My Clones Can Cultivate

Chapter 116

The audience couldn’t help the twitch in their eyes as they looked at the arena that seemed to have been decimated by a battle between titans, and then they looked back at the two girls who had caused all that destruction. Not battle titans... just two young girls.

They looked at the arena again... then back at the two girls... finally, all eyes settled on Xueyi, who had just said something their brains simply couldn’t process. How can she call this a warm-up? She must be joking... right? Right... right? That was what every one of them was thinking, though no one was there to confirm it.

Well... no one except the second girl on the stage; but instead of confirming their thoughts, she completely shattered them with her calm reply to the Beast Slayer: "Okay... then let the real battle begin."

The moment those words left her mouth, she slowly raised her sword, her blue eyes shining brilliantly as she activated her mutated qi. The refined qi surrounding her transformed from its natural, colorless state into flowing streams of azure liquid; for everyone watching, it was immediately obvious what kind of qi mutation it was: water qi.

Elder Ting once again found himself stunned beyond words.

Shi Yuan obtaining a qi mutation while only at the sixth stage of the Qi Refining Realm was already something he considered extremely rare, and it was one of the reasons he had proclaimed the boy a genius; even Shi Meng, despite being in the same cultivation realm and belonging to the same clan, had failed to awaken a qi mutation.

If awakening a qi mutation at the sixth stage of the Qi Refining Realm was already astonishing... then Yuexin’s achievement was simply beyond astonishing. After all... she had only just stepped into the very first stage of the Qi Refining Realm, yet she had already awakened a qi mutation.

"This is unbelievable..."

Elder Ting slowly shook his head; perhaps... he truly shouldn’t be surprised anymore by the astonishing feats performed by the members of the Li Clan.

Li Xie’s performance had been impressive, Li Jie’s was even better, and Li Feng’s still remained the greatest among them due to stepping into the legendary State of Flow, accomplishing something truly unprecedented in history.

Naturally... Yuexin was also bound to do something equally astonishing, and indeed... she had surprised everyone once again. Li San smiled faintly the moment he saw Li Yuexin’s mutated qi... water... just as he had expected.

Considering her personality and her exceptional talent in cultivating the Flowing Surge, a combat art created by a cultivator with an extremely deep affinity toward the water element, this outcome wasn’t surprising.

What truly surprised him... was her control; the way the water qi flowed gracefully around her body with perfect precision already revealed everything that needed to be known. She possessed an incredibly deep level of control over her Water Qi.

It wasn’t only the audience who were slightly taken aback by the revelation that Yuexin had awakened a mutated qi; even Guan Xueyi herself couldn’t hide the flicker of surprise in her eyes.

Although... it only lasted for a few seconds before disappearing, replaced once again by her usual playful and cheerful smile.

"Sister Yuexin, you never fail to surprise this innocent girl. When I said we should go all out... I wasn’t talking about this.

I meant we should start using our combat arts and fight with our qi more effectively. And then you just go ahead and pull this out. How am I supposed to beat you now?"

Yuexin merely gave her a blank stare; she knew Xueyi well enough to know that she was lying through her teeth.

She undoubtedly possessed a mutated qi as well; she simply hadn’t been pushed hard enough to reveal it yet. But... that would soon change. After all, Yuexin had no intention of wasting any more time. Although using a mutated qi brought tremendous advantages... it also came with equally significant disadvantages.

Maintaining a mutated qi consumed an enormous amount of refined qi; because of that... she needed to finish Xueyi as quickly as possible before the prolonged consumption drained her reserves. Yuexin took in a deep breath before slowly exhaling; her blue eyes flashed, then... she took a single step.

"Ripple Step."

Her figure seemed to vanish with the sound of that single footstep. Xueyi’s expression instantly became alarmed; she immediately slashed toward the place where she sensed the fluctuation of qi, but... nothing answered her attack.

She had been tricked; the real attack came from her side. Yuexin had already used the third form of the Flowing Surge.

Xueyi, not being slow herself, reacted fast enough to raise both daggers and block the incoming strike; her refined qi had already been channeled into the twin daggers as she prepared to counterattack the instant she successfully blocked Yuexin’s sword.

But... what happened next was something she could never have predicted. The moment the impact landed... her hands went completely numb from the overwhelming force behind Yuexin’s attack; and in that tiny instant when her arms lost all feeling... Yuexin’s kick flashed.

It struck Xueyi squarely in the face. The impact was anything but harmless.

Bang!

A deafening explosion echoed across the arena as Xueyi was blasted clean off her feet and launched high into the air. While still airborne, Xueyi immediately sensed an overwhelming danger approaching; without hesitation... she raised her guard.

Fortunately... by then, the numbness in her hands had already faded. Yuexin spinningly appeared right above her and, using another slash empowered by Surging Impact, struck downward; it collided head-on with Xueyi’s guard, and once again the immense impact of the attack slammed into her mercilessly.

Her hands went numb again, and the two daggers flew out of her grasp. Yuexin immediately gifted her with another attack: "Gale Whip."

It slammed into her stomach, and she crashed into the arena with a thunderous BANG. Everyone looked at the sudden change with stunned silence as they shifted their gazes from Yuexin, who landed calmly, to Xueyi, who was lying inside a deep crater caused by the impact.

The silence lingered for a long while; after all, the match was not playing out the way everyone had speculated.

Because Xueyi possessed the higher cultivation realm, she was supposed to be the one holding the advantage, or at the very least she should have been the one pressing Yuexin into a difficult position.

Yet that was clearly not what was happening right now; instead, the exact opposite of their expectations was unfolding before their eyes.

The referee stepped onto the stage and looked at Xueyi, who seemed to have passed out; he was momentarily stunned, wondering if that was truly how the battle had ended. But that was not what happened.

The very next moment, the girl who had seemingly lost consciousness suddenly smiled. No... she wasn’t just smiling; she was grinning from ear to ear as though someone had just promised to hand her an incredible prize.

Then she slowly got back onto her feet. The referee raised an eyebrow.

"Well, it seems that the battle is far from over," he said before vanishing from the stage once more.

Xueyi stood back up, and the crowd erupted into loud cheers; they would all have been disappointed if she had really been defeated so quickly. Xueyi waved happily at the crowd before stretching her body slightly; then she looked at Yuexin with a small smile.

"You really got me there, Sister Yuexin. You bet I am once again impressed by the way you managed to corner me. It is fun. Do that again when you get the chance."

She paused, placing a finger on her chin as if trying to remember something; her eyes suddenly brightened before she continued: "That is... if you ever get another chance like that."

Yuexin didn’t respond to the obvious taunt in her words; instead, she was surprised. She hadn’t held back on those attacks, and yet they seemed to have dealt very little damage to Xueyi.

Apart from a few shallow marks scattered across her body, there were barely any injuries worth mentioning. Yuexin sighed inwardly; she really didn’t want to fight this monster, mainly because she still had no idea just how strong Xueyi truly was.

Even after exchanging so many blows, she still couldn’t accurately gauge the extent of her strength. That was deeply unsettling. Still, she had no choice; she had to keep pushing her, forcing more and more of her hidden strength out until she finally defeated her.

After all, there could only be one winner in this match, and Yuexin was not planning to lose. With that, her gaze sharpened, and her grip on her sword became firmer as she prepared to attack once more. Xueyi’s gaze also sharpened as her daggers flew back into her grasp.

"I am not planning to get beaten. That was your turn... now it is my turn."

She grinned; then her figure blurred forward at insane speed. Within moments, she was right before Yuexin, who had already prepared herself for the incoming attack.

Without wasting any time, the two engaged in yet another fierce and brutal battle: sword clashed against daggers, leg struck against leg, and qi collided against qi.

"Flowing Surge, Fourth Form... Whirlpool Lock!"

Yuexin’s movements flowed as smoothly as water; her attacks came in rapid succession, trapping Xueyi completely on the defensive. The moment Xueyi could no longer launch her own attacks, she immediately started losing the initiative.

Many thin red lines gradually began to appear all over her body. Xueyi’s expression changed slightly as she realized Yuexin’s true plan.

Many people would think Yuexin’s goal was simply to keep her locked in a defensive position; but it was far more than that. She wanted Xueyi to forcefully break free using all of her strength; and the moment she did... Yuexin would unleash an even more devastating attack, throwing her into an even worse situation than the one she was already trapped in.

Her plan was nothing short of smart, but Xueyi was not someone who would lose to something like that. Instead... why don’t she show her some real tricks?

With that thought, her gaze shifted, and a crazy smile curled across the side of her lips. She deliberately broke her own rhythm, and because of that, Yuexin’s strike landed squarely on her body.

But Yuexin immediately realized there was danger; without hesitation, she raised her sword to guard. Xueyi’s strike came fast and brutal:

"Beast Art... First Form... Tiger Tear!"

The attack crashed against Yuexin’s raised guard; she instantly unsheathed Li Feng’s black sword, which rested at her side, and struck back before Xueyi could regain her footing.

Xueyi managed to dodge; at the same time, she performed a spinning kick, her leg fully infused with refined qi. It slammed into the black sword, barely managing to block the attack. She landed several meters away; a thin red line appeared across her leg where her shoe had been torn open.

"Gosh... that hurt," she groaned before looking at Yuexin, who was staring at her with calculating eyes.

"She is hiding something..."

Yuexin thought, her gaze hardening. She couldn’t shake away the feeling assaulting her mind; it was as if she was being tricked by Xueyi, and she hated the thought of being manipulated. Still, no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out what exactly Xueyi was hiding from her.

She didn’t dwell on it for long; whether Xueyi was hiding her true strength or not didn’t really matter. At the end of the day... what mattered was that she had to win.

With that, she used Ripple Step once more; she appeared behind Xueyi and struck toward her back, but Xueyi managed to block it with one of her daggers. Her second dagger immediately pierced toward Yuexin with a sharp whistle.

Yuexin blocked that one with her second sword... Li Feng’s black sword.

Clang!

The two weapons locked together in a brief stalemate. Well... it lasted for exactly one second; then the two sides exploded into motion once again. The two fought using both their pure combat skills and their combat arts: "Wolf Fang!" "Flowing Current!"

The two launched attack after attack at insane speed; the stage beneath them suffered both crushing impacts and countless slicing attacks as violent tremors spread across it. "Bear Crush!" "Surging Impact!"

The two attacks collided; dense waves of qi surged outward violently, and the entire side of the battle stage where the two were fighting was completely decimated, breaking apart into countless chunks of rubble.

The two immediately moved to another part of the stage; then they continued their vigorous battle there. Soon... that section of the stage was also completely destroyed. Without slowing down, they shifted toward yet another part of the arena: "Viper Strike!" "Raging Tide!"

That section also shattered into splinters beneath the relentless exchange; this continued for the next several minutes. After five minutes had passed, the two young ladies finally landed several steps apart.

Because most of the battle stage had already been destroyed, they weren’t actually that far away from one another; then again... there wasn’t really anywhere left to create distance in the first place.

"Damn... this is too much fun! Sister Yuexin, let’s go for another round!"

Yuexin looked at her as though she wanted nothing more than to strangle her. Fun? What exactly did she mean by fun?

Yuexin then glanced at her own hand; a long cut had appeared across it, one of the few injuries she had received during their relentless clash. She frowned slightly; something kept telling her that Xueyi was hiding something dangerous.

She lifted her gaze once more and saw that same smile on Xueyi’s face... the very same smile she always wore whenever she was about to do something particularly troublesome.

Li Yuexin’s face couldn’t help but twitch. "My hunch is right... she really is up to something. Something bad."

At the Guan Clan’s seating area, Haoran watched the battle before slowly shaking his head.

"Yuexin has already made a mistake because of her ignorance. And because of that... she is bound to lose."

After all, dealing with Xueyi’s mutated qi was something that bordered on impossible.

"She has already lost this battle," Haoran said with absolute confidence.

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