CH 87

Chapter 87 – Mirror Ocean

By Xu Disheng’s sides, countless wooden boats shot forwards like lightning, causing strong gales to sweep about.

There were clearly many disciples who were pouring in all of their profound qi right off the bat, bringing the speed of their wooden boats to its utmost limit.

After moving forward for a while, Xu Disheng found that the speed of the wooden boat was linked to only one thing: the rate at which he poured in profound qi.

If he poured in one portion of profound qi, the speed would increase by one level; if he poured in ten portions of profound qi, the speed would increase by ten.

After crossing 10 li, he heard sounds up ahead. When he looked ahead, he saw that there were around 10 wooden boats driving around in circles. They had been caught inside of a Phantom Array.

It was unknown which disciple had laid down the array diagram, but they had clearly made preparations in advance. The ten or so disciples behind that disciple hadn’t had any time to prepare and couldn’t slow down in time before running straight into the array.

Xu Disheng and the people beside him rapidly changed directions, avoiding the Phantom Array as they continued to press forward.

Just a few breaths later, several unknown incantations came whizzing in their directions from up ahead, and the people near Xu Disheng stopped to block them. A black semi-transparent barrier of light appeared around Xu Disheng’s body. He didn’t reduce his speed as he continued forward, blocking all of the incantations in the process.

Although the wooden boat was fast, it was still far from a flying-type Spirit Tool. It wasn’t even close to a Spirit Cloud in speed.

After about an hour, the tens of thousands disciples had passed the initial period of chaos, settling into several rough groups based on their speed.

The first group consisted of the several dozen people who were riding their Magic Treasures, leaving the people behind them in the dust. They were leading by a wide margin.

The second group consisted of the people who had been pouring profound qi into their wooden boats with all of their might from the very beginning, bringing the wooden boats to their peak speed. These people had all prepared medicinal pills in advance. They had loaded them into bottles which they carried on their person so they could restore their profound qi at any time.

The third group was the ordinary disciples who were lacking in medicinal pills. In order to conserve their profound qi, they would reduce their speed from time to time, recovering their profound qi while they moved forward. Once they had more or less recovered, they would go full speed again, repeating this process ad infinitum.

Then, there was the last group, which was a diverse clutter of chaos.

There were some disciples who came into this tournament match looking to rob other people. They would directly go up to people and block their path, demanding them to hand over storage pouches. Even if the other party stopped to fight, regardless of their victory or defeat, they would still lose a lot of time.

In previous tournaments, there were quite a few people with vicious temperaments who would take advantage of the opportunity to straight up kill and loot other disciples. However, in more recent years, the sect rules had become even more strict, so there would be less people coming to find trouble with you afterwards.

The main goal of these people who came in just to cause a disturbance wasn’t the tournament itself, but to make a profit in resources. Every time the tournament came around, there would be quite a few people who were like this. All of the disciples would detest these kinds of people. Excluding the first two groups in the lead, the latter two groups would often run into trouble with them.

“Each one of you, hand over one storage pouch and I’ll let you all go!” a peak Sea of Qi stage disciple said with a sneer on his face as he stood in the way of Xu Disheng and the group of people near him. There were three disciples with arrogant expressions standing behind this guy, all of them at the peak Sea of Qi stage.

One of them had over 10 storage pouches hanging at his waist. It seemed that he had already looted quite a few disciples.

After all, most disciples didn’t want to mess with them. In the time that they were to waste on them, they could go another dozen or so li.

Many disciples usually had two or three storage pouches, if not more. There were even some clever disciples who had heard about this beforehand and had prepared a few empty storage pouches in advance just to deal with these situations.

Most of the people in the group around Xu Disheng were at the early Sea of Qi stage, and they had clearly anticipated this kind of situation, so many of them each tossed out a storage pouch and sped off past them on their wooden boats.

Those few peak Sea of Qi stage disciples didn’t prevent them from leaving. After all, their objective wasn’t necessarily to harm others, but to gain resources. Even if many of the storage pouches were empty, it wasn’t a big problem. After all, just one storage pouch itself was worth around a dozen spirit stones.

“What about you two?” The disciple who seemed to be the boss of them asked Xu Disheng and one other disciple who was at the peak Sea of Qi stage, seeing that they were slow to react.

The other peak Sea of Qi stage disciple revealed a pained expression, then tossed out a storage pouch before hurriedly continuing on his way. It was clear that this person hadn’t made any preparations in advance, so there were probably still Spirit Tools inside. However, he was badly outnumbered. If he didn’t want to hand it over, he would have to face several peak Sea of Qi stage disciples alone, and there was still the possibility that they would kill him on the spot.

Their boss grabbed the storage pouch, revealing a hint of a smile. He tossed the bag right over to the disciple who had many storage pouches lined up at his waist.

When Xu Disheng looked at the fat load of storage pouches lined up at that disciples waist, his eyes twitched slightly.

Xu Disheng was standing there on the wooden boat, one hand leaning on the boat to support him. He smiled and replied, “Senior Martial Brothers, I don’t have a storage pouch. I only have a Magic Treasure. I’ll give it to you, so will you let me pass?”

As if he didn’t expect Xu Disheng to utter these words, their boss stared blankly at Xu Disheng like he was an idiot. “A Magic Treasure? The ones with Magic Treasures have already almost reached the other side of the shore by now. Could this guy have gotten scared shitless and turned into an idiot? He’s just sitting here daydreaming! Haha!”

The other disciples by his side began to laugh with him while pointing at Xu Disheng.

That disciple with the loaded belt full of storage pouches guffawed and said, “Senior Martial Brother Zhang, this guy is probably an idiot. It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to squeeze much juice out of this guy. Poor guy, let’s just let him go past.”

Xu Disheng waved his sleeve, causing golden motes of light to condense before him. A brilliant golden longbow took shape, floating by his side. “Senior Martial Brothers, I’m telling the truth.”

The expression of that Senior Martial Brother Zhang changed greatly. “A Magic Treasure?!” he exclaimed.

The laughing expressions of those disciples by his side were wiped off of their faces as soon as they laid eyes upon the Glorious Sun Bow.

“This… Junior Martial Brother, Zhang Qiu had eyes but failed to recognize Mt. Tai. Please, it would be better for you to quickly proceed on ahead to the other side of the shore,” their boss, who was called Zhang Qiu, said as he cupped his hands with an ugly expression on his face. Then, he signaled to the people beside him to step aside and make way for him.

(TL: ‘Had eyes but failed to recognize Mt. Tai’ – an idiom that refers to an arrogant yet ignorant person; to fail to recognize someone of great status.)

If these peak Sea of Qi stage disciples could open their storage pouches, they would have been able to access their Spirit Tools and wouldn’t have had to be scared of Xu Disheng in the first place. And if that were the case, they would have coveted that precious Magic Treasure and struck him a ruthless blow.

However… in the Mirror Ocean, Spirit Tools couldn’t be used, and storage pouches were completely sealed off. Only cultivation methods and incantations could be used, so there was almost no way to put up a fight against someone who had a Magic Treasure.

Without attack-type or defense-type Spirit Tools on hand, most people would lose around 60-70% of their total strength. Of course, if many of them worked together using their cultivation methods, it wasn’t completely impossible to restrain Xu Disheng. But against a person with a Magic Treasure, there would certainly be casualties. Who could directly go up against a Magic Treasure? Moreover, who among these disciples would sacrifice themselves so someone else could have the Magic Treasure?

In the end, these robbers were only a temporary team, and they each had their own thoughts and motives. Each and every one of them was selfish beyond comparison.

Xu Disheng unhurriedly sailed his wooden boat past them.

There were two disciples among the group who wanted to strike out. But seeing that Zhang Qiu didn’t have any reaction, they had no choice but to swallow their desires as they coldly watched Xu Disheng move past them.

“But Senior Martial Brothers, I seem to have lost some things,” Xu Disheng said, suddenly stopping the boat. He lifted his hand and used a finger to pull the bowstring taut. A straight golden arrow of light slowly condensed into being, emitting a terrible aura of destruction.

“Ahhh! Junior Martial Brother, please speak! What did you lose?!” Zhang Qiu cried out, his scalp tingling with fear upon seeing the golden arrow of light pointing towards him. When he felt the sensation that he was being locked onto, his expression changed wildly.