Chapter 30

The ranking of the top ten students was going to start after all the participants gathered. The Imperial academy would reward each one of them with the number one gaining a peak Xuan tier technique of their choice as their reward. Jiang Mang was not as interested as the other nine but would still welcome the technique as he required another hidden weapon technique. Thus he would still aim for first place.

His opponents were the top students in the foundation realm from all over the Xuan continent, which should not be underestimated. Each of the other three houses had three people in the top ten. The knight house had two sword wielders and one spear wielder among the top ten. The two sword wielders were respectfully a fire and water swordsmen while the spearman had earth elemental qi. The sorcerer house had three pure elemental cultivators of the wind, lightning, and wood element as their representatives. The last mystery house was represented by the strongest acknowledged student Bai Han who had a garuda as his profound spirit and a female pair of twins who had fairies as their profound spirit. The female twins were called the goddess duo of the academy, due to their beauty and power. Their names were Hu Ji and Hu Fa, and they should rank among the top 5.

Jiang Mang had prepared himself against all the opponents but was only apprehensive about the ones from the mystery house. Everyone would face everyone over two days, and the rankings would be decided by the number of wins, losses, and ties. Jiang Mang had to face the fire sword wielder as his first opponent, but he instantly defeated him with an illusion and immediately released him. This didn't surprise the crowd as he had defeated an equally strong person during the preliminaries when he conquered the third podium.

Jiang Mang was the first to finish his match and returned to his seat to return to mediation. The spectators thought of him as arrogant and pretentious when he just didn't care. The other matches finished after half an hour later, and his next match would be against the lightning cultivator. He again dominated against his opponent by pulling him into an illusion and releasing him. He also immediately returned to meditating, waiting for his next match.

Jiang Mang ultimately beat all of his opponents during the first day through illusions. The spectators had grown used to it and hoped that those from the mystery house could resist Jiang Mang's illusions. The next day, Jiang Mang would face against Bai Han, Hu Ji, Hu Fa, and the wood cultivator. Bai Han dominated his opponents through speed and explosive power while the twins specialized in control through mental and physical techniques. The wood cultivator used his qi to form plants that attacked his opponents with poison and their vines.

The third and final day of the tournament arrived. Jiang Mang was still undefeated and had to face the wood cultivator as his first opponent. Jiang Mang still played his flute, but instead of using illusions, he played Nature's call and contested the wood cultivator's control over his plants. Jiang Mang was able to reach a stalemate and making the wood cultivator unable to attack. He then approached him with Fox dance before knocking him out. This battle had humiliated the wood cultivator while angering all those from the sorcerer house.

Jiang Mang only wanted to test Nature's call's potency and remained ignorant about his actions. The spectators, however, reinforced his image as an arrogant young master who shouldn't be crossed. This image would eventually allow Jiang Mang to spend his time in peace inside the academy.

Jiang Mang returned to his seat, but this time didn't meditate as he would have to face either one of the twins or Bai Han in his next match. When the next matches were announced, the crowd went into an uproar as Hu Ji would face Bai Han, and Hu Fa would face Jiang Mang.

Jiang Mang climbed on top of the stage but only took out a leaf and not his flute or zither, which confused the spectators and Hu Fa. Jiang Mang had decided to prepare himself to the utmost and thus entered his strongest combat modus. When the match started, he played a tune to activate his inner vision to observe Hu Fa and calculate her moves. What he saw was an ice queen with beauty equal to Song Meiling creating a shield of qi to defend against consciousness attacks. This excited Jiang Mang as he observed that he would be unable to breach the shield with his qi songs and had to use his other techniques. Hu Fa and Jiang Mang attacked at the same time. She had created a spiderweb of qi to restrict Jiang Mang while he moved towards her to fight in close combat. He avoided the spiderweb and had closed in on her before attacking with a claw attack. She dodged by moving backward, but this weakened her consciousness shield for a short moment. This moment allowed Jiang Mang to cast the technique Illusion eyes, which successfully pulled her into an illusion. He then moved close before knocking her unconscious and ending the match.

This was the first exciting match for Jiang Mang during this tournament. Although he easily won, he was still pushed to use other techniques than his Illusion song. The spectators were also excited by the match as they didn't expect him to be so strong even without an instrument, but they were even more confused about Jiang Mang playing a leaf during the whole match. Some speculated that he used the leaf to play a unique song and catch Hu Fa off guard, while others thought he liked to show off.

The other exciting match also finished quickly with Bai Han's victory, but this was mostly due to Bai Han having the advantage by countering the twin's techniques. This match had garnered most of the attention of the spectators and received a loud response even though it was not as exciting and mystifying as Jiang Mang's match.