Chapter 268: Competition
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, two months had passed. By now, a full year had gone by since Li Yang entered the Human Race’s Eternal Saint Hall.
"Li Yang! Li Yang!"
Mute suddenly came looking for him while he was deep in his comprehension.
Li Yang paused his comprehension and walked right out.
"What’s wrong, Mute?" Li Yang asked, looking at Mute’s expression.
Mute quickly asked, "Haven’t you seen the Path of Deities rankings?"
He asked, a little surprised by Li Yang’s expression.
Li Yang nodded. "No, I haven’t."
He was completely engrossed in studying the *Collection of Yuan Wu’s Space, Thunder, and Fire Element Attack Methods*. As he learned them, his comprehension of the Space Law, Thunder Law, and others improved rapidly! The feeling was incredible.
Li Yang just wanted to keep comprehending and master every attack Yuan Wu had created.
So, he had temporarily turned off notifications for the Path of Deities rankings.
Seeing that Li Yang didn’t know, Mute quickly said, "The Path of Deities rankings just changed again. Lan Yu and Mixed Void went to test their strength. Lan Yu passed the sixth step, and Mixed Void passed the ninth step!"
His eyes were wide with shock.
Right now, the twelve of them—including himself, Li Yang, and Long Zhan—had still only passed the first step of the Path of Deities. They couldn’t get past the second one at all.
They were all geniuses, striving with all their might to surpass Lan Yu and Mixed Void, who were already far ahead. But not only had they failed to catch up, the gap had actually widened.
It was important to remember that the difficulty of each step on the Path of Deities increased exponentially. The leap from the fifth to the sixth step was far, far harder than the leap from the first to the second.
This proved that Lan Yu and Mixed Void were improving at a rate that far surpassed their own!
’Oh? Lan Yu and Mixed Void both passed another step?’ Li Yang thought, surprised.
By now, Lan Yu had passed a total of six steps on the Path of Deities.
And Mixed Void had passed a staggering nine steps!
The gap was simply despair-inducing.
"They’re improving too fast."
Mute clenched his fists and said, "Li Yang, I’m going to the Path of Deities right now to test my strength. Are you coming?"
At his words, Li Yang just smiled. "I already tested myself recently. I’ll pass for now."
"Alright, I’m heading off then." Mute nodded and hurried back to his palace.
’Lan Yu... Mixed Void...’ Li Yang mused.
He truly had no intention of testing his strength at the moment.
What he wanted most right now was to learn the attacks created by Yuan Wu.
Through his studies, he could feel his strength improving with every passing moment!
’There’s no need to go to the Path of Deities for now. I still have one inheritance opportunity left. Besides, Barton said that the effect is better if you only go to the inheritance grounds after your Law comprehension has reached a certain level.’
Li Yang had obtained two inheritance opportunities during the talent selection, and then another one for passing the first step of the Path of Deities, for a total of three.
When he first arrived at the Saint Hall, he used one chance to enter the Space Law Inheritance Palace. He later used another to visit the Thunder Law Inheritance Palace.
When it came to Law comprehension, it was best to first try to figure things out on your own. Only after you’d accumulated enough questions would you get the best results from a guided session.
It was like doing homework problems. You set the difficult ones aside, and once you’ve accumulated a number of them, you present them all at once when you see the teacher. That way, you solve more problems in one go.
Otherwise, running to the teacher with just one difficult problem was clearly a waste of an opportunity.
’Time to get back to studying!’
Li Yang returned to his palace and went into seclusion to continue studying the attack methods.
In two months, he had already learned the fifteenth attack!
For Li Yang, doing anything else right now felt like a waste of time.
...
While Li Yang was excitedly studying the many attacks created by Yuan Wu, the explosive progress of Lan Yu and Mixed Void had clearly caused a huge stir.
Dilunxi, the youngest genius from this talent selection, had always believed his Talent was the strongest. He thought that even Lan Yu and Mixed Void weren’t his match; their strength was only due to the advantage of having cultivated for a longer time.
Now, as he stared at the information before him, his eyes filled with utter shock.
’Lan Yu and Mixed Void are improving this fast? A year ago, they clearly couldn’t pass the sixth and ninth steps of the Path of Deities. They were eliminated after only a dozen seconds inside.’
Dilunxi’s gaze darkened. The amount of time one lasted in the combat space before being eliminated was an easy way to judge their approximate strength.
A year ago, he had been eliminated from the second step of the Path of Deities after lasting only two seconds.
Although the times were different, the difficulty of the later steps was definitely far greater than the earlier ones.
And now, he still couldn’t pass the second step.
For a moment, Dilunxi’s expression kept changing. His confidence seemed to have taken a hit.
’A Dominator... right! Mixed Void has the Black Inference Dominator for guidance. The guidance from an existence like that must be incredibly effective. And even if Lan Yu doesn’t have a Dominator’s guidance, he got three inheritance opportunities during the talent selection. By passing five steps on the Path of Deities, he got five more, for a total of eight! If I had that many inheritance opportunities, my Law comprehension would also improve at lightning speed!’
Dilunxi’s face darkened. Mixed Void had a Dominator’s guidance, and Lan Yu had numerous inheritance opportunities. These were advantages he didn’t possess.
Just one visit to those inheritance grounds improved their overall Law comprehension by at least ten or twenty percent. What kind of an advantage was that?
Moreover, the cultivation environment at the peak of the Lianyun Mountain Range was in a completely different league from their own on the mountainside.
’Let’s go!’
After a moment of shifting expressions, Dilunxi directly entered the space containing the Path of Deities.
...
’Lan Yu on the sixth step, Mixed Void on the ninth...’
Long Zhan, who had ranked third in the talent selection, stared at the information, his gaze darkening.
He was one of the top three from the Human Race’s Eternal Saint Hall talent selection, yet he wasn’t the least bit dazzling. All eyes were on Lan Yu and Mixed Void.
His third-place rank wasn’t convincing at all, because the fourth-place Dilunxi all the way down to the fourteenth-place Yun Rou were all of a similar strength to him.
And his own result was still just the first step.
’How on earth do Mixed Void and Lan Yu cultivate? Isn’t the difficulty of the later steps supposed to skyrocket? I looked it up—the difficulty of getting from the eighth to the ninth step is more than ten times that of getting from the first to the second!’
Long Zhan clenched his fists.
WHOOSH!
His consciousness also entered the Virtual World.
...
One by one, nearly all the geniuses were discussing the matter.
"Monsters! Lan Yu and Mixed Void are absolute monsters!"
"The further you go, the harder the Path of Deities gets. I was hoping to close the gap with Lan Yu and Mixed Void, but instead, it’s just gotten wider!"
"There’s no comparison. Lan Yu is a peerless genius that appears once in several billion years. Mixed Void’s Talent is ranked in the top 100 of the entire Human Race. Competing in the same generation as geniuses like them... I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse."
The geniuses were all shocked. A few refused to admit defeat, but most had already started to ignore Lan Yu and Mixed Void, no longer considering them rivals.
To set such geniuses as your goal was just pure self-torture. They had completely given up.