Chapter 221, Playing to One’s Advantage

Translator: Tamon

 

Sun Sheng was the top disciple of Tianye Immortal Institute, which was near Brilliance Palace, one of the five best. Tianye Immortal Institute was among the top institutes, just beneath Leyan and Lijing.

 

As it was close to Brilliance Palace, it was only natural for it to teach its optical mental arts, including the optic-derived Radiant Cosmos Stabilization, the comparative path. Sun Sheng relied on Heavenly Spirit Range’s Evolution Chart to distinguish himself for Harmony Coalition in such a biased Immortal Institute, which was quite commendable. One could say he had every right to contend for the best in this martial examination.

 

The former admission trials were similar. Leyan and Lijing took the top; Tianye came second, followed by Argent Apex and Langde. Jiongli and the others had next to no chance at a five best true disciple spot.

 

Though this year might be the exception.

 

The two blackest horses this trial had ever seen, Ai Changyuan from the Western Sea and Wang Qi from the central area, shone so brightly they overshadowed the other talents.

 

If the stuff with the banished immortal hadn’t happened, it might have gone as far as being an unprecedented trial.

 

That aside, Sun Sheng was fighting his match with someone Wang Qi was quite familiar with, Langde Immortal Institute’s Qiu Yunlong.

 

Six months had passed, and Qiu Yunlong’s Nimbus Eclipse got more exquisite, the clouds drifting around him as if alive. As it rubbed with the air, it let out sharp metalic sounds, and Qiu Yunlong lunged for Sun Sheng.

 

Sun Sheng just kept strengthening his shield, for some odd reason, opting to take the hit.

 

Qiu Yunlong was far below Ai Changyuan, even Hu Jianghao, but he was a Langde talent nonetheless. The top five of every Immortal Institute were acclaimed everywhere. As Sun Sheng’s tactic held no skill whatsoever, unfitting of Tianye’s name, he got nothing but boos.

 

Yet the Tianye Immortal Institute adopted an odd stance. They didn’t care at all about his match.

 

Wang Qi nodded in appreciation, “Yep, the attitude of an Evolution Chart cultivator, no, a Heavenly Spirit Range cultivator.”

 

Mao Zimiao was disappointed. “He’s just taking it head on, nya.”

 

Due to a reason that couldn’t be named, the girl loved Wang Qi’s unconventional style, beating his opponents as flashy and unconventionally different as possible.

 

Wang Qi gave her an odd look. “You didn’t learn one art extrapolating into others. This one art also has to have common ground with others—mostly from Myriad Arts Sect.”

 

Mao Zimiao pouted. “Senior Sister Ai clearly has plenty of magical arts.”

 

Wang Qi had a dangerous smile. “Speaking of others is fine, but Senior Sister Ai is the exception to the exceptional talents.”

 

“Nya?” Mao Zimiao was clueless.

 

“Ever fought her?”

 

Mao Zimiao gave a cute shake of her head. She and Ai Dinglan were similar to Wang Qi and Su Junyu. Ai Dinglan found this girl to have a good character, so she gave her a few pointers.

 

But not all had their former life’s memory to help them out, like Wang Qi, or were geniuses without friends, like Ai Dinglan or Ai Changyuan. She only got the theories right through hard work, to say nothing of combat experience. Regarding such experience, fighting normal Immortal Institute disciples was already good enough.

 

“Then let me tell you about Senior Sister Ai’s true battle style.” Wang Qi rubbed his shoulder, looking as if he came out of hell. “One word, blunt!”

 

It was shocking seeing Ai Dinglan use vines to deal with Yang Jun, having turned into a devil, and she wiped the floor with him. She usually just used healing arts for Qi Refining disciples.

 

But when she fought, she was as blunt and crude as a birch stump.

 

If a tenth of raw power wasn’t enough, ramp it up to half, hell, go all out! Was using vines for tentacles weird? Putting it another way, the more they were, the better; the rougher they were, the better; the longer they were, the be—just use your imagination.

 

Anywho, this was Heavenly Spirit Range’s style: strength in numbers.

 

The nature of life is the universe’s entropy, from chaos to order, adept at turning outside forces into one’s own. Heavenly Spirit Range’s cultivation was life, nature, so of course it excelled in all it represented. Heavenly Spirit Range’s cultivation method’s spiritual power couldn’t be topped by other sects, be it quality or quantity.

 

With heaps of energy in their tank, fights would quickly devolve into brawls.

 

In their training, Ai Dinglan’s punches slammed into Wang Qi without quarter.

 

Mao Zimiao gawked. “I feel empty for some reason.”

 

Ai Dinglan’s image shattered.

 

The scene in the arena changed once more. Qiu Yunlong had been attacking all this time, but he couldn’t punch through Sun Sheng’s shield. Even a village idiot would know that.

 

Sun Sheng’s tactic was plain as day—[Can’t touch this!]

 

Qiu Yunlong grew tense, knowing the other was gaining advantage. He had to do something, and fast!

 

He no longer hesitated, changing the swirling energy around him, losing its fluidity as it turned into a raging sandstorm!

 

“Divine Sandstorm!”

 

Sun Sheng sneered, a gaudy light gathering in his fist…

 

Following a loud bang, Qiu Yunlong was sent flying.

 

Wang Qi took it upon himself to comment on the fight. “If I were him, I’d have started off with Divine Sandstorm, using everything I got. The biggest mistake anyone can make when fighting a Heavenly Spirit Range cultivator is to let them grow. Ah’Zimiao, pay attention. Attrition Theory is a mandatory class!”

 

“Attrition Theory? What’s that?”

 

Wang Qi facepalmed. “Stamina.”

 

Bernoulli Xiaoya finished her first match as well.

 

Bernoulli’s law of large numbers in plain English is ‘with enough iterations, statistics approach probabilities.’ For example, if you kept tossing a coin, the difference between the numbers it came out as heads or tails would only grow smaller.

 

Its nature was ‘the arithmetic mean of a sequence of random variables converges to a constant.’ Applying it to sword arts, it translates to ‘keep swinging until your moves turn from sloppy to that one single victorious strike.’ The longer it took, the higher the chance of success. Bernoulli Xiaoya was calm as well, taking a lot of time to score her win.

 

Ai Changyuan finished his first match too. But unlike the rest, you could only use one word to describe his fight—punch, and only one too.

 

Under the might of that classical mechanics-infused punch, his adversary left the stage on a stretcher.