Chapter 53

Faced with relentless pursuit from Chengfeng Sect, Ye Qiao turned around and fired a burst at them. Qin Huai not only had to catch up to her speed but also dodge the endless stream of talismans. He was on the brink of madness.

How many talismans does Ye Qiao have?

Is Ming Xuan some kind of genius? Does he stay up every night drawing these strange and unorthodox talismans?

The kind of talismans Ye Qiao had were not entirely unavailable in the market. However, in the eyes of other talisman users, these talismans were considered unremarkable, a waste of time, mental energy, and not very lethal.

Who would have thought that one day someone would bring these talismans into a major competition?

And they were quite effective.

At least, they gave Ye Qiao enough time to escape.

“Hahaha,” Qin Huai’s face twisted, and he gritted his teeth. “Stop her.”

He couldn’t possibly watch Ye Qiao join up with the people from Changming Sect.

Just as Qin Huai finished speaking, he noticed that his two artifact-refining junior brothers weren’t moving. He turned his head and saw Shen Ziwei clutching his waistband tightly, trying to maintain his dignity.

“Senior brother, he’s gone mad.” Shen Ziwei, almost in tears, shook his leg, which was tightly held by Duan Hengdao.

Qin Huai laughed maniacally for a while before finally calming down. He reached out and tore off the talisman from Duan Hengdao’s back.

Facing the two who had finally returned to normal, Shen Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief, holding onto his pants as he spoke, “What should we do next?”

The current rankings were Yueqing Sect first, Changming Sect second, Chengfeng Sect third, and Wenjian Sect—who probably were still trapped in some formation.

“It wasn’t a complete loss; at least Ming Xuan is out.”

“As for Ye Qiao…” He paused. “If we can’t catch her, let’s not worry about her for now.”

The people of Changming Sect were as slippery as eels; there was no need to waste time on them.

Without Ming Xuan, Changming Sect was no threat.

“Our focus this time is Yueqing Sect.”

…

With Ming Xuan eliminated, Ye Qiao was no longer being chased and could finally let loose.

Ye Qiao moved through the ancient battlefield as if it were uninhabited, leaving the elders watching from outside in shock.

“Is this girl’s luck that good? She avoided so many formations.”

Qin Fanfan immediately explained, “Luck is also a part of strength.”

“True, but why is Wenjian Sect so unlucky?”

The same sword cultivators had been trapped for two whole days, nearly forcing Ye Qinghan to storm Yueqing Sect and grab a talisman user to guide them.

Qin Fanfan also fell silent for a moment.

Indeed.

This luck was a bit too good.

Ye Qiao’s familiarity with the ancient battlefield was thanks to Steward Yu’s harsh training. Every time she returned from the mountain, she had to either copy pill books or talisman books, countless of which were derived from ancient formations.

Having memorized them all, how could she possibly step on any?

**Day Two in the Secret Realm**

Ye Qiao finally found her senior brothers. When she located them, she saw that all three were lazing about within a formation—one was sleeping, another was counting ants.

Seeing this, Ye Qiao stepped in and kicked Mu Chongxi twice: “Wake up.”

The formation allowed people to enter but made it hard to leave. Mu Chongxi, woken by the kicks, rubbed his eyes in surprise: “Hey, you’re alive?”

In this secret realm, anyone with talisman users had bad luck. After Ming Xuan was eliminated, Mu Chongxi had prepared himself for the possibility of both talisman users being out.

“By the way, how did Ming Xuan get eliminated?”

“We ran into Qin Huai and his group,” Ye Qiao answered honestly. “In the end, Ming Xuan and Zhai Chen took each other out.”

Mu Chongxi sighed, “Oh. Didn’t expect him to be of use, taking down a talisman user.”

Outside, an elder analyzed, “Being able to take down a Jindan stage cultivator like Zhai Chen, Ming Xuan’s strength was impressive. If both of Changming Sect’s participants were at the Jindan stage this year, they could have competed for first place.”

What a pity.

Ye Qiao looked at her unmotivated senior brothers and took out a suona from her storage pouch, asking with a friendly tone, “Need a wake-up call?”

She played a note, scaring Zhou Xingyun so much that his hair almost stood up.

Xue Yu, who was digging in the dirt, shivered and weakly raised his head, “We’re on the same side, don’t, don’t play it.”

Mu Chongxi jumped up, “Damn it!”

“Oh, so the weirdos playing suona and banging drums in the secret realm were you and Ming Xuan!”

He finally understood. It was Ye Qiao and Ming Xuan. That made sense.

Mu Chongxi pointed at Ye Qiao, who slapped his hand away: “What do you mean by weirdos? I call it making good use of available resources.”

“That Si Miaoyan girl plays musical instruments,” Ye Qiao said. “Be careful of her.”

However, for now, Si Miaoyan probably wouldn’t want to come near her.

“So you used the suona to counter her sound attacks?” Mu Chongxi could almost imagine Si Miaoyan’s frustrated expression. He rubbed his chin, “I still have some drums in my storage pouch. Ming Xuan gave me some amplification talismans too. How about the five of us play against her?”

Xue Yu rummaged through his storage pouch, “What do you all have in your pouches?”

With a suona and drums, one might think they were having a wedding in the secret realm.

Mu Chongxi sat cross-legged on the ground, “I brought some large pancakes. Anyone want some?”

“No thanks,” Xue Yu said. “I brought buns.”

“…”

“Does the head of the Xue family know their esteemed heir has become like this?”

“Probably not. Look at Ming Xuan in the elimination seat.”

While the two unreliable senior brothers chatted, Ye Qiao took out a formation-breaking talisman and stuck it onto the formation, causing it to shatter completely.

Now Changming Sect was in second place. With some effort, first place was within reach.

Ye Qiao had redirected all the early hostility towards Ming Xuan. Now that Ming Xuan was out, other sects would overlook Changming Sect, confident that eliminating Ming Xuan secured their victory.

Taking advantage of the other sects’ preoccupation, Ye Qiao decided to strike first and kill more demonic beasts to inch closer to first place.

“Have you used up all the formation-breaking talismans Ming Xuan gave you before entering the secret realm?” Ye Qiao asked.

Mu Chongxi pointed at Zhou Xingyun: “Ask senior brother! He’s so unlucky that he kept leading us into formations. This is the thirtieth one we’ve stepped on. We’ve used up all the talismans.”

Seeing no way out, the three had given up.

Losing meant losing. They were resigned to their fate.

Ye Qiao’s mouth twitched.

In games, Zhou Xingyun would be the epitome of bad luck.

Rescuing her three disgruntled senior brothers, the four of them studied the map for a while. Finally, Ye Qiao decided she would lead the way.

On their journey, any troublesome demonic beasts they encountered were swiftly dealt with by Ye Qiao and Mu Chongxi.

Without a suitable sword since her last one broke, Ye Qiao used Bamboo shoot as a makeshift weapon.

Seeing a dense cluster of small snakes, Ye Qiao’s scalp tingled momentarily. She used her sharp sword energy to slice through the green snakes, cutting them in half. However, the severed vine-like snakes wriggled even more energetically, hissing and approaching her.

Without hesitation, she ignited a fire talisman to see if it could burn them all.

The snakes only grew fiercer, leaping to bite her, but Ye Qiao mercilessly struck them away with her sword.

“It’s useless, Ye Qiao,” Mu Chongxi said, standing on his sword and feeling creeped out. “I heard these snakes need to be chopped into small pieces, or they keep moving.”

Ye Qiao frowned at this, then retrieved a demonic beast corpse from her storage pouch.

She had killed it earlier, planning to exchange it for spirit stones with an artifact refiner, so she had kept it. Ye Qiao tied the corpse to Bamboo shoot with a rope and threw it into the snake swarm from a high spot.

Instantly, all the snakes gathered around, fighting to devour the beast.

At that moment, Ye Qiao trapped them with a binding talisman and decisively said, “Go.”

Mu Chongxi’s two sword strikes cut through the snakes, and as they began to split, Ye Qiao quickly joined in, charging into the snake pile, “Chop them finely, or we won’t kill them all.”

These demonic beasts were easy to kill but troublesome. They were good for practicing sword techniques.

Ye Qiao had been trying to master the second move of the Qingfeng technique lately.

So, whenever she encountered demonic beasts, she didn’t kill them outright but used them for practice.

Xue Yu distributed the refined pills to his junior brothers and sisters to help them replenish their spiritual energy. He looked at the only idle person present and said, “Senior Brother, can you lend a hand?”

In the sect, Ye Qiao and Mu Chongxi were the youngest, one being fifteen and the other sixteen. Yet, they worked tirelessly like busy bees every day.

Xue Yu almost wanted to say outright: Aren’t you ashamed of freeloading like this?!

Zhou Xingyun was puzzled, “Aren’t they doing a good job with the killing?”

The junior brother and sister were cooperating very well, obviously not their first time working together. He pointed to the demonic beasts below: “And it’s not dangerous; it’s perfect for them to practice.”

The second move of the Qingfeng technique still hadn’t been mastered by the two dummies, making Zhou Xingyun shake his head in disapproval.

He noticed that the little sister wanted to learn the second move, occasionally giving her pointers. Unfortunately, the practice targets were too few. Just as Ye Qiao was about to grasp something, the vine snakes had already been eradicated.

Ye Qiao, having depleted her spiritual energy, moved her sore wrist and sat on the ground with Mu Chongxi.

Seeing the two exhausted, leaning against each other, Zhou Xingyun finally had a rare moment of conscience and dragged the demonic beast corpses over to them.

He arranged them from tallest to shortest, forming a shape reminiscent of a WiFi signal.

Zhou Xingyun nodded in satisfaction.

A line of demonic beasts—those in the know would think they were hunting demonic beasts, while those who didn’t might assume it was an auction.

Ye Qiao twitched her mouth at the sight.

This must be one of the few moments of concern from Senior Brother?

She popped a few spiritual replenishment pills into her mouth, wiped the sweat from her palms, and said, “Let’s go.”

“To the next place.”

Xue Yu acknowledged, watching the rankings on the jade slip. At this rate, encountering Yueqing Sect was only a matter of time; the two sects were closely competing.

Perhaps Ming Xuan and Ye Qiao’s coordination was too good, leading everyone to believe that Changming Sect’s high ranking was all due to Ming Xuan.

Now that Ming Xuan was out, the other direct disciples didn’t intend to bother with them anymore.

If things went smoothly, Changming Sect might actually sneakily secure first place in this secret realm.

The four of them traveled together, but as they walked, Ye Qiao gradually realized something was wrong.

Mu Chongxi had gotten trapped in an unknown formation, being dragged into it. He instinctively grabbed Xue Yu.

Xue Yu, annoyed by these endless formations, said, “You stepped on it yourself, don’t drag me in. Rest in peace.”

With that, Xue Yu eagerly took out a pill from his storage pouch, intending to knock Mu Chongxi out.

Mu Chongxi immediately grabbed Zhou Xingyun’s clothes: “Senior Brother!”

Zhou Xingyun was even more ruthless.

He used a knife to cut his robe, creating a neat tear, which Zhou Xingyun found very satisfying.

Ye Qiao: “…”

She almost wanted to punch these unreliable senior brothers.

Maybe she had misunderstood Ming Xuan; after all, the second senior brother seemed pretty normal.

Ye Qiao only had a few formation-breaking talismans left. She grabbed Mu Chongxi and found she couldn’t pull him out, so she started analyzing the formation’s surroundings.

Recalling the descriptions from the Yueqing Sect’s formation book, Ye Qiao decided to break it from the outside. When her sword wind hit the inner wall, something rebounded, so she increased the strength of her sword strikes, roughly identifying the formation’s core.

“This formation is similar to those of Yueqing Sect.”

“It must have been left by a Yueqing Sect disciple.”

“What is Ye Qiao doing?”

“Breaking the formation?”

Normally, formations are broken from the inside, but given Mu Chongxi’s reaction, he probably didn’t even have a chance to swing his sword inside. So Ye Qiao planned to break it from the outside.

Breaking it from the outside was much harder.

And this was a Yueqing Sect formation.

Zhou Xingyun suggested, “Should I go tie up Song Hansheng?”

Ye Qiao: “No need.”

She had studied Yueqing Sect’s formations, thanks to Song Hansheng’s generosity. He had let her read the sect’s talisman books without hesitation.

As she spoke, accompanied by the sound of the formation breaking, a circle of golden light pushed her away, and Mu Chongxi finally came out.

It was broken.

“How dare she!” an elder from Yueqing Sect stood up in shock, seeing this scene. “She dares to steal our Yueqing Sect’s formations!!”

Breaking the formation from the inside could be attributed to luck. But breaking it from the outside, he couldn’t believe she hadn’t learned formations!

Qin Fanfan was equally shocked, “What?!”

His tone was one of complete surprise, but to the others, it sounded like mockery and gloating.

Seeing the disbelief on the old fogeys’ faces, Qin Fanfan maintained a composed exterior but was internally panicking. He shouted back in the same loud voice.

“What do you mean, your Yueqing Sect’s formation? Formations are meant to be learned when used!”

“…” Wait, you two, is that the point? The point is that she’s actually a talisman master!