Chapter Sixty-Six: The First Match

The martial arts competition does not take into account the level of cultivation; participants are randomly grouped by drawing lots. They will compete in pairs, and the winners will advance to the next round until the top ten are selected.
A total of 160 people passed the cultivation test, forming exactly 80 groups.
Wu Meng drew number 16, placed in the 4th match. Wu Rui is number 32, Ling Shan is number 35, and Luo Wenxu is quite unlucky to be number 80, in the last match.
Seeing Luo Wenxu's frustrated expression, everyone couldn't help but laugh out loud.
“Ahem, it's about to start, let's watch the martial arts duel.” Finally, it was Urei who spoke up to stop the laughter of the crowd. Of course, his words also earned him a grateful look from Luo Wenxu.
Tut, you've already learned to win over your subordinates, U Meng exclaimed upon seeing this.
At this moment, a huge light screen appeared on the five arenas, displaying "First Match," followed by a sequence number, with names listed after the sequence number.
```htmlWumeng suddenly saw Wulu behind number 4.
“Xiao Lu is in the first match.” As soon as the words fell, 10 people walked towards the arena, one of whom was Wulu.
After the ten stood on the arena, a light shield rose over each arena, enveloping the entire platform within. Then, the light shield flickered and disappeared, as if it had never appeared at all.```
The people on stage exchanged greetings and then began.
Wulu seemed to be in a bad mood, her moves were somewhat harsh; with a few spells, she quickly defeated her opponent.
“Wulu wins!” A voice announced, and the air on the platform seemed to distort, as if something was melting away. Wulu didn’t even look at her opponent and directly walked down.
It was soon Wu Meng's turn.
What Wu Meng didn't expect was that her opponent was actually Lian Pianqian.
Looking at Lian Pianqian, who was also dressed in the blue robes of a novice disciple, with a small Daoist bun on her head and a cheerful smile directed at her, Wu Meng couldn't help but sigh inwardly about fate.
“Wumeng, I didn't expect my opponent to be you,” Lian Pianqian said with a smile. “I've wanted to compete with you for a long time.”
“I didn't expect it either,” Wumeng shook her head, “Let's not talk too much, let's get started.” She didn’t really care about having an opponent; she just felt a bit regretful to encounter an acquaintance so early—it was bad luck.
"Okay." The two exchanged a formal greeting and raised their weapons. With a burst of energy, they charged at each other.
Lian Pianqian was using a sword, and as he saw the sword coming straight for his face, Wu Meng lightly blocked it with his knife, then swung his knife to strike back at Lian Pianqian. Lian Pianqian also blocked with his sword. The back-and-forth battle resulted in a stalemate, mainly because neither of them had exerted their full strength.
Wumeng was somewhat astonished; she didn't expect that Lian Qianqian's swordsmanship was quite good. Since she couldn't defeat her with a knife, she decided to use spells instead.
Wumeng steadied herself, smiled at Lian Qianqian, and waved her hand to retract the Tang knife into her cosmic bag. Seeing this, Lian Qianqian also put her sword away. The two had a great tacit understanding and simultaneously formed hand seals, sending a fireball flying towards each other.
Two fireballs met in the air and with a bang, an explosion occurred. The shockwave from the explosion spread out in all directions. The disciples in the audience were startled and wanted to flee or raise their protective shields.
However, just when they thought the waves would reach the audience, a light curtain emerged around the arena, completely enveloping the aftermath.
Such a large commotion naturally attracted the attention of the referees,
“这火球术的威力似乎不寻常。”裁判台上几个白衣内门弟子说到。
“确实，灵力控制入微，堪比筑基期。”另一个白衣弟子说到，心下把两人记下。
At the moment of the fireball explosion, Wu Meng had already formed a protective shield with a hand gesture, while simultaneously casting a water ball technique towards the source of the explosion. As a result, the audience could see thick clouds of water mist rising on the stage.
When the mist dissipated, they discovered that one person was entangled in green vines. This person was Umo, and at the moment she unleashed her Water Ball Technique, Lian Qianqian also cast her Binding Technique at her.
Wu Meng had no time to dodge and was entangled by vines around most of her body, leaving only her head exposed as she desperately tried to break free. Just then, Lian Qianqian flew over quickly, and just when everyone thought her sword was about to stab Wu Meng, a wall of dirt rose up between the two.
The swiftly moving sword just happened to stab into the earthen wall.
Taking advantage of this gap, Wu Meng unleashed a fireball technique, and the vines entwined around him were instantly ignited, turning to ash, while Wu Meng himself remained unharmed.
At the moment the vine was ignited, Wu Meng swiftly darted two meters away. Meanwhile, Lian Pianqian had already broken through the wall. Before she could react, several vines emerged from the ground, binding her tightly in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, Umo's knife also fell onto her.
Lian Pianqian struggled for a moment but couldn't break free, and her whole body went numb; even the spiritual energy within her was somewhat sluggish. Looking down, she saw that the vines were covered in sharp thorns, and there was poison on them?
“You win,” Lian Pianqian said somewhat reluctantly.
This scene happened too quickly; everyone was caught off guard. By the time they reacted, the arena was already empty.
“Okay.” Wu Meng smiled.
“You should quickly retract the vines.” Lian Pianqian felt like she was about to faint.
“Oh, wait, the result hasn't been announced yet.” Wu Meng smiled while waiting for the referee to announce.
连翩迁闻言，瞪了一眼乌萌，然后看向裁判。
裁判也没有预料到这样的情况，一时间有些呆愣。见两人实在不会打下去了，这才宣布，“乌萌胜！”
As soon as the judge's voice fell, the vines entwined around Lian Pianqian instantly withered, and her spiritual energy began to flow freely. Yet, she did not sense any fluctuations in her spiritual energy. Lian Pianqian looked at Wu Meng with surprise.
Wu Meng smiled at her and directly walked down from the arena.
“Sister Wu Meng, that explosion of the fireball just now was really thrilling,” Ling Shan said with a lingering fear. “However, that last move of yours was just too fast. And why couldn't that girl break free from the vines?”
This vine technique looks capable of binding people tightly, but it can't restrain these cultivators of the same level. The vines emitted by cultivators of the same level can be easily undone with a fireball spell, a wind blade spell, or even with a bit of powerful struggling.
“Because my Vines Technique is great!” Umo said with a smile. This is what she discovered after learning the Five Elements spells and improving the Vines Technique.
While it can be difficult for others to modify their techniques or spells, it's different for her. She has a butler, an incredibly powerful calculation engine as her mainframe, and although she cannot yet create techniques from scratch, modifying an existing one and addressing its shortcomings is no problem at all.
Therefore, she combined the characteristics of the Gold Arrow Technique with her understanding of human acupuncture points, slightly improving the Vine Technique to make it possess both the resilience of vines and the sharpness of the Gold Arrow Technique, while also being able to accurately strike various acupoints.
“Really?” Not to mention others, even Ling Shan didn’t quite believe it.
“Of course, apart from this reason, could there be any other?”
“Could it be that Umo sister, you poisoned that female cultivator, or used some hidden weapon or something?” It seems Ling Shan's imagination is quite wild.
Wu Meng had a look of black lines on her face upon hearing this, "Am I really such a person in your heart?" She pretended to be aggrieved intentionally.
“Of course, uh, I mean, not at all!”