Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

Chen Lingyun, with her hands clasped behind her back, walked to just about fifty steps away. Then she turned around nimbly and revealed a brilliant smile.

She waved vigorously at Yan Yu.

Yan Yu did not respond. Instead, he activated the Barrier Charm in an instant.

Almost simultaneously, he felt the sensation of being hit by an Impact Curse in his chest, causing a slight tremor in the True Qi that flowed throughout his body.

Pretending to salute before the match, but attacking without notice. Had anyone else been standing there, they might have been caught off guard.

But not Yan Yu.

Because he was all too familiar with this wretched woman's underhanded tactics—to some extent, he even understood her better than Chen Lingyun understood herself at that moment.

The instructors standing by did not react, as all training was based on actual combat, which had no rules about "salutes before a match."

As long as you win in the end, deception and surprise attacks are within the bounds of tolerance.

However...

"Who saw clearly that Barrier Charm Yan Yu used?" Qi Changping suddenly asked.

The instructors looked at each other and unanimously turned their gaze to Liu Jianjun.

Selected as university instructors and hailing from the Zhendong Army, these cultivators all possessed a remarkable skill to boast. Liu Jianjun was the one most skilled in the Earth-Element Sturdiness Curse in the entire troop, studying this field most deeply out of all the cultivators.

"I can't do it." Liu Jianjun stated concisely.

"Really, Old Liu?" someone jeered, "Just going all out, aren't you?"

"That's because you don't understand the Barrier Charm," Liu Jianjun countered, "The Barrier Charm's flow of energy traverses all the major acupoints of the body. It's not like other Curse Techniques that act as a 'one-way street,' and that's why it takes the longest of the Five Spells to cast."

"My current best accomplishment is activating the Barrier Charm within 0.2 seconds. But the speed at which classmate Yan Yu just activated it was clearly faster than mine, and I have no idea how he managed to do that."

Upon hearing this, the other instructors fell silent, while on the dueling field, Yan Yu still stood in place, silently confronting Chen Lingyun fifty steps away.

"Why aren't they fighting?" one instructor asked in confusion.

"He might be waiting for Chen Lingyun to make her next move," another instructor speculated.

"How can it be a matter of 'waiting for the opponent to make a move'?" Qi Changping disagreed, countering, "The Earth-Element Sturdiness Curse consumes the most True Yuan, and being hit by an Impact Curse doubles the consumption. If he keeps standing there passively taking hits, his True Yuan will inevitably be depleted before his opponent's."

"That might not necessarily be the case," Liu Jianjun continued, "There's no need to maintain the Barrier Charm the entire time. Just activate it at the instant an attack arrives, cancel it after absorbing the hit, and the actual consumption wouldn't be that great."

"But the Metal-Element Impact Curse is silent and invisible. How can he ensure he activates the Barrier Charm in time every time?"

"Pay attention to the opponent's hand gestures?"

"Then I could simply fake hand gestures without casting a spell, deliberately causing you to burn True Yuan!"

"Not to mention anything else," Liu Jianjun suddenly cut into their discussion, "Look closely, he indeed has managed to do it."

The instructors focused their attention and only then noticed that the two people on the field, though they were staying in place, were not idling about.

Chen Lingyun raised her hand at Yan Yu, assumed an aiming stance, and unleashed Impact Curses at unpredictable and irregular frequencies. However, every one was caught by Yan Yu without any harm.

The signs of activating the Earth-Element Sturdiness Curse were minimal. Only with prolonged use would True Yuan start to form a faint grey sheen on the skin's surface. Even with the instructors watching Yan Yu with full concentration, they saw no such luminescence on him.

That is to say, it seemed Yan Yu only briefly activated the Barrier Charm to defend and neutralize damage the moment an attack arrived—how exactly did he manage that?

They just couldn't figure it out! The instructors scratched their heads in frustration.

"Should we record it?" Qi Changping suddenly asked, "Since we can't understand it, why not record it and study it slowly later?"

The startled instructors fumbled for their mobile phones, only to realize they had left them in the office—bringing no phones during training was a habit developed in the army.

"I'll get them," Han Zaixian immediately said.

This instructor specialized in teaching the Shifting Technique. As he cast the spell, his figure quickly vanished from sight.

On the field, Chen Lingyun too had ceased her assault and began to contemplate in silence, seemingly realizing that such tactics were futile and did not wish to continue wasting her True Yuan anymore.

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"In terms of tactics, you need to ensure good coordination," Yan Yu leisurely commented, "If your tactic of using the Impact Curse for long-range sniping doesn't work, what then? Didn't you consider that beforehand?"

"Yan Yu, you really have a mean streak," Chen Lingyun said with a smile, "How about giving me some face in front of the instructors?"

"If that's all you're capable of, I'd still be disappointed."

Yan Yu shook his head, then suddenly executed the Shifting Technique, dashing rapidly toward the front.

Now! Chen Lingyun's pupils contracted slightly and at the moment Yan Yu was about to charge in front of her, her left hand flicked upwards like lightning.

The Runescript of the Water Element.

Being the least used among the Five Spells, the Runescript's effect is to enter the enemy's body and block the flow of True Yuan in the meridians. However, its casting range is even shorter than that of the Flame Curse, requiring close contact to be deployed, which raises the soul-searching question: "If I'm already up close, why don't I use the Flame Curse?"

However, anyone who has faced Yan Yu would no longer have such doubts.

The initial move for the Flame Curse is to form a hand seal with one hand, use True Yuan to lock the location, and a faint red light appears at the area of effect, followed by the rising of intensely hot flames.

Although it might be difficult for the average person to catch the fleeting faint red light, Chen Lingyun was certain that with Yan Yu's reflexes, he would avoid the attack before the flames even rose.

Only by launching the unsuspected Runescript at the very moment he approached her did she stand a chance to hit him!

Chen Lingyun's palm moved rapidly upwards, looking as though it was about to slide past Yan Yu's chest, but she felt a sense of alarm in her heart.

The sensation from her True Yuan told her she hadn't hit the mark.

The moment she lifted her hand, Yan Yu, as if completely ignoring inertia, switched from charging forward to rapidly retreating backward, perfectly evading Chen Lingyun's surprise attack.

The instructors watching from below immediately widened their eyes in utter disbelief.

The rush of the Shifting Technique comes with inertia, and even if the Spell is canceled midway, the body would continue moving forward at the same speed. To ignore inertia and change direction abruptly, one has to use the Cloud Ascension Technique.

The Cloud Ascension Technique allows the caster to disregard inertia and gravity, moving in any direction, but it does not enhance speed. If Chen Lingyun does not interrupt her Runescript and keeps stepping forward quickly, she still has a chance of hitting him.

Thus, Yan Yu's response at the moment was to "cancel the forward Shifting Technique," "execute the Cloud Ascension Technique to erase inertia," and "re-cast the Shifting Technique to retreat rapidly." If there was even the slightest hint of hesitation or pause in this process, he would have been hit by Chen Lingyun's Runescript.

This guy... this guy...

The phrase "This youth is almost demonically strong" suddenly popped into Qi Changping's mind, a line from a novel.

Although it sounded incredibly dramatic, it seemed apt at that moment: Apart from "demonic," he could think of no other adjective more fitting.

As he had faintly anticipated, the series of maneuvers that Yan Yu employed next undoubtedly interpreted the term "demonically impressive" even more clearly. Despite the instructors' attempts to suppress their voices, they couldn't help but exclaim one after another, completely forgetting their initial assessment of Yan Yu as "naive and not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth":

"Holy shit, left and right double-bow punching!"

"She shouldn't have used the Barrier Charm to block, this is going to be total suppression!"

"Right, she needs to create some distance... Flame Curse! What kind of prediction is that!"

"Flame Impact Double Kill! No, Triple Kill! Get the medical team ready!!!"

"Wait! It seems like her injuries aren't serious..."

"How could they be light after taking a full Flame Curse and two Impact Curses?!"

"No burns, no bleeding! He didn't use full force at all!"

"He's holding back, right? Ah, he's deliberately holding back!"

Ignoring the various shocks and shakes of his colleagues, Qi Changping stared intently at the battle situation on the field. It looked as if Yan Yu was overwhelmingly dominating Chen Lingyun with various flashy moves, but since there were not many injuries on her, it meant that he wasn't using much True Yuan in his Spells.

Taking into account the effect of the True Yuan restraining bracelet, he was probably using only about a third of his strength.

"This is," Qi Changping murmured, "he's conducting a training battle..."

His voice wasn't loud, but the other instructors heard it distinctly, and the entire field fell into silence.

A training battle?

Ah?

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