Chapter 9 Let Them Go Together

  A flash of treasure light in the sky, and on the main stage set up on the east side of the school field, there was another group of monks and secular people.

  Standing in the middle, however, was the current leader of the Luofu Sect, Ling Ga Shangren, the first of the Luofu Five Swords. Beside him were Faying Shengseng, the supervisor of the Xiaoleiyin Temple, one of the six major sects, and Chixiang Xianweng, the great elder of Wanshengu Valley. The other four swords of the Luofu Five Swords were also present, accompanying other sword immortals who had come to observe the ceremony, making it a lively and extraordinary scene.

  In this world, whenever there is a meeting, whether it's a big or small one, they always follow the same routine. The leader always has to speak first.

  Although these Luofu sects are all sword immortals, this rule has not been broken. As usual, Lingga Shangren talked about it for a long time, first summarizing, then thanking, followed by a lecture, and then proposing hopes to the newcomers, finally announcing the opening ceremony of the mountain gate conference.

  Actually, after he finished speaking, the Kaimen Conference had only one last item left, which was also the longest and most exciting: martial arts performance.

  In short, it's just a martial arts competition.

  It was mentioned earlier that the new disciples in this opening ceremony are all from the cultivation world, and they have some foundation, some even with a solid base, and can master several ultimate techniques. However, the stronger disciples inevitably have some arrogance, which is normal for young people. But if their arrogance is too heavy, it will not be beneficial to their future cultivation. Therefore, there is a policy that allows these newly admitted disciples to challenge inner door disciples or even core disciples, so that they can recognize their own strength. Of course, they are also happy to see new winners emerge and defeat inner door disciples, at least indicating that their foundation is good. The master of the Luo Fu Sect and the elders all hope that their disciples will produce more outstanding talents to glorify the sect. Such outstanding disciples will be key targets for cultivation in the future.

  This approach of killing two birds with one stone is not unique to the Luofu Sect. In fact, among the six major sects, except for the Xiao Lei Yin Temple, the other five sects have been using this method to stimulate young disciples for thousands of years.

  What was unexpected, however, was that this time the Luo Fu Sect seemed to have gone further than before. Not only did they allow these new disciples to challenge, but also allowed the original outer sect disciples to challenge inner sect disciples, and ordinary inner sect disciples to challenge ten core inner sect disciples. This usually only happened once every decade during the Sect's internal martial arts competition.

  The fifty-year opening of the mountain gate conference and the ten-year internal skills competition have come together, it seems that this Lingjia Shangren is not at peace.

  For this arrangement, Kong Yanben had no choice but to accept it. He was originally a core inner disciple and didn't want to challenge anyone, but the problem was that he didn't want to challenge others, yet others wanted to challenge him. Although he had been prepared for this, otherwise he wouldn't have been practicing bitterly for nearly a month, but everything that happened on stage today still made him feel somewhat unexpected. It wasn't just him who felt unexpected, others did too.

  Those new disciples naturally didn't know who was who and mostly challenged the inner door disciples, as for Kong Zhuo and his ten, they didn't even get a glance.

  After the most challenging match, the vast majority of Luo Fu's disciples won, but there were also one or two lazy people who didn't work hard and those who were unlucky to meet strong opponents lost. They left the arena with a dismal expression, and what awaited them was naturally ridicule and cold stares.

  To put it bluntly, this is a battle between two mediocre people, neither the process nor the content is very exciting, and Kong Zhan can't help but yawn.

  After this part of the trial is over, it will be the challenge match within the door.

  Before the match, as usual, the Luofu Sect elder who was hosting this conference read out the names of the challenger and the challenged. Then one by one they went up to compete, but this time, the two elders in charge of checking the challenge notices looked strange, looking at the challenge notices on the table with a difficult expression.

  Seeing the host elder not coming forward for a long time, the people below gradually started making noise.

  The most urgent of the five swords of Luofu was Xiuluo, who couldn't bear to wait any longer. He walked over to the table on the other side and quietly asked about the situation. The presiding elder smiled wryly and whispered a few words in his ear, causing his face to also become strange-looking. His gaze still swept towards the ten core disciples of the inner sect this way.

  Kong Zhan's heart suddenly felt a chill, and a bad premonition rose up in his mind.

  Xu Luojian returned to the chairman's seat, but did not sit down. Instead, he walked over to Ling Jia Shangren's side and whispered a few words in his ear. At first, Ling Jia Shangren was taken aback, but then suddenly burst out laughing, with a profound meaning in his eyes as he glanced over at Kong Zhuo and the others. His lips moved slightly, seemingly using a secret method to convey some message.

  The host elder also seemed to have received some information and stood up.

  Slowly walked to the center of the campus, began to read out the challenge notice came, originally some noisy campus also quieted down, however, this quiet did not last for long, when the host elder read to the twenty-first challenge notice, the noise below was even louder than before.

  Why?

  Because apart from the first nine challenge posts being internal disciples challenging each other to resolve personal grievances, from the tenth onwards until now, the twentieth, they have all been internal disciples challenging Kong Zhuo, and there is even one post from an external disciple's challenge, and looking at it, the thick stack below seems to be all challenges to Kong Zhuo as well.

  This is too unusual.

  All the newly admitted disciples started whispering at this time, and their eyes also began to focus on Kong Zhuo and his ten people.

  What's on his mind is almost the same question: who is this Kong Yan?

  How can one's relationships with others be so poor?

  Or is his strength extremely poor?

  There are only two reasons for this: either you have poor relationships and have offended many people, or your abilities are weak and you're a soft persimmon.

  One of the two must be true.

  What is the reason?

  Just as everyone was guessing, the presiding elder put down the challenge notice in his hand.

  "Besides what I just read out, there are more than a dozen inner disciples who have challenged Kong Zhuo by name. Since too many people have challenged the inner disciple Kong Zhuo, so... Inner disciple Kong Zhuo—!" He paused for a moment, "Kong Zhuo, you come out first!"

  With a very embarrassed look on his face, Kong Zhan's forehead was covered with fine sweat, and he shook his extremely fat buttocks as he walked out from among the ten people.

  He is very popular now, extremely popular.

  Although he has a good temper, although he doesn't like to fight, and although he had mentally prepared himself for someone to challenge him today, he still can't suppress the anger in his heart.

  Although it's said that persimmons should be squeezed to find the soft ones, doing so is a bit too unscrupulous. Besides, am I really that easy to bully?

  The tiger is not showing its might, does it really think I'm a sick cat? I may not be a tiger, but even as an old cat, I still count as one. How dare you treat me like a sick cat?

  So, Kong Zhuang's face is now very unsightly.

  "Kong Zhuo, since there are too many people challenging you, now you can choose three opponents to fight against, and don't have to accept all of them!"

  There are about thirty people challenging Kong Zhuo. If he were to accept every challenge, it would be a real gauntlet, who could withstand that?

  "Disciples, please ask your Shifu, are all of you challenging me just inner disciples and outer disciples? Are there any other fellow disciples?"

  "Any other fellow disciples?!" The presiding elder was taken aback, but seeing Kong Yan's gaze directed at the place he had just come from, he understood his meaning. "None, all are inner door disciples, and there are two outer door disciples!"

  "Is that so?!" Kong Zuo burst out laughing, took the note from the elder's hand and looked at it one by one. Some people he didn't know, some people he knew, among them were a few who had even eaten his roasted meat, which made him even more furious.

  What did I ever do to you guys? Do you have to come and bully me like this?

  He raised his eyes, and a cold glint flashed in his gaze, sweeping across the hundreds of inner sect disciples present in an instant.

  He has now reached the second layer of the Great Perfection of Innate Purple Qi, while these inner disciples are practicing relatively superficial techniques, their powers are not deep, so Kong Zhuo saw through their strengths and weaknesses at a glance.

  "Kong Zuo, how is it? Have you made a choice?" asked the presiding elder.

  Kong Zhan smiled and handed the Light War Sticker back to him, a warm smile appearing on his face. "No need, Master Uncle, let them go up together!"