Chapter 2017: Challenge

Sima You Yue laughed, “I’ve only been a disciple for two to three months, my Master told me to learn well.”

“Yes, you’re still young. You have a lot of time on your hands.” Ni Le was not angry despite her rejection.

“I want to learn many things as well, but I don’t wish to take on more than I can chew. It is better to take it slow. If there’s a chance, I will learn other things in the future.” Sima You Yue said.

“If you wish to learn in the future, you can come anytime, as long as I am still the Master here.” Ni Le said.

“Alright.” Sima You Yue said.

“Come and take a look, these were moved back today.” Ni Le brought her to a small compartment, and said while pointing to the ores in this shape.

Although it was known as a small compartment, one of it was already as big as a soccer field. It was also ten stories tall. The floor was filled with many ores, with the big ones almost reaching the top of the room, while the small ones were only the size of a fist.

A few Seeker Spirit Masters were verifying the ores.

Sima You Yue thought that Ni Le had only said that the ores had just come today out of formality. She didn’t think that it was actually true. The quality of the ores had a big difference, they also did not have the labels of Seeker Spirit Sect. So, these had all just come back, and they had not been classified yet.

The people in the small compartment saw them, stopped immediately and bowed, greeting, “Sect Master.”

“Continue to do your work. I brought You Yue to come and have a look.” Ni Le said.

“Grand Master, is this lady You Yue, the one who recently caused an uproar?” A male in a green shirt asked while staring at Sima You Yue.

“She is.” Ni Le nodded her head, and introduced to Sima You Yue, “This is my disciple, Lian Cheng.”

Lian Cheng cupped his hands towards Sima You Yue in greeting and said, “I’ve been very curious about you opening a stone with bare hands. Those people even said that you were better than the people in the Seeker Spirit Sect. Since we met today, can we get to know each other?”

Sima You Yue raised her eyebrows. Was he trying to provoke her? The Beast Tamer had yet to find trouble with her, instead, she met one here first.

“Ha Ha, about that… your name recently has been too outstanding, so these little rascals in the sect have been dissatisfied.” Ni Le laughed, “You can ignore them.”

“Grand Master, even you say that her Seeking Spirit skills are better than ours are. Since that is the case, it wouldn’t be much for her to show us her skills! Why don’t we have a competition?” Lian Cheng said.

“You…” Ni Le glared at him. This little rascal was young and full of vigor. He just couldn’t control his own temper.

“You’ve already said that others were the ones who said it. You can’t simply believe in rumours.” Sima You Yue did not come here to show off. She did not want to crush other geniuses in their own territory, but she also did not want to lose. So, it was better to not do anything. “Furthermore, what do you mean that I opened a stone with my bare hands? It was only because the situation was critical, there was no time for me to try and do it slowly. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Sect Master Ni if that was the case.”

“I have already used your argument, but Grand Master said that, although the situation was critical and there was also the idea that the spirit energy would still be gathered by the spirit gathering array if you failed to open it well, the technique you used to open the stone was very accurate. It was not opened randomly.” Lian Cheng said, “Is it because you think that if you won here, I would be embarrassed? Is that why you’re unwilling?”

Sima You Yue’s lips twitched. She couldn’t stop herself from saying something to ridicule him: Child, there’s no need to say what you can see! Even if he knew what she was thinking of inside, he did not need to say it out loud!

Why did seeing his serious expression cause her to feel like she was looking at a baby bear?

“You don’t have to show me mercy, just do it like you usually would. If I lose, it will be due to my lack of skills. I will not blame it on you.” Lian Cheng said.

“You should just let go and compete with him.” Ni Le said, “This kid is pretty talented, he is just a little too arrogant. If we don’t dampen his spirit, who knows what kind of troubles he will cause in the future!”

Sima You Yue hesitated for a while, then nodded her head and said, “Alright.”

This Lian Cheng had been provoking her rudely since he came. He was indeed a little arrogant. Ni Le did truly look a little worried.

“So how shall we compete?” Lian Chen laughed while asking.

“We’ll compete in something simple. We’ll choose one ore each, and see whose has the higher value.” Sima You Yue said.

“Let’s go according to what you said!” Lian Chen agreed, “It just so happens that the new batch of ores just arrived today. We shall choose one from here.”

“Alright!” She and Lian Cheng walked to the small compartment. They scanned through the ores once, then they went to the small compartment beside it.

It turned out that there were many more here.

Lian Cheng brought her to take a look at all of them and said, “All those that came today are here, ladies first.”

Sima You Yue originally wanted to pick one randomly, but after some thought, she brushed it away. If she lost to the opponent this way, he would feel that she did it intentionally. If she won, he would also feel that it was based on luck, it showed no respect to the opponent. Hence, she walked two rounds back and forth, then chose an ore that was around the size of a basketball.

“Your turn.”

Lian Cheng had already scanned through the piles when he accompanied her to pick hers. Now it was his turn. He took out the few pieces that he had chosen and compared them with each other before he picked one out.

The two of them took around the same time. When they saw how quickly they had selected their ores, the people who had come to watch were very curious as to who had chosen the one with the higher value.

“Let’s open the stones.” Ni Le said, “Who wants to go first?”

“Let me.” Lian Cheng said.

When betting on stones, as a sign of respect, one would choose to open their ore first. Of course, there were those who were just very confident in themselves.

Sima You Yue looked at Lian Cheng. She saw the confidence in his gaze with no sign of disdain, so it seemed like both reasons applied to him.

“Then you can open yours first.” There was no need to fight over something like this.

They took their ores to the stone opening area, where the person who was in charge of opening the stones carefully cut them out.

“Black Wood Spirit Stone, not bad.” Ni Le nodded with a smile, “Let’s open the next one.”

Someone placed Sima You Yue’s spirit stone in front of the person who was opening the stones. With a single cut, rays of light burst forth. Everyone who was present widened their eyes, even Lian Cheng got even more annoyed.

“Do you still wish to continue opening it?” Master raised his head and asked.

With what they saw during the opening of the stones, there was no need to specify who had won.

“Just open it.” Lian Cheng ordered.

Even after knowing the results, he still had his air of arrogance and he couldn’t stop just like this. No matter what he had to see it to the end.

Very quickly, the stone that Sima You Yue had chosen was opened, and its level exceeded his by two ranks.

“I’ve lost.” He admitted frankly.

“Choosing stones is something that involves probability. Just doing it once or twice may not be accurate.” Sima You Yue said, “Sect Master Ni, I’ve been out for quite some time, I shall take my leave now.”

“Alright, I will get someone to send you back.” Ni Le said, “Do come if you have time in the future.”

“Alright.” Sima You Yue turned to leave.

“Sima You Yue, can I see you open a stone with your bare hands? If you fail to do so, it’ll be on me.” Lian Cheng took out an ore, which was one of his own.

Sima You Yue looked back, smiled at him and said, “If you do not make me angry the next time around.”

Lian Cheng’s face fell. He had seemed to provoke her.

Sima You Yue came out from the Seeking Spirit Sect, thanked Ni Le’s for his kind intentions of getting someone to send her out. Then, she walked slowly towards the direction of the Music Sect.