Third round of the gold test

When Bai Yun opened his eyes, he found himself in the hall once again. He looked around for a moment to see how many people had survived. To his shock, only one other person from the attacking team other than Bai Yun and Zhang Zi was there in the hall. And from the defending team, only nine people were left.

A cold sweat broke out on Bai Yun's back when he saw the numbers. The fact that seventy people had died meant that it would only have been a few more minutes before the rest of them also died. It was only now that he realized how close to failing they had come. Ba Yun finally understood how no one had passed the test until now.

Every single member of the defending team was panting. They were covered in blood and sweat. They were still in shock at their sudden teleportation. Forget Bai Yun, even Zhang Zi looked much better. Song Hui ignored where she was and just laid down on the floor. Even now they were unable to comprehend what had happened and was standing there stunned.

"Congratulations." A voice was heard. As they turned to look, the entire organizer group had appeared in front of them. They were staring at the group in surprise. "You are the first group to have passed Insect World. Well done."

For a moment silence reigned the hall. Then the entire room broke out in cheers. None of them could believe that they had actually won. A couple of them broke into tears. Song Hui had already fallen asleep by now. The only people who were composed were Bai Yun, Zhang Zi, and Gong Ming.

"Good job." Gong Ming said while staring at Bai Yun.

"It's okay. We just got lucky. You guys look like you have been through hell." Bai Yun replied.

"Great. We are going to go down in history." Zhang Zi said while grinning.

The organizers waited silently as the group calmed down. Then they asked them to be silent while they explained the procedures from now on would be.

"Since you guys have passed War after we put Insect World as the scenario, we have not done any preparations for the third round at all. Honestly, we did not expect you to pass at all." The lady continued. Everyone who heard this chuckled. That was a very reasonable assumption.

"Well anyway since you have passed, we will be conducting the third round tomorrow morning. There will be many prominent people who will be interested in your examinations. After all, you are the first to pass Insect World." She continued. "Due to the momentous achievement, all of you here will be getting a reward. But the rewards will be based on your ranking in the tournament. Both the number as well as the quality of the reward will be higher than usual."

The group cheered when they heard this announcement.

"Excuse me," Gog Ming interrupted. "How exactly did we win? Based on what I know of Insect World I was expecting a sure loss."

The organizer lady smiled when she heard this. "It was due to sheer luck. Usually, it takes a long time for people to reach the guardian caves due to the labyrinth. Most of the people who are in the attacking teams are never able to make it to the guardian cave before the white flag is destroyed. There are a lot of cases where the attacking team has people who are strong enough to defeat the boss, but they could not reach him in time. But both Long Tian and Zhang Zi walked almost directly to the guardian caves and ended up facing enemies they were strong against. Thus a miracle occurred." Once the organizers explained what had happened, everyone understood.

After asking them to return to their accommodation, and to assemble here tomorrow morning, the organizers left them alone.

Once they left, Bai Yun went to talk to Zhang ZI. He approached him with an innocent smile. Just as Zhang Zi started to speak, Bai Yun's hands moved like lightning, and then grabbed hold of Zhang Zi's collar and lifted him up. Zhang Zi was shocked into silence by his movement.

"What kind of moron are you? Why would you use a spear with that kind of ability?" Bai Yun asked while shaking him.

This was a reasonable question by Bai Yun. An innate ability was different from a battle skill. It was an ability of the body, and, other than a few exceptions, it was extremely difficult to use them away from one's body or use it through a weapon. Bai Yun estimated that the shockwaves Zhang Zi created were not even half as powerful as the ones he could create with his bare hands.

Zhang Zi laughed as he heard this. "Why should I care about all of that. I use a spear because I like to. Who cares about things like optimal use of strength and so on."

Bai Yun sighed when he heard this answer. When he was learning under the God of Swords, he would be disciplined very physically every time he made a mistake, usually with a beating. Later on, once he started to fight in the Grand War, he started to teach other people how to fight properly as a stress release. No, wait he did that to strengthen the army. Either way, his body automatically reacted when he saw Zhang Zi using his power so stupidly.

Bai Yun understood that Zhang Zi was not going to change from the moment he heard his response. He had run into such people many times. He knew Zhang Zi was not going to change.

"Now you know how much of a moron he is." Gong Ming, who had approached them by now, said.

Bai Yun simply sighed while he let go of Zhang Zi.

"Huh, I thought you were going to push further. All the other morons who wanted me to drop the spear kept on going at it for a long time before they accepted that I was not going to change." Zhang Zi was surprised.

"I just said all of that because I thought that it was a shame to waste your power. I am not going to force you to change. It would only be detrimental to your cultivation." Bai Yun said.

"Maybe. But if I had done so, we would have lost."

He was right. The reason they won was because Zhang Zi was able to distract the mantis long enough for Bai Yun to destroy the flag. If Zhang Zi had used his hands to channel the shockwave ability, it would have taken him much longer to be defeated. Considering the situation of the defensive team, they would have been defeated by then. It was funny, how doing the wrong thing led to their victory.

"And how exactly did you guys pull it off?" Gong Ming asked.

"We got lucky. Zhang Zi ket the boss distracted while I shot the flag." Bai Yun replied.

Gong Ming nodded his head, seemingly happy with the answer. He had stopped pretending in front of Bai Yun and started to show his true colors. He then left without taking a second look.

After this Bai Yun and Zhang Zi also left the hall and returned to their accommodations. There were still a few people who were still celebrating their unexpected success.

Once Bai Yun retreated to his quarters, he took out the three tempered honey.

Since he had enough of it, he split the honey into two. Bai Yun then spend the first half of the honey to complete the mysterious pattern in his remaining leg. Now he as at the four pattern stage, and had completed the mysterious patterns in his four limbs.

But once he was done, Bi Yun found himself in a dilemma. He only had enough tempered honey to create one more mysterious pattern. And he was not sure which of the five remaining patterns to apply next.

Undying Body first created nine mysterious patterns, before tying them all together with the tenth one. The nine initial ones were the on the four limbs, the two shoulders, the abdomen, the back, and the head. There was no order in which these had to be completed. But the amount of strength one would get was disproportional to the number of resources one needed to create one.

In skin sewing, as it was more focused on defense, a body cultivator would typically be weaker than a qi cultivator. But the Undying Body was even worse. Since it focused on a strong foundation, a peak skin sewing body cultivator of Undying would be defeated by a peak qi condensing cultivator.

And due to the nature of the Undying Body, one would gain an explosive increase in strength upon reaching the tenth pattern, and the first nine would be rather weak. Bai Yun was certain that the strength he would gain upon completing two more mysterious patterns would not even be half of what he could get upon reaching the fourth stage of qi condensation.

After some deliberation, Bai Yun decided to apply the right shoulder pattern as the fifth mysterious pattern. This would allow him to apply a slightly stronger strength in the right arm.

Once he was done with this, it was already time for the third round to start. He quickly made his way to the hall where the rest of them were waiting.

The moment he entered, Song Hui ran up to him. "I heard you destroyed the flag. Great jo big brother." She said excitedly.

"You did a good job defending too." Bai Yun smiled and praised the strange little girl.

"Of course. I am very strong. If it wasn't for me, they would have all died in an instant." Song Hui replied arrogantly. But Bai Yun had to accept that this was indeed true.

Suddenly the organizers appeared without warning, as they usually do.

"Since you are all here, it is time for us to begin the final round of the gold test." The boss said.

With that, the teleportation light covered them once again.