Just as Lin Mu had predicted, the "warm-up" of the Grand Competition's first round took on an entirely different tone with the appearance of the remaining two seeded contestants.

  Attention first focused on the third arena.

  When Lin Ze, the young master of the Storage Hall lineage, made his entrance, a collective gasp of astonishment swept through the audience below.

  He wasn't wearing any standard combat leather armor.

  Instead, he donned magnificent robes embroidered with golden thread, with even his belt inlaid with several precious jade stones capable of nourishing Primeval Essence—he looked like nothing less than a walking treasury.

  The moment he stepped onto the stage, before the referee's hand had even fully dropped, several rays of light eagerly blazed from Lin Ze's aperture.

  In his left hand, the faintly glowing Iron Leaf Gu. In his right, the Metal Rend Gu exhaling sharp, keen energy.

  And across his body's surface, a faint golden ancient bell phantom shimmered—this was the Golden Bell Gu, an extremely expensive Rank 2 passive defensive Gu that could automatically protect its master without requiring continuous infusion of Primeval Essence.

  "Did this guy empty out the entire Storage Hall?" The ordinary disciples watching below had eyes red with envy.

  However, his actual combat performance left everyone's jaws on the floor.

  Lin Ze's opponent was an ordinary inner disciple who had experienced countless battles.

  Facing this "treasure man" clad head to toe in divine equipment, that disciple didn't choose to fight head-on.

  Instead, he immediately activated his movement Gu, becoming like a slippery loach, constantly circling along the arena's edges.

  This instantly exposed Lin Ze's critical weakness—his utter lack of combat experience.

  Having lived in comfort and luxury his whole life, when had he ever fought such an infuriating, slippery battle?

  In moments he was drenched in anxious sweat, attacking wildly in all directions, the lights of his Iron Leaf Gu and Metal Rend Gu flying everywhere as if they cost nothing.

  Grand in momentum. Terrible in accuracy.

  Not only did he fail to touch even the hem of his opponent's robes, but he blasted the arena's green stone tiles into a cratered mess.

  In less than half an incense stick's time, Lin Ze was gasping for breath, his originally ruddy complexion turning deathly pale—the classic sign of a Rank 1 cultivator's Primeval Essence running dangerously low.

  "Perfect opportunity!"

  That inner disciple seized the moment, explosively pushing off with his feet. His entire body shot forward like a leopard, the steel blade in his hand screaming through the air, chopping straight at Lin Ze's face.

  "CLANG—!"

  A resonant bell toll rang out.

  The disciple's fully-charged blade strike slammed into the Rank 2 Golden Bell barrier around Lin Ze's body.

  The barrier merely rippled slightly, but the disciple was blasted by tremendous recoil force—the webbing between his thumb and forefinger split open, blood flowing freely, his steel blade sent flying from his grip.

  "How... how am I supposed to fight this?!" The disciple despaired.

  What followed was half a shichen of one-sided "hammering iron." The disciple gave everything he had, punching until his fists were bloody and raw, yet he simply couldn't break through that turtle shell built with money.

  In the end, this battle-hardened disciple collapsed from complete exhaustion of both Primeval Essence and physical strength, forced to concede in utter frustration.

  Lin Ze had won.

  But his victory was utterly disgraceful.

  He sat sprawled on the arena without a shred of dignity, gasping roughly for air, lacking even the strength to walk off the stage. In the end, several lackeys had to help him down.

  All show, no substance.

  Watching this scene from below the stage, Lin Mu secretly shook his head.

  A body full of premium Gu worms, yet he doesn't understand even the most basic Primeval Essence management or tactical prediction. This fat sheep is destined to be nothing but a stepping stone for the real experts in the later rounds.

  In comparison, Lin Xue's appearance on the fourth arena immediately afterward actually gave Lin Mu quite a pleasant surprise.

  The young miss of the Medicine Hall, Lin Xue, stepped gracefully onto the stage in a flowing white dress. Her opponent was a burly male disciple wielding a heavy long staff.

  The common stereotype of Medicine Hall Gu Masters was nothing more than using poison, or employing healing Gu to drag out disgustingly long battles of attrition.

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  The audience below was speculating about what colorless, odorless poison gas Lin Xue would release. The staff-wielding man had already swallowed an anti-poison pill early on, tightly covering his nose and mouth, on high alert.

  However, the scene took an unexpected turn.

  "Begin!"

  At the referee's command, Lin Xue released no strange fragrance, nor did she create distance like a typical support type.

  She didn't even use any healing Gu with its characteristic green glow.

  Instead, azure light flashed from her aperture, her wrist flipped, and she was actually holding nothing more than the most basic Iron Leaf Gu.

  Toes lightly touching ground, her form shot forward like an arrow leaving the bow, attacking directly toward that burly male disciple!

  "Seeking death!"

  The staff man's heart lurched, but then a surge of anger rose within him. Since a healing Gu Master dared to fight him head-on, was he supposed to be afraid?

  He swung his long staff, bringing it down with the force of a thousand jin.

  "Bang! Bang! Bang!"

  After several rounds of intense close combat, the staff man was horrified to discover that Lin Xue had not only avoided being forced back by his powerful, heavy staff techniques—

  She was actually weaving through the staff shadows with exquisitely refined footwork and deflection techniques, like a leaf dancing on the wind, not losing ground in the slightest.

  This woman has incredibly solid close-combat foundations! The staff man's heart was shaken. This was no delicate healing immortal—this was clearly a combat fanatic who had mastered the art of killing!

  And the true killing blow often came in that hairsbreadth of difference.

  Right as the staff man's sweeping strike missed, in that extremely brief instant when old strength had faded and new strength hadn't yet emerged—

  Those eyes of Lin Xue, calm as an ancient well, suddenly flashed with absolute ice-cold intent.

  "Hummm!"

  Azure light blazed brilliantly from her aperture as the Wind-Treading Gu activated explosively!

  Her already light and nimble form instantly transformed into an afterimage the naked eye could barely track. Her speed broke through its limits in that instant, forcefully cutting into the staff man's inner dead zone.

  Before her opponent could make any defensive response, Lin Xue had already closed in.

  A pale hand rose.

  That Iron Leaf Gu she had been holding between her fingertips transformed into a streak of cold gleaming light, hovering precisely, ruthlessly, and without the slightest tremor at her opponent's vulnerable throat.

  The bone-piercing chill made every hair on the staff man's neck stand on end, cold sweat instantly soaking through his back.

  "I... I concede." The staff man's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, his voice hoarse and dry.

  Clean and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

  The entire venue fell silent. Who could have imagined that this battle—which should have been the most drawn-out—had taken less than three minutes from start to finish!

  No poison, no medicine. Purely through explosive speed pushed to its limits and terrifyingly solid fundamental combat techniques, she had achieved an overwhelming one-hit kill.

  Hiss—

  Standing beside the referee's platform, Lin Mu's gaze instantly became extremely grave, even feeling a chill creep up his spine.

  Wind-Treading Gu combined with Iron Leaf Gu for close-range assassination... This pragmatic fighting style that abandons all flashiness and pursues only the lethal strike—it's exactly like mine!

  Lin Mu stared fixedly at the white-dressed woman calmly putting away her Iron Leaf Gu on the stage, his wariness rising to maximum.

  A healing Gu Master from the Medicine Hall has actually trained close-combat killing techniques to such an insane level.

  What's most terrifying is that in this entire battle, she didn't reveal a single true trump card. No one even saw what her killing Gu actually is.

  On the threat list in Lin Mu's mind, he silently moved Lin Xue's name past the berserker Lin Yan, placing her directly second only to Lin Feng.

  In some ways, this kind of hidden, patient viper was even more terrifying than a blazingly radiant tiger like Lin Feng.

  As the sun slowly set, the martial arena was dyed a layer of tragic, brilliant crimson.

  The brutal first day of elimination rounds finally came to a close.

  Of the hundreds of participants who had arrived with ambitious dreams, only half had successfully advanced, obtaining tickets to the next round.

  The mottled bloodstains and not-yet-cleaned flesh fragments on those eight arenas testified to this competition's weighty significance.

  On the viewing platform, Patriarch Lin Cang rose to his feet, his powerful voice suppressing all discussion:

  "The first round is concluded. To ensure the quality of upcoming battles, the competition will pause for three days!"

  "After three days, the second round of selection will proceed until the top thirty-two are determined!"

  With this announcement, the various factions began filing out.

  Everyone knew these precious three days weren't meant for rest. They were a sprint period for the advancing disciples to frantically heal injuries, replenish Gu worms, and even receive emergency training in killing techniques.

  However, during these three days—

  Lin Mu, who had made a killing on the first day by running the outer betting ring and watching his wealth explode—displayed extremely unusual behavior.

  He didn't go to the market district to continue operating betting odds. He didn't try to get closer to Lin Feng. He didn't even make contact once with the hidden piece he had personally positioned—Lin Wuxie.

  He seemed to have simply vanished from the world.

  In that remote stone house in the Silent Stone District, he had hung heavy door bolts, closed his doors to visitors, and severed all contact with the outside world.

  Closed-door cultivation chamber.

  The dim underground room had not a single oil lamp lit.

  Lin Mu sat cross-legged, eyes tightly shut, breathing so faint he seemed to have entered a state of tortoise-like hibernation.

  But within his body, that small aperture was currently experiencing earth-shaking, violent upheavals.

  Throughout this entire period, he hadn't stopped refining his Primeval Essence for a single day.

  The settling after breaking through to Rank 1 Upper Stage. The Liquor Worm's crazed purification day and night.

  The medicinal nourishment from that bottle of Origin Nourishing Essence Lin Feng had gifted him. And the combat insights gained from crawling between life and death in that blood forest...

  All of it, like countless small streams, had converged into a mighty river, finally reaching this moment of natural, inevitable transformation.

  Within his aperture.

  That sea of Primeval Essence, which had already taken on a deep, profound ink-green hue, was now boiling to its absolute peak.

  The Primeval Essence level kept rising, finally swelling to the absolute limit of his aperture's crystalline membrane, unable to increase by even the slightest amount.

  It was a feeling of "fullness"—a sensation of bursting pressure that seemed ready to explode his entire aperture.

  "BOOM!"

  Without any deliberate guidance needed, that vast sea of Primeval Essence transformed into raging waves, naturally and inevitably launching its final assault against that invisible realm barrier.

  A muffled explosion detonated within his mind.

  No danger. No resistance. That resilient barrier was torn apart as easily as thin paper.

  Lin Mu's eyes snapped open. In the profound darkness, two sharp gleams of light seemed to flash momentarily, illuminating the small space around him.

  He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.

  Feeling that Peak Primeval Essence in his body—several times stronger than before and almost condensed into substance—a cold, indifferent smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

  "True Inheritance Grand Competition?"

  Lin Mu stood up, moving his neck slightly, his joints popping like roasting beans.

  "It's nothing but child's play."