A few minutes later, when the laughter stopped, Kong Yi Tian straightened his shirt, put on a serious face and said, “Show us. Since you are here, your family elders should have already told you about how we pick disciples and without a cultivation technique, it means that this is the way you have been practising and is planning to join the test with this method so it is not something that you need to hide.”
He eyes scanned the area around me and say in a commanding tone, “Everyone move further away and give him some space!”
After everyone moves away from me, I Grab the spirit stone and get into a combat stance.
(I should use Spiral Punch. While I have mastered Drill Punch, I’ve never really practised it according to the system, and I think that since I could modify the martial technique, the modified technique will show my genius to the people from the sect and impress them!)
In the combat stance, with my right leg behind my left in a slightly crouched position, I draw back my right arm. It looks a little similar to how a baseball pitcher throws his pitch except that I am not standing sideways and both my feet are on the ground.
I start manipulating the qi in my arms, causing a suction force on my left fist to draw the qi out from the spirit stone and drive it towards my right fist. I start swirling the qi in my arm to execute the drill punch and as I punch out, twist my arm even more and when the qi reaches my fist, I push it out and swirl it even more.
BOOM!!!
The explosion this time is bigger as I used more qi and the suction force created is stronger. I put in my best effort to impress the people from the sect. I can’t wait for the praise they will give me!
All 5 of them are visibly sporting a look of curiosity on their faces now. Even Chang Qi Yue who was previously angry at me seems to be genuinely interested in my genius!
Chang Qi Yue stretches out his hand and says “Give me your spirit stone.”
I pass the spirit stone to him and he starts looking at it. He frowns and passes it around. Everyone from the sect takes the spirit stone and look at it carefully.
He frowns as he looks at me and says “You won’t pass the talent test. You would need to punch constantly for around 30 minutes at this rate to fully absorb the spirit stone. Such a method is too inefficient. I guess it would help you master martial techniques but cultivating this way would impede your cultivation in the long run. There is no need for you to join the absorption test as you would definitely fail.”
When everyone from the immortal sects had examined the spirit stone, the last person returned the spirit stone to me.
Feng Lian Hua then stepped out after thinking for a while.
“First, let me explain what will happen if you pass the test and introduce the sects to everyone here. If we deem you have talent in cultivation, we will approach you and invite you to join our sect. if you decline, you would have to ask the other representatives from the other sects that you are interested in if they would want to accept you as a disciple.” He said confidently.
He continued explaining that “While the drill punch is a basic martial technique and you have shown a tiny amount of talent in the martial way, at the end of the day, we are looking for talented people in cultivation. The only sects with fist techniques that will appreciate what you have done with drill punch are the Four Divine Beasts Valley which I belong to, and the Divine Blood Valley.”
Feng Lian Hua looks towards Li Jian Ming and continues with her introduction of the sects, “Quanzhen Sect focuses on the heavenly ways and specialises in the sword and formations while the Qing Yu Sect only accept female disciples and the martial techniques they learn are all created for women.”
He glances at Kong Yi Tian and continues “The Heavenly Palace is the oldest sect in this continent and does not excel or specialise in any field but dabbles in all. They also have the largest collection of martial skills and cultivation techniques.”
He then glances at Chang Qi Yue with a frown and says “The Divine Blood Valley focuses on the mortal body and as a result of having taken too many pills, their brains have become smaller and they found a love for punching things into meat patties.”
*creak* creak* *slick* *tick*
Sounds of bones moving and the sound of bones rubbing against each other suddenly come from Chang Qi Yue and his body becomes big and muscular. His skin becomes bronze and reflects the light. The body of the other 4 members also starts becoming bigger and they stare daggers at Feng Lian Hua and the other people from the Four Divine Beasts Valley.
“You best shut up before *I* pound you into meat patty.” Chang Qi Yue sternly warns Feng Lian Hua.
Feng Lian Hua and the other 4 members do not retreat and start staring back. It becomes very obvious that the Divine Blood Valley and the Four Divine Beasts Valley aren’t on friendly terms. The bird on Feng Lian Hua’s shoulder flew up into the sky and started emitting lightning from its body and caused loud, crackling sounds.
Before they could start fighting, Xiang Ye Ye steps in between them to mediate and says “Enough! We are in the middle of the selection! If you fight here, the entire estate will be ruined, the seedlings will all die and you will get punished severely when you return!”
Adjusting her expressions and making herself look pretty; she takes over the job of introducing the sects and continues from where Feng Lian Hua stopped.
“*Ahem*, let me continue. The Divine Blood Valley is one of the choices you may join if they want you but you look too scrawny for them to want you. You may ask them anyway as it is your choice.”
Chang Qi Yue cuts in at this point and says “You are indeed too small for our tastes. Only the girls in our sect are your size and that is because they don’t want to become strong like us!”
“*Cough**cough* you mean ugly.” Feng Lian Hua mutters softly but loud enough for me to hear. I guess they are too muscular for her tastes.
Xiang Ye Ye looks at the bird in the sky and smiles while she continues the introduction of the sects. “Anyway the Four Divine Beasts Valley is a sect of beast masters. They live with their beasts, fight with their beasts and learn with their beasts. As a result, they often do not use many weapons as they often have to go out to seek beasts to tame and weapons will often cause difficult or irreversible damage to them, so they do have a collection of fist techniques.”
After finishing introducing the immortal sects to everyone, she turns toward my group and starts talking in a serious tone.
“Now that you have learnt all about the sects, everyone should make their own decisions about which sect they want to join. Since we have determined that you will fail the absorption test, there is no need for you to participate anymore and we’ve also seen your drill punch, so just go stand somewhere until everyone else is done. At the very least, you have a huge amount of qi within your body right now so someone might take a liking to you and invite you to join their sect if you are lucky.”
“The rest of you, grab your spirit stones and get back in line!” She commands in her soft and sweet voice, but nobody disobeys her.
“Start absorbing in three….two….one!”
Everyone starts executing their cultivation technique but this time, the scene of a group of people absorbing didn’t create a spectacle like what the Qi Flow group did. It’s probably because the absorption rate was much lower and the other group was way bigger.
After about 10 minutes, one person had finished absorbing the spirit stone, and he walked to the right, joining the group that passed. 3 minutes later, seven more people were done. By the fifteenth minute, 15 people were done and Xiang Ye Ye shouted: “Stop!”
The last person failed and started crying. Nobody cared about him except his family’s elder who brought him away. It was clear that he had no martial skill worthy enough to show off.
…
The 25 people from the sect then turned their attention towards the group that failed and a person just stepped out casually and said “Anyone who has a better technique than that boy’s drill punch may step out and show us. Otherwise, don’t waste our time and just go home.”
Right now, it dawned on me that if I did had learned a cultivation technique, I would have probably passed the test as the real selection only occurs after you pass the tests and they aren’t very harsh on the absorption speed as they too are aware that the cultivation technique which we learn in Qi Flow would drastically increase our absorption speed.
I wonder if my father had sabotaged me by teaching me how to absorb Qi this way…
