Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit

However, this wasn’t the time for Lu Ping to be amazed by Leng Qian’s mystic instrument. All he could feel was the oppressive pressure above him and his growing predicament. Lu Ping could even sense that the master immortal hosting the arena was ready to save him at any moment.

Out of urgency, Lu Ping cast out his copper mirror and poured all of his arcane energy into it. At the same time, he released two high-grade blood charms at Leng Qian, hoping that they could slow her down.

Dang—

Pong, pong—

After a few loud dins, the copper mirror was almost smashed away by the metal hammer while Lu Ping himself felt a strong force slamming onto his chest, pushing him back to the edge of the arena.

Thankfully, the blood charms did manage to distract Leng Qian and she couldn’t follow up with another attack. Otherwise, even if Lu Ping could withstand a second strike, he would still be pushed out from the ring and lose the match.

Lu Ping looked up with frustration when he saw a shield-type mystic instrument hovering in front of Leng Qian. The shield was blocking his blood charms from getting to her.

Of course—of course—she would have two mystic instruments! Although Lu Ping already expected this, he still had the small wild wish that he didn’t have to see it with his own eyes.

The battle was taking too long, Lu Ping’s arcane energy was close to depletion. Unfortunately for him, medicinal pellets were prohibited in the matches, otherwise, he could have fought a little longer with his mystic instrument.

After seeing that his blood charm attacks weren’t working, Lu Ping focused on charging the copper mirror to repel Leng Qian’s second attack with her mystic instrument.

Dang—

Another loud din could be heard as Lu Ping once again repelled the metal hammer. At the same time, the blood in his body surged quickly, attracting and absorbing the spiritual energy from his surroundings in order to regenerate arcane energy. Although the regeneration speed was slow, it was still better than nothing.

Seeing that Lu Ping stopped attacking and switched to full defense, Leng Qian swung her sword and dashed forward to attack him. Lu Ping lamented in his heart and rolled sideways to evade her.

Meanwhile, the metal hammer above him kept slamming at him nonstop. In addition to moving and rolling on the ground to dodge her sword strikes, he really looked like a mouse chased around by a fox.

The crowd laughed loudly in mockery at first, but slowly turned quiet when they saw Lu Ping repelling Leng Qian’s mystic instrument three times in succession and evaded most of her sword strikes.

Is he really a Seventh Layer?

After a long match of skills, he can still cast a mystic instrument three times. What strong and abundant arcane energy!

The battle had been going on for more than an hour and had gathered a huge crowd. Right now, they were the only pair of participants that had yet to finish their match.

Lu Ping felt a fire burning in his heart. He had never been in such a miserable state before, let alone from a young and beautiful lady. And on top of that, there were thousands of people watching them below the stage!

The longer the battle persisted, the more unyielding he became, and the more his fury boiled over. He could only quicken his blood flow to absorb more spiritual energy into his body. At the same time, every single cell was squeezing out the last stream of arcane energy within him. As a result, Lu Ping’s heart rate was beating at an appalling rate.

Leng Qian’s mystic instrument slammed down from the air while the copper mirror swayed powerlessly above Lu Ping’s head. But Lu Ping still refused to give up. With every single second that passed by, he charged the copper mirror with his arcane energy.

Dang—

In the ensuing loud crash, the copper mirror fell to the ground while the metal hammer was deflected to the back!

He blocked it, he blocked it once again!

The crowd found themselves drenched in cold sweat. Unknowingly, Lu Ping’s determination and persistence had taken over their hearts and they forgot to cheer for Leng Qian.

Unfortunately, the sight of the mystic instrument falling to the ground signified Lu Ping’s depleted arcane energy. The crowd sighed with remorse.

“Huh?!”

Suddenly, there were exclamations coming from the center arena. They looked over and followed the master immortals’ eyes back to Lu Ping.

Lu Ping’s eyes were flaring wide, he was staring closely at Leng Qian. The copper mirror quivering on the ground slowly hovered back up.

For any disciple in the crowd who had entered the Blood Condensation Realm and cultivated their divine sense, they would be able to see a vortex of spiritual energy forming around Lu Ping. The spiritual energy from his surroundings was continuously flowing into his body.

A breakthrough—it was a breakthrough in the middle of a fight!

Suddenly, Lu Ping could feel his heartbeat slowing down but every pulsation was incredibly strong and powerful. His veins were more durable; they were wider and longer, and could deliver spiritual energy to more cells in his body.

The surrounding spiritual energy flowed into his veins and then stored in his bloodlines. Some of the spiritual energy was used to strengthen his bones and muscles.

Leng Qian didn’t know how to describe her emotions, but she could admit to one thing—she was really impressed by his unyielding spirit.

However, he still had to go down. She had no choice but to make that happen, nor would she give him a chance!

Her emotionless face turned even more somber. The metal hammer rammed down from the air. Amidst the exclamations of the crowd, the copper mirror that was hovering just an inch above ground suddenly shot up like a released spring.

It darted up—then deflected the metal hammer one more time!

But before the crowd could finish reacting to this sudden development, a small stamp seal flew out from Lu Ping’s robe. It expanded in size by a few yards and rammed towards Leng Qian.

Leng Qian’s face changed drastically. She never thought Lu Ping would breakthrough in the middle of battle, she never thought Lu Ping could counter her attacks, and she clearly didn’t expect him to have another mystic instrument.

More than that, she didn’t think this stamp seal mystic instrument would be so powerful. With a resounding slam, it shattered her Mystic Turtle Shield. At the same time, she also saw Lu Ping casting out three high-grade blood charms alongside his initial mystic instrument.

With everything that had happened, Leng Qian’s arcane energy had been depleted from consecutively using the mystic instruments. Especially when she used her Mystic Turtle Shield to block off Lu Ping’s Landslide.

The impact left Leng Qian contorting in pain. The Landslide’s power was definitely close to a mid-grade mystic instrument—how did he find one so strong?

Leng Qian could only shoot out a sword ray to destroy one blood charm but was powerless against the other two blood charms after that.

Then, the hosting master immortal interfered and blocked the two blood charms while Leng Qian stared blankly ahead. There, Lu Ping hurriedly sat down on the ground and plunged right into cultivation without regard for his surroundings.

I… lost?

The development of the battle situation was rapid. Everything happened so quickly that the crowd needed some time to process it all. Moments later, a huge clamor could be heard as the audience cheered loudly.

The turn of the tides, this switch in the supposed winner and loser. They never thought the match would end like this!

Yes, it was unexpected, but it was reasonable. They were shocked, but enthusiastically—and even happily—accepted the result. Every single one of them felt the same way.

Never give up, never give in. This was the kind of battle they were all hoping to see, this was the kind of spirit they were all hoping to have!

When they looked to the stage again, Leng Qian had already left despondently while three disciples bolted up to the stage. They were Yao Yong, Du Feng, and Shi Lingling.

They stood in a triangular formation and secured Lu Ping in the center, safeguarding him as he solidified his cultivation breakthrough. The crowd looked up and, unknowing as to when, found Master Immortal Liu already hovering above the stage.

On the center arena, Enlightened Master Xuan Yong commented, “How will the sect not rise when we have disciples like this!”

Enlightened Master Xuan Su on the side said, “That little girl is also passable!”

Enlightened Master Xuan Ce added, “After the past two days, they wouldn’t be the only disciples I’d call passable!”

The three looked at each other and laughed happily together.