Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, six days had passed in the outside world.
During this time, apart from replenishing his alchemy materials twice and purchasing some basic medicinal herbs required for the Divine Aperture Pill to plant in the Heaven-Cleaving Soil of Life, Ye Lin spent almost all his remaining time inside the Desolate Ancient Dao Pagoda. He refined pills, studied formation path knowledge, practiced spells, enhanced his divine soul, and drew his sword ten thousand times to practice his Heaven-Cleaving Sword Intent.
Through his unremitting efforts, he also got his wish and broke through to become a Saint-grade Alchemist, enabling him to refine the Divine Aperture Pill.
Naturally, upon advancing to both the Heaven-grade and Saint-grade Alchemist ranks, he had received special Immortal-grade rewards. These consisted of knowledge regarding special pill formulas and the Dao of alchemy, all of which had been fully absorbed into his sea of divine sense.
His formation path had progressed at an equally breakneck speed. By now, he was already a Saint-grade Formation Master.
Similarly, throughout his progression to a Saint-grade Formation Master, all the special rewards he obtained were formation knowledge, special formation diagrams, and a formation-setting technique that allowed him to form arrays using the natural momentum of heaven and earth without requiring any materials.
The name of this technique was 《Heaven and Earth as the Formation》—it was just that simple and unadorned.
As for the second class change of his primary class, 【Lord of Heaven's Punishment】, it had originally been stated to occur after the Golden Core Stage. Since he had already broken through to the Golden Core Stage and had yet to trigger the class change quest, he figured it would likely only happen the moment he broke through to become a Nascent Soul True Monarch.
During these six days in the outside world, Ye Lin's growth had been extremely rapid.
Early this morning, Qi Changqing's voice echoed from outside the cave dwelling.
“Brother Ye! Brother Ye! The Inner Academy Genius Tournament is about to start!”
“What's the rush? I'll take you there. We'll definitely make it in time.” Ye Lin deactivated the cave dwelling's formation and glanced at Qi Changqing.
In the next instant, he grabbed the other's shoulder and activated 【Forced Swap】.
Boom!
In the blink of an eye, they vanished into the horizon. Before Qi Changqing could even register what had happened, Ye Lin had already brought him to the venue of the Inner Academy Genius Tournament.
“Holy crap, Brother Ye, you're way too fast!”
Landing on the plaza near the tournament arena, Qi Changqing exclaimed in awe while handing a storage ring to Ye Lin. Inside was half of the rewards from selling the Blackwater Serpent Clan's treasures, as well as half of the rewards farmed from the mysterious book in his mind.
“Just standard procedure.” Accepting the storage ring, Ye Lin patted Qi Changqing's shoulder with a straight face.
Meanwhile, the surrounding Inner Academy disciples, who had been rubbing their hands in anticipation and brimming with confidence, instantly fell into a stir upon their sudden arrival.
Whether they were seniors or freshmen, and regardless of whether they had met Ye Lin and Qi Changqing before, the names of these two were like thunder in their ears.
Especially Ye Lin—this year's strongest rookie king, the fastest-growing person in the Tianyuan Cultivation Academy, the harvester of evil spirits, and the savior who had wiped out all the demonic chaos in the Tianyuan Dynasty...
Throwing out any one of these titles was enough to leave people dumbfounded and gaping in awe.
As for Qi Changqing, though seemingly ordinary, he was young and wealthy with an incredibly formidable background. There was the incident of his Dao protector, Gu Qin, taking action, as well as his sister slashing several high-ranking academy executives with a single sword strike, executing the Second Prince of the imperial family, and so on.
Such a young master with an extremely powerful background naturally attracted a lot of attention, especially from female cultivators who wished to ascend to the heavens in a single bound and change their destinies.
“Sigh, now that the two Senior Brothers are here, two of this year's five slots are definitely theirs. The rest of us can only fight for the remaining three.”
“What's there to sigh about? Senior Brother Ye Lin's strength is right there. Who among us can withstand a single slap from him? Everyone is thoroughly convinced of him taking a slot.
As for Senior Brother Qi Changqing, he has both strength and background. Every single move of his carries the heritage of a ten-thousand-year-old family from the Sacred Domain. Who would dare to take a blow from him?”
“You're right. The two of them are the most gold-standard geniuses our Tianyuan Cultivation Academy has seen in recent decades. In this upcoming clash with the geniuses of other Yellow-grade cultivation academies, they will surely sweep through all obstacles like splitting bamboo.”
“Senior Brother Ye is sure to win! Senior Brother Qi is sure to win!”
Within the crowd, the vast majority of the geniuses felt deeply grateful to Ye Lin. Thus, his arrival naturally drew a crowd of supporters cheering for him.
Of course, where there was gratitude, there were also those who felt bitter or even envious.
These people were mostly the senior students who had a shot at entering the top five of this Genius Tournament.
By relying on their seniority, they had outlasted the geniuses of their own generation. They had believed that, with their strength, they would finally secure a slot in this year's Genius Tournament.
Even if obtaining this slot meant it would still be difficult to defeat the geniuses of other cultivation academies, that did not matter at all.
As long as they secured this slot, they could cultivate inside the Heavenly Spirit Secret Realm and obtain the title of 'Genius.'
Once they left the academy in the future, with this credential, they would absolutely be highly sought-after prizes coveted by all major forces within the Tianyuan Dynasty.
But now, Ye Lin's sudden rise to prominence had shattered their plans and illusions. Naturally, they were far from happy.
Yet, as the saying goes, this was a cultivation world where martial prowess reigned supreme. With Ye Lin's strength right before them, even if they were disgruntled, they could only swallow their anger in silence.
“Silence!”
At this moment, a majestic voice suddenly echoed from the sky.
Immediately after, Principal Jiang Lingyuan, along with a group of high-level executives from the Tianyuan Cultivation Academy, stepped through the air and arrived.
“Time is short, so this old man will not waste any words. I have only one instruction: you must not destroy anyone's foundation without cause, and you must not kill.
The rules consist of only these two points. We will now begin distributing the battle tokens. At the start, the points on your battle tokens will all be identical.
After you win, the battle tokens will award points based on your performance in combat. Subsequently, those with higher points will continue to face those with lower points, until the top five geniuses are decided.”
Without waiting for anyone to speak, Jiang Lingyuan loudly announced the specific rules of the Inner Academy Genius Tournament.
With a wave of his hand, battle tokens marked with 100 points landed in the hands of the thousands of geniuses present.
Following that, he and the other academy executives each produced a formation flag, directly opening up over a thousand battle spaces.
These were, of course, special spatial formations sent down by the main headquarters of the Cultivation Academy.
With these special spaces, everyone would undergo round after round of elimination according to the rule of matching the strong against the weak.
“Alright, the Inner Academy Genius Tournament officially begins.”
Once the grand formation stabilized, Jiang Lingyuan spoke solemnly. One by one, teleportation forces swept up all the geniuses present, carrying them into different battle spaces.
Ye Lin's opponent in the first round was a small, delicate-looking young woman.
“Senior Brother Ye, I admit defeat. Thank you for wiping out the demonic chaos for the Tianyuan Dynasty and saving my family.”
The moment they met, the young girl conceded immediately. After expressing her gratitude, she exited the battle space.
【Your strength is so great that the enemy conceded voluntarily and showed immense gratitude. Rating: Super Perfect. Points +1,000.】
At this moment, a line of text emerged on his battle token.
His second opponent was a simple, sturdy youth. Upon seeing Ye Lin, he also voluntarily conceded and offered his thanks, allowing Ye Lin to pick up another 1,000 points for free.
Just as Ye Lin thought the subsequent matches would all pass with his opponents conceding, a green-robed youth with a gloomy expression appeared before him.
“You are Ye Lin from the Heavenly Dao Kill List, correct? A mere Golden Core Stage ant—a single wisp of my divine sense clone is enough to annihilate you!”
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