Martial Arrogance Dragon Soul-Chapter 374 - 356

"What’s there not to dare?" Qin Qing smiled with a hint of scorn.

"What is the stake?" Qin Qing asked again.

"One hundred thousand spirit stones!" Liu Yuan Huai declared.

Qin Qing’s brows slightly furrowed.

"One hundred thousand spirit stones..."

He really couldn’t produce one hundred thousand spirit stones right now.

Let alone one hundred thousand, he didn’t even have ten thousand spirit stones on him...

"What, can’t produce one hundred thousand spirit stones?" Liu Yuan Huai continued, "Barbarians will be barbarians; you can’t even come up with one hundred thousand spirit stones. What will you gamble with me?"

"Hahaha..."

The others around them also let out sneering laughter.

"Brother Qin, gamble with him. It’s just one hundred thousand spirit stones, right? I’ll provide the spirit stones!" Cang Yuan said.

Qin Qing looked at Cang Yuan with some surprise.

He hadn’t expected that, having just met for the first time, Cang Yuan would dare to place a bet of one hundred thousand on him.

Was it just because he was also from Qian Country?

Qin Qing certainly didn’t believe that Cang Yuan truly had confidence in him beating Liu Yuan Huai.

"Uh... Brother Cang Yuan, you have that much faith in me?" Qin Qing asked.

"Of course!" Cang Yuan patted Qin Qing on the shoulder, but then he spoke in a lowered voice, "Brother Qin, even if we lose, we can’t lose our momentum, right?"

Qin Qing couldn’t help but laugh.

Immediately after, he also patted Cang Yuan, "Alright, Brother Cang Yuan, seeing as you believe in me so much, I must win!"

Qin Qing looked towards Liu Yuan Huai, "One hundred thousand spirit stones, I’ll take your bet!"

"Good!" Liu Yuan Huai looked around at the other people, "Everyone present, bear witness. This barbarian has gambled with me for one hundred thousand spirit stones."

"Just gambling one hundred thousand spirit stones is not interesting at all!" Qin Qing spoke again, "Why don’t we raise the stakes further, how about that?"

"How do you want to raise it?" Liu Yuan Huai asked sarcastically.

"If I win, you must promise to stand at the top of the Wind-Fire Tower and loudly say ten times, ’I will never call others barbarians again’!" Qin Qing proposed.

Liu Yuan Huai narrowed his eyes, seemingly pondering, but then he laughed scornfully, "Agreed!"

Liu Yuan Huai truly didn’t believe he could lose.

"And if you lose, what then?" Liu Yuan Huai asked.

"You tell me!" Qin Qing replied.

"If you lose, then you stand at the top of the Wind-Fire Tower and loudly say ten times, ’I am a barbarian!’ Your voice must ensure that it can be heard within ten miles. Any problem with that?" Liu Yuan Huai posited.

"Agreed!" Qin Qing nodded.

The expressions of the other disciples around them became even more interesting.

This bet was indeed somewhat intriguing.

Before this, there had never been someone from a minor country who dared to directly confront the local young disciples of Tai’a Ancient Country like this.

Even if there had been, it resulted in a terrible defeat for those from the minor countries, leading them to be even more suppressed later on.

And these local young geniuses of Tai’a Ancient Country became increasingly arrogant and domineering in the face of foreign disciples.

"Right!" Qin Qing spoke again, "To ensure that the bet is honored, shouldn’t we swear an oath to Heaven?"

"Of course!"

Liu Yuan Huai, with a look of holding the winning ticket, immediately raised three fingers and swore an oath to Heaven.

An invisible wave of energy descended from the heavens.

Qin Qing followed suit.

With an oath to Heaven in place, there was no fear of either party reneging.

After all, for martial artists, the constraints of an oath to Heaven were inescapable, especially after reaching the Golden Core Realm, where the bind of such an oath was even more terrifying.

The time that followed.

All the disciples continued to climb the Wind-Fire Tower.

From the second level to the third, the number of disciples eliminated greatly increased, with nearly thirty disciples being dismissed.

Upon reaching the third level, the pressure was immense.

Even Qin Qing felt that with every step he took, it was as if he were stepping into mud, extremely arduous.

From the third level to the fourth, it took an astounding three hours!

And the number of disciples dropped on that level was as high as sixty!

That is to say, less than half of the disciples remained to ascend to the fourth level...

About fifty or so remained.

However, after entering the fourth level, the pressure did not increase further.

This made everyone breathe a sigh of relief.

If the pressure had increased as it had on the previous three levels, perhaps not many would have been able to reach the fifth level.

The crowd continued up the staircase.

Along the way, the pressure did not increase any further; in fact, it even felt slightly reduced...

This puzzled everyone.

However... about half an hour later, everyone began to notice something odd.

"Why does it seem like we’ve walked for so long, yet we’re still in the same place?" someone said.

"Right! I’ve noticed that too!"

"What’s going on?" Cang Yuan also asked Qin Qing in confusion.

"An Illusion Array!" Qin Qing said softly.

Upon hearing Qin Qing’s response, many around them understood.

"It’s a simple Illusion Array. Breaking the Spiritual Patterns will do," Liu Yuan Huai added.

He walked ahead, hands constantly waving, as streams of Spiritual Power flowed out, tracing lines of Spiritual Patterns in the air.

"I see!"

Many followed behind Liu Yuan Huai.

But soon they discovered that the distance between them, which was initially just a few feet, was getting larger with each breath they took.

What did that indicate?

It suggested that while the Illusion Array’s Spiritual Patterns could be broken, they were able to repair themselves quickly.

So the approach of following behind someone else to escape the constraints of the Illusion Array was fruitless!

Each person had to rely on their own abilities to continually break the Illusion Array if they wanted to reach the fifth level!

"Brother Cang Yuan, how are you managing?" Qin Qing inquired of Cang Yuan beside him.

"Still okay. Brother Qin, I didn’t expect you to have quite the skill with Spiritual Patterns," Cang Yuan said with a smile.

He noticed that Qin Qing’s way of tracing Spiritual Patterns was very proficient.

"Huh?" At that moment, Qin Qing also noticed that Cang Yuan’s method of setting up Spiritual Patterns was somewhat similar to his own...

"In fact, these so-called Illusion Arrays are hardly arrays. They’re just Second Rank Spiritual Patterns; breaking the Patterns is enough to ascend!" Cang Yuan added.

Qin Qing nodded.

There was no difficulty for him with Second Rank Spiritual Patterns.

"Then let’s speed up!" Qin Qing said.

"Okay!" Cang Yuan nodded, and his hands moved even faster as he engraved the spiritual patterns.

The two quickened their pace, moving upwards.

At that moment, Liu Yuan Huai was leading at the front; his pace was the fastest.

Qin Qing and Cang Yuan were roughly in the middle of about a dozen people.

After about an hour,

Qin Qing reached the Fifth Level. Ahead of him, four others had already made it to the Fifth Level.

Qin Qing wasn’t in a hurry. He knew that reaching higher levels of the Wind-Fire Tower would take considerable time.

Soon after, Cang Yuan also reached the Fifth Level.

By that time, only nine of the participants in the assessment had made it to the Fifth Level.

The number of those who could climb to this level was likely few.

"Brother Qin, keep it up," said Cang Yuan, smiling at Qin Qing.

"Yeah, let’s both keep it up!" Qin Qing responded.

At that moment, the two looked towards the stairs in the distance.

On the Fifth Level stairs, Liu Yuan Huai had nearly reached the one-quarter mark.

The other three were also striving to climb upwards.

Qin Qing once again stepped onto the staircase.

Soon, he felt the scenery before him changing abruptly.

"Another Illusion Array!"

"And this time... it’s a real Illusion Array."

If the Fourth Level stairway above only contained spiritual patterns, then what appeared on the Fifth Level was an authentic Spiritual Array.

"Third Rank Spiritual Array! The difficulty of breaking through is much greater than on the Fourth Level!" Qin Qing thought to himself.

However, this was still not too great a test for Qin Qing.

He began to pick up the pace, pursuing those ahead.

A quarter of an hour later, he had passed one person.

After half an hour, he overtook another person.

Along the way, another disciple ahead of Qin Qing chose to give up.

That is to say, only Liu Yuanhuai and one other person were left ahead of Qin Qing.

Qin Qing had risen to third place.

Close to another hour passed by, and by that time, Qin Qing had caught up with the person in second place. Surprisingly, Cang Yuan had also reached fourth place...

It seemed Cang Yuan was also exceptionally adept in the way of Spiritual Patterns.

...

Outside the Wind-Fire Tower.

More and more people were gathering here.

The assessment for True Disciples always attracted a lot of attention.

Of course, the difficulty of the True Disciple’s assessment was also very high, and very few disciples managed to pass.

"Every year there are three opportunities for True Disciple assessments, but in the past three years, there hasn’t been a single success..."

"Becoming a True Disciple of Elder Jin Ying is too difficult!"

Someone in the crowd sighed at the high difficulty of the True Disciple assessment.

Three years, nine chances to climb the Wind-Fire Tower.

Yet not a single person had reached the Seventh Level.

"It’s too hard..."

"Only the geniuses among geniuses can reach the Seventh Level... I wonder if Liu Yuanhuai can make it this time."

"Liu Yuanhuai is a talented descendant of the Liu Clan, receiving their full support from a young age—very powerful and with a solid foundation. Surely in the way of spiritual patterns, he must have received personal guidance from a High Rank Spiritual Pattern Master. If even he cannot reach the Seventh Level, it’s unthinkable..."

In the crowd, besides disciples from the academy, there were also some outsiders.

For example, Liu Baiying was among them at the moment.

She came to Tai’a Academy both to see if Liu Yuanhuai could really make it to the Seventh Level

and to witness Qin Qing being expelled from the academy in person.

"This Qin Qing... really does have some skills."

While focusing on Liu Yuanhuai, Liu Baiying also noticed Qin Qing.

She was initially unaware that Qin Qing would participate in the True Disciple assessment. But now, she not only saw him taking part, but she also noted his performance that far surpassed the other disciples, leading her to feel even more puzzled.

"Therefore, this Qin Qing... definitely cannot stay. He must be driven out of Tai’a Academy!" Liu Baiying’s resolve strengthened. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

...

Time unknowingly passed, and four more hours had gone by.

A new day had arrived.

Liu Yuanhuai was the first to ascend to the Sixth Level!

Only one level away from becoming a True Disciple!

And soon after Liu Yuanhuai reached the Sixth Level, Qin Qing also arrived at the Sixth Level!

Liu Yuanhuai looked at Qin Qing somewhat surprised. Truthfully, Liu Yuanhuai was astonished that Qin Qing had managed to reach the Sixth Level.

"It seems our wager is just beginning now..." Liu Yuanhuai looked at Qin Qing.

"That’s right!" Qin Qing nodded.

"By the way," Liu Yuanhuai continued, "I just thought of something. If we end up on the same level, then let’s determine the winner based on time, how about that?"

"Time?"

"For example, if we both only manage to reach the Seventh Level, then whoever gets there first wins!"

"Okay!" Qin Qing agreed.

Liu Yuanhuai said nothing more, closed his eyes, and began to recover his Inner Breath.

The exhaustion from these two layers was significant, having to engrave spiritual patterns while also resisting the pressure of the Wind-Fire Tower.

Not long after, Cang Yuan too managed to reach the Sixth Level.

By that time, only these three remained in the True Yuan Disciple assessment...

The rest had all been eliminated!

Will any of these three be able to ascend to the Seventh Level?

Between Qin Qing and Liu Yuanhuai, who will ultimately come out on top in their wager?

Everyone was waiting with bated breath...