Wang Yue's two lackeys were tripping over each other in their eagerness. Though Ye Xuan was physically strong, they had both opened three Profound Veins. With the help of their Profound Qi, teaching a lesson to this piece of trash would be child's play.
Ye Xuan said contemptuously, "Don't bother fighting over it. All three of you can come at me at once."
Everyone froze. 'Has Ye Xuan completely lost his mind?'
Wang Yue was a Martial Artist with four Profound Veins, and his two lackeys had three each. If the three of them teamed up, even a senior student with five Profound Veins wouldn't be able to guarantee a victory. What gave Ye Xuan, a good-for-nothing with only one Profound Vein, the right to be so confident? 'His physical strength? What a joke. No matter how tough his body is, it's nothing compared to Profound Qi.'
'Could he be plotting something?'
Ye Xuan's bizarre behavior actually made Wang Yue, who had been ready to teach him a harsh lesson, hesitate. The memory of what had happened in the cave yesterday, in particular, put him on his guard.
"Make up your minds. Are you coming up or not?" Ye Xuan said coolly. "My time is precious, and I have no interest in playing house with you. If you want to fight, get three hundred Profound Coins ready per person. If you're too scared, I'm leaving. Stop dawdling like a bunch of little girls."
As he spoke, Ye Xuan turned as if to leave.
"Wait," Wang Yue roared. "Since you're so eager to die, I don't mind obliging you! Let's get him together!"
As his words fell—SWISH, SWISH, SWISH—three figures charged onto the training room's arena.
"If you win, you'll get your Profound Coins. If you lose, you can use this single Profound Coin to buy your coffin." Tossing one Profound Coin down mockingly, Wang Yue and his men charged from three directions, grinning viciously as they aimed their fists at Ye Xuan's chest.
WHOOSH!
The wind from their fists howled. A faint fluctuation of Profound Qi shimmered around each of their hands. They were determined to knock Ye Xuan to the ground in a single blow, giving him no chance to recover. Their attack angles were particularly cunning, completely sealing off all of his escape routes.
Many of the male students in the crowd looked excited, while some of the female students couldn't bear to watch. Ye Xuan was only a Martial Artist with one Profound Vein; how could he possibly withstand the full force of their combined punches?
"HA!" Wang Yue bellowed as he threw his punch, his expression ecstatic. He was already imagining Ye Xuan's bruised and bloodied face beneath his fist, a sight that would erase all his frustrations from the day before.
"Slow as a turtle. Is this the best you can do?"
From within the tempest of fists came Ye Xuan's cool, mocking voice. With a simple twist and a sway, seemingly without effort, he slipped out of their encirclement. Then, he casually stuck out his foot.
A series of THUDS echoed as all three of them fell. The two lackeys face-planted so hard they looked like they were eating dirt. Who knows how many teeth they shattered, but their faces were a mess of blood, their noses were crooked, and they were howling in agony.
'Not good.' As a student with four Profound Veins, Wang Yue's reflexes were far superior to the other two. At the critical moment, he planted his hands on the floor and executed a forward somersault, landing steadily back on the arena floor.
It was a graceful and stylish maneuver.
'Trying to look cool in front of me? I can't let that slide.'
Ye Xuan rubbed his nose, then planted a kick squarely on Wang Yue's ass, sending him flying.
THUD!
Wang Yue landed flat on his back, his limbs flailing in the air like a flipped-over turtle. It was a pathetic sight.
"You..."
Burning with shame and rage, Wang Yue planted his hands on the ground to perform a kip-up and get to his feet.
THUD!
Ye Xuan's foot came down, pinning him to the floor. SLAP, SLAP, SLAP! He delivered a dozen slaps in quick succession, hitting Wang Yue so hard he saw stars and his face swelled up. The sharp, cracking sounds were chilling to hear.
"Wow, so this is an expert Martial Artist with Four Profound Veins? So impressive! I'm terrified!"
Ye Xuan said, feigning terror, before landing several more slaps. He beat Wang Yue's face until it was swollen like a pig's head; even his own parents wouldn't have recognized him.
Overwhelmed with shame and fury, Wang Yue coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Being pinned under someone's foot and slapped across the face... When had he ever been subjected to such humiliation?
"Ye Xuan, let me go! If you don't, you're dead! The Wang family will not let you get away with this!"
Wang Yue was just a teenager, after all. His first instinct when bullied was to bring up his family.
"Oh, no, I'm so scared! What ever will I do? I suppose I'll just have to kill you to silence you," Ye Xuan said, feigning panic. "Yes, that's what I'll do. Then I'll just become a wanderer."
"No, don't kill me."
Wang Yue was scared out of his wits. At the mention of being killed and silenced, his legs gave out, and he lost control of his bladder and bowels. The stench of urine filled the air.
"Pathetic," Ye Xuan said, having lost all interest in punishing Wang Yue any further. "A bet's a bet. Hand over the Spirit Coins."
Wang Yue frantically pulled a wallet from his clothes and threw it to Ye Xuan, desperate for him to leave. The other two, shivering under Ye Xuan's gaze, threw their wallets over as well.
After opening the wallets and doing a quick count, Ye Xuan's expression suddenly darkened. "Are you messing with me?" he said coldly. "We agreed on three hundred Spirit Coins per person. There are only eight hundred and eighty here. Are you trying to make a fool of me?"
Ye Xuan's gaze was icy. As he spoke, the very air in the room seemed to freeze.
"No..." The faces of Wang Yue and his lackeys went pale. They frantically searched their clothes, turning their pockets inside out, and managed to scrape together another fifteen Spirit Coins. All three looked like they were about to cry.
"We're still five short! We'll give them to you later, we promise!" the three cried out in a panic. They were disciples of major families in Blue Moon City; when had they ever been so desperate over a mere five Spirit Coins?
"Forget it. We're all fellow students here, and I, Ye Xuan, am always happy to help. Why would I bicker over five Spirit Coins? Tell you what, don't worry about paying me back. You can just use your clothes to cover the rest."
The first half of Ye Xuan's sentence brought a wave of relief to the three of them. The second half nearly made them cough up blood.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Ye Xuan stripped all three of them down to their underwear.
The three nearly naked bodies made for quite a striking scene in the training hall.
A chill went down the spines of the other students. 'That's cold. Too cold.' 'After this, Wang Yue and his friends won't be able to show their faces here ever again. Their reputations are ruined for life.'
"Ye Xuan, stop! Beating and humiliating a fellow student like this is too cruel!" Li Yue could no longer remain silent and finally shouted.
Ye Xuan said innocently, "Li Yue, it's one thing to feel sorry for your little boyfriend, but don't be so shameless. They were the ones who rushed up here to challenge me. Who can they blame but themselves for not being good enough?"
"You..."
Li Yue was furious, but he was right. Wang Yue and his cronies had been the ones to attack first, yet they hadn't managed to lay a single finger on Ye Xuan. Instead, they were the ones who ended up beaten so miserably. 'How could the three of them fail to take down a good-for-nothing with only one Profound Vein? How is something like this even possible?'
'And since when did Ye Xuan get this strong?' A strange feeling stirred in Li Yue's heart.
Everyone present was thinking the same thing. 'There's something uncanny about this Ye Xuan.' Wang Yue and his friends were, by all accounts, experts with three or Four Profound Veins. How had all three of them been defeated so easily by Ye Xuan?
'There has to be a trick to it.'
"Regardless, they've already admitted defeat! Did you have to be so cruel?" Li Yue said, incensed.
"Oh, I am so terribly sorry for beating your boyfriend's face until it looks like a pig's head. Then again, maybe it's for the best. When you two get intimate later tonight, it'll be like you're gnawing on a pig's head. Since you're so concerned about him, here, you can have him back." Ye Xuan kicked Wang Yue's limp body, sending it flying toward Li Yue. She shrieked as he crashed into her, knocking her to the ground. She was instantly covered in the filth that had leaked from Wang Yue, and she began to gag and dry-heave uncontrollably.
"You all saw it!" Ye Xuan announced. "They agreed to fight me, and they made the first move. They lost, fair and square. I'm not afraid even if you report this to the teachers."
Ye Xuan gave a slight smirk, pocketed the Spirit Coins, and walked out of the training room.
"How did that piece of trash change so much?"
"You're still calling him trash? Are you trying to die? Look at what happened to Wang Yue and the others."
"It seems we really underestimated him. Still, it's so weird. There wasn't the slightest fluctuation of Profound Qi coming from him, so how did Wang Yue's group fail to even touch him? How did he trip them so easily?"
"Who knows? Maybe he cultivated some kind of martial skill."
"A martial skill? Very possible. His physical constitution is so strong, he must have gone through some bitter training. Maybe he did cultivate some martial skill."
"It's a shame, though. Ye Xuan was too reckless. Wang Yue is the precious, direct heir of the Wang family. Tsk, tsk. Beating him up might have been impressive, but Ye Xuan's life is probably going to get very difficult from now on."
"Even though he's from the Ye family—and the Ye family is a major power in Cyan Mountain Town—how can they compare to the Wang family, one of the three great families of Blue Moon City? Besides, Ye Xuan is just a good-for-nothing who can't cultivate Profound Qi, a laughingstock in Blue Moon City. The title of 'Young Master Ye' won't be enough to protect him."
Even though Ye Xuan had left, word of what he had done began to spread among the students.
「Back in his dorm room.」
Ye Xuan sat cross-legged on his bed.
Now that his physical strength had met the requirements, Ye Xuan wasted no time and began to cultivate the Nine Profounds World-Pride Art.
As he settled down, Ye Xuan's mind entered a tranquil, ethereal state. The abstruse Heart Method of the Nine Profounds World-Pride Art surfaced in his thoughts. Following the instructions of the Heart Method, Ye Xuan mobilized the energy throughout his body. A tingling sensation spread from every one of his cells, and the surrounding Heaven and Earth Profound Qi seemed to be pulled toward him by an unseen force.
This was the truly terrifying power of the Nine Profounds World-Pride Art. A normal Martial Artist cultivated Profound Qi by slowly absorbing Heaven and Earth Profound Qi from the void through their meridians. But the Nine Profounds World-Pride Art mobilized every single pore in the body to pull in the surrounding Heaven and Earth Profound Qi. The speed of this method was countless times faster than relying on meridians alone.
Of course, the cultivation requirements were also incredibly demanding, which was why Ye Xuan had first needed to raise his physical strength to the level of a Tier One Martial Artist.
In less than thirty seconds, a thin wisp of Profound Qi began to form within the first Profound Vein he had opened.
'What a terrifying speed for condensing Profound Qi.'
Despite having prepared himself, Ye Xuan was still astonished. To generate a wisp of Profound Qi in just half a minute of cultivation... The Nine Profounds World-Pride Art truly lived up to its reputation as a legendary Cultivation Technique from the Celestial Realm. The Cultivation Technique Ye Xuan had used in his past life was by no means run-of-the-mill, but even with it, condensing such a tiny wisp of Profound Qi would have taken at least an hour.