Into the Pride of Heaven

This victory was won inexplicably.

Li Shiyin pulled the sword out from the debate stage, looked around at the stage and below, then walked down and went to Qin Ran's side, still not having reacted.

"How did I just win?" she asked Qin Ran.

"Isn't winning good?" Long Qiqi lay on Chase Wind's back and said to her.

Li Shiyin still couldn't figure it out: "Why did Senior Brother Lu let me win?"

"He did something bad and wanted to compensate!" Long Qiqi said with a curl of her lips.

Qin Ran reached out and gently patted her on the shoulder, smiling and comforting:

"In fact, when you get the qualifications to knock on the door to the Dao, these rankings don't mean much anymore. Especially for someone like Lu Junxing, he doesn't care about fame, he doesn't care about rankings and rewards; moreover, this will not affect his reputation in the Dao Sword Sect, nor will it affect his position on the Geniuses Ranking. He doesn't care."

"Didn't we say it would be a fair fight?" Li Shiyin sighed.

However, not only did something go wrong on their side in this semi-final match, something also went wrong on Liu Baixuan and Dong Zhongyuan's side.

Liu Baixuan lost to Dong Zhongyuan!

In the simple perception of the Dao Sword Sect's disciples, the two who were supposed to participate in the final assessment should have been Lu Junxing and Liu Baixuan, after all, one was first on the Geniuses Ranking and the other was second.

Who would have thought that these two people would both lose in the semi-finals, and the final assessment would be between Li Shiyin and Dong Zhongyuan.

...If someone had set odds privately, they would surely have lost their pants.

There was no need to elaborate on Li Shiyin's side. Discerning people could see that Lu Junxing had voluntarily conceded defeat and poured out a whole sea of water.

But Dong Zhongyuan versus Liu Baixuan was truly unexpected. These two really fought a match, then Liu Baixuan lost... She was outmatched in pure strength and lost.

What happened?? Is Dong Zhongyuan that strong? Stronger than Liu Baixuan!!?

The Dao Sword Sect disciples could not accept it.

After seeing the assessment results, Long Qiqi became excited. She vigorously rubbed Chase Wind's big cat head like a great demon king, and said wildly with a laugh: "Both suffered heavy losses! Dong Zhongyuan was severely injured. Shiyin, you can really take first place now!"

Among the surrounding disciples, there were quite a few supporters of Liu Baixuan and Dong Zhongyuan. Hearing Long Qiqi's words, there were suddenly a number of sharp gazes shooting over.

Looking at the Dong Zhongyuan who had been carried off the debate stage for emergency treatment, Li Shiyin didn't know what to say for a while.

She had fought hard battles all the way, against Yan Tianxing, Dugu Wenxue, Ye Qingxuan, Yao Qingke, and then after defeating Yao Qingke, she would lie in first place.

This...

She looked at Qin Ran with a strange expression in her big eyes.

Seeing his silly disciple's bewilderment, Qin Ran laughed and began to brainwash her:

"Actually, don't think too much about this. On the one hand, luck is part of one's strength; on the other hand, this assessment itself is not a fair assessment. Judging from its rules and the assessment process over the past few days, it even deliberately created an unfair assessment... because this is more in line with the objective environment of the cultivation world. It allows you to use tactics during the assessment, it allows you to cheat during the assessment, so even if you make it to the end by luck, it is still reasonable in this assessment."

"But..." Li Shiyin still felt weird.

"Alright!" Qin Ran interrupted her words and laughed, "In fact, even if you take first place in the assessment, it doesn't prove anything.

"Let's go, go home and rest for the night, come back tomorrow to see if Dong Zhongyuan still has the strength for another fight."

Dong Zhongyuan and Liu Baixuan's fight which ended in both suffering heavy losses was the final match of the assessment for ordinary disciples watching the battles.

That match was the most exciting, followed by Li Shiyin versus Yao Qingke.

Originally everyone wanted to see the final showdown between the two powerful sword cultivators, Lu Junxing and Liu Baixuan.

Who would have thought...

Now standing on the stage was a dying Dong Zhongyuan and a clearly inadequate Li Shiyin.

Oh well, just bear with watching it!

Dong Zhongyuan leaned on a cane with his left hand, a fan still in his right hand, slanting on the cane, the fan in his hand still gently fanning. No matter how one changes, one must maintain this grace. One's head may break and blood may flow...

Looking at Li Shiyin opposite him, he laughed loudly, "Yesterday I thought that no matter what, I could never beat Lu Junxing. That guy is just a monster, not of the same world as me. But I could try against Liu Baixuan. I thought that since getting first place was impossible, fighting for second place wouldn't be bad either.

"Who would have thought when I came this morning, I heard that Senior Brother Lu had fallen under Junior Sister Li's sword... Hahaha..." He laughed loudly and continued, "If I had known earlier I wouldn't have tried so desperately. My original plan was to defeat Liu Baixuan, then casually fight Lu Junxing before conceding defeat.

"Now that Lu Junxing has lost, I'll just casually fight my junior sister."

He looked at Li Shiyin and said, "I heard you played a drinking game with Lu Junxing yesterday. Why don't we play a round too!"

The final assessment ended up being played around with...

It could only be said that the more ordinary disciples cared about this assessment, the less the people involved in it cared about it.

First Cause of All Realms

"Senior Brother, please go ahead." Li Shiyin's face was cold.

Instead of directly saying what game he wanted to play, Dong Zhongyuan asked Li Shiyin: "Does Junior Sister know what the Dao Sword Sect's Geniuses Ranking actually is?"

"The top ten disciples?"

"No..." Dong Zhongyuan shook his head. He stopped fanning with the fan in his hand and showed it to Li Shiyin, saying, "The Geniuses Ranking is actually this fan."

"A fan?" Li Shiyin frowned at the fan.

"Junior Sister, you entered the Geniuses Ranking for beheading Song Ze. So..." Dong Zhongyuan suddenly fanned the fan at Li Shiyin and laughed, "Why don't you enter the Geniuses Ranking yourself and take a look!"

A great wind blew across the debate stage. Li Shiyin disappeared without a trace.

"Shiyin?!" Long Qiqi was frightened and anxiously shouted.

"Don't panic..." Qin Ran reassured, "Shiyin just entered the Geniuses Ranking."

"What exactly is that thing then?"

"The Geniuses Ranking is a magic treasure," Qin Ran said. "Dong Zhongyuan is the one in charge of this magic treasure."

"Magic treasure?"

"Yes, a rather miraculous magic treasure."

Inside the Geniuses Ranking was a boundless grey chaos.

In this chaos, Li Shiyin's figure suddenly appeared. She swept her eyes around and found that there was nothing else in this chaos, only a huge stele in front of her. The stele stretched endlessly high and endlessly low, with dense tiny words on its surface.

"This is the Geniuses Ranking?" she asked aloud.

"Yes," Dong Zhongyuan's voice sounded out of nowhere. He said, "Every generation of Dao Sword Sect has ten geniuses. Every genius will leave their name on the Geniuses Ranking stele. And you are the 12,960th genius on the Geniuses Ranking!"

As his voice fell, golden light shone from the stele's surface in the chaos.

Li Shiyin looked closely to find that the dense tiny words on the surface were all names. At the end of those names one name lit up - "Li Shiyin".

The next moment, the golden light faded away. A white-clothed girl with a long sword appeared standing on the chaos in front of the stele, stepping on the chaos.

Li Shiyin looked over to find it was her.

"Junior Sister, every time you defeat one, the next will appear, from the tenth genius to the ninth, the eighth. And I'm fourth," Dong Zhongyuan's voice said. "As long as Junior Sister can defeat me here, that's your win."