Chapter Sixty-Seven: First Place on the Battle Record Rankings

“How did this guy manage it? His physical strength is already comparable to the Soaring Cloud Realm…” Nangong Lingyue watched Lin Qingyun, whom she had just knocked unconscious, and drew in a quiet breath of amazement.

Right now, she was still relying on residual borrowed power that had not yet completely faded. If it were only her own strength, just as she had suspected, even having advanced to the eighth level of the Heart of the Zither Realm, she might still not be able to do anything against him.

With only her own strength, even a sneak attack would hardly be enough to knock him out. In the beginning, those first two punches, Nangong Lingyue had already controlled her power to nearly half a step into the Soaring Cloud Realm, yet she still failed to knock him out in one blow.

“Well, since my father treats you as a son, once you've come home, a little sparring and roughhousing shouldn't count as bullying. I’ll take some interest from you now, and once I surpass you later, I’ll settle the rest of the score.”

Gazing down at Lin Qingyun, now unconscious and sporting a pair of panda eyes thanks to her, Nangong Lingyue spoke softly to herself. In that moment, the cold and proud Moon Princess had laughter in the corners of her eyes and at the tips of her brows.

Just as she landed swiftly, someone immediately came forward to receive her.

“The eldest young master of the Lin family—arrange the best care for his injuries. Also, he doesn’t like others touching him or helping him heal, so let him recover on his own. Whatever he needs, make sure it’s provided.”

With those words, Nangong Lingyue tossed Lin Qingyun to a steward at the pinnacle of the Soaring Cloud Realm and hurried off towards her own residence. Firstly, she needed to quickly recuperate and avoid any lasting harm from the power her father had bestowed. Secondly, she wanted to seize this rare opportunity to comprehend higher-level forces, which would greatly benefit her in mastering greater strength in the future.

Under such circumstances, even for families with great or peerless experts, it was rare for a younger generation member to be directly empowered in this way.

Over a dozen minutes later, in a vast and lavish spiritual energy cultivation chamber, Lin Qingyun slowly awakened.

Both his eyes throbbed with pain and swelling, his lips were puffed up, and he could barely open his eyes. The slightest movement of his mouth made it feel as though he was carrying two fat sausages.

“Damn it, that wretched girl… a sneak attack, really?” Lin Qingyun didn’t even dare force his eyes open. He didn’t need to look to know the sorry state he was in.

After all, he had given Nangong Lingyue a beating before—while he hadn’t knocked out her teeth as he did with others, he’d still left her with swollen eyes and a puffy face. Clearly, she had paid him back in the same coin.

He vaguely remembered some of the words she’d said.

“All that talk, just because you’re afraid I’ll tattle to your old man? Family, huh? So the little sister beats up the older brother?”

Annoyed and amused at once, Lin Qingyun knew that under normal circumstances, Nangong Lingyue could never have injured him. It was only because the borrowed power had not yet faded.

As he pondered this, Lin Qingyun quickly activated his cultivation technique and took out some healing pills to swallow.

Compared to the injuries to his internal organs, the shocks to his bones and flesh, the swelling of his eyes and mouth was trivial.

Guiding the medicine’s power through his system once, he was soon back to normal.

The internal organ injuries were the most troublesome, but fortunately, Lin Qingyun had long since refined plenty of relevant pills. With ample spiritual energy and the formidable Eight-Nine Profound Sun Body Refinement Technique, wounds that would normally take days to heal with medicine were gone in less than a day.

Once recovered, Lin Qingyun wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Instead, he sat quietly and began cultivating once more.

This time, after a string of breakthroughs, he had reached the ninth level of the Foundation Stage of the Heart of the Zither Realm. Nine Dao foundations were established; the next step would be to prepare for entry into the Soaring Cloud Realm.

Nine Dao foundations nurture the Golden Core. When the Golden Core forms in the Soaring Cloud Realm, one can soar through the heavens, riding clouds and mist. From then on, he would no longer be a mere bottom-tier cultivator, and he would be counted among the true experts of the cultivation world.

But this step was also the first true life-and-death hurdle for ordinary cultivators. Breaking through from the Initial Phoenix Realm to the Heart of the Zither Realm, even with a tribulation of the heart, posed little threat to life. But stepping from the Heart of the Zither Realm into the Soaring Cloud Realm meant facing a lightning tribulation—a true test of life and death. For the Soaring Cloud Realm marked the beginning of defying the heavens, changing one's fate and extending one’s lifespan.

The Dao foundations had to be thick and solid enough to nurture and condense the Golden Core without disaster. His nine Dao foundations still needed further tempering and strengthening. Even now, he far surpassed ordinary cultivators at this stage, but Lin Qingyun was not content with merely forming an ordinary Golden Core.

With nine Dao foundations, forming a core with one is simplest, with the other eight merging their power, yet that results in the weakest core. In truth, forming a core with all nine is extremely rare, three is already exceptionally strong, and more than six marks a true prodigy.

Not only did forming a core with all nine require supreme talent, but the resources needed were hundreds of times greater than for a single core. This alone was out of reach for most.

But Lin Qingyun was confident in his foundations and resources. He believed that even if he forged his Golden Core and advanced to the Soaring Cloud Realm right here, the Desert Wind King would spare no effort to support him with whatever he needed.

In his past life, Lin Qingyun had also formed a ninefold core, achieving the highest grade of Golden Core, but in that lifetime, he had not yet obtained the cultivation technique from the Alchemy Furnace of Creation when he formed his core.

This time, Lin Qingyun had decided: he would use the Eight-Nine Profound Sun Method to forge a Profound Sun Golden Core.

The Profound Sun Golden Core was the epitome of yang energy, and his nine Dao foundations needed to be honed until they met the requirements. He would need to refine a batch of Soaring Cloud Realm Profound Sun Pills. Refining these was far harder than ordinary pills, for they required extremely rare ingredients.

For Soaring Cloud Profound Sun Pills, the blood and flesh of various yang-attribute Soaring Cloud Realm beasts were needed, along with other precious herbs. Still, Lin Qingyun wasn’t worried; as long as something could still be found on the market, he had ways to obtain it.

He was no lone, wandering cultivator, forced to scour the world for herbs himself. Most accomplished alchemists eventually joined or formed their own sects for this very reason—an individual’s resources were limited, but backed by a faction, there was an endless supply for pill refining.

Otherwise, spending months searching for a single herb, then scraping together enough money for the others, only to have no chance to experiment or make mistakes—one could never make real progress in the art of alchemy that way.

To achieve true mastery in alchemy, both talent and resources were indispensable.

While Lin Qingyun stabilized his cultivation and tempered his nine Dao foundations for what lay ahead, news of recent events quickly spread.

The sudden opening of a relic entrance in the new students’ practical trial zone had caused heavy casualties, still mourned by many, but the new student achievement rankings had finally been announced.

A name no one expected appeared at the very top: Lin Qingyun.

Though the first battle zone’s trial ended early due to the sudden opening of the relic, the coordinated effort by the military and education departments to suppress the beast tide was counted toward the results. Lin Qingyun's achievements alone would not have placed him high, but fate forced him to wipe out a massive wolf horde inside the relic.

That wolf pack had even driven other beasts to besiege Lin Qingyun.

To avoid surveillance and records of his actions, Lin Qingyun had long since destroyed his wristband, and at times even stored his communicator in the Alchemy Furnace of Creation.

Yet Nangong Lingyue, after entering the relic herself, had used her wristband to record everything. Ironically, the monsters and beasts she slew in a final burst of power borrowed from her father did not count toward her own achievements, allowing Lin Qingyun to surpass the one who should have been first—Nangong Lingyue.

The news sparked a tremendous stir and even angered many, shocking countless onlookers.

Previously, when Zheng Haoyue had fanned the flames by exploiting the association between Lin Qingyun and Nangong Lingyue, Lin Qingyun’s top ranking drew even more attention than ever before.

But now, with word spreading of how Lin Qingyun had put certain deranged fans in their place, of how Nangong Lingyue had publicly subdued Li Daoze and Mao Yiqiang, gravely injured Zheng Haoyue, and rushed into the relic to save Lin Qingyun, the tide of public opinion shifted completely.

At that very moment, Lin Qingyun, immersed in seclusion, refining his foundations and cultivating, had no idea he had taken the top spot, nor that, though absent, he had become the center of a new wave of heated discussion.

Of course, beyond the talk about Lin Qingyun’s first place, the first battle zone’s collective effort against the beast tide had also produced extraordinary results.

All of the top six were from the first battle zone: second was Nangong Lingyue, third was Zhen Qiang, fourth was Song Yichen, fifth was Chi Ziyang, and most surprisingly, sixth was Xie Zhiqiang.

No one had expected Xie Zhiqiang, who had been severely wounded by Lin Qingyun and forced to take an explosive pill, to make such a dramatic comeback. Song Yichen had experienced a similar reversal.

Naturally, the education and military departments looked into the matter and quickly noticed that the opening of the relic entrance had produced certain effects. All those who ranked high in the beast tide hunt had also been those who had risked their lives to approach during the epic battle between the Crimson Ape and the Earth Qilin.

They had all obtained some of the Earth Qilin’s flesh, which proved crucial to their subsequent breakthroughs. At that time, Xie Zhiqiang, Song Yichen, and the others had braved the carnage to get close during that clash.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones to approach—otherwise, more than a thousand wouldn’t have gone missing—but they were among the survivors.

It was only at seventh place that a prodigy from the prestigious Capital University in the second battle zone appeared. Not because he lacked ability, but because he had not experienced such life-and-death calamity, had not received such a boon, nor had the chance to fight desperately against the beast tide.

Mourning for the dead, but marveling and rejoicing for those who survived and seized opportunity.

In analyzing everything, people came to believe that Lin Qingyun’s escape into the relic and his explosive performance were closely tied to his acquisition of Earth Qilin flesh and the primal spiritual energy unleashed by the entrance’s opening.

Outside, the world was abuzz with debate, while Lin Qingyun and Nangong Lingyue remained entirely oblivious.

Not only them—even after Lin Qingyun had notified Chao-ge and Chu Qing to return, then gone into seclusion for over a dozen hours, the experts and specialists of the military and education departments, upon examining those affected, immediately noticed subtle changes. They promptly ordered all new students in the first battle zone to enter closed-door cultivation.

What’s more, resources were reallocated, and those who had earned rewards could claim them immediately, urging everyone to seize the moment to cultivate and advance.

With loss comes gain—the opening of the relic entrance had caused heavy casualties, but it also brought benefits to every new student in the first battle zone. The top elites, of course, were those who had come close to liquefied spiritual energy and acquired some of the Earth Qilin’s flesh, but even the others had gained something.

In all this, Lin Qingyun and Nangong Lingyue were naturally the hottest topics, but Song Yichen and Xie Zhiqiang also drew attention, especially since Xie Zhiqiang, after losing an arm, had managed to rise against all odds.

Of course, the investigation into Xie Zhiqiang continued, for his assault on Lin Qingyun was very different from the others’.