Yun Chen was a bit embarrassed as well, and hurriedly said, "Uh, sorry. I really didn't expect to cause such a huge commotion. Don't worry, the moment I get the chance, I will pay you back for those spirit stones!"
"Tell me, what kind of cultivation technique are you even practicing? It's actually so overbearing that it can even absorb other people's spirit stones?" Xu Yingdie wasn't genuinely angry; after all, a few hundred spirit stones were something she could easily afford.
"Well, sorry about that. My technique..." Yun Chen smiled awkwardly.
Realizing she had been a bit abrupt, Xu Yingdie quickly added, "It was my fault for being so blunt. Oh, Junior Brother Yun, let me introduce you. This is Chen Xue. Chen Xue is already an Origin Opening Realm expert, and a peak Origin Opening Realm one at that!"
Yun Chen's current cultivation was too low; unless someone actively displayed their strength, he couldn't read their cultivation level at all.
Hearing Xu Yingdie's words, Yun Chen couldn't help but be startled, and he looked at Chen Xue with absolute astonishment.
The young girl in front of him was actually an Origin Opening Realm expert?
This kid looked about the same age as Xiaoya, didn't she?
"Then, Senior Sister Xu, you..." Since Chen Xue was so powerful, how could Xu Yingdie, who hung out with her, be ordinary?
"Me? I'm in the Origin Opening Realm too!" Xu Yingdie said with a beaming smile.
This time, Yun Chen was truly dealt a blow.
These two looked like they were definitely under eighteen years of age, yet they were already terrifying existences at the peak of the Origin Opening Realm and the Half-Step Heavenly Martial Realm. Meanwhile, he, Yun Chen, was still lingering at Qi Cyclone Realm Layer 1.
Comparing oneself to others really made a person want to die of frustration!
"Yun Chen..."
Chen Xue was about to say something when her expression suddenly changed drastically as she looked behind Yun Chen.
At the same time, Xu Yingdie turned around and stood up abruptly.
Right then, a pretty face brimming with murderous intent was coldly staring at Yun Chen's back.
Sensing the chill behind him, Yun Chen turned around and looked at the newcomer.
It was a face of unearthly beauty. Draped in a white dress, she looked like a celestial maiden stepping out of a painting. Right now, however, an intensely icy aura emanated from her entire body.
"Man, go die!"
The figure suddenly moved. A long saber materialized in her hand, flashing with a streak of blinding light as she violently slashed toward Yun Chen. Within the blade's radiance, arcs of lightning crackled and popped.
Chapter 38: Nine-Layered Thunder Saber
Yun Chen's entire body tensed up. He kicked off the ground and employed his movement technique, Phantom Clone, appearing a short distance away like a phantom.
The moment he left, a blade aura fiercely cleaved into the spot where he had been standing. A fissure split the ground, laced with tiny, lingering arcs of lightning.
"Second form of the Nine-Layered Thunder Saber, Annihilating Thunder Light!"
The newly arrived woman wore a blank expression as she struck with her saber once more.
With this slash, a vast surge of True Qi erupted from her body. In the surrounding space, flashes of lightning materialized, all converging onto the long saber. Accompanied by her sweeping strike, they surged violently toward Yun Chen.
Seeing this woman come in and attempt to take his life without a single word, Yun Chen grew furious as well.
Instead of retreating, he advanced. Taking a step forward, he threw out a punch.
An indescribable grand momentum of heaven and earth converged upon him, sweeping the surrounding spiritual Qi completely clean. The instant his fist smashed forward, a transparent fist print roared out, colliding head-on with the furiously descending blade aura.
With a crisp rip, his fist print was cleaved straight apart. Yun Chen's expression shifted; he tilted his body slightly, and the blade light grazed his cheek, shearing off several strands of hair and breaking him out in a cold sweat.
"Eldest Senior Sister, don't attack!"
"Eldest Senior Sister, Junior Brother Yun is a newcomer. He didn't know this is where the three of us live."
Seeing that the Eldest Senior Sister was about to attack again, Xu Yingdie rushed forward and threw her arms around her.
Chen Xue also hurriedly spoke up, stepping in front of Yun Chen.
Earlier, they had intended to warn Yun Chen and tell him to leave, but they hadn't expected the Eldest Senior Sister to return so quickly. Coupled with the incident of Yun Chen siphoning their spirit stones, it had made them momentarily forget to send him away, leading to this very situation.
Held back by Xu Yingdie, the Eldest Senior Sister wore an extremely unsightly expression as she coldly barked at Yun Chen, "Get lost! This is no place for you to live. If I ever see you show up here again, I'll kill you!"
"Is this your house, you stinky bint?" Yun Chen said with extreme displeasure. "I'm not getting lost. Let's see what you can do about it."
This woman was a Heavenly Martial Realm expert.
If not for his quick reflexes, he'd probably be a corpse right now.
The other party tried to kill him the moment she arrived; it would be a miracle if Yun Chen was happy about that.
"Junior Brother Yun!"
Chen Xue cried out anxiously.
Xu Yingdie was utterly speechless as well. Why was Yun Chen courting death like this? The Eldest Senior Sister had a violent temper and killed people at the drop of a hat—that was no joke.
Those disciples who had appeared here previously either ended up dead or crippled.
"If you don't get lost, you die!" Mu Ling glared at Yun Chen, radiating murderous intent.
"Yun Chen, this is Senior Sister Mu Ling. Senior Sister Mu Ling is the number one genius of Thunder Peak and a Mid Heavenly Martial Realm expert! Hurry up and apologize to Senior Sister Mu. She won't hold it against you."
"That's right, Yun Chen, Senior Sister Mu is actually a really good person."
Chen Xue and the other girl hastily chimed in with persuasion.
At this moment, Xu Yingdie was still holding onto Mu Ling for dear life, terrified that she would resume her attack.
"Apologize? Apologizing is out of the question. If anyone's going to apologize, it's this stinky woman apologizing to me! Senior sister? Heh, I don't have a senior sister who tries to kill people the moment she sees them!"
This fellow tried to kill him the second she arrived, and she was a good person?
If that counted as a good person, there wasn't a single bad person left in this world.
Hearing Yun Chen repeatedly call her a stinky woman, Mu Ling was on the verge of exploding with anger.
Across the entire Dayan Mountain, no one had ever dared to speak to her like this.
"Let go!" she said coldly, demanding that Xu Yingdie release her.
"Junior Brother Yun, get out of here right now and go to the Cultivation Tower!" Xu Yingdie yelled frantically. "If you don't leave and Senior Sister Mu kills you, nobody is going to stick their neck out for you!"
"Hah, bullying others just because of your backing!" Yun Chen scoffed derisively, though he didn't continue to provoke Mu Ling further and walked straight out of the Class C residential area.
If he stayed any longer, there was no guarantee that woman wouldn't go crazy. When that happened, even if Xu Yingdie and Chen Xue risked their lives to protect him, they wouldn't be able to save him.
Trashing her verbally for a moment was enough; if he actually stayed behind to throw his life away, Yun Chen wasn't that idiotic.
"What kind of place is the Cultivation Tower?" Yun Chen muttered with a frown as he walked out of the Class C zone.
"Brother Yun, you're finally out! I honestly never thought you'd make it out alive. I heard that a female fiend lives in the Class C area, and if any man dares to step foot in there, his fate definitely won't be pretty!"
Tian Canxue's voice drifted over.
Yun Chen turned around and, sure enough, saw Tian Canxue and a few others walking down.
Seeing Yun Chen emerge from the Class C residential area, those people also wore looks of astonishment.
You had to know, not a single person who stepped into the Class C area ever walked out in one piece, and some even had their cultivation crippled.
"Brother Tian, where are you guys headed?" Yun Chen asked, though his heart grew slightly cold.
As a steward of Thunder Peak, it was practically impossible for Lei Ming not to know that the Class C area was a forbidden zone for male disciples. Since he knew and still sent him to live there, his intentions were truly sinister.
Chapter 39: The Top Ten Disciple Seats
"To the Cultivation Tower!" Tian Canxue replied. "I heard that cultivating inside the Cultivation Tower is extremely fast. Heh, they say you can even use sect contribution points to exchange for cultivation hours. But since I just arrived at Dayan Mountain, I don't have any contribution points at all, so I can only use spirit stones instead."
Of course Yun Chen knew about contribution points; when he was at the Tianyang Sect, he had plenty of them.
Without undertaking sect missions or making major contributions to the sect, the only way to get contribution points was to plunder them.
"Right, why did you suddenly come to Thunder Peak?" Yun Chen asked abruptly.
Tian Canxue wasn't a disciple of Thunder Peak. If he remembered correctly, this guy had joined Green Bamboo Peak.
"I have a few friends here, so I came to check on them!" Tian Canxue smiled. "How about it? Do you want to come along and check out the Cultivation Tower? If your spirit stones are running low, I can lend you some."
This remark caused Yun Chen's gaze to flicker.
Come to think of it, weren't he and this guy barely acquaintances?
Why did the other party trust him so much that he was even willing to lend him spirit stones?
Unable to figure out what was going on in Tian Canxue's mind, Yun Chen asked, "Why are you helping me like this? If I remember correctly, today is only the second time we've met!"
"Because we're friends!" A flash of desolate sadness actually crossed Tian Canxue's eyes. "Don't worry! No matter how many spirit stones you need, I can lend them to you. After all, we're friends."
"Thanks. But since you treat me as a friend, how could I trouble you?" Yun Chen smiled.
He had always disliked troubling others. Even in his past life, whether it was relatives or friends, whenever he could avoid bothering someone, he never would.
Tian Canxue paused in his tracks.
Then he quickly said, "Don't worry! I have spirit stones to spare."
Yun Chen said nothing more.
As for the people trailing behind Tian Canxue, they didn't even bother to spare Yun Chen a single glance.
A mere Qi Cyclone Realm cultivator was simply not worth their attention.
The group left Thunder Peak and arrived before a massive towering structure.
This was the Dayan Mountain Cultivation Tower.
The Tianyang Sect had the Tianyang Forest, where cultivating yielded twice the results with half the effort.
Every major faction possessed its own exclusive secret realm.
"This is the Cultivation Tower. However, our destination isn't the first floor, but the tenth floor. From the tenth floor and upwards, the higher you go, the poorer the tower's effects become. Going downwards, however, the effects only grow better and better. Especially the first floor—rumored to be so terrifying that a single day of cultivation down there compares to roughly an entire year outside." Tian Canxue clearly knew quite a bit about the Cultivation Tower as he explained, "However, wanting to step onto the first floor to cultivate is impossible unless you're a core disciple, a personal disciple, or someone among the sect's Top Ten Disciples. People like us can only cultivate on the fifteenth floor and above."
"The Top Ten Disciples!" Yun Chen's gaze flickered slightly.
"That's right, the Top Ten Disciples. I'm currently still an outer disciple. My goal is to first become one of the Outer Sect's Top Ten Disciples, then work my way toward the Inner Sect's Top Ten Disciples, and after that, the sect's Top Ten Disciples!" Tian Canxue smiled.
Hearing this, Yun Chen cast an assessing look at the other man, surprised that his ambitions were so grand.
An ordinary person would probably never dare to set their sights on the sect's Top Ten Disciples!
You had to know that in Dayan Mountain alone, all the disciples added together probably numbered no less than thirty thousand. Wanting to become one of the sect's Top Ten Disciples could truly be called one in ten thousand.
Hearing Tian Canxue's words, the few people who had accompanied him all sneered derisively.
This fellow was truly arrogant enough, actually setting his sights on the Top Ten Disciples.
"Oh, right, Brother Yun, I heard that the female fiend living in the Class C area you're assigned to is one of the Top Ten Disciples, and ranks quite high at that!" Tian Canxue seemed to recall something and added.
At this, Yun Chen wasn't particularly surprised.
In the Daxia Nation, a Heavenly Martial Realm practitioner already counted as a regional expert capable of establishing a sect. If such a person wasn't even one of the Top Ten Disciples, then Dayan Mountain's Top Ten Disciples would be entirely too terrifying.
"Let's go! Let's head inside first!" Tian Canxue said, taking the lead as he walked into the Cultivation Tower.
Yun Chen followed closely behind.
Entering the Cultivation Tower, the group saw quite a few people moving up and down the stairwells; clearly, these individuals had all come to cultivate in the tower.
"Yun Chen, which floor are you planning to cultivate on?" Tian Canxue walked up to the counter and asked.
Inside the Cultivation Tower, there were numerous stone chambers. Renting a stone chamber required paying with spirit stones or exchanging them for contribution points.
The further down one went, the higher the price.
Conversely, the higher up, the cheaper it became.
"Brother Tian, don't worry about me. I'll handle my own arrangements in a bit!" Yun Chen stated.
He still had some spirit stones on him, so he didn't need to ask the other man for a loan.
"Alright then!" Tian Canxue didn't press the matter further and quickly completed the rental process for his jade token.
Yun Chen stepped forward as well and asked directly, "Excuse me, if I want to cultivate on the ninth floor, about how many spirit stones does it cost to rent a stone chamber for an hour?"
"For one hour, fifty low-grade spirit stones," the female disciple handling the tokens replied expressionlessly. "Also, seeing that you're a newcomer, let me give you a reminder: inside the Cultivation Tower, killing is not permitted."
Killing wasn't permitted—meaning fights were allowed?
Chapter 40: Borrowing a Jade Token for a Moment
This made Yun Chen understand why Chen Xue and the other girl had told him to come to the Cultivation Tower. It turned out that killing was forbidden inside, meaning even a woman like Mu Ling likely wouldn't dare defy it.
"Can you cripple someone else's cultivation?" Yun Chen asked.
"Yes! But the other party must provoke you first. If you randomly cripple someone else's cultivation, the disciples of the sect's Law Enforcement Hall will apprehend you, or even execute you on the spot!" the woman said coldly.
Yun Chen nodded slightly. As a newcomer, how could he proactively provoke others?
Of course, if someone deliberately targeted him, they shouldn't blame him for being impolite.
"If someone provokes me and I execute them, is that a crime?" Yun Chen asked again.
Hearing this, the people behind Yun Chen couldn't help laughing out loud.
"Hahahaha, what did this guy say? Did he ask if executing someone who provokes him is a crime?"
"Does he think he's some kind of Top Ten Disciple level figure?"
"Tsk tsk, a mere outer sect ant, yet so wildly arrogant."
These individuals were all Tian Canxue's so-called friends. They had looked down on Yun Chen from the start, and upon hearing his remarks, they mocked him without holding back.
"No," the woman said indifferently.
"Good, I'll keep that in mind. I want to rent a stone chamber on the ninth floor for two hours. Here are one hundred low-grade spirit stones!"
With that, Yun Chen handed over the spirit stones.
The woman nodded, issued the jade token to Yun Chen, and reminded him, "You need to deposit five hundred spirit stones as a security deposit. If your cultivation time exceeds the limit, it will be deducted automatically. The deposit will be returned to you when you come out."
Yun Chen had no choice but to fork over another five hundred spirit stones, his heart bleeding internally.
These spirit stones represented his entire net worth.
They always said that literary pursuits cost pennies while martial pursuits cost fortunes; if you wanted to cultivate, an ordinary family simply couldn't sustain it.
"Brother, you're being too impulsive. The prices get higher the further down you go. What's more, the moment you unlock a stone chamber, other people are allowed to seize it from you for their own cultivation!" Tian Canxue said with a speechless expression upon seeing this.
Yun Chen was clearly just throwing spirit stones away!
Even with his cultivation at the Qi Condensation Realm, he wouldn't dare head down to the ninth floor to cultivate.
According to the intelligence he had gathered, the people capable of cultivating on the ninth floor either possessed deep backgrounds or were outstanding figures within the sect—geniuses among geniuses. Virtually every single one of them was rarely matched among peers of the same realm. For Yun Chen to head straight for the ninth floor meant he wouldn't even have a chance to cultivate.
"It's fine, I'm just heading down to take a look!" Yun Chen smiled.
Seeing this, Tian Canxue couldn't say much more.
Bidding farewell to Tian Canxue, Yun Chen headed straight toward the stairs leading to the ninth floor.
From the ninth floor downward, the entire Cultivation Tower was buried underground.
Arriving at the ninth floor, Yun Chen discovered there were eight stone chambers in total. Furthermore, engraved above the heavy doors of all eight chambers were elemental names: 'Wind, Fire, Thunder, Ice, Wood, Earth, Gold, Water.'
"That means the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth inside these chambers is different as well? The Cultivation Tower actually contains elemental spiritual Qi of all eight attributes?" Yun Chen felt a surge of secret astonishment.
There were quite a few people on the ninth floor, though the Thunder Chamber, Wind Chamber, and Ice Chamber had no one cultivating in them.
Chambers currently in use had jade tokens slotted into their doors, while unoccupied ones were empty.
It seemed most people practiced techniques unrelated to ice, wind, or lightning.
Yun Chen had come to Dayan Mountain originally to join Thunder Peak so he could select lightning-attribute martial techniques. Now that he had the chance to absorb heaven and earth spiritual Qi containing the thunder element, how could he be polite?
Walking up to the stone chamber, Yun Chen pulled out his jade token, preparing to slot it in.
"Hold on!"
Right at that moment, a voice rang out behind him.
Perplexed, Yun Chen turned around and looked at the speaker—a youth who looked extremely sinister.
Frowning slightly, Yun Chen asked, "Is something the matter?"
"Of course there is. I want to borrow your jade token for a moment!" As the youth spoke, he unreservedly released the aura belonging to the early Qi Condensation Realm.
"Borrow my jade token?" Yun Chen's gaze turned cold. "And what if I refuse?"
Hearing Yun Chen's words, the man was momentarily stunned, and then sneered, "An ant should have the self-awareness of an ant. If you refuse, heh, I guarantee you that from this day forward, you'll never be able to cultivate again!"
"You want to cripple my cultivation?" Yun Chen asked calmly.
"Looks like you have a shred of self-awareness after all. For a mere outer disciple, this young master borrowing your jade token to cultivate is doing you a favor—don't fail to appreciate what's good for you!" the youth said arrogantly and tyrannically, completely disregarding Yun Chen. In his eyes, Yun Chen was nothing more than an ant on the ground, yours to knead however he pleased.
"This guy is a total idiot. He actually dares to come to the ninth floor—doesn't he know the ninth floor is where elite disciples cultivate?"
"Indeed, of the people who can come to the ninth floor, which one isn't a top-ranking figure among the outer disciples?"
"Heh, this fellow has provoked Feng Wu. We're going to have a good show to watch now. Although Feng Wu isn't among the Outer Sect's Top Ten Disciples, he's still a well-known figure among the outer disciples."
Quite a few people stopped because of the conflict unfolding here, preparing to watch the spectacle.
Chapter 41: Smashing the Door
Hearing this fellow's shameless words, Yun Chen suddenly laughed—a laugh exceptionally bright and clear.
Borrowing his token was actually doing him a favor?
His token had been bought with spirit stones, and they basically represented his entire net worth. They wanted to strip him of everything he owned, and if he refused, they'd simply cripple his cultivation?
How utterly arrogant and tyrannical; they didn't even place him, Yun Chen, in their eyes at all.
"What are you laughing at?" Feng Wu's expression darkened.