Yan Ping

Sun Mei gazed at Yan Ping, who was standing across from her.

This junior sister was talented to the extreme. When she arrived at the village with her brother 2 years ago, she was merely at the initial stage of the first level of the body forging realm. Yet now, she had already stepped into the middle stage of the second level of the body forging realm.

To put that into perspective, the kids who started at the age of fourteen would always be stuck in the first level of the body forging ream when the competition rolled around. That meant that not one person in the village had the talent to step into the second level of the body forging realm within 2 years of cultivation. If anyone showed up to the newbie competition at the second level of the body forging realm, victory would be more or less guaranteed. Yet Yan Ping was able to not just reach the second level of the body forging realm in two years, but even step into the middle stage. One must realize that the further one progresses in cultivation, the greater the difficulty of achieving further improvement. Yan Ping's talent was, simply put, godly. So much so that the elders had basically decided to send her to the next martial arts gathering.

What worried Sun Mei the most however, was that Yan Ping's battle ability. Technically speaking, Sun Mei, as one of the top 5 disciples of her generation, as well as a martial artist at the peak stage of the second level of the body forging realm, was assumed by everyone to be the guaranteed victor in this fight, but she knew better than to look down on Yan Ping. After all, Yan Ping had sought her out personally for guidance in her training. As a result, Sun Mei was well aware of what a hard worker Yan Ping was when it came to cultivation, showing absolutely no mercy to herself in her training. There was no saying if this girl, between her divine talents and relentless training, had made some breakthroughs in her training.

The most troubling part, however, were her cultivation techniques. Yan Ping's family's martial arts techniques were brought by her to the village, yet she never trained in them in front of Sun Mei. Instead, she had relied on her top tier cultivation speed to show off her talents, getting the elders to grant her a grade 3 technique for free. Generally, relying on such talent could get her a grade 5 technique directly, but since she was an outsider, the core elders took a wait and see approach, letting the competition be a testing opportunity where they would decide what course of action to take with respect to Yan Ping.

However, Yan Ping's kind, gentle and easygoing attitude had led the elders to have a good opinion of her.

As far as her grade three technique was concerned, that was even more terrifying. When given access to the grade 3 techniques in the Library, Yan Ping had actually gone ahead and learned one of all three types- offensive martial arts, defensive martial arts, and agility martial arts. Furthermore, she had reached middle stage mastery in all of them as well.

Of course, even with such a solid foundation, her overall battle strength was still far inferior to Sun Mei, unless she had some other trump cards.

"Begin!" Shouted the referee.

The two women charged at each other simultaneously, with Sun Mei being the faster one. As they traded blows, Sun Mei landed several blows with her palm on Yan Ping in an instant, with the grace of a butterfly.

Meanwhile, Yan Ping danced her way around most of Sun Mei's strikes like a swan, while blocking the attacks she couldn't evade with the bear like defensive maneuvers right before unleashing a fierce counterattack of her own with the fierce strength of a lioness.

The spectators watching around this arena kept growing larger and larger in number. The two beautiful women battling it out truly was a battle to be remembered.

Zhao Song's eyes narrowed. "They were all holding back on sparring day, just as I thought."

Jiang Ting looked at him curiously, "Senior brother, what do you mean?"

Zhao Song looked at Sun Mei. "Her speed has increased. Sun Mei, her mastery of the Yellow Butterfly Steps has reached the peak stage of mastery."

Lin Fan grew curious. "What about senior sister Yan? She seemed to overpower senior sister Sun in that exchange?"

Zhao Song relaxed. "Yes, she seems to be extremely proficient in simultaneously using all three of her martial arts. With her mastery of all three being at the mastery stage, she could somehow counter-attack Sun Mei. Yet with the cultivation gap and the fact that Sun Mei has trained an agility martial art to peak mastery, there is little suspense as to the result of this match."

Lin Fan asked again, "What about senior sister Yan's martial arts? Which ones has she cultivated?"

Jiang Ting was about to explain when he realized he has yet to enter the grade three section of the Library in this life. He hurriedly shut up.

"The agility martial art is Azure Swan Dance, the defensive martial art is The Twelve Bear Wall, and the offensive martial art is Green Lion Fang." A voice rang out behind the three men as a figure in grey martial arts robes walked out from behind.

Upon closer inspection, this person's arms were hidden in his sleeves, but his sleeves weren't completely empty. That, along with the fact that he had never showed himself around the village much, meant that nobody recognized him as Yan Jian, Yan Ping's older brother.

"And just who might you be?" Zhao Song looked at the man plainly. Even though this person was mixed in the student crowd, Zhao Song seemed to feel that something was off about him.

"Her older brother, Yan Jian." Yan Jian replied plainly, with not the least bit of respect. He stared straight at Yan Ping, ignoring the trio after his comment.

Jiang Ting, however, stared straight at Yan Jian. 'Just who are these siblings?'