After receiving resources, he went even more low profile, and mostly stayed in his own cultivation abode, practicing sword moves, and cultivating.

Since Jin Hai excelled in sword arts, with no delay he unsheathed his sword and headed straight towards Ye Tian Yun with all his strength in one blow.

*Clang!*

The impact was huge, as the dust settled, the disciples were greeted with a site of Ye Tian Yun blocking Jin Hai’s sword, unmoved from his position.

Jin Hai retreated. He didn’t wish to give any chance to his opponent for a counterattack.

Calming himself, he moved to attack once one, this time he had dual swords. Once more the sword resounded when they clashed.

*Clang!*

This time he didn’t retreat. What came after this block was a barrage of continuous sword cuts. As a dual sword cultivator, Jin Hai’s skills were on a whole another level, sometimes even forcing Ye Tian Yun to retreat one step or two.

For the next breaths, they keep clashing with each other at lightning speed. Jin Hai’s attacks were getting faster, Ye Tian Yun had stopped retreating and was holding his ground.

Suddenly, as soon as the attack was about to end up as another clash, Ye Tian Yun released his aura. Jin Hai’s expression faltered as he felt sudden pressure from his opponent. His momentum decreased and then, out of nowhere, a sword came, clashing against his swords.

Before he could even balance himself, another sword touched his throat. Any movement and his head would be sliced off. Jin Hai felt as if this was the end. His death.

When he regained his footing, the side in front of him gave him a huge shock, he couldn’t help but blurt out loud.

“F-Fang Chen, y-you are a Dual Sword Cultivator!?”

Silence encompassed the Underground Hall. The audience had witnessed too much to digest in one go. All of a sudden exclamations resounded all over the hall.

“Tell me this is a dream. Fang Chen is a Dual Sword Cultivator?”

“And his cultivation, Na-ninth level of Qi Refining Realm!”

“Did this guy get a royal treasury? How is this even possible?”

“I have never seen him even hold a sword, and he just defeated a dual sword cultivator using his own dual swords!”

“Just how much is this guy hiding? He hid even better than Zheng Xiang.”

“9th Level of Qi Refining. Damn. I think even Hu Xing of the Ninth Peak who is the publicly acknowledged Number One Outer Court Disciple won’t be able to defeat Fang Chen.”

“8th Level of Qi Refining is already a cultivation level no less than an inner court disciple, with his talent, I think he will soon put his name on the Gracious Hundred Ranking and become one of the Top Hundred disciples of the Gracious Sword Sect.”

The Hall was buzzing with shock for a long time before Elder Wu silenced the crowd and announced the winner.

“This battle, Fang Chen wins!”

Jin Hai was still in shock from the battle. He had tried all his moves and tricks to defeat his opponent, but in the end, his opponent defeated him in his own path, using Dual Swords.

Sword cultivation wasn’t easy, to master the sword, one must experience a lot of life and death battles and practice and practice and practice. And the Dual Sword cultivation had a whole another level of difficulty. This was why there were rarely any Dual Sword cultivators, and those who were were very talented and had huge potential.

He had practiced almost every second of the last few years in sword cultivation, and was no less than any prodigy in terms of sword cultivation yet, today, he was defeated. Defeated by an opponent who used the same weapon but better.

Jin Hai took a deep breath, stared at Fang Chen for a few seconds, and announced, “I will practice harder. And next, my performance won’t be this pathetic.”

Ye Tian Yun stared back. He didn’t say anything. While this little conversation appeared cool and dramatic in front of all students, his mind was screaming, ‘What the hell? Pathetic performance? Is this guy messing with me? If his performance was pathetic then doesn’t it mean mine wasn’t even up to the standards of being called pathetic. I may have lived a whole life, but that doesn’t make me a saint in sword and for this guy to be able to give out such blows even before learning from real cultivation manuals, if he isn’t a prodigy then who in this realm is?’

Controlling himself, just as Jin Hai was about to turn away, Ye Tian Yun cleared his thoughts and said, “Even if you practice for a thousand years unless your heart isn’t set, all your efforts will be futile.”

“Follow your heart?” Jin Hai frowned and contemplated for a moment. Then looked at Ye Tian Yun and said, “Thank you for your guidance, Senior Brother Fang Chen. This Junior Brother will remember this teaching.”

Ye Tian Yun moved and in the next moment, he stood among the participants, seemingly ignoring Jin Hai’s greeting and thanks. His silence created unknown intimidation among the surrounding disciples but only he knew what was going on in his mind, ‘That was so cool! Follow your heart! Damn, I should be sage!’

While the disciples mostly had shocked expressions after the battle, the Elders were weirdly calm. Though Elder Wu had an elated face seeing two talented Dual Sword cultivators rise from the Seventh Peak, Elder Mu and Elder Lai Chang were silent. In fact, their face could be considered solemn.

Elder Mu knew Ye Tian Yun’s cultivation but he never knew Ye Tian Yun’s talent in sword arts.

And Elder Lai Chang was standing motionless as if he was seeing all his carefully planned future steps become useless and futile.. Right now, the most thing that he wanted to do was go to the First Peak and inform all about today’s incident to his Faction leaders before the news reaches them from any other source.