The young lady of the Longsword let out a deep sigh as she shook her head in disappointment. Her fellow disciples shared the same sentiment, finding Xuan Yi's overconfidence to be quite irksome.
Despite his recent breakthrough, he had not achieved much. He had merely skipped a cycle and entered the fourth cycle, a feat that was rare but not unheard of.
However, this did not mean that he could take on someone who had crossed over into the tempered bone stage, let alone someone who had attained the perfect spirit.
The gap between these levels was like the distance between heaven and earth - irreconcilable. And this man in the bamboo hat was not any less stronger than the bamboo umbrella woman, the leafy man, or Hai Du.
Even after his breakthrough, Xuan Yi would still be no match for Ming Wen, who was only at the tempered bones phase. To fight a True Spirit fighter was wishful thinking. There had never been a mortal who had fought across such level differences.
However, Xuan Yi seemed oblivious to their thoughts. His feet seemed to touch an invisible platform as he walked forward, each step causing the air to tremble and crackle with sparks of light.
Thin green tendrils of vines appeared beneath his feet, receiving his weight and disappearing as he lifted his legs. With each step, an impulse of energy coursed through the atmosphere, and his face bore a confidence that was unparalleled.
"It is my turn now," Xuan Yi declared, his eyes locking onto the man who had halted and looked up at him.
"Brat, you are too conceited," the man retorted, waving his hand in a flicking motion. As he did so, an energy arc shot out towards Xuan Yi, tearing through the air like a blast wave.
But as it neared Xuan Yi, it disappeared, as though something invisible had swallowed it.
The man's eyes widened in shock. Perhaps this boy, despite being only at the tempered veins phase, was just as mysterious as Tian Wei.
The man launched himself forward with breathtaking speed, tearing through space and appearing in different areas intermittently.
He swung his fist at Xuan Yi with a momentum that could rupture walls.
But Xuan Yi was too quick for him. He raised his feet and moved fluidly out of the way of the attack.
"How?" the young lady exclaimed, at a loss for words. She couldn't understand how Xuan Yi had managed to dodge an attack from someone in the true spirit phase.
The man, equally astonished and infuriated, felt a surge of anger within him. He landed on the ground with a thud, causing the entire mountain to tremble precariously.
With a swift gesture, he stretched out his arm, and one of the huge, severely fractured escarpments broke apart, and the massive boulders collected themselves into a colossal sword.
The mountain began to crumble as the boulders formed the sword with astronomical blasts of energy.
He beckoned, and the massive sword came rushing with a wind that broke everything apart. The hilt, as big as the trunk of a massive baobab tree that no man could wrap their arms around, landed on his palm, and an unrelenting energy wrapped around the rest of the circumference.
He swung the colossal sword made of boulders with what felt like the might of a god towards Xuan Yi.
"Tempering a sword of anything is precisely why our Ten Thousand Sword Tempering skill is unparalleled!" he bellowed as the sword rushed in an arc to crush Xuan Yi, who stood still, the soles of his feet held midair by numerous sparking tendrils of green vines.
With a gentle raise of his hand, Xuan Yi caught the speeding sword of rocks with ease. The momentum that felt as though it could tear apart the earth dissipated as if it had fallen on cotton.
The space-tearing wind that had the power of a hurricane withered into a gentle breeze before the air became perfectly still. He pushed the sword back, and it was yanked from the man's hand, hurtling towards a nearby escarpment with even greater force and speed than it had been launched, gouging a deep crack into the mountain's surface.
Xuan Yi moved and touched the ground, and this time, as his feet made contact, a shockwave swept through, but it had a mysterious effect.
As it travelled, the shattered and heavily fractured mountain began to heal.
The fissures disappeared, and the ice thawed. Green vines and grass grew, and the mountain seemed to gain a balm for its heavy wounds.
Unsatisfied, the man clenched his fist and pounded heavily on the ground. Massive rocks were carved out from various points on the mountain landscape, and they came rushing towards Xuan Yi with ten times the speed as before.
They collected in a celestial path that glowed and sparked as they conglomerated into a sharp sword, which then rushed towards Xuan Yi.
He raised his hand with a delicate touch, as though caressing a lover's cheek, and tapped the tip of the sword. The boulder rushed back with tremendous force, crashing onto the man and hurtling him across the distance.
"What strength!" The disciples of the Longsword sect trembled in awe. It was as though they stood before a god.
Even the young miss, who had previously spoken ill of Xuan Yi, now felt an unspeakable terror gnawing at her heart and bones.
The thought of her provoking Xuan Yi before sent a shiver down her spine, and her knees trembled as she struggled to hold herself together.
All logic broke down, and nothing made sense anymore. How could a practitioner at True Spirit stand no chance against someone in the fourth cycle of tempered bones? Even Hai Du had nearly died, and Tian Wei had struggled against Ming Wen.
This person was an entirely different breed of monster.
But then, something happened. A chill spread out, and a hoarse voice bellowed, "My mountain home! It has been turned to crashed porcelain!" The voice growled, "You'll all die," and then it shrilled with fury.