Volume 2, Chapter 69 – Tiger Soul

“Xiang’er?”

As Bolou and Leng Qiu walked up onto the platform, Xiang Xian took the chance to look over at Bai Xiang.

“Just now you reminded her to beware of ‘mental contamination’. Why?”

It wasn’t just Xiang Xian—Wang Ran, as well as several Sword Institute instructors sitting closer by, all turned to look at Bai Xiang at this moment, their eyes filled with surprise and curiosity.

“Master should know my mind and spirit-soul are somewhat abnormal—more condensed and stronger than other people’s.” Bai Xiang said.

Xiang Xian gave a slight nod at that.

The fact that Bai Xiang had managed to achieve the “Jade Spirit” state in just half a day already showed she was naturally a big step ahead of others in this regard.

Bai Xiang also nodded, lowering her voice so that only the two Dao Lords could hear her. “And whenever I look at that Bolou, I just feel… off.”

At those words, Xiang Xian and Wang Ran frowned at the same time.

They immediately turned their heads to look at Bolou in the arena, as if they wanted to verify Bai Xiang’s claim.

But they stared for quite a while, and even by the time the two contestants finished bowing and were about to begin, they still couldn’t see anything wrong.

“This is serious.” Wang Ran could no longer sit still. He told Xiang Xian, “I’ll go pay that Chan Master Luohou another visit.”

Bai Xiang had done a great favor for the Qizhou University Sword Institute and for the entire Benling Sword Dao. He didn’t believe Bai Xiang would fool people over something like this.

If the one lying wasn’t Bai Xiang, then it had to be the other side.

“…You’re not stupid after all.”

Watching Wang Ran walk off toward Luohou’s group, Xiang Xian pressed her lips in a small smile and patted Bai Xiang’s leg.

She herself had taken disciples, and had seen others teach as well. From what she’d seen and heard, it was extremely rare for a disciple to pierce through something like this to their teacher’s face in such a situation. Most would, out of hesitation or some private concern, keep quiet—only for the situation to worsen in the end.

Bai Xiang didn’t react in any way.

She felt there was no need to react to this.

This was the Qiyun Circuit, where Qizhou University had put down its roots. There was no way she’d keep a hidden danger like this to investigate in private; of course she’d use her status as their “benefactor”, and with Xiang Xian’s endorsement, warn Wang Ran and force them to deal with it themselves.

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Benling was, after all, one of the Nine Daos, and Qizhou University was one of the exalted Nine Prefectural Universities. On top of that, the Qiyun Circuit was also the location of the headquarters of Qidi’s Demon-Suppressing Division and the State Chancery—this really wasn’t something she should be breaking her back over.

This little interlude didn’t attract anyone’s notice. Everyone’s minds were fixed on the platform, ready to enjoy a fierce clash.

After exchanging courtesies and bowing, Leng Qiu drew the “Purple Lightning Sword”, while Bolou snapped the strap and swung the heavy sword off his back into his hand.

This black-skinned, shaved-headed youth, if one looked closely, also had some dark tattoos on his body. It was just that his skin color blurred their outlines, making them hard to see clearly. Even so, they still added a layer of wild ferocity to him. Holding that thick black heavy sword, he looked like a temple guardian statue, and his eyes were startlingly bright.

The green light had long since lit. After the two sides faced off and held there for a while, it was Bolou who suddenly relaxed his stance and simply walked toward Leng Qiu with his sword in hand.

He walked very slowly, the thick black heavy sword like an ugly fire poker, its crude tip dragging across the ground with a teeth-aching screech of friction.

He was clearly doing it to put pressure on his opponent. Leng Qiu curled her lips, yet battle intent was boiling in her chest. Gripping the Purple Lightning Sword, she lowered her head and charged forward, moving so fast she left a hazy afterimage where she’d been.

To the crowd, there was only a flash of purple lightning. In the middle of the platform, Leng Qiu’s slender figure flickered into being right in front of Bolou. Before anyone could see how she’d swung her sword, Bolou had already raised his arm, lifting the thick black heavy sword to block in midair. Between them, two opposing membranes of demonic aura suddenly exploded outward against each other, and at the same time, two Demon Pool illusory Aspects manifested.

“Arrr—” Around Leng Qiu’s body coiled a purple horned dragon, its entire form condensed from purple lightning. As it roared, purple currents ceaselessly flashed over it, stabbing toward Bolou ahead from all directions at once.

“Roar!!!”

Purple qi also surged all over Bolou’s body. His expression didn’t change, but his demonic power formed into a clearly outlined, purple-striped ferocious tiger, eyes glaring and bulging, the character “king” on its brow. It opened its bloody jaws in a tiger’s roar that blew apart all the incoming purple lightning!

“‘Tiger King Roaring Wind’?” Xiang Xian suddenly let out a quiet sound of surprise. She tapped Bai Xiang’s leg, giving live commentary. “That’s ‘Sound’, ‘Wind’, and ‘Suppress’ used together. This Bolou really does have high talent!”

“That Shangqing disciple is probably in trouble.”

Bolou was also from Fuhu Temple, and Fuhu Temple naturally had methods for raising and converting Benling Tigers. It wasn’t strange that quite a few of these Luohou people carried Demon Pools of the same type.

But for his very first sword, his very first move, to be a display of “Tiger King Roaring Wind”—to those who knew what they were seeing, that was going way too far.

Was it because he was using all three innate divine abilities in this one move at once?

Bai Xiang quickly grasped what Xiang Xian meant.

The power of the Benling Tiger was beyond doubt. Even after being sacrificed as a sword, human cultivators could still inherit its four divine abilities, called respectively “Sound”, “Wind”, “Suppress”, and “Sever”.

However, depending on each person’s natural gifts and constitution, their efficiency in using those four divine abilities differed.

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Take Xu Xi, for example. She had taken the initiative to tell Bai Xiang that Dao Lord Wang Ran had once instructed her, saying her temperament was too steady, completely lacking any aggressive, charging spirit. The divine abilities of “Sound”, “Wind”, and “Sever” all didn’t match her, and it would be best if she focused on just the one word “Suppress” —maybe she could still make something of that.

It might look a bit shabby, but with just that she could already enter the inner sect. That alone showed that “being compatible with at least one major-category divine ability” was one of the standards for entering the inner sect—and that standard was by no means easy to meet.

Matching even one was already precious, let alone matching two, or three.

“‘Tiger King Roaring Wind’?”

Wang Ran, halfway there, also saw this scene and froze where he stood, his eyes going wide.

“Spirit Tiger Roar”, “Tiger-Ben Wind”, “Soul-Suppressing Eye”—a subtle divine technique that only those three skills combined could achieve—was actually being used so easily by an “outsider”?

What the—? Didn’t they not even have a visualization chart?

“Amitabha…” The old monk in a python-embroidered robe stepped out from under the awning, came to stand beside him, and watched the platform together with him.

“Is Senior Brother perhaps curious how, without a visualization chart, he can still have raised such a ferocious tiger?”

“Roar!!!”

The gathered, shooting purple lightning was dispelled by a single roar from the tiger illusory Aspect. This clearly caught Leng Qiu off guard. She had prepared no plan at all for dealing with a scene like this. Faced with purple lightning that was either annihilated outright or swept back on a raging gale, she had no defenses, and was blasted several meters through the air. Tiny sprays of blood burst out at the same time from her shoulder, thigh, and the side of her calf—her skin and flesh sliced open by stray wind blades. In just the very first exchange, she’d already taken a light injury!

“This isn’t ‘Tiger King Roaring Wind’!”

Wang Ran murmured.

“Sound, Wind, Suppress, Sever… this is the four-series fusion ‘Benling Tiger Soul’!?” Xiang Xian’s expression also changed, her lips parting slightly. “Now this really is a good show…”

“‘Benling Tiger Soul’?” Bai Xiang’s tone rose slightly.

“‘Benling Tiger Soul’ is no longer just the name of a single move or divine ability—it’s closer to a constant state.” Xiang Xian quickly explained. “Each of the Benling Tiger’s four divine abilities can branch out into many small moves. For example, the Sound formulas include ‘Spirit Tiger Roar’, ‘Spirit Tiger Shock’, ‘Spirit Tiger Vacuum Sword’; the Wind formulas include ‘Fiery Reeking Wind’, ‘Tiger-Ben Wind’, and so on…”

“In Benling Sword Dao, the Thirty-Six Stance Arts train the person—they train how you place your steps, and in what form you deliver the sword to the enemy’s eyes.”

“The Demon Pool divine abilities train the sword—they decide what killing methods you have once you’ve sent your sword across.”

“Since ancient times there’s been a saying: one divine ability makes a Tiger, two make a Spirit, three make a King, four make a Benling. What it’s talking about are these Spirit Tiger divine abilities. Someone who can command two at once can be called a Spirit Tiger; someone who can command three at once can be called a Tiger King.”

“And someone who can command all four—”

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Xiang Xian stared, eyes bright, at the enormous purple demon tiger in the arena, her tone pressing down on the words. “—will naturally form a ‘Benling Tiger Soul’!”

“An outer Aspect like that is no longer constrained by individual moves and techniques.”

“Every one of its movements, every look in its eyes, every roar is the fusion of the four divine abilities! Every one of them simultaneously carries the powerful might of ‘Sound’, ‘Wind’, ‘Suppress’, and ‘Sever’!”

Xiang Xian was already talking fast, but she still couldn’t keep up with the speed of Leng Qiu’s defeat.

On the very first sword, she was shouted back by the Benling Tiger Soul.

“Sound” shattered the purple lightning.

“Wind” blew the currents back.

“Suppress” locked down the horned dragon.

“Sever” sliced the sword momentum apart.

She wanted to resist. She wanted to call on her illusory Aspect to transform—from a dragon form to a crane form, at least trying to use the “sharpness” of crane-like sword intent to break the situation.

But just as she lifted her head, she met the eyes of that giant tiger.

Just one look.

Just that one look.

Still in midair, she let out a muffled groan, blood bursting out around her eye sockets as if scraped by radiating carving knives, the trails dragging all the way back to her temples on both sides and to the scalp at the top of her head. The horned dragon illusory Aspect around her body that had been held down by Suppress shattered outright; the purple lightning flashed once and vanished without a trace.

She had already lost.

Bai Xiang frowned.

Because she had actually fainted right after that eye contact. All her outer Aspect power, and even her Sword Dao will, had been crushed and suppressed. At this moment Leng Qiu was essentially just an unconscious mortal, having completely lost any ability to resist.

“Qiu’er!”

Master Li Sheng shot to her feet in fury.

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But it was too late.

The dark-skinned, shaved-headed youth’s eyes were already bulging with rage as, together with the giant tiger outer Aspect, he swung out his left paw, striking in midair at the blue-skirted girl’s lower abdomen.

“Oof!”

That blow jolted Leng Qiu awake in agony. Her small body bent in midair like a shrimp bow, a spray of fresh blood shooting from her mouth as she flew backward off the platform—only to be caught by Master Li Sheng as she rushed up.

“Shameless brat!”

Master Li Sheng glared up at the platform. “What a vicious heart you have!”

“She hadn’t stepped off the platform just now, nor had she conceded.”

Bolou, however, remained completely unmoved.

“Surely the Earth Master has no intention of scorning the rules.”

Master Li Sheng narrowed her eyes at him, as if she wanted to carve his features into her memory, then carried Leng Qiu back to Qingze’s side.

“How is Junior Sister?”

Zhao Jinyan and a crowd of teachers and students immediately crowded around. They saw Master take out a white pill and feed it to Leng Qiu. After a few coughs, some color finally returned to her deathly pale face.

“She’ll need at least three or four months of quiet recuperation.”

Master Li Sheng said coldly.

She knew Bolou had actually held back.

In that last state, Leng Qiu had been completely undefended. Bolou hadn’t even needed to go for a killing blow; just a normal-strength palm strike would have blasted her internal organs out through her back, killing her on the spot.

That was also why she hadn’t erupted then and there—her opponent had at least left some room.

If blame had to be laid, it could only be that their side’s skills were inferior.