Chapter 292 Earth Treasure and the Bingdi Lotus!
He won!
The mysterious man had won!
The entire manor fell absolutely silent and everyone was completely dumbfounded. No one was able to say a single word. Everyone stared at the arena and fixed their gaze on the figure who was a little disheveled but still stood firmly on the stage.
Indeed, Fang Qiu looked a little disheveled.
He had to admit that the power from the dragon’s claw was not something that an average kung fu move could imitate.
He couldn’t avoid getting injured because he chose to face the dragon’s claw head on.
He had sustained injuries on both shoulders.
There were also several bloodied scratched on the back of his hands and the blood had already coagulated on his wounds.
And under him, he held Long Boan captive by his neck.
Long Boan’s eyes widened as he looked at Fang Qiu in disbelief and he looked a little dazed and dejected at his defeat.
“I...” Long Boan’s throat was dry and parched. He gulped before he admitted reluctantly, “I admit defeat!”
The moment he uttered those words, the crowd went wild.
“He lost. I can’t believe Long Boan admitted defeat.”
“Even if he refused to admit defeat, it was obvious that he had lost!”
“Uh, how is this possible? The mysterious man only had the strength of a martial arts practitioner. How did he manage to defeat a grade-four Martial Superior?”
These people were unable to wrap their heads around what they had just witnessed.
They felt as though everything had been a dream.
It was as though the world that they used to know had collapsed all of a sudden the moment the mysterious man defeated Long Boan. They were unable to accept this reality.
Fang Qiu loosened his grip in the arena.
Long Boan saluted him with clasped fists, then he turned around and left resentfully.
His anger was directed at himself and not Fang Qiu.
“I don’t think there’s anyone else up to the challenge,” Fang Qiu said as his gaze swept across the rambunctious crowd. “Since there’s no other challenger, I guess I’ll see you guys in a few years’ time. I’ll be waiting for a worthy challenger!”
Then, he made a move to leave.
At this moment, Elder Yi was the first to react and jumped up onto the arena.
“Please wait a moment!” He said.
He had chosen to sit by the round table next to the arena because he wanted to stop the mysterious man from leaving.
After all, he already owed the mysterious man a large debt, it wouldn’t be right if he did not return the debt he owed.
“Yes?” Fang Qiu stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Elder Yi.
“Senior John Doe, could you spare me some time?” Elder Yi said softly after he approached Fang Qiu.
As soon as he spoke, Fang Qiu had an idea.
He had wanted to understand the current Wulin situation through Elder Yi and since Elder Yi wanted him to stay, why shouldn’t he leverage on this opportunity to have a good chat?
Thus, he immediately nodded and said, “Alright.”
Elder Yi was thrilled.
Then, he immediately ushered Fang Qiu off the arena and led him toward the manor.
On the other hand, everyone else seemed reluctant to leave when they saw that Fang Qiu was not leaving the manor.
Instead, they started chattering in excitement.
The crowd immediately burst into an uproar.
“As expected of Senior John Doe; he managed to defeat grade-three Martial Superiors last week at peak martial arts cultivation and today, he managed to pull off the same feat against a grade-four Martial Superior. This is amazing.”
“Isn’t it? I was still worried about him earlier. After all, a grade-four Martial Superior is definitely not someone to be trifled with and Long Boan was even a grade-four Martial Superior who had opened up six meridians.”
“Haha, I feel a sudden urge to laugh now that you brought it up. Long Boan was a grade-four Martial Superior who had opened up six meridians and he opened up all six meridians on his arm. Furthermore, he was a practitioner of the dragon claw, so his attacking force definitely ranked among the top grade-four Martial Superiors. Yet, Senior John Doe managed to defeat him by using his own move against him!”
“He did not back away from a challenge but instead, Senior John Doe lived up to the three words: facing everything head-on!”
“Senior John Doe used his strength and dragon claw to knock Long Boan out after he heard that Long Boan’s strongest aspects were his strength and his dragon claw move.”
“Senior John Doe is definitely the pride of the Jiangjing Wulin!”
Every single Jiangjing martial arts practitioner was extremely elated and excited because they were proud of the mysterious man’s performance earlier.
Unlike the Jiangjing martial arts practitioners, the foreign martial arts practitioners were still unable to pull themselves out of their dumbfounded reverie. They felt as though their throats had gone dry which robbed them of their ability to speak.
“Six meridians. He was a grade-four Martial Superior who opened up six meridians. Do you know what this means?”
“That’s amazing!”
“The mysterious man who is known as Senior John Doe is truly as powerful as the rumors make him out to be. It’s incredible!”
“How did he manage to pull off such an amazing feat at martial artist level? How did he manage to possess such an amazing internal force? Where are the limits to a martial arts practitioner?”
This was what they couldn’t help but wonder about.
Especially those grade-one, grade-two, grade-three Martial Superiors.
They were completely stunned by what they had witnessed earlier and there were many among them who regretted advancing so quickly. If they had not reached Martial Superior Level, they would still be able to ask Senior John Doe for advice and even be as strong as him.
Then, they thought about how he only used his martial artist level strength to be so powerful.
If he had used his internal Qi, how much more powerful would he have been?
They guessed that even a grade-four Martial Superior would be instantly defeated by him.
...
As everyone was engaged discussing the mysterious man’s achievements, the Jiangjing martial arts practitioner who had already planned to record the entire fight earlier immediately went online and disregarded his data usage to upload the videos he had recorded on the Wulin online forum.
They did not post it on the sub-forums but the videos were posted on the main page itself!
“Mysterious Man John Doe has appeared again. He fought intensely against a grade-four Martial Superior and won!”
The title was very eye-catching.
The poster described the situation at the meeting and mentioned the mysterious man’s results against his opponents.
Then, he did a brief introduction of Long Boan, including how he opened up six meridians, and his past battle results.
Finally, he uploaded the video that he recorded.
Thus, the moment this post was made public.
It attracted an enormous amount of attention.
Those who read the post and watched the video were completely stunned!
They were flabbergasted!
Long Boan was pretty famous in the Huaxia Wulin circle.
Everyone knew that he was very strong and that his dragon claw move was unparalleled among his peers.
Moreover, he had even opened up six meridians.
Thus, many people felt that he should be ranked 2,800th on the Martial Superior rankings and that he should instead be ranked first among the grade-four Martial Superiors at 2,300th.
The moderator of the Wulin forum had also addressed these concerns.
They had decided to place him at the 2,800th place because he was too focused on honing his attacking abilities which resulted in his defensive abilities and bodily movements to be of an average level. If they were to consider his attacking abilities alone, he was undeniably the top among the grade-four Martial Superiors!
The moderator of the Wulin online forum had spoken and this was enough to show how famous Long Boan was.
Nonetheless, this famous and powerful character had been defeated by the mysterious man!
More importantly, the mysterious man had even lowered his strength to peak martial artist-level!
Everyone on the online forum found it absolutely unbelievable.
However, the video was evidence that he had pulled off this feat.
They had no choice but to believe it!
“Amazing.”
“I assumed that those rumors about him were false earlier but I didn’t expect that there to be such a powerful presence in Jiangjing City.”
“Who exactly is he? How did he manage to pull off this feat? Wouldn’t it be impossible to pull off what he has done?”
“It has been recorded on video, so we have no choice but to admit that the mysterious man is more powerful than Long Boan!”
“This completely goes against the laws of the Wulin. If a martial arts practitioner could defeat a Martial Superior, and a grade-four Martial Superior at that, does it still make sense for a martial arts practitioner to advance to Martial Superior Level? Or have we been doing this wrongly all this while?”
This topic was widely discussed on the Wulin online forum.
Since a martial arts practitioner could defeat a Martial Superior, was there any need to advance to Martial Superior Level in the first place?
However, if they chose not to advance, how could a martial arts practitioner be more powerful than a Martial Superior?
This ignited a lively discussion and the coverage of this topic continued to expand.
Finally, the discussion was no longer focused on the mysterious man John Doe, and the focus shifted toward where the limits of a martial arts practitioner were.
Could a martial arts practitioner have such a powerful internal force?
If a martial arts practitioner did not advance to the next level, then how could he continue to become stronger?
There were various kinds of discussions and it was as though a major reform was about to sweep through the Wulin universe.
On the other hand, Elder Yi led Fang Qiu to a pavilion located in the deepest part of the manor.
There was a small stream in front of the pavilion and it was surrounded by beautiful flowers and lush vegetation.
It instantly put one at ease.
“Senior, please take a seat,” Elder Yi said after he brought Fang Qiu to the tea room.
He gestured for Fang Qiu to take a seat and went to brew tea for his guest.
“There’s no need to brew tea for me,” Fang Qiu immediately said. “Please feel free to get straight to the point.”
He knew what Elder Yi’s motive was and knew that Elder Yi hoped that Fang Qiu would remove his mask when he drank the tea he brewed.
This was such an obvious trap, so why would Fang Qiu fall into his trap?
Naturally, Fang Qiu was not that gullible.
He had his own motive for following Elder Yi to the pavilion.
Since Elder Yi was so well-known and famous in the Wulin circle, and he was so familiar with the matters of the Wulin circle, so it was possible that he might know how the guru’s dantian could bear flowers.
There was only a small possibility but since he couldn’t make any headway, Fang Qiu didn’t want to give up on even the smallest possibility.
It was possible that Elder Yi might even know something about the dantian bearing three flowers.
“Senior, this is a top-quality aged Pu’er tea that cannot be bought off the market at all. Don’t you want to have a taste at all?” Elder Yi asked.
“There’s no need for that,” Fang Qiu said.
“Very well,” Elder Yi smiled and did not dare to push Fang Qiu any further. He immediately said, “In fact, I wanted to consult you on two matters today. First, I’d like to ask you a question, where are the limits to a martial arts practitioner’s internal force?”
“Uh...” Fang Qiu shook his head and said, “Every Martial Superior would encounter a different set of conditions after they open their meridians. Their combat strength would be affected by the size of their meridians, so I’m not exactly sure what the maximum limits of the internal force of a martial arts practitioner could be.”
“Are you sure you’re not even sure of that yourself?” Elder Yi froze before he shook his head and exclaimed. “I finally understand the true meaning of the ancient saying, the martial way is an endless path.”
“What about the second matter?” Fang Qiu asked.
“Frankly speaking,” Elder Yi started with a nod before he continued, “I know the location of an Earth Treasure and this Earth Treasure is the Bingdi Lotus which is ranked in 46th place on the Heaven and Earth Treasure rankings. Although I discovered this treasure, I wasn’t able to pluck the Bingdi Lotus because there is a fierce beast near the Bingdi Lotus. I’d like to ask for your help to defeat this beast and after we obtain the Bingdi Lotus, let’s split it equally among ourselves!”