"What's going on? Has Xiao Ning been beaten?"
The First Elder asked his attendants as he hurried toward the Dou Technique Pavilion.
"Yes. Young Master Xiao Ze came to cause trouble for Young Master Xiao Ning. Young Master Xiao Ze is very strong and pinned Young Master Xiao Ning to the ground, beating him," the attendant hastily explained.
The First Elder frowned deeply. Usually, Xiao Ze kept a low profile and didn't even participate in the testing ceremony; he never expected the boy to be hiding such strength. Originally, he had looked down on Xiao Ze for skipping the test, sharing the mainstream view outside that Xiao Ze was afraid of being compared to Xiao Yan and mocked for being inferior. He hadn't cared much about it at the time, figuring you could hide for a moment, but not for a lifetime.
At the coming-of-age ceremony, every member of the Xiao Clan was required to participate, and testing was inevitable. As long as one's Dou Zhi Qi did not reach the seventh stage, it meant a lack of cultivation potential, resulting in the forfeiture of the qualification to enter the Dou Technique Pavilion to select a Cultivation Method. Instead, they would be assigned to ordinary clan businesses to manage them. These were the rules of the Xiao Clan, and not even the Patriarch could violate them!
Yet now, the attendant was telling him that Xiao Ze's cultivation talent wasn't poor at all. On the contrary, his strength was formidable enough to pin Xiao Ning to the ground and beat him—he had to be at least in the advanced stages of Dou Zhi Qi!
While these thoughts raced through his mind, the First Elder did not slow his pace, marching swiftly ahead. The moment he arrived at the Dou Technique Pavilion, he saw Xiao Ze in the middle of a beating. Xiao Ze was straddling the person on the ground, raining punches down relentlessly onto the victim's head. The fellow looked utterly miserable, screaming frantically while his face was swollen like a pig's head. If the attendant hadn't warned him beforehand, the First Elder probably wouldn't have recognized that this was Xiao Ning!
After a brief moment of stunned shock, a surge of heartache washed over the First Elder, followed instantly by overwhelming fury!
Blinded by rage, the First Elder completely cast aside the clan's rules: *No attacking juniors without cause!*
Dou Qi surged across his body as he blasted into the center of the crowd. The intense Dou Qi pressure caused the surrounding onlookers to turn pale. The First Elder rushed right in front of Xiao Ze, his palm infused with Dou Qi, and struck out at Xiao Ze in a fit of anger.
Xiao Ze had already noticed the First Elder approaching. When it came to soul perception power, he was no slouch! The Dou Qi vortex within his body spun wildly, squeezing out a massive amount of Dou Qi that converged upon his palms along a specific circulation route.
*Huang-tier advanced Dou Technique: Swallow Returning Strike!*
The pale blue glow of Xiao Ze's Dou Qi suddenly burst forth brilliantly, clashing head-on with the First Elder's palm!
Instead of taking the First Elder's attack head-on, Xiao Ze used the force of the collision to flip through the air several times, landing lightly on the edge of the training ground like a dragonfly skimming the water.
The surrounding onlookers turned pale, staring at Xiao Ze with wide eyes and incredulous expressions. If the elemental Dou Qi on Xiao Ze's hands earlier had shocked them, what they were witnessing now was simply unbelievable! Xiao Ze had actually managed to block a blow from the First Elder with the strength of a mere Dou Zhe!
The First Elder was also slightly taken aback, seeing how effortlessly Xiao Ze had neutralized his attack. A sense of the absurd welled up inside him. Although he had been blinded by rage, he still possessed a shred of reason and hadn't used a Dou Technique. Even so, he had used a portion of his Dou Qi, intending to teach Xiao Ze a lesson. The fact that Xiao Ze—with his Grand Dou Shi power—had safely defused the attack genuinely shocked him.
Before the onlookers could even react, an angry roar rang out from outside the Dou Technique Pavilion, sounding like a lion's roar.
"Old bastard, you've gone too far!"
Accompanied by surging pale cyan Dou Qi, a figure sped over like a violent gale. A category-eight gale seemed to sweep through the entire Dou Technique Pavilion, rocking the bodies of the surrounding onlookers and turning their faces completely ashen. The oppressive Dou Qi of a Grand Dou Shi left them feeling heavily oppressed in the chest.
Intense Dou Qi surged, enveloping Xiao Zhan's entire body and eventually converging into an illusory lion's head over his face. The lion's face was filled with fury, as if it wanted to devour someone alive, looking utterly soul-stirring! It was precisely the Xiao Clan's top-tier Cultivation Method, a Xuan-tier intermediate Cultivation Method mastered only by the Patriarch: *Mad Lion's Furious Qi*!
The First Elder's expression changed abruptly as he felt the incoming wave of Dou Qi pressure and a faint sense of fatal danger. He opened his mouth slightly, wanting to explain, but a furious lion has no ears for explanations; it had already transformed into a gale and lunged straight at him. In his haste, the First Elder had no choice but to hurriedly gather his Dou Qi to defend himself.
*BOOM!*
Two powerful forces of Dou Qi collided. Without a single moment of stalemate, the pale cyan Dou Qi crushed the other side in an overwhelming display of dominance, sending the opponent flying!
Though the crowd had already retreated to the edge of the training ground, they still felt an intense tightness in their chests, as if a massive boulder were pressing down upon them. Everyone stared intently at the center of the arena.
This was the strength of the strong; this was the law of the Dou Qi Continent! The strong could do as they pleased, while the weak would suffer injury even from merely watching!
Several people also cast their gazes toward Xiao Ze, who was standing motionless in place. A pale blue glow permeated Xiao Ze's body, deflecting the shockwave of Dou Qi. Their eyes were filled with envy—this was a Dou Zhe! Once again, it was an existence they could only look up to.
The First Elder stumbled back dozens of steps, every single step deeply embedding itself into the stone floor of the training ground. The violent impact caused blood to rush to his head; his face flushed a brief crimson before draining away into sheer paleness. The First Elder forcibly swallowed the blood threatening to spill from his mouth, making his complexion look even more unsightly.
*Xiao Zhan... he's trying to kill me!*
"Old bastard, do you really think I wouldn't dare kill you?!"
With his hair and beard bristling and his eyes wide with fury, pale cyan Dou Qi raged around Xiao Zhan like an enraged lion. His third son had just been beaten earlier today, and Xiao Zhan's heart was already filled to the brim with fury. Not long after, he had witnessed the First Elder—this old bastard—relying on his seniority to bully a junior and make a move on his youngest son!
That was the final straw; Xiao Zhan completely lost his temper!
A five-star Grand Dou Shi combined with a Xuan-tier intermediate Cultivation Method—this single strike was enough to give the First Elder a world of hurt!
Xiao Zhan made a move as if he intended to press the attack. The First Elder's internal Qi was in turmoil, his face turning alternating shades of blue and purple. But for the sake of his pride, he held back the mouthful of blood he wanted to spew, missing the chance to offer any explanation.
At that crucial moment, Xiao Ze's voice rang out.
"Father, I'm fine."
Withstanding the Dou Qi pressure of the Grand Dou Shi, Xiao Ze stepped forward and smiled to comfort Xiao Zhan. Then, turning his head toward the First Elder, he said, "First Elder, isn't this a bit too shameless of you?"
"Just this morning, you were the one who said that sparring among juniors is not something elders should interfere with."
"Yet now, you turn around and use your seniority to bully a junior, making a move against me. What's wrong, First Elder? Are your words just empty farts?"
"Or is it that only when your Xiao Ning beats someone up does it count as sparring among peers? When someone beats your Xiao Ning, it suddenly stops being peer sparring, requiring you, the First Elder, to step in and deliver a verdict?"
Xiao Ze's continuous stream of remarks could be considered mercilessly piercing to the heart! After all, just this morning, the First Elder had declared that the fight between Xiao Yan and Xiao Ning was merely sparring among juniors, telling Xiao Zhan not to be petty or hold grudges. Yet in the afternoon, the moment Xiao Ning got beaten up, the First Elder had flown into a rage and made a move, bullying a junior of the clan.
Hearing Xiao Ze's words, the people gathered in the training ground began to murmur among themselves, casting wild, condemning gestures toward the First Elder.