Dominating Sword Immortal

Chapter 74 – Dangerous Red Blood Forest

Ye Chen asked, “How strong is this Blood Craving Monster?” He did not ask for that guy’s cultivation level, because when it concerned geniuses, cultivation levels were only trivial. It was not uncommon for a Mid Condensing Reality Realm warrior to beat a Late Condensing Reality Realm warrior. So, the most important thing was rather his battle prowess.

Yuan Xuemei glanced at Wang Feng, and explained: “Brother Ye, I wonder if you ever heard about the three stages of the younger generation of the Windy Nation?”

Ye Chen shook his head. Maybe the disciples who had been travelling for a while might have known about it, but he was someone who had just become an inner disciple and had no powerful connections. So, he did not know much.

“Okay, I will explain it for you!” Yuan Xuemei organized her thoughts, and slowly explained.

“Although there are not as many geniuses as the other big nations in the Windy Nation, there are still quite a lot of them. In general, only the real geniuses would be included in this classification.

The first stage, which is the highest stage only has three people, Young master Emerald from the Emerald Martial Palace, the Young master North Snow from the North Snow Martial Academy and the Young master Duanmu from the Duanmu family. All three of them are considered the leaders of the younger generation of the Windy Nation. They are capable of competing with the top geniuses from other countries, and are eligible to attend the triennial competition for the Hidden Dragon Rank.

There are many people in the second stage. For example, the core disciple – ‘Broken Palm’ Liu Wuxiang – from the Emerald Martial Palace, the ‘Stone Man’ Shi Potian, the core dicisple from the North Snow Martial Academy – ‘Aggressive Blade’ Yu Yue, ‘North Snow Fast Blade’ Lin Qi, Ouyang Lie from the Purple Sun Martial Palace, ‘Golden Leg’ Ouyang Ming. Our eldest sister and second brother from the Rudra Martial School, ‘Lotus Goddess’ Qin Yulian and the ‘Rain man’ Nan Gongyun; the core disciples from your Sky Cloud Martial School Zhu Mei, and ‘Young master Hanshan’ Luo Hanshan. Of course, the more people there are, the harder it is, to ignore the the difference in their strength. The most powerful one might easily defeat the weakest one. Yet, they are all named in the same stage.

I would not go into details about the third stage, as there are just too many people in it. Most of them are core disciples from all the martial institutions, who are mostly at the Late Condensing Reality Realm. They are very likely to become the mid rank powers of the Windy Nation in the future.”

Ye Chen frowned, “So this Blood Craving Monster is a stage-three genius?”

“Hehe, not exactly. He is below the three stages, but he is still one of the most powerful disciples. it’s just that his cultivation level is not quite there yet. it is not impossible for him to join the third stage.” Yuan Xuemei explained.

After hearing this, Ye Chen tried to picture a detailed power chart in his mind, from high to low. It was much more organized when compared to earlier, when he knew nothing about his fellow disciples’ strength.

As for the competition for the Hidden Dragon Rank that she mentioned, he had already heard about it before.

The Nan Zhuo region was the smallest region in the true spirit continent. However, this smallest region was still way bigger than the world Ye Chen was from. It had millions of miles of land, among which, there were three big nations, ten mid sized nations and twenty-four small nations, like the Windy Nation.

All the martial artists from different nations normally did not interact much, due to the distance between their nations. This made it very hard to get an idea of the strength of the martial artists in other nations.

Therefore, the three big nations decided to collaborate and set up a competition sixty years ago, in order to get a clear idea of the level of all the warriors from various nations.

The competition for the Hidden Dragon Rank was designed for the youngsters who were under twenty-four and with a cultivation level at or above Mid Condensing Reality Realm. It was held once every three years, with seventy-two contestants each time.

Although seventy-two might seem like a lot, it is actually very few. In Nan Zhuo region alone, there were billions of people living, so being selected as one of the top seventy-two would be the greatest honor. And as far as Ye Chen knew, in the last Hidden Dragon Rank competition, that took place a year ago, Young master Emerald from the Emerald Martial Palace was ranked sixty-eighth, while Young master North Snow and Young master Duanmu were not even in the rankings.

Of course, it did not mean that Young master Emerald was stronger than the other two, as sometimes you might just have bad luck and could encounter opponents with the exact skills to counter yours. In that kind of situation, even if you had the higher cultivation level, it would still not make much of a difference.

A lot of information flashed through Ye Chen’s mind, he nodded at Yuan Xuemei, and said, “Thanks for the information, I will be careful.”

Wang Feng who had been cold this whole time, suddenly said, “Even the Blood Craving Monster must have a weakness, if we could find it, then we could beat him with the minimum casualties.”

Ye Chen forced out a smile, he knew that the disciples from the North Snow Martial Academy specialized in finding their opponents’ weaknesses and making use of them to obtain victory, they would never give their opponents a chance to fight back. It’s too bad that Ye Chen was not a part of the North Snow Martial Academy, as he knew that even with his powerful soul force, it would still be very hard for him to find someone’s weakness and then attack efficiently. However, would someone like the Blood Craving Monster be beaten that easily?

Lin Xiaoxue saw that they were just standing there, instead of coming over to her. She decided to say something to get their attention, “Congratulations, you five would be the temporary guardians for tomorrow’s herb collecting trip.”

“Thanks!” Yuan Xuemei smiled back.

Lin Tiannan said, “I have already asked them to prepare the rooms for your arrival. Dinner would be served in the dining room; the servants would remind you about it. Also, the Red Blood Forest is quite dangerous, you guys should be fully prepared. Tonight, you should probably get a good rest.”

“Thanks, Leader Lin.”

The five did not dare to underestimate the Red Blood Forest, as they knew that it was full of demonic beasts. Rank 4 beasts were quite common there. Even if Young master Emerald encountered a Rank 4 beast, he would not be in an advantageous position. If he was not careful, he might even end up dead and would become part of the soil.

The sun went down soon after. After dinner, the five went back to their own rooms, and did not come out again.

A night passed without any words.

Second day morning.

The five of them followed the large herb collecting team and the guards from the Lin family, and headed towards the west of the Black Stone Town, where the Red Blood Forest was located.

…

In the eerily silent forest, everyone walked quietly. Everyone was anxious and alarmed, they kept looking at the dark corners. All those people carrying a weapon, held on to them tightly, and those who did not, silently accumulated their Zhen Qi, preparing for the danger they might face at any moment.

“Ahhh!”

Even though everyone was being extremely careful, they were still unable to dodge death. A Lin family guard suddenly fell down, his face looked green, and he kept spitting white foam.

Lin Xiaoxue frowned, she hurriedly walked over.

After carefully studying the surroundings, the group realized that there was a huge green spider crawling on that dead guard’s neck. It was probably hanging from the tree when he walked past, then attacked silently when he was not looking, and poisoned him.

“It is the dark green poisonous dragon spider!” Lin Xiaoxue calmly stated. Although these spiders could only be counted as rank 1 beasts, they carried an extremely strong poison, which could even kill a Condensing Reality Ream warrior in a second. That was why, they were called the Death Envoys by the warriors that frequently travel through the Red Blood Forest. It meant that anyone bitten by these spiders could not be saved.

Ye Chen gasped unnoticeably. He did not think that the Red Blood Forest would be anymore dangerous than the Silent Hills. He had thought that, since he managed to survive in the Silent Hills, he would probably be able to survive the Red Blood Forest. However, he understood that he was wrong. The Red Blood Forest was not only full of huge scary monsters, but it also had tiny little deadly creatures. If it was him that was bitten by the spider, he also might not have been able to survive it.