Black mantis

Bai Yun looked through the entrance for a moment. He then pulled back his head almost immediately. He nearly banged his head against the wall after seeing the thing inside the cave.

In the middle of the cave, a ten-foot tall black mantis stood still before the black flag. Its entire body was covered in black scales, which gleamed in the light. At the end of its forelimbs were two sharp sickle-like projections.

The mantis was not recorded in the book that Gong Ming gave, which meant that this was a variant. This meant that he had no idea what its abilities were or how to fight the beast. Generally, mantises were more geared toward attack and speed, and their defense was a bit weaker. But the black mantis could be quite different. Without knowing its abilities, it would be quite dangerous to attack the mantis, especially considering its cultivation. This was the worst enemy he could have asked for.

Bai Yun peeked out from his cave and stared at the mantis for a while, trying to find out more about it. The beast would only attack once he stepped into the cave, so he was safe for now. Bai Yun was staring at the beast when he noticed some movement from the corner of his eyes.

The cave was a large circular room, with a hemispherical roof. There were four entrances into the cave, all at right angles to each other. As Bai Yun watched, Zhang Zi entered the cave from one of the other entrances.

Bai Yun's jaw dropped when he saw this. He had relied on his god sense and had run into the cave very quickly. He even dispatched the guardian beast in record time. And yet Zhang Zi was only a few moments behind him. This meant that he must have had incredible luck in his path, possibly taking an even shorter than him.

Since he was hiding in the shadows of the entrance, neither Zhang Zi nor the black mantis had noticed him. But the mantis did notice Zhang Zi the moment that he entered the cave. With a roar, it turned towards Zhang Zi and attacked him in an instant.

The large sickle-like hands of the mantis thrust forward at Zhang ZI incredibly fast. Zhang Zi immediately parried the thrust with his spear, but it caused him to take a few steps back. Bai Yun frowned when he saw that. The attack was too fast. He was not sure if he could dodge it. And if he was to be struck by it, the force he would have to bear would be considerable. He might not be able to withstand it. He decided to let Zhang Zi handle the back mantis for now.

After watching them for a while, Bai Yun decided to prepare to intervene in their fight when a chance arose. The objective was not to defeat the mantis but to destroy the flag. He was sure that an opportunity to do so would arise in the middle of their fight. Once he was ready he turned back towards the fight, ready to take action in a moment's notice. He watched the two combatants exchange blows rapidly without either of them taking a step back. He had to admit that Zhang Zi's spear technique was rather impressive for his age.

Zhang Zi suddenly took a few steps back. He then charged towards the mantis with his spear raised above his head. He then leaped up with a roar and brought the spear down on the mantis. As he did so, a glow appeared around the spear tip. The mantis saw this glow, and its eyes narrowed. It then crossed its arms to defend itself against it as a precaution.

But what happened afterward surprised everyone but Zhang Zi. The moment the spearhead collided with the mantis's arms, it created a shockwave from the point of impact. The mantis, who was not expecting that, was thrown backward, and it took a moment to stabilize itself. But even then, it's arms were still shaking slightly.

Zhang Zi did not miss this chance. He ran up to the mantis once again and continued to attack repeatedly. But it had learned its lesson. It no longer tried to block Zhang Zi straight away, instead choosing to dodge the attacks that were filled with the white glow.

When he saw this Bai Yun stared at Zhang Zi thoughtfully. There was no way the shockwave could be the result of a battle skill. It was not that there were no such techniques, but the control over qi one needed for such techniques would be much higher than what one could get at the qi step. In the qi step, most of the techniques one could use were simply ones that increased the strength or speed of the attacks. The more complex techniques would require one to reach the soul step. Even Bai Yun with his terrifying control would be unable to utilize such techniques before reaching the core formation stage at least.

Which meant that there were only two options left.

The first was transcendent elements like a transcendent earth. There were many transcendent earths that had this ability to create vibrations or shockwaves. The most famous of them was the Pulsing Earth, a transcendent element that was in the top ten of all transcendent earths. Even some other transcendent elements could bestow vibration to the user.

But Bai Yun could sense no transcendent element in Zhang ZI's attack. It was impossible to use a transcendent element without bringing it out. And Zhang Zi was not at a level to hide them from Bai Yun yet.

Thus the only choice was an Innate ability.

An innate ability was a special ability that a person could have. For example, the seamless body that Long Tian was born with was a case of such ability. There were many variants of such abilities, like the all-seeing eye, the immortal heart and so on. Most of these abilities were gained when a person was born, but if the conditions were right, it was possible to create an innate ability artificially. But people artificially gaining innate abilities were incredibly rare, and only made up of a minority of all innate abilities.

The ability that Zhang Zi had seemed to be a shockwave type of ability. It would be quite a strong ability in this world, all things considering.

As the fight continued, it was obvious that this was not an easy one for either of them. The mantis was dodging his attacks as much as it could. The flow of the fight was currently in Zhang Zi's favor.

Bai Yun smiled when he saw Zhang Zi fight. He wanted to strangle him. It was refreshingly straight forward and stupid. There was no deceit in his attacks. If it was Bi Yun he would have made use of the beast's wariness to add in some fake attacks that would only light up the spear and have no shockwave in it. But Zhang Zi did no such thing. Every attack was sent with his full power. And any use of an ability, especially powerful ones like the one Zhang Zi was using, would use up a lot of qi. From the way things were heading, Zhang Zi would run out of steam first.

And his prediction came to pass just a few minutes later. Zhang Zi was starting to pant, and his movements had slowed down. There was no hesitation from the mantis. It made use of this break to send its sickle straight at Zhang Zi just as it dodged an attack from him. Zhang Zi was forced to take a step back to defend himself.

From then on the direction of the battle changed. Zhang Zi was continuously retreating under the mantis's assault. The mantis roared as it send an especially powerful attack at Zhang Zi. Too weak to defend properly, he was send flying.

As Bai Yun watched, Zhang Zi was flying away from him in the direction opposite to his own cave entrance. A second later, he hit the cave wall, and spit out blood from the collision. He shakily stood up, only to find the mantis rushing at him. Zhang Zi smiled wryly as he realized that he had lost the battle, and resigned himself to the loss.

The mantis suddenly froze with its sickle just feet away from Zhang Zi. The white light of teleportation had started to appear on Zhang Zi's body, but it went away as soon as it came. As both Zhang Zi and the mantis turned their heads to look at the other end of the cave, a sharp twang resounded within the cavern.

Bai Yun stood at the entrance of the cave, a bow in his hand. The twang was when he shot out an arrow at the black flag in the center.

Bai Yun was terrifyingly good at the sword. But if anyone asked what other martial paths he was familiar with, he would definitely answer like this: unarmed combat, archery, and spear techniques.

Bai Yun used a lot of weapons in his life, but the only weapon other than the sword he systematically studied under a tutor was the bow. He had learned how to use other weapons by studying the fights of both his allies and his enemies. And he picked up the spear for inspiration when he reached a bottleneck in the simple sword. Thus he was rather proficient in both.

Thus Bai Yun was very proficient at archery. Of course, this was only with respect to his current cultivation. He would rate his archery skills at the level of a peak immortal step archery dao practitioner. And there were many such people, and even god level archers in the Grand War.

But this was enough for now.

The mantis who saw the arrow heading towards the flag roared in anger. Ignoring Zhang Zi it ran straight at the arrow, intending to block it.

The beasts in War were all trapped using a soul skill. They were ordered to protect the flag and not let it be damaged. Each of their actions was controlled under the orders of the person who was controlling their souls. This was why the beasts would follow the rules of war, even though they had no intelligence.

So the mantis rushed to stop the arrows. It used all four of its legs as well as its arms to rush towards the arrows. A boom was heard as it propelled itself towards the flag. Its body started to bleed from the aftershock of its movements. After all, it was standing at the other end of the cave, which meant that to block the arrows it had to cover a greater distance than the arrows. Not only that, it started to move after the arrows had been shot.

But the mantis was indeed incredible. It reached the flag before the arrow and swatted it away. But by then Bai Yun had fired off a second shot. The mantis screeched and deflected it to. Then it turned to Bai Yun and roared, who simply smiled in response.

Just as the insect was about to pounce on Bai Yun, a bang resounded through the cave. Everyone's eyes turned to the flag, just in time to see it being ripped to shred by a silent third arrow!

Bai Yun had simply utilized a basic technique of the archery path known as the ghost shot. Of course, this was only basic to Bai Yun. It this world this was undoubtedly an advanced technique. The third arrow had flown in the shadow of the first one and had thus been missed by the group in the cave. The only people who noticed were the organizers watching the battle. In fact, the reason for him firing the second arrow was only to cover up the sound of the third arrow, which he had fired at the same time.

As the mantis roared in frustration, a white light covered Bai Yun and Zhang ZI, along with the rest of the group who ha survived. Every single person heard a voice as they were being teleported.

"Congratulations on surviving War. You have passed the second test."