Survival

Bai Yun immediately fell to the ground, barely raising his head above the grass. Once he did so, he started to look around.

The object of survival was to simply survive until the end. There were many ways to do so. One could either simply hide somewhere until a hundred people were eliminated. For Bai Yun who liked to stay away from others and train by himself this sounded like a good idea. But he knew that this was not a good option. Because he knew some inside information on the tests courtesy of his father.

This was because the gold cards were awarded based on your performance in all three rounds. And people who hid or ran away would only get the minimal number of marks from the evaluators.

The evaluators even called the first test by a different name, the hidden hunt.

So Bai Yun could only hunt as many people as possible in order to pass the test. And give a good performance as he did so.

Once he confirmed that there were no enemies in his immediate range, he stood up. The area around seemed be a small valley. He looked around. Even though the rules for the gold test remained unchanged, the places the test took place often changed.

He was surrounded by rolling hills interspersed with trees. The grass here only came up to ones knees. Bai Yun frowned at this. He would have preferred a place with more shadows.

Bai Yun had reached both the third stage of qi condensation as well as the third mysterious pattern stage. But his true strength was much greater.

Even before his recent breakthrough he was able to content against Bai Qing who was then at the seventh stage of qi condensation with one of his soul tendrils damaged. Of course he was much stronger than a normal seventh stage cultivator. But the improvement that he got would only allow him to win against an eight stage qi condensation practitioner at the most. The difference between two cultivation stages increases greatly with each stage. He was sure that even if he reached the fourth stage in both qi condensation and skin sewing, he still would not be the match of a ninth stage qi condensation realm cultivator.

Of course, there is also the fact that the people who were here were not average. People who were not confident in their skills would not come for the text.

To add an extra hurdle more than half of all the people who came here were people who came in teams. And most of the others had also formed temporary teams. Other than Bai Yun, all of the people who were moving alone were the strongest people in the test.

If the environment was a forest or other such areas with lots of cover, he could have at least ambushed and killed some people using the Assassin God's techniques. But even that was not possible for Bai Yun in the current state.

So to sum it all up, he was the weakest party in a region he could not exhibit his true strength in, and had to actively try and kill as many people as possible, all for something he could easily obtain in a few months once his cultivation rose, and had no particular use for right now.

If there was a God of Recklessness, he would immediately abdicate and give his seat to Bai Yun!

But at the same time his blood was boiling in excitement. A chance to sharpen his skills could not be lost at all. He looked as if he could not help it. The blood of psychopaths that flowed in his body was screaming at the challenge.

Bai Yun started to move up a hill nearby. He simply walked up a short while and started to look around. He knew that the current time when people had not yet met up with their teammates was the best time for him to attack. It would only get more dangerous as time went on.

Bai Yun quickly moved through the grass, and laid down on the hill top. As he looked around, he saw someone who was moving along quickly. A quick look and Bai Yun realized that it was a young man in the eight stage of qi condensation.

Bai Yun knew that his situation was quite dangerous, but he decided to move anyway. He calmly walked down the hill towards his target, without even bothering to hide.

Even though he started using the Assassin God's techniques quite often, Bai Yun, or Long Tian, was not someone who originally did such things. Long Tian was someone who would charge head on into battle, without any hiding around. The only reason he used the techniques of the Assassin God was because he was still weak.

With each step he took, Bai Yun could feel Long Tian returning. The soul which bred terror into the hearts of devils was once again starting to scream in excitement.

When he was halfway down the hill, his target seemed to have found him.

"Well hello there?" He said turning to Bai Yun.

Bai Yun calmly walked down, swinging his sword along the way. "It seems as if one of us needs to be eliminated. You wouldn't happen to be a sport and quickly go away would you." Bai Yun was currently pretending to be someone at the seventh stage of qi condensation by using his god sense, so as to not frighten his enemies, as well as give a reasonable justification for his strength.

The other person laughed, "I shouldn't fight before I meet up with my teammates, but I guess I will kill you first." Saying so he then lunged towards Bai Yun. He attacked him with an outstretched arm sending a punch straight to his head.

Ba Yun stepped out of the way, and used his sword to slide the attack out of the way. Immediately the other person used his knee to send a kick to Bai Yun. Bai Yun caught the kick easily, sliding backward in a moment. His attacks were too strong for Bai Yun to stop easily with his current strength. Bai Yun was using this time to slowly polish his sword techniques.

One after the other the two of them continued to exchange blows. But Bai Yun was barely holding his opponent back. The only reason for his success was the Simple Sword. His attacks were well timed in order to break the opponent's momentum. Every time his opponent tried to start a powerful attack, he would interrupt it with an attack.

The entire fight was very uncomfortable for the other person. As a young and talented man, he was used to ending fights with his signature moves. But Bai Yun was giving him no chance to do so.

At the same time Bai Yun was enjoying this fight. Simple Sword could only be said to be mastered if his body reacted to the threat even before he noticed it. There were three levels to the simple sword, sword following the eyes, sword following the soul, and sword following the body. In sword following the eyes, one sees an attack coming and moves to intercept it. In sword following the soul, one can predict an attack and move to intercept it. And in sword following the body, the attack would be intercepted before his brain registered it. Bai Yun had mastered the simple sword and reached the sword following the body in his previous life, but he had to do the whole thing again starting from scratch, and he needed to engrave the technique into his body. Even though there were a few mistakes, his body was slowly learning his fighting style.

Bai Yun started to push his enemy, slowly gaining an edge, but he knew that he could not keep it up for long. His qi reservoir was much much smaller than his enemy.

Since he knew that he could not maintain the current state for long Bai Yun started to attack more aggressively, but he was unable to find any opportunities.

As the fight progressed, it was not only Bai Yun that wanted to end it soon.

Just as Bai Yun started to wonder if there was anything else to do, his enemy used one of his attacks to fall back. The force of the attack as well as his own push caused him some injuries and blood started to trickle down his mouth. Bai Yun's eyes flashed with a cold light.

Bai Yun had seen his opponents intent to jump back but was unable to react to it in time. He could not let his opponent gain time to use a special skill. The damage he would take in blocking such an attack once it was fully charged would be tremendous. Even if he would be fine and was able to kill him, his further fights would be affected. Bai Yun charged forward using wind motion. He had not used it before in order to make the opponent misjudge his speed.

"Damn you bastard." The young man screamed. A white glow appeared above his right hand. He had finished charging his attack.

Bai Yun charged straight at him with his sword. He used a ray of moonlight, closing the distance in an instant. A brilliant ray of light lit up the tip of his sword, drawing a perfect line in the air. He held his sword to his side moving up quickly.

Bai Yun's increase in pace caught his enemy off guard. He quickly brought his hand down in front of him, aiming at Bai Yun's head.

Bai Yun stopped his charge immediately, canceling wind motion. Due to the high speed he was under, he grunted as the force of his body nearly harmed him. Since his opponent charged up with his hands above his head, when he attacked, his hands came from above. Bai Yun stopped just short of his attack, letting it fall in front of him.

His opponent smiled watching his. Since Bai Yun had to stop to dodge, he was too far away to attack, and his sword would lose its momentum. With the added pressure of the sudden stop, he would not be able to react to his next attack.

Just as the opponent was about to start his next attack, he heard a soft bang coming from somewhere. Thinking that it was probably an enemy, and wanting to end this fight quickly, he pulled his fist back for a punch. The next instant, his right shoulder had been pierced through by Bai Yun's sword.

What happened was that when Bai Yun came to a stop, he did not end his attack. He let go of the sword, and at the same time, he used his palm to send a blow to the base of the sword to increase its power. This was the bang that his enemy heard. It was hidden by his body that was leaning forward. This should have normally deactivated a ray of moonlight, but he used the power of his sword tendrils to keep it bound until it worked and went through the shoulder.

The young man landed in an awkward posture and took a moment to gather his strength. "You bastard-" He shouted looking up. But before he could say anything, a head appeared in his vision. The next second Bai Yun rammed into him with full force, his shoulder perfectly aligned with the young man's heart. At the same time, he grabbed the hilt that was sticking out of his shoulder.

In an instant the young man flew back, tumbling and rolling as he did so. The hit to his heart had disoriented him quite a bit. But the moment he came to he froze as he felt the tip of a sword against his neck.

"Now be a good boy and press the button." Bai Yun said while smiling.

To the young man, it seemed to be the smile of a devil.