Chapter 140: Constitution (Patreon)

Ye weighed the training sword in his hand. It was surprisingly well-balanced for a weapon not made for real combat, feeling almost like his own sword did. He supposed a place as wealthy and powerful as the Lunar Peaks Sect wouldn’t skimp on something like training equipment. Which was reassuring, because the living conditions they made their disciple candidates endure could make one think they were destitute. The third night spent sleeping in a tent had left him with back pains that had taken the entire march back to the Training Hall to walk off.

Taking a deep breath to sharpen his focus, Ye assumed the opening stance of his family’s martial technique. Then he went through the motions he had learned one after another. The had been given some time to prepare and he was going to make full use of it.

The first two days of the admittance exam had gone markedly worse than he had expected. His performance in the physical examination had been merely average and massively overshadowed by Nuo, who had been among the first to finish.

He’d performed better in the written examination, actually making it into the top quarter, but considering that only two hundred of the two thousand candidates would be accepted, that was still a suboptimal result. Not to mention he’d been, again, overshadowed by someone from his group, this time by Meilin who was apparently a lot cleverer than his baffling demeanor was letting on.

And then, of course, there was the willpower examination. Ye had made it to the fourth level of pressure before being overwhelmed, and he was sure that he hadn’t been far off from making it to the fifth. That wasn’t a bad result, only twelve of the hundred candidates he’d been tested with had outdone him by making it through the fourth ‘round’. Nuo had been literally the first person to collapse, and Meilin had lost one level before him.

Still, to say that he had been overshadowed by a member of his group in this exam as well was a colossal understatement. Xinming had demolished not just his but all of the present candidates’ performances so thoroughly it wasn’t even funny. And she’d even managed to look so damn cool during it that he couldn’t even manage to be mad at her for stealing the show.

Still, for a genius like Ye to be outshone like this wouldn’t do. Today was the third and final day of the exam and he’d have to make it count. He performed the final motion of the first set of techniques and took some time to catch his breath before moving on to the second.

Luckily, the tests today were exactly the ones that would allow him to conclusively proof his talent: The combat and the Qi affinity examinations. Today, he’d demonstrate the full extent of his genius.

As he finished the second set of movement, Ye noticed two instructors approach Liting, who was standing at the edge of the training field they were on. They exchanged a couple of sentences with her, then the three began walking towards them. As they did so, Ye realized that a small, unassuming figure had been following behind the instructors: Xinming.

Seeing her again, the images of yesterday immediately flashed back into his mind: Xinming standing upright in the face of a pressure so intense he couldn’t have lifted a finger anymore, blood dripping from her hand. Xinming finally collapsing. Xinming being carried away unconsciously. In retrospective, it felt like an especially vivid dream, not like something that had actually happened.

Liting’s voice called him back from his memories.

“Alright everyone, we will now be moving ahead with the duels. As you’ve already been told, each of you will fight a total of three duels today. The first one will be held against someone from our own group, after that you will face two opponents from different groups based on your performance.

“Since the number of candidates we have this year is extremely high and each duel needs to be overseen by two instructors, you will need to wait a good while between each duel. Around noon the Qi affinity examination will start and from then the two examinations will run in parallel. Both are expected to finish around the early evening.”

Well, that certainly was a long time for just three duels and an affinity test, but if that was the price they had to pay for being properly observed, Ye was more than happy with it. No point in showing off without an audience after all.

“We’ve decided the matchups and order for the first round of duels by lot. The first duel will be held between Ye and Xinming.”

Ye raised an eyebrow. Before yesterday, he would have been straight-up insulted to be made to fight the blind girl. Now, he found that he couldn’t properly feel that way anymore. Xinming was certainly not unworthy of becoming a cultivator like he had believed, even if her blindness would make it impossible for her to properly fight anyone at this point. So while this certainly wasn’t the ideal circumstance to prove his ability, he was alright with being pitched against her. There’d be two more duels for him to show off anyway.

Ye stepped forward, his training sword loosely held at his side while Liting guided Xinming to his opposite side. The other candidates retreated several paces, and the two instructors positioned themselves on either side of the would-be battleground.

“The fight ends when either of you is put in a position where they are not able to fight anymore or we call it off. You are allowed to attack your opponent without holding back but not to deliberately injure them beyond what the fight necessitates. When you’re ready to fight, please announce so.”

Ye considered his opponent for a moment. Xinming was markedly shorter and slimmer than him and he knew that she was two years younger as well. She had chosen a staff as her weapon, similar to the one she used to feel her way as she moved around. A good choice, as it gave her an advantage in reach and leverage, which could potentially help her overcome their physical differences. None of that would matter, of course. She was blind, after all.

“Looks like you got your chance to try and drag me down after all.”

Her expression was the same neutral mix of thoughtfulness and boredom she carried so often.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m ready.”, Ye announced, shifting into his combat stance.

Xinming pulled out her blindfold and bound it around her head in a practiced motion, though Ye wasn’t sure what she intended to achieve from that, and took a deep breath.

“I’m ready as well.”, she stated, gripping her staff with both hands but otherwise remaining in a neutral stance.

“Fight!”, one of the instructors shouted.

Ye rushed forward. Since Xinming knew where he was and could hear his steps, he had assumed that she would try to use her staff to block his approach, but she simply remained in her neutral stance.

Well, Ye supposed it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. His strike was precise, aiming for her hand from above to disarm her – he wouldn’t drag this out.

Then, just before his blade would have connected, Xinming suddenly stepped to the side with impeccable timing. His strike went past her by a hair’s breadth. In the same motion, she brought up her staff, hitting him square in the stomach and knocking the air out of him.

Ye wheezed as the air was knocked out of him and jumped backwards out of her reach. He looked at the blind girl with bewilderment, his brain not able to fully process what had just happened.

“What…”, was the first thing he uttered when he had regained enough breath to do so.

Xinming grinned.

“Oh wow, that really blindsided you, didn’t it?”

…

Liu Wei did a double take, wondering if all of his senses had simultaneously decided to play a trick on him. They hadn’t, of course, Xinming really had dodged the incoming strike with almost perfect efficiency and even managed a precise counterattack. A quick glance to the side revealed that the other elders had been surprised just as much as he himself.

They were observing the duel from some distance, not wanting to draw the fighters’ attention to themselves. Each of the elders had a list of candidates they wanted to observe closer, and after her performance yesterday, Xinming had made it on almost all of those lists. Even from the other groups, no other candidate had overcome the eight level of pressure and only four more had even managed to beat the seventh.

For the most part, they were here to see how she would deal with a situation that she actually had no chance of performing well in; or so they’d thought. What none of them had expected when coming to watch her was seeing a blind girl perfectly counter a strike like that.

The attack itself had been sloppily executed and overcommitted, clearly driven by excessive overconfidence, so countering it wasn’t particularly difficult – if you could see it, that was. The girl could theoretically know the position of her enemy by his steps, but she should have had no way of predicting where the attack would come from. Had she just guessed and gotten lucky?

The boy, having recovered from his understandable shock, moved forward to attack once again, though notably more careful this time. Again, he struck and again Xinming dodged the attack perfectly and retaliated with one of her own, though the boy managed retreat in time to evade it this time.

No coincidence then.

Liu Wei furrowed his brows and his soul sense snapped into full focus around the girl. He could sense that the other were doing the same.

The next time the boy advanced, Xinming blocked his attack instead of dodging it. What followed was a short exchange that played out just as if both of them could see. When both of them retreated, the Elders had found what they’d looked for.

“Is that…?”

“I believe so.”

Soul sense. The girl was using soul sense. A primitive version of it, not comparable to even that of even someone who had just unlocked it after ascending to the Soul Realization Realm, but soul sense nonetheless.

“To think we’d get to see a heavenly constitution today…”

Liu Wei nodded along. ‘Heavenly constitution’ was a catch-all term for a broad spectrum of innate bodily conditions related to Qi, the Daos, the soul or other elements of cultivation. The name originated from the fact that they were both unbelievably rare – as far as Liu Wei knew, there were only a dozen or so members with heavenly constitutions in their entire sect – and the reasons for their existence were extremely poorly understood, so they were often called a gift from the heavens.

Heavenly constitutions were extremely heterogenous in their effects, so much so that, in concert with their rarity, many weren’t even properly categorized. What they had in common was that they usually didn’t impact natural cultivation talent but instead offered entirely unique benefits to their carriers.

The two combatants entered another exchange. Both of them were doing their best, but it was obvious what the outcome would be. The boy’s movements were unrefined and inefficient; he showed only average talent – in the context of a disciple candidate – and his combat training so far had clearly been subpar… but at least he had received any.

Xinming was quickly overwhelmed by a series of his blows, struggling to figure out how to react, and using her soul sense clearly required a lot of concentration which was beginning to falter. Soon, the boy managed to knock her staff to the side and punish her with a blow to the guiding hand. Before she could recover, he stepped in, grabbed her weapon and yanked it away, leaving her disarmed.

“Enough!”, one of the overseeing instructors shouted.

“The duel ends with Ye Wudi’s victory!”

The boy raised his sword to celebrate his victory while Xinming looked somewhat dejected about but acceptant of her defeat. Neither of them would know, of course, that, in the contest of the admittance exam, she was the true winner of this duel.