The Ashes of Fate - Chapter 9

Translator – Synthsoon

“Huh?” The person was watching An Jing dominate his opponents with so much vigour, he almost shouted “Wreck them!” “Destroy him”!”, but now he was completely dumbfounded. He pointed to himself doubtfully, “Beat An Jing?”

“By myself?”

This young man managed to finish the entire run, but he was one of the three who didn’t challenge An Jing. His name was Cang LinZu, his strength wasn’t bad and he had good perception, he even enrolled into the DaChen Martial Arts Academy.

But that was exactly why he knew An Jing was only “a bit tired” the day before, while he was almost completely exhausted, this difference in stamina was hard to make up.

With an awareness of his own strength, what was the point of challenging him?

But after being named by the instructor, Cang LinZu became interested and looked towards the stage.

At the moment, after defeating nine people in a row, An Jing was indeed showing some signs of fatigue.

Since he wouldn’t receive any sort of life-threatening injury… this was a really good opportunity!

“Okay, I’ll try.”

–Don’t blame me, An Jing, you’re too strong, I could only share the stage with you by taking a small advantage.

With that in mind, Cang LinZu stepped into the ring – as the original tenth challenger had already conceded.

An Jing turned his head to look at him.

He wasn’t actually tired at all, but when he had defeated the fifth challenger, An Jing noticed something strange about Instructor Lai.

He was no fool, by now he realized these “challenges” were secretly encouraged by the Life Suspending Manor, including the meat he ate, all of it was used to push the disciples to compete against one another.

From now on, the training would only become more and more rigorous, and the instructors would further encourage their disciples to challenge each other, so they could select the elites with both skill and strength, and decide on the true “Senior Brother” before the completion of their training.
But the premise is that the position of the “first” is changeable, so that the other disciples may fight for it.

If one was too strong, it would discourage the others, and they would simply give up when faced with opponents they couldn’t win.

No wonder Instructor Lai had such a headache.

But that’s none of his business.

An Jing wouldn’t lose. At most, he would just pretend to be a bit tired to make the others feel they had a chance of winning.

“Sorry!”

Cang LinZu didn’t take a weapon, while An Jing threw down the short stick in his hand, obviously wanting to test out his unarmed combat.

Both sides saluted each other, and in the next instant, Cang LinZu stepped forward and struck using a Standard Cannon Punch.

The DaChen Martial Arts Academy spread all over the lands, so the court could use these schools to search for elites to recruit, each person who entered the Martial Arts Academy was destined to reach the realm of Tidal Internal Breath, enough to become a first-class soldier.

Cang LinZu didn’t stay long inside the Academy, because he was forced to become a vagrant due to the Frost Scourge, but this is exactly why his Martial Techniques were refined through blood and fire, causing his Standard Cannon Punch to stand out from the others. It was infused with three quarters of Malevolent Energy and its impact felt like a thunderbolt aimed straight for the heart.

An Jing narrowed his eyes and raised his left hand to defend, taking Cang LinZu’s attack head on. Both their bodies slightly swayed at the same time, then An Jing pretended to attempt an attack with his right hand, while actually stepping forward to strike the back of his opponent’s leg.

But Cang LinZu’s footwork was also solid, he skimmed his left foot and dodged An Jing’s stomp while hooking his leg in place, this made it difficult to dodge for An Jing, so he turned his waist to send another series of Standard Cannon Punches straight to his chest.

An Jing had expected this, Cang LinZu’s punches and footwork were solid, and he was indeed a veteran of the academy with experience in real combat. Even if he was more experienced, he would have been hard pressed to catch his flaws and defeat his opponent with a single move like he had done before.
That’s why before Cang LinZu’s punches hit, An Jing’s right hand, which is still stretched out, violently turned and went straight for his opponent’s right shoulder.

This attack was beyond Cang LinZu’s experience, the blow to his right shoulder drained his strength and cost him his aim, his punches only landing onto An Jing’s left shoulder, and it felt like punching a leather bag full of hard gravel.

With one hit each, they each took a step back, seemingly evenly matched, but only a few could tell who had the advantage.

“Oh no!”

Knowing that he had lost his head start, Cang LinZu simply crouched down and rolled on the ground, and right on cue, An Jing jumped and kicked the air.

He took this opportunity to side-step, but was struck by An Jing’s left elbow, freezing in place, he knew he had to try to attack head-on again.

This time, Cang LinZu was at a disadvantage. He was just about to step back to avoid an attack when Anjing came crashing into him sideways.

Cang LinZu wanted to kick and force An Jing to retreat, but An Jing had already stepped on his other foot in advance, destabilizing his center of gravity, at the same time he crashed his body into him, forcing the breath out of his lungs and almost knocking him out.

“I concede!”

Unable to stand, he tumbled onto the ground. An Jing didn’t follow up with another attack, while Cang LinZu simply laid on the ground and shouted without thinking: “Brothers and sisters, if you’re still hiding it’s time to strike, if you want to defeat Big Brother An, I’m afraid this is your only chance!”

An Jing breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at everyone else with a smile.

But no one made a move. No one was willing to make a move, no matter how much Instructor Lai’s gaze hinted at it.

From beginning to end, eleven consecutive battles lasting not more than one and a half hours finally ended. An Jing, with the absolute advantage, became the rightful Senior Brother, and the next challenge would be a decade later.

But everyone knew, even if it was a decade later, no one would dare challenge An Jing, unless there were some who could make extraordinary progress, otherwise, no one would go ask for a beating.
“Hey. All right, all right, An Jing won!”

Instructor Lai declared An Jing’s victory rather cheerlessly, and then in the cheers of Gu YeQi and Zhang Ying and others, he began in a bad mood, “Start training!”

He drilled these youngsters severely, and after making everyone cry out, even An Jing’s legs were shaking from the extremely targeted and intensified deep squatting and horse stance training, Instructor Lai returned to the center of Life Suspending Manor, the Medicine Pavilion.

“Vice-Envoy Yao.”

He respectfully said to the old man who was on the fifth floor of the Medicine Pavilion, which overlooked the Martial Arts arena, and had watched the entire challenge, “An Jing is indeed the first in the qualifications this time around, but I never imagined that he’d be so strong that the others wouldn’t even be willing to challenge him.”

“The first place is fixed, what should we do?”

“The first is fixed?” The old man turned his head and looked at Instructor Lai like he was looking at a fool: “Since the first is fixed, then let the second and third also eat meat, so that group of kids compete for the second and third places, won’t that do?”

“If that’s not good enough, let the top five eat meat and add more shares.”

“Are we lacking pieces of meat right now?”

After scolding Instructor Lai, Vice-Envoy Yao Turned his head and looked towards the Martial Arts arena with interest, “But indeed …… this batch of disciples are really of excellent quality and they even have some unexpected surprises.”

After thinking for a while, the old man nodded: “Then let’s start early. Eliminate the batch of disciples with the worst physical strength, and use the extra resources on the others.”

“It’s time to make them fall in love with the feeling of ‘eating meat’.”