a failure.

Luo Shu didn’t mind his failure since he never was particularly concerned with pill refining and besides, he was unfamiliar with the cauldron he was using and was unable to control it well. He left the testing ground and went to the waiting area where he started looking for Yao Chen.

He wouldn’t have known had he not taken a look, and at this moment Luo Shu was shocked by Yao Chen; What was he doing?!

Strange rings of black smoke could be seen emitting from Yao Chen’s cauldron and it seemed like he was forcefully refining a spoilt failed batch of pills, trying to forcibly form it into a pill.

“It can’t be……”

Luo Shu was in disbelief and was murmuring to himself.

Yao Chen was a few hundred times superior than him when it came to refining, no matter what happened there was no way he could have produced this type of black smoke!

“Haha, the trash failed in his refining yet still refuses to give up even when it’s emitting such black smoke, is he trying to forcibly form the pill?”

“Even if the pill is formed, it would be a failure of a pill.”

“He’s trash, you think he knows the meaning of the words giving up?”

“Hahahaha”

The group of people from before gathered around Luo Shu, bombarding him with cynical words.It was obvious that their refining had failed long ago, which was only natural as people like them were the bottom feeders in the school. Those who were gifted wouldn’t have time to speak ill of others when they barely had enough time for their own practice.

Luo Shu forcibly suppressed the anger in him and didn’t throw a punch at them.

“Bah! You sc.u.m, if you’ve got b.a.l.l.s, fight me one on one.”

“One on one? You brat. Hahaha”

“The trash’s friend is trash as well. In this day and age, who would go around asking people to fight them one on one?”

Luo Shu gritted his teeth and looked at Yao Chen, forcing himself to ignore these maggots.

However when he looked at Yao Chen again, he was stunned; Why did the black smoke disappear?

Logically speaking, once black smoke is emitted the ingredients being refined could not be salvaged and if they were forcefully formed into a pill, it would only result in a trash pill without any effects as the ingredients would be no different than burnt charcoal and it would only be a pill in shape only.

However, at this moment white gas could be seen above Yao Chen’s cauldron, streaming into the sky.

“Eh? That guy…”

“He’s just faking it,nine out of ten he’s burnt the failed pill away and is only pretending that everything’s fine now.Hehe doesn’t he realise that even if he can fake it for now, he can’t fake it forever? Stupid.”

“Haha there’s always an idiot like this in every compet.i.tion.”

“What do you think a coward like him can actually refine?”

“He’s not just a coward,he burnt his potential away and is only a nine starred martial pract.i.tioner, i really don’t know what words can be used to describe him. How about trash?”

“He can’t even produce charcoal, hahaha i’m afraid he’s even lower than trash.”

This stream of piercing mockery was obviously meant for Yao Chen and Luo Shu. The group of youths had no intention of bettering themselves and were only wasting their time in school, will bullying their schoolmates being the only form of enjoyment they had to kill their boredom.Naturally they don’t just bully anyone, after all only the soft persimmons are pinched, and since it was well known that Yao Chen burnt his potential away they were all unafraid of him.

As for Luo Shu, he was trash that ranked nearly hundred and was also fat; He was a natural born target for bullying and was natural picked on by them.

Time slowly pa.s.sed and after an hour a crisp sound was heard from the refining area, someone had finally finished their refining.

“It’s Yao Tong.”

The first person in the front row, a youth in black robes was currently taking the pills out from his cauldron with his dou qi surging and the air holes of the cauldron emitting white pill qi , forming an auspicious cloud. The youth had starry eyes , a sword like brow and was tall and handsome, what was most outstanding about the wunderkind was that his goal was in sight yet he remained calm and unperturbed without a trace of arrogance.

It was only at this moment, that several elders s.h.i.+fted their gazes to the partic.i.p.ants who have yet to finish with their brows furrowed.

Although the purpose of the school was to educate the youths without discrimination,what was taught was only the most basic fundamentals and in the end, the outstanding pupils would take a master.However, it was only human nature to favour the strong while ignoring the weak and those who ranked below twentieth place were not favoured.It was tough for the weaker students to be treated equally unless they had a good family background and while the elders did not dislike the students outright, they were still giving them the equivalent of the silent treatment.

“They’re not bad, it’s just that i’m afraid they won’t be able to make it within the time limit.”

It was impossible to allow them to continue their refining without any time limits, and there was only an hour left while the partic.i.p.ants who had yet to finish were still refining their pills.

Unless they could advance into a new level and explosively increase their power, it was impossible for them to finish in time, of course this was only a fool’s dream…..