Walking The Jiang Hu

After passing the strength test he circulated the qi within his body through his very small meridians.

Yip An wanted to improve the width of his meridians really badly but he couldn't. Was his meridians gonna be like this for his whole life?

After thinking about it for a bit he put it to the back of his head. After a couple of hours of waiting or so he finally stood up and followed the old eccentric along with the crowd of people that had passed. He then took them to a cave opening near the entrance of the mountain range. The mouth of the cave was enormous. It felt like it could swallow anything in it's wake. Just like the mouth of a snake.

There was two disciples at the cave entrance guarding the entrance. When they saw the old eccentric they immediately bowed in respect the old eccentric.

"Mr Kano" , addressed both of the disciples at the same time.

Mr Kano nodded his head in response and kept walking forward with the crowd of 150 people.

Immediately upon entering the cave they saw a beautiful array of stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The stalactites were all different colors and sizes. Some were small and orange. Others were long and white. They were all different in all their own ways. The ground they treaded on within the cave was very cold and seemed to hold a mysterious power within it.

They the finally reached a dome shaped part of the cave that seemed like it could hold a thousand people. The old eccentric then turned around near the middle of the dome shaped room and swept his gaze along the crowd. When he reached Yip An he stopped his gaze at Yip An for a couple of seconds again before looking at everyone else.

"Now, we're going to test your willpower. I'm going to release a pressure from my body onto the large area of this dome and keep that pressure there until half of the people here collapse. If you collapse or both feet aren't on the ground then you will have considered to fail.

However, most of you have lost a majority of your power from the previous test", Announced Mr Kano with both back bent slightly forward and his hand behind him ,"You can either use this time to socialize and greet some fellow daoists. I will be back in exactly 24 hours."

Mr Kano then disappeared from thin air while the other seniors became a blur and rushed out of the cave. You could see that they didn't want just babysit 150 people and do nothing. They needed to cultivate. Time was very precious and you never had no time to waste.

Yip An just stayed in the corner he was in.

People judged from Yip An's face that he wasn't the type of guy to talk. People just shrugged him off. Even though he was pretty strong in the first round that didn't mean he would pass the next test.

It was very boring but to wait in a cave for somebody to come back for 24 hrs straight.

All you'd be able to do is circulate your qi or have a chat with people. But, these people didn't look fun to talk to. Most of them were young masters with a few lackeys fawning over their young master.

After 12 hours of circulating his qi, Yip An decide to stand up for a stretch. One of the young masters saw this and stood up to greet Yip An. This young man was a burly tanned skinned man with a ten meter long sword attached to his back covered in bandages.

"Hello my name Xing Jie , is May I say that your level of strength has truly widened my horizons, what is fellow martial brother's name?" Asked the Xing Jie.

It had seemed that Yip An had truly peeked his interest.

"Yip An" , replied Yip An.

"May we both exchange pointer in a simple exchange so that fellow martial brother may widen my horizons even further?" , requested Xing Jie

Yip An was initially surprised at first but then his shocked expression slowly turned into a confident grin.

"I accept your challenge" , answered Yip An.

"Let's start" said Xing Jie with a neutral expression.

Xing Jie decide to make the first move since he was the challenger. Xing Jie firstly pulled out his sword. It was a massive five meter long sword with the main body of the sword made out of this pitch black metal that had many edges and curves. Sometimes when you looked at this sword you could sometimes see a faint flash of red come out of the sword.

Xing Jie had most likely chosen this sword because he wanted to improve his strength when practicing his sword arts. Xing Jie rushed forward while dragging his massive sword on the hard stone ground. With a swift flick of his wrist Xing Jie slashed upwards into the air and made a massive gust of wind travel over to Yip An's direction very quickly. Yip An wasted no time to dawdle and dodged out of the way of the wind slash. The wind slash then hit the wall behind Yip An. The wall that was ht by that strike didn't have any scratches at all!

"How about this!" , screamed Xing Jie.

He then proceeded to unleash a flurry of slashes onto Yip An.Whenever Xing Jie tried to slash his sword in accordance to his sword arts it mad a beautiful array of wind. Sometimes the gusts of wind would be a circle , an x or even and s shaped character. Howver Yip An was basically dancingf in between his wind slashes. Believe it or not but constantly slashing at thin air with a five meter long sword for a couple of minutes was actually tiring. Who knew? Yip An decided to strike back and show his lower body strength. He charged up his legs like a spring and was propelled forward like a pebble that was just released from a slingshot.

Yip An then immediately stood in front of Xing Jie with is foot to his face. However Xing Jie's sword was also to Yip An's face. The supposedly epic fight had been concluded in such a short time.

Xing Jie seemed like he had lost a lot of confidence after the draw

"Thank you for exchanging pointers with me senior martial brother", said Xing Jie as he bowed in respect.

"No , don't call me senior martial brother just call me martial brother. Just because I beat you in a small duel doesn't mean I deserve that title", replied Yip An.

"If you ever need any help make sure to look for me"

Thereafter they both sat down with each other and started have a good conversation of how they usually trained or where they came from.

" I live on the outskirts of Arufreta , where do you live martial brother Xing Jie" questioned Yip An with a curious gaze.

Xing Jie just looked back at Yip An with an awkward expression. Maybe that was something he shouldn't have asked. Maybe he had a bad past which made him not think of the past. Most of the people here at the entrance exam were all ranging from 13 all the way to 15. When the test had started there had only been about eight fifteen years old. All of them had all actually passed the first test because they had been training for this exam the longest.

For someone to tryout for the entrance exam somebody must be between 13 and 15.

They are only allowed three retries on the test. Which means you would get a try at the test each time you become older. It was very rare for a 13 year old to pass the exam and if they did then they would be considered quite the genius within the sect ranks. Most people passed the entrance exam when they were fourteen years old while if you are fifteen you are almost guaranteed to pass the test as long as your talent isn't trash.

After a long time of talking and playing games the people who had been waiting for the old eccentric had been finally rewarded.

"I expect you all to have regained your strength from the first test. If you haven't then tough luck.

we're not gonna wait for you" , announced Mr Kano "In this test I'm gonna put use my aura to all put a pressure in this area in the dome. Now all of you are going to receive a different amount of pressure from how old you are in months. What we do is get your age in months and times it by 2 and then you will receive that pressure on your body pushing downwards."

"Now don't try to cheat your way out and tell me a fake age. I've already probed all of your guy's ages by examining your bones and set the amount of weight you will receive in accordance to each other" , the old eccentric said nonchalantly.

Everybody gazed at the old eccentric in praise. This man had actually probed their age by looking at their bones. Did the immortal use his immortal powers to do it from a distance? Mr Kano saw their expressions and he laughed , "Don't get too excited but you will be able to easily do what i just did in a couple of years time , I promise you. If you pass"

Everybody couldn't believe it!

"Now everybody take your positions!", shouted the old eccentric.

"Ready , start!"